“Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty” (“Doubt,” duh)

I loved this play. I loved the movie (Meryl Streep was fantastic, and so was Viola Davis).  And I really hope I can bum a ride or catch a bus in order to see it onstage in Pittsfield.

I put this in the same class as Spinning into Butter (and Amadeus, to a slightly lesser extent), in the fact that I cannot shut up about it.

Sister Aloysius reminds me of my grandmother, who has been dead since I was 10.  My grandmother was a strong-willed Roman Catholic woman, who was capable of the most tender love and terrifying fury.  She opened soup kitchens and took in people who were down on their luck.  A mother of 11, she was one of those “good” Christians, who practiced what she preached, and believed not so much in the institution of the Church, but in the good of the Church community.  Okay, they may not be that similar (I can’t quite imagine Sister Aloysius reading fantasy novels with the same enthusiasm as my grandmother did).  But their similarity lies in their strength, and in their lack of caring about what other people think of them, and in their willingness in doing what they believe to be right. I honestly believe that, if my grandmother was in the same position as Sister Aloysius, she would have done exactly what she did. And as such, I feel an inability to condemn Sister Aloysius for her actions.

…So, enough of that. Let’s get the discussion a-rolling.

“I have doubts! I have such doubts!”

What do you think Sister Aloysius’ doubts are, exactly? Is she having doubts about her actions?  Doubts about her religion?  Doubts about being somewhat responsible for inflicting Father Flynn on more unsuspecting children?  Doubts about an institution that would promote a man she honestly believes to be a child molester?  Doubts about whether or not Father Flynn really is one?  An all-consuming doubt that encompasses EVERYTHING? (My opinion: I’m leaning more towards doubts towards religion and the church).

And for that matter, what happened to her certainty? Where along the line do you think it faltered? (My opinion: probably around the time she found out Father Flynn had been promoted)

Do you think John Patrick Shanley, if we asked him, would know the answer to these questions himself?

~Jessie

“You shining like new money!”

Overall, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is my least favorite of the plays we’ve read so far. That isn’t to say that I think it’s a bad play, by any means.  I can appreciate it’s literary merit and it’s author, much like how I thought The Tempest was incredibly boring and mostly lame, even though I fangirl the hell out of ol’ Billy Shakspur.

I didn’t really connect or relate to any of the characters, not like I did with Sarah in Spinning Into Butter or Salieri in Amadeus (oh god, I can connect to Salieri… what does that say about me as a person?).  Maybe it’s because I’m white? Then again, Salieri was an Italian straight from Italy, a man, and a musician… and I’m not. It could also have to do with the fact that the characters are more like stand-ins for symbols than actual full-fledged characters.  Out of all of them, I think I could relate to Mattie the most, as her abandonment issues and futile hopefulness are something I know too well.  Though I didn’t relate to him, I thought Bynum was pretty cool. I have a soft spot for conjuremen, and he seems like he would be fun to perform. If I was a black man. I’m pretty sure there’s no way in hell I’d be able to play him the way I am now.

Also, Molly’s hypocrisy kind of annoyed me. Yes, okay, I understand she’s found a way to survive without working. That’s great. But she says she doesn’t need men, when she TOTALLY DOES. She depends on them to take an interest in her looks, and to provide for her and pay for her expensive habits. And when a  man doesn’t work out, she moves on to another. Sure, she can say that she doesn’t depend on any ONE man, but to say that she doesn’t need men at all? Honey, you would be doing laundry right alongside Maddie if it wasn’t for them.

Granted, you could say her dependency on men isn’t so much a “need” as a “want of taking advantage of good fortune,” but whatever.

I also really dug the written speech in the play. It was very well done, and was my favorite part overall. As I was reading the play, I could actually hear the dialogue in my head. I don’t understand why a lot of people found it hard to read, I actually thought it made the reading easier, because, for me at least, it breathed a little life into a play I wasn’t really excited about.

~Jessie

P.S. Not many good video choices on YouTube for this one. But here you go, the Juba scene:

(Also, are you as annoyed with the giggling idiot theatregoers as I am? Way to ruin a powerful scene, girls!)

“Why he got to be bigger than me? How much big is there? How much big do you want?”

After “Spinning into Butter,” and all the things it made me think, and all the things I wanted to say (and did), and the teeny bit of emotional investment I have put into hoping that the movie does not suck… I can’t help but think that “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” was a bit of a letdown.

Most of it, I think, has to do with the fact that so much of the play deals in metaphors and symbolism and other such hidden things.  I take most things that I read at face value, and it’s very hard for me to find these things without a bit of help, whether it be from extracurricular readings (if I’m interested enough), or hints from a teacher/professor. Once I’ve been led to water, and if the water is interesting enough, I will most certainly drink. (SEE WHAT I DID, THERE.)

I think the one time where I was honestly able to pinpoint these things for myself was in an awesome 11th grade paper I wrote on Frankenstein (the final copy of which has sadly been lost to computer death) on the different pursuits of knowledge for each of the main characters (fame/glory vs. finding oneself, that sort of thing), and the tolls each of these pursuits have.  I was extremely proud of that paper, and the fact that not only did I create the paper topic myself, but that I unearthed every single one of those hidden things on my own, only having to look them up after the fact for a Works Cited page. The loss of that paper pains me to this day.

I’m sorry to have gotten soooooo wildly off-topic, but, as an English major, the fact that you need to beat me repeatedly over the head with a metaphor bat is embarrassing, and totally cripples any hope I have of being an English professor at some point. Not that I want to, but the option to be a competent one would be nice.

As this has gotten a bit to long for me to actually go into my thoughts on “Joe Turner” without this becoming a monster post, I’ll write a second post about the actual play… probably tomorrow morning.

~Jessie