Love! Valour! Compassion!

     First off, I would like to say I really disliked this play. It was so hard to follow who was saying what and to whom. The cutaways to the audience during the action on stage was extremely confusing. I feel that I may have enjoyed it if I watched it, but as for reading it, that's a big NUH UH. 
     Had the historian read Love! Valour! Compassion! after reading The Glass of Water and The Children's Hour, he probably would have been pretty confused. The play didn't really follow any pattern at all. The ending was not even definite. It was more just like a glimpse into these eight men's tangled lives. I think one of the biggest differences between this play and the two we read prior to it is the fact that the fourth wall is broken repeatedly. Rather than creating a world that only the characters live in,  McNally opens it up to the audience's world as well. I believe he does this in order to show that one can relate to the characters in some way or another and also to show that this is real life for some people.
     As far as inferences about the culture of our time go, the historian would see a major change in the acceptability of homosexuality. In the play, a same-sex couple is celebrating their wedding anniversary. This never would have happened in the times of The Glass of Water and The Children's Hour. Also, capital-T Truth lies within each man within God as well. At one point, a character has an aside about God's unconditional love, a truth that all or at least most of the men seem to acknowledge. They each have their own individual beliefs and idea, and these are just as true in this world.
     I have tried to make as much sense as possible, though my thoughts about this play are still really jumbled. I hope this post is understandable; I tried my best.
      

The Children's Hour

     The main way The Children's Hour strays from the form of the traditional well-made play is the way that the play comes to an end. Rather than the play coming to a nice, happy, everyone-wins conclusion, we get a suicide, resulting in the loss of a friend for Karen, and in addition to that the loss of Karen's lover, and on top of all of that, the little brat who started all this mess is still being protected by her grandmother! This is absolutely not the type of ending one would see in a well-made play. I believe this choice was made in order to show that chaos of this sort really cannot have a happy ending or easy solution. These's people had their entire lives and futures ruined, and that's just something that is irreparable. 
     I do think that the play could be performed today. The main course of the story does not revolve around Karen and Martha being struggling lovers but really centers on the discord caused by a terribly spoiled child. The only time we actually see a bit of truth in the lie is before Martha kills herself. She admits to Karen that she actually does love her in the way accused; that she has always been different but could never quite put her finger on what it was. All the rest of the play is focused most on the ruination of their lives because of a lie, not their same-sex relationship.

The Glass of Water

A well-made play follows a strict set of rules and arrangement guidelines. "The Glass of Water" written by Eugene Scribe adheres to these rules and guidelines to a T -- with the exception of two instances making up the "fat" of the play. These parts do not add to and are not necessary to the plot but are simply just there for reasons the translator only knows.

It was very difficult for me to find these bits that seem unnecessary to the script. The only thing my evidently weak spidey senses slightly picked up was at the very beginning of chapter three. Bolingbroke enters the Queen's boudoir to see Abigail. Rather than getting right down to business, he rambles on for a few moments about the Tory ministry but never gets in to any details with this. It has nothing to contribute to the plot. Right after he makes this brief mention, the play goes on, and Bolingbroke tries to figure out why he was summoned to the Queen's chambers. This is not necessary for the reason that no real information was gained from this little fork off the main road. Abigail does not even go along with Bolingbroke, agree and add to his conclusion that "it won't be long now" but shuts him down with the opposite: "On the contrary... it's a great deal further off than you think." 

I am very interested to find out the two parts that Dr. Fletcher found and whether or not mine is one of them. Looking forward to talking about this in class!