“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!)

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