Name: Luke Gibson
Student Number: 742648
Tutor: Clifford Derrick
Lecturer: Jenni-Lee Crewe
Course Name: WSOA 1003
Due Date: 23-09-2013
Title: ASSIGNMENT TWO- THE CRADLE WILL ROCK/ CRADLE WILL ROCK
The Brechtian play 'The Cradle Will Rock' was originally created by American playwright and classical composer Marc Blitzstein, in collaboration with the director Orson Welles and the producer John Houseman in New York City in 1936 (Miller, 2012: 126); and was first performed on the 16th of June 1937, at the 'Venice Theatre' in New York City (Miller, 2012: 126). It is characterised as a "musical comedy play", created at the height of 'The great depression' (Miller, 2012: 126). At the time proletarians in the steel industries staged strikes to force the industry into the recognition of unionization- the polices brutal response resulted in the deaths of a number of workers; due to such politics, the play became a very controversial issue and the 'Federal Theatre Project' tried various attempts to dissuade the performance of the play.
Orson Welles, March 1, 1937
Graves of Helene Weigel and Bertolt Brecht.
photo of Herman Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, and John...(Miller, 2012: 127). (INSERT A SENTENCE ABOUT MAJOR THEMES HERE).
Subsequently to the initial production in 1936 several other productions of this play have been produced. And in 1999 film maker Tim Robbins wrote and directed a semi-fictional film titled 'Cradle Will Rock', which tells the story of Blitzstein's musical and places the musical in its' socio political context (mentioned above) (Miller, 2012: 126). In this essay I am going to examine the different ways in which conventional characteristics prompt meaning in each of its forms namely, the stage performance and the film. For each form I will engage with the following extracts: 'Moll's song', 'Art for Art's sake' and 'Cradle will Rock'.
SECTION 1- DISCUSION OF THE FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF STAGE
Blitzstein adopts various conventions of theatre to prompt the...