11/22/12 I really liked our reading of The Big Boom in Mr. Linkfelter’s class. I liked it so much, in fact, that I think I’m going to get a ticket to it the next time they perform it in town. I always thought of it as some boring old play, when in reality it’s actually pretty good. There are little bits of black comedy throughout the play that seem easier to spot when you’re reading it (if the video we watched is any indication). Most notably, I think the way Ron and his son, Jarvis, get along is hilarious, and their verbal sparring is very interesting. I didn’t notice Jarvis huffing and rolling his eyes in their first scene together, for instance, until I read the play. It’s also very dark, which is interesting considering how old it is. You always think of stuff from the ‘30s and ‘40s as kind of clean or whatever, when in reality, it can be every bit as adult as stuff we see today. The scene where Ray’s wife dies is really, really sad (so sad that some girls in my class were crying), and the big twist at the end…! Suffice it to say, my jaw was hanging when I watched it. It’s maybe the only place where the video was actually quite a bit better than the reading. I’ll definitely make sure to tell my friends about this, and I’m going to try to get them to come with me when I go to the play. It’s one of the coolest stage performances I’ve seen. It has gotten me a lot more interested in plays in general. Mr. Linkfelter said a big part of appreciating the play is understanding how it works within its constraints. I didn’t understand what he meant at first. Now, though, I can at least see the idea behind it, even if I can’t explain it so well. The best way I can put is watching an old movie like Star Wars and noticing the special effects are still nice, even though they didn’t have the visual effect technology we do today. Another cool thing about plays is, because they generally want to use as few settings as they can, everything needs to be planned out. It’s not like some movie where you can cut to a place across the globe in under a second. Not that that isn’t cool or anything. I guess it also goes back to what Mr. Linkfelter said about constraints and so on. This one had me every bit as sucked in as your average movie. I read the whole thing in one sitting, and the only thing that made me sad was that there was no more of it after that. Even knowing the big twist at the end from watching the video beforehand didn’t really ruin it for me. It’s like, I don’t read a lot of comics, but I’d consider Watchmen one of my favorite books. This is the same way, except it’s a play. I’m definitely going to read a lot more plays as a result of reading this. Or maybe I’ll do what I did with this one and watch a video, read the play, then decide if it’s worth spending my money on a ticket. My mom says the playhouse in town actually does a ton of popular productions. I think I just had an idea for my next Mother’s Day gift!