Overtones blog

In Overtones by Alice Gerstenberg, some of the characters are not seen but heard. When reading it, the audience might question who decide is this. Who creates the “rules” of this play’s theatrical world? In Overtones, the playwright makes this decision in the script. In the script, Gerstenberg makes the choice because it creates a certain image for her story. The “rules” for the play’s world are code in the scripts context. The ideas of notes and stage directions are the so-called “rules”. Why else would the playwright include them? This is the playwright’s vision in which she created.  The idea is for their voices to be their alter egos. The people might argue that the alter egos’ action would not be display and the story would lose a sense of clarity. On the other hand, any normal individual can put the story’s concept together.  The alter egos say things which implied the actions in the stage directions. For example, in one scene Maggie is talking, the stage direction reads “Glaring at the tea thing”. By the context of the conversion, it would be natural for the Maggie to look at the tea thing while Margaret talks about cream.  I believe director and others doing the play should respect the playwright’s rules but they are bending them with good intension for the story. In the original Overtones, the rules are very consistence. The alter egos are barely seen but heard throughout this whole play. In the end, the “rules” of the play are contained in the context which the playwright provides.