Fair Maid of the West, Essay Example

In the literary and theatrical world, every creation and the work of art have numerous meanings and interpretations. Some works can be interpreted in numerous ways, depending on the audience’s perception and background. On the other hand, there are also those works that directly unite the author with his audience and send the exact message the author intended for the audience to receive.  In this regard, it does not mean that individual perceptions are denied, on the contrary, the audience manages to perceive the author’s intention and add to it their own perspectives and impression. The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast two productions in terms of their success in transferring author’s intention to the audience. In this regard, the shown plays are “Fair Maid of the West” by Thomas Heywood and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” by Tom Stoppard.

In the case of “Fair Maid of the West,” the author’s intention was to demonstrate the English identity and how it was contrasted to any other ethno-cultural specifics. In this regard, the author aimed to show the virtues and strength of character of English people, particularly women. In this regard, the main character was meant to demonstrate the diversity of features and emotions as a multi-faceted personality yet with distinctive English values and virtues of honour, love and dignity.  The author wanted the audience to realise the distinctiveness of English identity and the strength of English virtue over any other systems of values belonging to other cultures.

On the other hand, the author’s primary intention in the case of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is the reflection of absurdity and inability of an individual to understand the meaning of life. In this regard, the author aimed to make his audience to realise the difficulty of understanding and seeing the cause-effect relationship between events in their own lives just as the main characters. Thus, the intentions of two authors target different scales of audience’s perception: the first one deals with a narrow topic of ethno-cultural English identity opposed by other cultures, while the second play deals with a global issue of human perception of meaning of life and one’s place in the world. Consequently, due to the difference in scale of authors’ intentions, their successful achievement would require different means.

In the case of “Fair Maid of the West”, the author’s intention was first of reflected through the actors performance. In this regard, the actress playing the main heroine had to express the diversity of emotional and internal psychological changes within the course of production. In this regard, Bess was masterful in demonstrating compliance and respect to her beloved Spencer, than the strength of her character and passion for avenging his death, fight against all other men who wanted to claim her theirs. The main actress did not only demonstrated the depth of  the main heroine’s emotions on various occasion but also succeeded in showing the constant virtues of strong will, responsibility and the sense of duty characteristic to English identity of the described time.

In this regard, the main success of achieving the intention through the acting was conditioned by masterful playing showing diverse emotions with a remaining values core. The actress managed to send the impression of heroine’s feelings through the diversity of facial expressions, different tones of voice, gestures and manners of behaviour characteristic to various contexts. For instance, when Bess was acting as man and took responsibility for her beloved’s fortune, the actress managed to demonstrate it through the change of tone of the voice, manner of speech and severe facial expressions.

In the case of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, acting was also crucial for the demonstration of author’s intention, but it was a different type of acting which was required. The main actors had to play stillness and confusion in the desperate attempts to grasp the meaning of the main heroes’ lives. Unlike in the first play, in this one, actors’ acting was largely conditioned by the context of the settings and interconnection with the surrounding world. Since actors had to reflect the constancy of stillness and confusion, its degree and vividness were strengthened and contrasted by the expressiveness of the actions of other characters and settings provided. It does not that actors did not act, in fact, in order to achieve the feeling of constancy, they had to control their actions and voice tones and moves to reflect that atmosphere of confusion and even a certain numbness of world perception.

For instance, from the very beginning of the play when the two friends are flipping a coin and accept the ridiculous fate of Rosencrantz’s 92 victories in a row, the actors manage to express the stillness and surrender over the pretended irritation and refusal by an individual to accept the confusing reality. This was demonstrated in a certain slowness of moves and expressionless faces contrasting with tones of voices and phrases said. Thus, the acting in tow plays is articulated in different manners: emotional and diverse versus stillness and numbness. However, in both cases, acting reaches the target audience and creates the intended impression particular for each play.

Another essential element that supports acting in both plays is the aspect of design and production. In both cases, the design was essential in creating the required atmosphere, yet it was articulated in different ways for each play. In the case of the first play, its orientation of a distinctive identity required to use numerous details in settings and decorations in order to show various cultural contexts for each scene. In this regard, when the main characters end up in Spanish, Mullisheg’s  and Italian environments, the details characteristic to these cultures like furniture, bed types and the choice of colours create the environmental atmospheres distinctive to the described places. The primary importance is that these culture-oriented settings create the ethno-cultural contrast between the main characters and those alien environments. Thus, the attention to design details serves as means of strengthening the articulation of the author’s intention and its transfer to the target audience. It creates the visual imagery of the contrast and the depth of ethno-cultural differences and opposition to the demonstrated English identity.

In the case of the second play, design is very much different. It is not as sophisticated and detailed as in the first play. It is more simplistic. On occasions, the main characters seem to fall out of settings and even specific geographic belonging although their location is often outlined. In this regard, just as in the first play, design helps to express the author’s intention. In this regard, the design helps to deepen the intended impression of confusion and concentrate the audience’s attention on the characters and their dialogues and personal struggles rather than on locating them in time and space. In other words, the simplicity of settings strengthens the universality and global scale of the events happening in the main characters lives. Thus, the audience can relate to themselves in that struggle for finding the truth and meaning of one’s life. Through the vagueness of settings the veil between   fantasy and reality is slightly unveiled, and the audience can consider the meaning of human life in the universal discourse beyond the division between real and performed perspectives.

In terms of other aspect of performance and their contribution to the reflection of author’s intention, another crucial yet the least vivid during the performance is director’s contribution to the production. However, the successful performance and combination of all theatrical elements in a well-balanced and fluid production means that directing was done well. In this regard, in both cases, the transition from one scene to another was well-timed, actors convincing in their roles, functional choice of clothing and correspondence to the epochs and ethno-cultural specifics. Finally, thanks to directors’ ability to combine all of these elements and shape them in accordance with the playwright’s intention resulted in the successful achievement of these intentions and their reflection to the audience. In this regard, the audience’s experience from both productions corresponds to the original intentions of the plays. Thus, both plays were successful in achieving the intentions, irrespective of the differences in how each aspect was used.

Overall, from all mentioned above, it can be concluded that all three elements of there are essential in production’s successful achievement of the authors’ intentions. However, the actual mode of those elements implementations largely differs from to play due to the differences in the intended influence on the audience and the message sent. In this regard, while “Fair Maid of the West” was colourful and multi-faceted in its performance and design and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” was more oriented on contrasting actor’s performance, both plays were successful in sending their unique message to their audiences. The first one made the audience realise the distinctiveness of English identity at the showed epoch, and the second play showed the complexity of understanding one’s life and its meaning.