The
element that stood out for me the most in this play was the commentary you
could draw from it regarding our emergence into the Twentieth Century. The
biggest indication of this was at the very end of the play when all of the
characters do a toast.
“Freddy:
The pendulum swings to the left…”
“Countess:
The pendulum swings to the right…”
This
part of the toast indicates that “times they are a changin’” as the legendary
Bob Dylan would say. The start of the Twentieth Century was the start of many
social, cultural, and artistic changes. “Visitor: ‘Cause in this century, the
accomplishments of scientists and artists outshone the accomplishments of
politicians and governments”. People started seeing the world in a new light.
Einstein produced his Theory of Relativity, which changed how we viewed things
in motion, how light transferred, and how distant our stars are (I think, all
that science stuff is really over my head); Picasso, along with Matisse and a
slew of budding artists, introduced a new way of painting the Twentieth
century. He painted to fit his mood, the Blue Period and then the Rose Period
are both mentioned in this play as he transitioned from one century to the
other, with the Rose Period reflecting his delightful anticipation of great
things to come, such as his emergence into Cubism and many other great works.
It was also a time a new identity for women with the emergence of the Womens’
Sufferage movement. Germaine and Suzanne represent this “New Woman”, a woman
who had ideas and something to say.
“Gaston:
The past was driven by horses….
Einstein:
The future is driven by light….”
This
part of the toast, again, shows an emergence to new thought, which leads to new
technology driven by not only by industrialism, but scientific theories. In the
Twentieth Century, scientific discoveries of our place in the universe trumps
industrial discoveries (as indicated by Schmendiman, who is very unimportant
and portrayed as a buffoon). Much of Einstein’s theory was based in light and
how it travels. “Driven by light” is a direct comment on these new discoveries
and also the notoriety it lands these Great Thinkers; we are told their names
are written in the stars because the Twentieth Century will be their time to “shine”.
“Freddy:
The mistakes of the past are over…
Picasso:
The Modern waits to be met….”
Freddy’s
part of the toast is simply: it’s time to move on from our mistakes. War,
poverty, discrimination, artistic stagnation- these are all things of the past.
The Twentieth Century allows artistic and social freedom from all the political
and social tyranny that reigned supreme in the past centuries. This century
marks the Reign of Artists and Social Liberations. It also marks the emergence
of Modernism, that went beyond art and seeped into how we viewed every aspect
of life. “Modernism, in general, includes the activities and creations of those
who felt the traditional forms of art, architecture, literature, religious
faith, philosophy, social organization, and activities of daily life were
becoming outdated in the new economic, social, and political environment of an
emerging fully industrialized world” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism).
Artists focused on the process taken to create art, as opposed to the finished
product. It was during this time that Picasso and Matisse created their most
famous paintings and also Cubism, which focuses on the form and process of art,
instead of the picture itself. Picasso says “waits to be met”, which
foreshadows all of the greatest movements to come
“Sagot:
Say good-bye to the age of indifference…
Visitor:
And say hello…to the age… of regret.”
This
one was a little puzzling because the Visitor’s comment, who is a time traveler
from the future (i.e. Elvis Presley), indicates bad things on the horizon. But-
it also makes sense. While the rest of the characters are full of optimism of
great things and times to come, the Visitor knows that this idealistic and
eventually, the Twentieth Century, with all of its new advances in technology, scientific
discoveries, and artists movements, along with new social rights, eventually
leads to the fall of our society. People become so advanced and so
individualized as a culture that we lose some of the great aspects of the past
centuries. We are divided; we are egocentric and destroy our environment with
new advances in technology; Einstein helps create the Atom Bomb, which is used
to destroy thousands of lives; women are still discriminated against, but in
more subtle ways that are protected by loop holes in laws. The prospect of a
great future is trumped by the realization that it eventually births
destruction.
I
found this video (I’m kind of a YouTube junkie) that shows clips and pictures
of events in the Twentieth Century that happen AFTER 1904 and shows how these
new technologies lead to poverty, war, death, starvation through food that is
made in laboratories, and, while women eventually earn the right to vote, we
see the segregation, degradation and genocide of Jewish population, African
Americans and Japanese Americans. This video is pretty powerful and it’s set to
the music of The Beatles While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which comments on how,
even with all of the advances in society and science, we are still experiencing
the same problems we saw in the past. BUT, towards the end of this video we see
some GREAT advances of the Twentieth Century that we could not have had, had
not great thinkers such as Einstein and Picasso had the strength to expose the
world to their art.
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