Carrie's Response to Elephant's Graveyard

AFFIRMATIONS
Great sessions--the new version is a testament to the hours I know you both spent cutting and talking. (never an easy task)
Trimmed down, this play has all the weight of a "10 ton ghost" (a particularly lovely line)--which, now that I think about it, could apply to either an elephant or a freight train.

I thought the use of systems in the first workshop was a good way to access the play--there are yes, many repetitions, overlaps, and switches of position that work to heighten the stakes of the play in a sort of symbolic trajectory (who's been reading too much Lacan?) that nicely compliments and complicates the basic story. To add an audio track to that (as we did in the second workshop) is another great way to deepen and complicate that experience for the audience on a sensory level.

I really like the openning moments of the play--the clowns wandering through the audience and putting up posters. In my mind, this sort of implicitly casts the audience as a town to which the circus is coming--a smart move.

I was struck in the revision by the very sexualized description of Mary by the circus performers, they each depend on her, desire her, and feel jealousy toward her in really interesting ways.

Much of what I was tracking had to do (and I will talk more about this down further in other sections) with the relationship between the three forces: the town, the circus, and the railroad. The strong presence of the 3 colors (black, white, grey and the repetition of dominoes) helped bring this out for me in the revision, even if the colors don't exactly correspond to the forces. (I think what I'm getting at is i liked it that there was another set of 3) Anytime there was an articulation of the codes, rules etc of each of the forces (the carney code, the circus court of appeals, time and the railroad, the engineer's final speech, the sheriff/preacher debate) my ears perked up.

To continue with color, the new scene of the circus arriving was very evocative color wise--it made me think of when Dorothy opens the door to her house in the Wizard of Oz and we've gone from black and white to technicolor. i also like that the Muddy Townsperson is excited about the mud getting onto the circus people--something about the two places mixing together was a strong image for me.



Questions:

-When was the last time the circus came through town? How often does it come through? Has everyone in the town seen the circus before or are some relying on the myths of the circus?
-I'm interested in the time the play is set--there is mention of fighting for the Kaiser, is this the first world war or the second (maybe this is more clearly stated somewhere, if so my bad) Bringing up the Kaiser makes me think about a lot of issues surrounding US involvement in WW2 in terms of shame, complicity, and small town nationalism--does this matter?
-I'm still trying to tease out the relationships between the town/railroad/circus--i think the hardest for me is the railroad and the circus--is there a struggle here between industry and what? Is industrialization an important theme--I know the circus relies on the railroad, is it threatened by it as well? Also in regards to time, the railroad marks time, but the circus is outside of time? Maybe I'm moving too much into analysis here, but I guess I'm wondering if there is a larger historical context for the end result (elephant killed by railroad). Its also mentioned early on, yes? that Jumbo was killed by a train.

Opinions/More pointed questions:
_Ok, so all the elephants are female, but the majority of the other actors are male, and all of those with strong voices/opinions/power are male--What this does in my mind is to gender the circus as female (the elephants standing in as the circus). Is this intentional? (the power structure, not my reading of it which you can take or leave) I'm a little bothered by this, or I guess concerned about the gender politics.

-The preacher/clown/hungry townsperson aren't distinct enough from one another for me--they each seem to be hitting at a part of the same "morality"--or maybe there seems to be some kind of overlap between them

-The digging is the clearest sense of action I have, I wonder what some of the other stage actions will be.

-If the new scene is a "trial" for Mary, I feel like there could be more viewpoints

-I asked a question about time above, but I wanted to say that I'm really interested in what this play is saying about time (history/memory, annual events, boredom and sameness as a sort of timelessness)

The line about the train cars being locked (and that the circus is basically stuck here until there is some sort of resolution) works better with the action being confined to one town--that movement basically stops until this is resolved.

I was again really struck by how integral desire is in this play and the interesting ways desire is portrayed--I have a very strong sense of what the town needs the circus to be and what the circus needs the town to be. I think when I brought up the elephant in the kitchen it really had very little to do with the actual elephant and more the need to not articulate these desires or keep them secret--you do a beautiful job of building up and exposing desire in this play.

I can't wait to see this play continue to develop and be read in New Works and I'm super excited to see it in production next season. My response to these sessions have been very much along the lines of analyzing and "reading"--which I think really speaks to the multiple layers and interesting connections you have on the table. Great work Erica and George!