Priscilla's response Elephant's Graveyard

Observations:
I have been repeated surprised at the viseral response I have to reading and/or to participating in the reading of this piece. Both weeks when we read the pages in class and participated as chanting townspeople, I found it profoundly disturbing. Not that I think this is a bad thing -- I think it speaks to the strength of the work that it can continue to elicit such a strong response despite the fact that I have become very familiar with it. It does make me uncomfortable, but then theater is to provoke thought, so it is doing exactly what it should.

I love the way you have strengthened the use of color in the play, both on the part of the town and the circus. I can't wait to see how the design team interprets your script. I think it effectively reinforces the delineation of town and circus. (Does the railroad have any color associations?)

Your work on the characters continues to clarify them -- without seeming like charicatures, I feel like I know who each of them is. I also responded to the elephant metaphors -- the heirarchy of the elephant world, the eroticized trunk, the safety Ballet Girl feels there, the sensitivity of the tusks, etc. Also, the information about the painful and unnatural state an elephant is in when doing standing and balancing tricks nicely sets up our sympathy for Mary (if we had any trouble being sympathetic to being with.)

Lastly, I really responded to the placement of the lynching dialogue in the last version -- seems exactly right.

Questions:
I have trouble not totally disliking the Ringmaster, as he never seems to really have a single sympathetic moment. Is he really that hard-hearted?

I'm wondering what the actors will be doing on stage while they give their monologues -- and what the rest of the actors will be doing during their non-speaking times.

Do you think it would be possible to incorporate circus smells (hay and dung)? Could be very evocative for sense of place.

Opinions:
I love, love, love the last bit about the peanut. Brilliant.

I worry about the clowns -- the visual aspect, the sheer numbers of them -- hijacking the play (clowns are so wonderful/horrible/grotesque).