Show and Tell Post #1

For my Show and Tell Post, I chose a play called, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. It is written by Naomi Wallace in 1998 and published in 2001. The play was first produced at Fourth Street Theater in New York, and later produced at New York Theater workshop and Actors Theater of Louisville. You can find this play online in the North American Women's Drama (http://solomon.wodr.alexanderstreet.com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/cgi-bin/asp/philo/navigate.pl?wodr.1072).

The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek takes place in 1936 in a town outside a city. It revolves mainly around Pace Creagan, a seventeen-year-old girl, and Dalton Chance, a fifteen-year-old boy. Pace and Dalton spend lots of time at the trestle at Pope Lick Creek, where trains go by at a specific time each day. Pace, who has much control over Dalton, wants the both of them to run across the tracks right before the train comes. Pace has done this before with her friend Brett, though Brett did not make it across in time and was killed. When the day comes when they plan to run, Dalton chickens out and dares Pace to do it alone. Pace accepts the dare but insisted Dalton watch her run the trestle because she wants an eyewitness who can vouch for her that she did it. Dalton turns around to stop watching her. Pace calls out to him but he refuses, so she tries to run back, but she is never going to make it so Pace dives into the creek and dies. Dalton is put in jail for supposedly killing Pace. In jail, Brett’s father, who is a jailer, verbally abuses Dalton. Eventually Dalton is let free when he reveals what actually happened to Pace. 

The amount of note-worthy dramaturgical choice in The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek is extensive. One that really stood out to me was the way the play was in a randomized order. The play starts off with Dalton, in jail, seeing a silhouette of Pace and screaming at her. The second scene jumps back to Pace and Dalton first getting to know each other at the trestle. This non-chronological order occurs throughout the whole play. It jumps from the present to the past, and the play ends with an intimate scene at the trestle with Dalton and Pace, who is still alive. Wallace chooses to place the story in a randomized order because she wants to make the story more of a mystery. What I mean by this is that, knowing Dalton is in jail in the present time, the audience is trying to figure out from the very beginning what crime has happened, causing lots of ambiguity. If the play were in chronological order, the audience would know Dalton did not commit any crime because Pace died on accident. Suddenly, the mystery of the story would be taken away from the audience, because they'd have known Dalton was the "innocent guy" all along. Wallace's choice to put the play in a randomized order causes the audience to have much more uncertainty and therefore they will not figure characters as the "good guy" and the "bad guy" until the end.   Another fascinating dramaturgical choice would be Pace's death being presented with dialogue instead of the action. The audience is revealed to how Pace dies because Pace and Dalton speak back and forth about the incident, instead of them seeing Pace physically dive into the creek. Wallace chooses to use words instead of action because not only is it easier to stage but it prevents Pace's death from becoming the main idea of the play. Wallace wants the focus of her play to be on the relationships as opposed to the accident.  Wallace wants the audience to see the effect Pace and Dalton have on each other, instead of the effect of running across a trestle. So the way Wallace chooses to express Pace's death through dialogue between her and Dalton allows for relationships to be the emphasis of the play.