NYTimes.com: David P. Schmidt stood center stage at the Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University here and glowered through his glasses at the audience before leaping into a corrosive, expletive-laden monologue from “Glengarry Glen Ross.” His character, Blake, is a hotshot manager, sent by the home office to inspire a handful of real estate salesmen with a contest: First prize, an Eldorado. Second prize, a set of steak knives. Third prize, you’re fired.
3 comments:
Drama is art - it instills emotional and intellectual responses in its audience, some of these may be intended by the dramatist while others may simply be inferred or interpreted by the individual. As artists, designers, and arts managers we know this to be true. Teachers know this to be true as well. Its this potential for interpretation and an individual experience that keeps drama in the classrooms. It is also unfortunately what makes students uncomfortable about drama, they don't like it or don't understand it. One isn't supposed to understand it, good plays continue to surprise with their intectual and emotional depths. This presentation of Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross eliminates some of the student's discomfort by imposing an interpretation. There are those who may find this offensive or oppressive to the individual audience member but as a teaching tool I'd say its warranted. Ask students to take a Marxist, sociological, or professional approach to a piece and see what develops. You may be limiting the piece's integrity but if you are teaching a class on Marxism why not find something to help this message?
I think what's important in Matt's response above is that dramas are written with the purpose of instilling emotion - that's what I think turns most students, especially modern teach-to-the-test students, off to it, is that when your other classroom readings ask you to analyze for leitmotifs and historical accuracy, you lose the emotion in there (or it gets jumbled up and mistranslated). What's beneficial about putting it up on stage first is that there's an interpretative choice made, and that helps to guide students in, at least a little bit to start. This production in particular asked for students to keep a critical eye, though, and used the alienating effect of casting their professors in unusual roles (and gender re-casting) to keep them thinking about the words rather than the performances.
At first I had trouble buying the choice of Glengarry as a text, but when the business ethics class started discussing the real life versions of this office, I understood the parallels and the worth of this choice.
"Third prize: you're fired" is one of my all time favorite lines. I'm impressed with the faculty of Fairfield University for their creative approach to teaching, and for bringing art into their classrooms in a way that they believe enriches the student's learning opportunity. I'm not sure if I think they have proven, in this case, that this particular performance directly teaches what they intend, however. The professor asks the students if this is a work environment they'd like to work in. Seems like an obvious question. I mean, would anyone? Personally I think "Glengarry Glen Ross" is a whole lot more than a cautionary tale: "Hey kids, don't act like this!" It's also a tough play for some people to really get into because they can't get past the profanity, as one student mentions. And if the point is to teach something about ethics, I don't know if a professor taking on such a startlingly belligerent character and bending classroom dynamics to such a degree, even for effect, isn't a little confusing. But again, I applaud the creative thinking employed by these teachers and their use of art in the classroom.
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