- How do the kinds of scenes we see reflect the changing relationship of the plots?
How do the scene types reflect ideas explored by the play?
This play follows an episodic structure seeing that each scene switches from place to place multiple times. For instance, act 3 scene 1 takes place in Prior’s bedroom at his apartment. Then the very next scene switches to a coffee shop/outpatient clinic at the hospital. French scenes occur in the play as well. Every time the ancestors of Prior appear, significant information is discovered and new intentions are created.
- What purposes do the split scenes serve? (why would Kushner have chosen to use them?)
The usage of the split scenes allows the audience to make a better connection between the two relationships that parallel each other. Both relationships worsen at a similar pace and each partner relates to a partner in the other relationship. With the split scenes, the comparison between the characters are more visible. For instance, Harper and Prior are very relatable because they are both very sick; Harper being mentally ill, and Prior being physically ill. Also, they both are unconditionally in love with their partners and eventually end up alone. The bindings between these characters are clear with the use of split scenes. With each split scene, the health of Prior and Harper progressively gets worse and worse, continuing to connect them as the play goes on. As the split scenes continue throughout the play, they get more and more frantic switching back and forth between the characters, with their relationships weakening.
- This play features characters from a number of different kinds of worlds and levels of existence/non-existence.
Distinguish the different worlds/existences that they come from.
What qualities, ideas, meanings, or functions do these character-worlds lend to the play?
Harper has an imagination that dreams up dangerous men with knives hiding under the sofa or bed. She makes up a traveling agent that takes her to Antarctica where she meets a friendly Eskimo, despite the fact that Eskimos don’t live in Antarctica. She also makes up the fact that she is pregnant. All these fantasies are her hallucinations. The made up men carrying knives represent her husband, Joe. This just shows how deeply she loves him but not loving her in return is piercing to her heart and she eventually develops a horrid fear of that pain and hurt. When Harper imagines her travel agent, Mr. Lies, she makes him up so she may travel away from her loneliness at home and escape from her depression. Prior hears a voice of an angel who claims that he is a Prophet. He also meets two of his ancestors from the 17th century who are sent to Prior to properly introduce the Angel. It is unknown if what Prior sees is real or not, but the reason of the angel choosing him as a prophet is because of his family’s historical background migrating to America and because he, like his ancestors, die of disease. The angels want Prior to help stop the change that is occurring in society.
- What effect does the doubling of characters have?
Why would Kushner have designated the particular pairings he does?
Kushner’s use of doubling characters worked remarkably well and had its own effect on the readers/audience members. It helped keep the connection between both plots of the play along with the connection between characters. For example, the double casting for Belize and Mr. Lies was brilliant because he plays the same type of function for both roles. Keeping in mind that Harper and Prior both parallel each other and relate in several different ways, Belize plays the role of Prior’s good friend and past lover. Harper has no past lovers or friends, so she makes one up-Mr. Lies. This actor plays “the best friend” role for that particular set of paralleling characters.
- What are some of the recurring, repeated actions and situations in this play?
Significance?
Harper continually imagines frightening men with knives, and as time goes by, this occurs more frequently, showing how Harper and Joe become more and more distant from each other; their relationship becoming to an end. When in need, Louis tends to ask God for help or for an answer, usually having something to do with his lover, Prior. He does this quite a lot near the end, showing that his relationship with Prior falls apart eventually.
- What are the most significant ideas in the play?
Depending on who is leading, politics can play a large role on what is and is not accepted in society. One’s identity in society seems so important; one must be a certain way to fit in. Not only race, but religion and even disease makes someone viewed as something completely different. Louis mentions during the coffee shop scene, that race doesn’t define us, politics do.
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What significance do you see in the full title and its subtitle, a gay fantasia on national themes?
The title portrays the idea of having a different view or perspective on society and the community as a whole from a homosexual’s point of view. It sets the readers/audience members up for an enlightenment of racism, religion, and politics.