Ackerman,+Michael

MAExtremities MASpelling Bee MAConcept Vietnamization of New Jersey Essay MADesign



My name is Michael Ackerman, and I am a freshman from Lilburn, GA who graduated from Brookwood High School. I have no idea what major I want to pursue, but I do know that I want to dedicate several of my post-collegiate years to mission work; I've worked for four summers to help the Gulf Coast recover after Hurricane Katrina, and I went to Jamaica in May for ten days to do construction at a school in a very poor area. I enjoy running, attempting to play racquet ball, playing guitar, and spending time with friends. I am taking Thea2100H because I attended a lot of plays throughout high school, and I was interested in learning more about what goes into each performance. See you in class or around campus!

Michael Ackerman THEA 2120H 10/3/2010

“The Life and Times Of Tulsa Lovechild” “The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild,” which is a play concerning a daughter traveling to the place where she was conceived in oder to spread her mother's ashes, is heavily steeped in surrealism. In fact, certain unrealistic elements of the performance proved distracting to me as an audience member and confused me to the point where I was not sure what was happening on stage. I found that the surrealist aspects of the play were an obstacle I was forced to overcome in order to truly appreciate the performance. The first observation I made upon entering the basement theatre was the set. I found it puzzling that the floor, walls, and elevated platforms on stage were painted to resemble a cloudy sky. I was also surprised to find that there were upside-down road signs all over the set, which were both painted and hung on the walls. Although I found these elements of the play strange at first, they were instantly taken for granted as two actors dressed in light blue costumes with white clouds painted on them strolled out onto the stage. Neither of these “agents” speak a single line in the entirety of the play although they are two of the most recurring characters. Instead, they serve other, intriguing purposes. For instance, they seemed to perform an interpretive dance before the official start of the play, which I still to this day do not understand. I actually found their unblinking eyes and miming a little disconcerting. It was as though the playwright was making a deliberate attempt to confuse his audience and put them on edge. However, it must be noted that later in the play these cloud people serve as extras and occasionally even comic relief. Regardless, I still find myself unable to comprehend why the playwright found it necessary for them to blend in to the already puzzling set. Another character I was confused by was Pike, the sergeant turned senator turned reverend. This character, like most of the characters in the play, was larger than life. I had no problem accepting this, as it was nothing compared to the set and blue agents. However I was extremely perplexed by the scene in the second act in which Pike offers to purchase the motel from Bob, due to the fact that Pike had died in a previous scene. There was no chance of him actually having survived his murder either; he was filled with bullets from the agents. In fact, the playwright admits that Pike has already died by naming the scene “Resurrection.” I do not understand why Pike, a power-hungry monster, rises from the dead in order to make a business transaction. I was so shocked by his reappearance that I did not pay much attention to the following couple of scenes. Another perplexing element of the set was the oversized telephone. This gigantic prop was used by the characters on multiple occasions, and it is contained within a regular sized phone booth, even though the phone itself is abnormally gigantic. This odd prop, like the strange set and the blue agents, is never mentioned by the actors, leading one to believe that the characters do not see anything odd about it. Once again, I was confused. Could the phone be an object so important that the playwright decided to make it huge? Could the size of the phone be symbolic of something else, or could it be a device used to state some universal truth? I for one have no clue. After several scenes involving the use of this prop, I decided to follow the characters' example and ignore the fact that the phone was almost as large as the people using it. This approach allowed me to quit focusing on the confusing surrealist prop and become more involved in the story. Due to the success of this approach to the telephone, I decided to expand my lack of attention to other surrealist details. For instance, I ignored the set completely, focusing instead on the actions of the characters. This improved my experience as an audience member drastically. I began to finally enjoy the play. Another result to my neglect of the confusing parts of the play was greater insight into the characters. Instead of focusing on the absurdity of certain aspects of the performance, I reflected on the interactions between the characters, a very fulfilling activity. For example, I reveled in the awkward humor of the conjoined twins' contrasting relationships with Bob, and I felt much more empathy for Tulsa's grief for her mother's passing. Along with understanding the plot in a much more substantive manner, my tactic of ignoring the surrealism actually allowed me to gain greater insight into the purpose of the strange elements. After seeing the play in its entirety, and upon reflection, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps the set was comprised almost entirely of cloudy sky with upside-down signs in order make the audience feel as though they, like Tulsa's mother, are viewing the actions of the characters from above in heaven. I do not know if this assumption is correct or not, but I like how it makes me feel more connected to one of the central characters. I also decided to believe that the actors donning the sky costumes made sense as well. Perhaps they are meant to be transparent. This would explain why they walked around on stage carrying props without trying not to be seen. This theory might cause an audience member to wonder, why would a playwright decide to use transparent waiters and government agents instead of more realistic characters? I believe that they are meant to be transparent so that the members of the audience do not focus on them nearly as much as they focus on the more important characters. The blue agents are meant to be invisible in order to physically represent their insignificance in the grand scheme of things. I still do not understand how or why Pike was resurrected, but after seeing the play to the end, I do not believe the reasons behind his return matter. It is possible that the playwright merely needed someone to buy the motel so that Bob could fund the twins' surgery, but he did not want to introduce a new character. Regardless of the reasoning behind Pike's return to earth, I am sure of one thing – the presence of such unbelievable oddities allow the audience to find the outrageous characters easier to accept. In comparison to the gigantic telephone, the bumbling redneck with conjoined twins in tow searching for his beauty queen girlfriend does not seem strange at all. Although I find the surrealism of “The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild” confusing and distracting at times, I would recommend the play to my friends with one piece of advice – just roll with it, no matter how strange things get. --- Michael Ackerman //Arabian Nights// THEA2100H 10/17/10 Attending the UGA Theatre Department's production of //Arabian Nights// was a great experience. Although the performance had several characteristics that endeared it to me, my five favorite aspects of the play were the comedy, the music, the sexual innuendos, the plot itself, and the frame structure. I went into the play not expecting it to be very funny, and I could not have been farther from the truth. The funniest scene, in my opinion, was the one about the man who had been locked in the insane asylum as a result of his lover's trickery. Although the plot of this story was not comedic at all in the beginning, the director made it humorous by having the actor over act when explaining his treatment of women. I found this exaggeration really funny. I also loved the scene when the man convinces the father of his new bride to annul the marriage contract by convincing him that he is a member of a family of crazy performers. The actors who played his “family” did an excellent job of portraying lunatics, especially during the family dance. The comedy of this scene had the entire audience in hysterics, and I was breathless from laughing when they lifted the father of the bride into the air. Other scenes also delighted the crowd with humor, such as the story about the story of the jester's adulterous wife. The four men all hiding in the closet was hilarious and left quite a memory in my mind. Along with the comedic aspects of the play, I greatly enjoyed the music. The songs were often so good that I lamented when they ended and could not stop wondering when the next number would begin. I understand that the play was not a musical, but I enjoyed when the Arabian music would play and people would dance. The music was so different from what I am accustomed to that it greatly added to the play. The comedy of the play was strengthened through the use of sexual innuendos. I am used to attending high school performances in which plays must be censured in order to make the production family-friendly. For this reason, the sexual themes of //Arabian Nights// were at first a shock to me, but after a while I found them highly amusing. The scene that best exemplifies this point is the story of the jester and his wife's lovers. I was really surprised but also found it hilarious when the musician approached the adulterous wife with his clarinet in his tunic, making his clothes awkwardly shaped. The whole audience seemed to find this use of innuendo amusing, as they were gasping in surprise and laughing uncontrollably. Again the innuendo was used when the butcher arrived for a rendezvous with the jester's wife. When he and his lover dropped to their hands and knees and pretended to be sheep, the entire theatre was filled with laughter. I would have never witnessed this type of role play in a high school theatre production. It was as though the director was acknowledging that I am a mature adult and that I can handle such suggestive themes. For this reason, the play, in my opinion, was improved through the use of sexual themes. Another aspect of the performance that I enjoyed was the plot itself. In contrast to //The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild//, I found the story thrilling and entertaining. It kept my attention throughout the night. The idea of telling stories in order to save one's life is a really interesting idea, and although the original version of this story is very old, I thought that I could still connect to the setting and the action on stage. I also loved the change that occurred in the character of Shahryar, the murderous king. Through Scheherezade's stories, he learns how to love once again and the ending made the audience happy. The fifth characteristic of //Arabian Nights// that I appreciated was the structure of the story. I found the stories-within-stories fascinating. Even though the was not too much action in the story of Scheherezade and Shahryar, the stories Scheherezade tells her husband are so entertaining that the audience is never bored. Every time that a story seemed to grow a little old, Scheherezade began another one, either inside of that story, or parallel to it. This effect kept the audience on its toes and forced all of us to pay close attention. The necessity of not losing track of the action on stage was facilitated through the use of the shroud. One of the few props used by the cast, the shroud was always worn by who was narrating the story that was being performed for the audience. For most of the play, Scheherezade wore the cloth, but when a character in her story would tell a tale of his or her own, she would give them the shroud to wear. This passing on of a prop simplified matters for me and allowed me to focus my attention on what was happening in the story instead of on who was supposed to be speaking. Although I loved the performance, there were a few aspects that I did not appreciate. These included the lack of props, the lack of set, the story of the false sultan, the sudden character development of Shahryar, and the final scene. The play was obviously meant to be a presentational performance; the director left it up to the audience to envision what the action on stage would look like in reality. The most obvious example of this technique is the absence of some props, including the camels that characters were supposed to be riding. I found this need to imagine what the two people, one in front of and one behind the character, were supposed to be distracting. At first I thought that the characters were riding giant snakes or dragons based on the tongue movements of the camel's “head.” I found this diverted my attention from the story. I also did not appreciate another aspect of the presentational performance – the set. My problem is not that I did not like the set; it is that there was no set. Once again, like the absence of the props, the lack of a set forced me to focus my energies on imagining what the settings of scenes would look like instead of what was occurring in the story itself. All that the set was comprised of were black boxes that were used instead of furniture, such as Shahryar's bed. I do not understand why there could not have been a bed there instead; the presence of furniture would have made the scenes in the bedroom much more convincing in my opinion. I also disliked how there was no backdrop. I often forgot that the action was supposed to be taking place in Arabia because I had no set to pair it to. This lack of setting appeared to me as an audience member as laziness on the part of the crew, although I am sure it was for some artistic effect that I did not understand. Along with the presentational aspects of the play, the story of the false sultan displeased me. This fake king's tale is one of sadness, mistakes, rejection, and death, themes which clash horribly with the comedy of the other scenes in the play. The story just did not seem to fit. I feel as though when selecting which of Scheherezade's stories to use in the play, the playwright chose this one to add more drama to the performance. This completely changed the mood of the play, and I found that it took away from the light-hearted humor used throughout the play. Another unappealing aspect of the show was the abrupt change in the character of Shahryar. He transforms from a murderous lunatic to a loving husband seemingly instantly. It is as though in one scene he is holding a sword to Scheherezade's neck and in the next he is passionately kissing her. I feel as though this development should have taken longer than it did in order for the play to appear more realistic. The last complaint I have about //Arabian Nights// is the final scene. The repetition of the same phrase over and over again by the characters was creepy, and the dark lighting and whirling away of the characters by the wind only strengthened my apprehension. I understand that the final scene is meant to remind the audience that the whole play was supposed to be a story from a book, but I do not believe that the creepy final scene was the most appropriate way to convey this idea. Overall, however, I found that UGA's production of //Arabian Nights// was a highly amusing and attention-grabbing play. In my opinion it was more enjoyable than previous shows I have seen both here at the university and elsewhere.