Show and Tell Post #2

            For my second show and tell post I am focusing on the play Grace written by Craig Wright. It was written in 2003 and has been produced a couple of times. In October 2004 the play premiered in Washington D.C. by the Wolly Mammoth Theatre Company at the Warehouse Theater. In 2006 The Furious Theatre Company produced Grace at the Pasadena Playhouse Carrie Hamilton Theatre. Most recently, Grace premiered on Broadway at the Cort Theatre in October 2012. The Broadway show closed only a couple moths later, but it starred Paul Rudd and Michael Shannon! You can buy a copy of this play on Amazon if you click on the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Play-Craig-Wright/dp/0810128993/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365884602&sr=1-1&keywords=grace+craig+wright

            Grace is a play revolving around a married couple in their 30's, Steve and Sara, who have just recently moved from Minnesota to Florida to start building and opening Steve's line of hotels. Steve and Sara are extremely religious, looking to God and believing in God for everything. Mr. Himmelman is an investor from Zurich, who promised to sponsor Steve's project.  Steve and Sara have a next-door neighbor named Sam. He is a wealthy man who lost his fiancé six months prior in a horrible car accident. Being neighbors, Sam, Steve and Sara get to know each other very well, and Sam and Sara begin to have an affair. As the affair goes on, so does the building of the hotels. Steve is now just waiting on Mr. Himmelman to wire the large sum of money to the bank so Steve can launch his business. After many months of waiting, Steve is informed the bank is selling the hotels because no money has or will be wired. Steve, overcome with emotion and confusion, wants to move back with Sara to Minnesota and start their life over. However, Sara expresses to him that he wants a divorce. Steve, catching on to what is going on between his wife and Sam, goes over to Sam's apartment, and shoots and kills Sara and Steve.

            One extreme dramaturgical choice in Grace revolves around sequence. Wright puts the very last moment of the story and makes it the first scene of the play. So the play opens with a gunshot and two dead bodies lying on the floor. From there, time moves backwards. The dead bodies, Sara and Sam, get up and the conversation had right before Steve shot Sam and Sara continues, still moving backwards in time. After this first scene, the sequence begins chronologically all the way till the end of the play. The last scene of the play ends with the same conversation that was going backwards in the first scene, and the last moment is Steve just about to shoot Sam and Sara. I think Wright chose to play with sequencing so foreshadowing and dramatic irony is created. Wright wants to give a taste of what happens to the characters in the play before the story begins because it lets the audience know what to look out for and what is of upmost importance. Another dramaturgical choice in Grace is that both Sara and Steve's apartment and Sam's apartment are seen on stage at all times. So, when a scene takes place in Sam's apartment, you see Sara and Steve working, interacting, and responding in their own apartment. I think Wright chose to do this to show two completely opposite worlds interacting.  Also, he does this to emphasize the transition of Sara and Steve together and Sam alone, to Sara and Sam together and Steve alone. This creates a lot of visual and emotional tension, which also represents the tension all of the characters are going through. Grace has now become on of my favorite plays, based on the brilliant dramaturgical choices and fascinating subject matter.