Great Works Paper: Stage Door

    Historical contextualization and Critical Analysis:
      “Stage Door” is an entertaining, thought-provoking play, which takes place in New York during the 1930’s. In it the women struggle with financial issues, home situations, and giving up their ideals in order to cope with reality. Through four different characters within the play, we see how some people would have dealt with the economic instabilities surrounding them.
      One of the characters, Kaye, copes poorly with her situation. She is one of the newest girls in the apartment with a mysterious past. When her story unfolds, we learn that she had an abusive husband, left home, and was really struggling to find work and money. By intermission, she sees no escape for her predicament after losing yet another job and not being able to pay the rent. She winds up putting a gun to her head, causing the audience to take a much more serious attitude in looking at the problems presented. Kaye felt she had no way out, so she committed suicide.
      Another girl takes a less dramatic way out of her situation, but still gives up her ideal to achieve financial security. Ann seems like an elitist snob for most of the play until we discover her own story. When her mom comes to visit, it is clear Ann does not receive all of her financial support from her parents. Uncovering her dress coat, we learn Ann has become essentially a prostitute to a big business man on Broadway. Although he has a family, and she would most likely rather be doing some alternative work, she is forced to find money in a less-than-respectable way. Here we see someone who has a dream but is willing to achieve it through less desirable means.
      One of the men in the play is also an example of someone who achieves a financial dream by lowering his standards. Billy is a budding playwright hoping to write the stories he wants to write. He talks idealistically about his plays and ideas dreaming to better the world by revealing social hypocrisies. Terry finds this admirable and begins helping him write a play expecting she will be the star of the play when it hits the stage. Though both are excited when a director chooses to perform his play, Billy explains to Terry that she will not be chosen as the lead role. Pat agrees to let a movie star play the part. Later, he even moves to Hollywood to write sappy love stories for the movie screen. Terry of course is very disappointed. Again we see the kinds of sacrifices some people have to make while in difficult situations. In this play, they have to give up much of their ideals and accept something mediocre simply in order to gain more financial security.
       Though most have to abandon some ideals, Terry is able to maintain hers and find security. Throughout the play it seems that opportunity after opportunity presents itself and Terry always rejects it. She cannot find good enough reasons to discard her own ideals and standards. At the end of the play, she is finally offered a star role and becomes the love interest to a wealthy Hollywood producer gone Broadway director. She is one of the only characters to actually obtain economic success while holding onto her high ideas perhaps showing us that after struggle and endurance come the blessings.

The Great Depression certainly had an immense impact on people during the 1930’s. This play reveals some of the hardships people could have and probably did go through during this time. It is interesting to observe the different ways people coped with the trials and also inspiring to see how Terry never lost sight of her goals. 
     Personal Reflection:
     I enjoyed the play overall. I liked how the play was usually witty and quick, but there were definite serious sides to it as well. I was shocked that one of the characters committed suicide, and it made me think a little more critically about the situations presented here. Though it was hard to keep track of all the characters in the play, I thought they had great personalities. Some of them, like the Mary Bennet-esque character, were outright hilarious.
     I did not like, however, the colors of the makeup and set. The directors apparently wanted to make the play appear to be in black-and-white like films from that time. I thought it made people look blue, gray, and glittery. It is an interesting idea, but it did not convince me. Much of the makeup and hair were not quite the colors they should have been, and I thought it was more annoying than effective. On the whole, though, I thought the play was well done and gave me quite a bit to think about.

3 of NPR's 100 Songs

NPR did a special The 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century
I chose to listen to "Kind of Blue, " "Tapestry," and "Rapper's Delight." The original songs are posted in my music playlist if you want to listen to them.

Kind of Blue:

    I have not listened to a lot of Miles Davis, but I wanted to know why this album was so important. The NPR clip talked about trends in jazz music at the time this album was recorded. Bepob was fast, had complex chords, and lots of instrumentation. In this CD, Miles Davis strips the instrumentation, the harmonies, the pre-made melodies, and the chord structures right out of the songs. I was really impressed to hear that none of these songs had actually been rehearsed before. It was completely improvisation with sketches of chords and possible scales.
I can see how this would be a reaction to the music at the time. Big bands seem really commercialized and contrived compared to the raw quality of Miles Davis’ band. The instrumentalists do not play melodies together that were already created and rehearsed. They each take solos and explore the kinds of melodies they can make. Apparently Davis even took out common chord patterns by simply playing in modes, which allows more freedom for the soloist.
We talked about this in class, but thinking about Davis’ style again reminds me of Jackson Pollock. We often talked about Pollock as being sensitive to line and the boundaries of the canvas even though his paintings look really random. Davis alsoseems to be careful about each note he plays and has a sensitivity to what the others are playing. Kind of Blue feels very free, but the instrumentalists still seem consciously restrained, aware of limitations, and do not want to “over do” the music.
I like how relaxed the album feels. Like the NPR clip mentioned, it is the kind of music you listen to when you are alone and in a contemplative mood. It feels poised and graceful, real and self-expressive; not contrived, complicated, polished, or commercialized. The rawness of the music and the intense focus on melody really appeal to me as well. Knowing a little about the context the music comes from makes Davis an inventive and creative genius of his time. He was stripping down the music as well as exploring the form. It’s a great album. 

Tapestry:

     This is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I had to hear what NPR said about it. I have heard Carole King’s songs for a while, but it was not until I got older that I realized how many radio hits were on one album. Almost all of the songs from Tapestry play on the radio and are very well known. Not too many albums have so many hit songs.
I liked how NPR talked about Carole King’s career before Tapestry, how she wrote songs for other people and made up demos for the song. She took some of that stripped-down feel from her demos and put it into her album. NPR also suggested that one of the most liked aspects of her album was the vulnerability she expresses. This is often a trait found in singer-songwriters since then. I kind of wondered about this statement. I have to think other singer-songwriters have also expressed vulnerability before her. Although maybe the others were simply not as famous as King. I guess she could have been one of the first famous singer-songwriters to make that a big part of their music, but I do not think she was one of the first ever to sing about insecurities and vulnerability.
    Like Miles Davis, King seems to contain a real refreshing rawness in her music. The instrumentation does not feel overdone, the solos add great melodies, and her own melodies are catchy but do not feel commercialized. Her voice even feels a little unpolished, weathered, like a real tangible person with a story to tell. I liked hearing that she would create songs while taking care of her three children, and that she was a normal, nice person; not obsessed with fame or money, just writing her music. I often got that feel from her music before, so it was nice to hear NPR validate those “vibes” I would get from her music. Even though her music is pop, it does not seem so concerned with selling the music. It feels more like the pure expression and creative hunches of an artist.

Rapper’s Delight:

    This was a fun song to listen to. I probably have not listened to the original fifteen-minute recording, but I have listened to enough of the song to know what it sounds like. My mom showed me this song when I was a little kid, and she told me it was kind of the beginning of rap. According to the NPR, that is kind of true. This was the first rap song to be commercialized. Apparently there were DJ’s and MC’s in New York who could rap and free style for hours, but they had not recorded and distributed their music. One of the problems was they did not know how to record it, where to start the rap and when to stop. The Sugarhill Gang kind of solved the puzzle and produced this CD, which gave all other rappers a template for their records. From that, commercial Hip Hop was able to grow and spread.
    Knowing this about the song, I can see why Hip Hop culture had some problems commercializing their music at the start. Even though “Rapper’s Delight” shortened hours of rapping, the kind of rapping found in New York clubs, it is still fifteen minutes long! The rhymes also just sound like a group of MC’s in a club getting on the stage and free-styling about the nice clothes and cars they have. There are not too many themes or connections between each of the rappers and no chorus either. It could literally go on forever, but they were the first to make it into a purchasable product and that made all the difference. One thing I wonder about after listening to NPR is if the song was doing much more than recording a rap record. It seems like any person who recorded their rhymes to sell on CDs would have achieved the same fame and recognition as the Sugarhill Gang. It sounds like they simply captured what was already happening and packaged it, and that they were not so much doing anything innovative or special with that type of music. If that is the case, it is kind of amazing it has remained such a popular song, that people have not criticized it so much for not being a more true artistic expression. I think the main point of the song is fun. The guys who made it were not trying to express much else, and I think it still carries that appeal.

Bob Dylan's Unknown Beatles-Influenced Song

 In 1964, the Beatles and Bob Dylan met. At this point, they were both well-known and liked but still budding artists. Inspired by the meeting, they went their ways with some new ideas in mind. The Beatles started writing more thoughtful lyrics, and Bob Dylan started playing around with the electric guitar. For my project, I decided to rewrite Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" as if he were negatively effected by the visit. In other words, the song became more poppy, more shallow like the Beatles' songs at the time. Here was my write-up on the project:


           Bob Dylan was (and is) a folk style singer-songwriter most famous for his songs from the 1960’s. He was originally very interested in Woody Guthrie’s music and decided he would become a Guthrie disciple. During the 1960’s, he was an icon for the protests against war and inequality. His lyrics were many times politically charged, thought-provoking, and often contained some ambiguity to allow different interpretations. Bob Dylan had a real honest, thoughtful, and natural way of writing lyrics. Often, they felt stream-of-consciousness but I also heard he would quote classic works and keywords of literature very intentionally. He sang about events happening at the time, and made them meaningful, often in contrast to the rock music one hears from the same period. According to our class model on folk music, Bob Dylan was an alternative to the commercialized folk musicians and the rigid purists of the day.  He originally was more of a purist playing acoustic guitar and harmonica, as well as singing in a rough unpolished voice. However, he became more experimental in his music, even “plugging in” in 1965 which upset many of the purists, but it allowed for many other possible sounds and songs. He continued writing for the next 45 years.

I also melded the Beatles with Bob Dylan in my project, and essentially looked at the lyrics from their earlier years. In 1964, they had written “Love Me Do,” “From Me to You,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” At this point, the Beatles were the new exciting young rockers from England. They brought a lot of energy to their performances, but their lyrics were essentially about love and girls without many new insights or twists. Girls loved them especially because they were a bit rebellious, charismatic, and genuinely likeable. Their career went a completely different route, however, soon after when they really began experimenting with different sounds, instruments, styles, and lyrics.

Dylan and the Beatles have had a huge impact on our society especially within music. I think folk music is often used today to protest or criticize society. Usually folk music is not the most popular, but it is almost seen as more intellectual with original and thoughtful lyrics. The Beatles also presented so many different styles of music, melodies, and harmonies that often get quoted in music today. They had a huge influence on popular culture. People followed their lives, saw their movies, and wanted to be like them. They were probably some of the first real big international rock stars.

The song I picked was “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which was a song about peace, love, politics, the war, and the Civil Rights Movement all rolled into one. The song made Bob Dylan popular among the anti-war scene. It is a really good example of a political song by Bob Dylan. Like his idol Woody Guthrie, Dylan also criticized government and American ideals through music. It was definitely a song anti-war activists could rally around. Right after it first came out, other artists started doing their own renditions of it. Peter, Paul and Mary for example, made their own version, but it feels much sweeter with full, lush harmonies. It kind of loses the original coarse or raw quality Dylan himself performed. “Blowin’ in the Wind” seems to be used today kind of as a historical document of the political unrest and flower child protestors from the 1960’s.

I actually did gain a better appreciation for Bob Dylan. I already liked him as an authentic musician (although I found out he changed his name, but I guess it was out of wanting to be his own person rather than following the name given him by his parents) and admired his ability for writing lyrics. However, when I was carefully studying his lyrics and the lyrics of the Beatles, it became so obvious how much more intriguing and thoughtful Dylan’s are. Although it is unfortunate I completely forgot the words halfway through my little performance (just a bit embarrassing), it took me a while to figure out how to blend this song with Beatles’ lyrics in a clever and hopefully funny way. I enjoyed taking a closer look at this song and its lyrics. I understand more about its politic messages and social criticism.

Lyrics

How many roads must a man walk down

before he can hold your hand?

How many seas must the white dove sail

before she loves you....yeah, yeah, yeah?

How many times must the cannonballs fly

before you'll let me be your man?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,

the answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years must a mountain exist

before I can buy you a diamond ring?

How many years must some people exist

before they've got that something?

How many times must a man turn his head

to say you can't buy lovc with money?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,

the answer is blowin' in the wind.