The Metal Children, by Adam Rapp, is a page-turner. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and offensive and confusing and unresolved and spellbinding--it pulls you in and doesn't let you back out till the final curtain. It's the story of a community reacting to a controversial work of art. Tobin Falmouth, the author of a graphic young adult novel that depicts, travels to a small town called Midlothia, where copies of his book have been pulled off of shelves and out of hands and stored in a giant underground vault. The young people of Midlothia are furious, and their backlash creates a huge and ultimately very violent rift in the community. The absurdity of the actions taken by both sides is such that often the audience does not know whether to be horrified or to laugh, and often they feel an uncomfortable, moving combination of the two. See for yourself:
STACEY: The best thing to do is stand your ground. Even if the pork patrol starts pressing in on you.
TOBIN: What’s the pork patrol?
STACEY: Just some boys from school who harass people. They’re small-minded bullies, but they think of themselves as community regulators. They believe community “pork” is bad for community “health.” They wear Porky Pig masks and metal baseball cleats.
TOBIN: Jesus. Where the hell am I?
It’s hilarious when you hear it, and even funnier the first time we see a menacing figure appear wearing a pig mask. It’s not so funny when he beats Tobin to a pulp.
The ridiculousness of such events, in combination with their harsh level of plausibility and reality, makes the play very grounded. There is a great deal of self-evident truth in the story Rapp spins, and so the audience becomes very invested in and conflicted about the lives of these characters.
Mr. Herbert has said that in the best theatre scenes, two characters are vehemently arguing against each other and are both right. The Metal Children is filled with such conflicts. It is complex and challenging and denies simplistic arguments like "freedom of speech" or "protect the children." It demands that the audience face the fact that truth is chaotic and right and wrong are not black and white. It asks more questions than it answers and leaves us to figure it out for ourselves. It’s great. Read it.
I look forward to reading your scripts with this quality of two people being right. Seems like it would be a difficult thing to do -- to not choose a side.
ReplyDeleteWow Caroline, your chosen piece sounds very interesting. I guess it makes sense that as an actor, you would want to read plays. I feel like a play would be like a good vehicle for absurdity, with a focus on dialogue and action. How did you find "The Metal Children" in the first place? Is there a publication that specifically reviews plays? Speaking of your play, it kind of reminds me of "A Clockwork Orange". Slightly dystopian, somewhat ridiculous, always violent (usually led by the youth). I like how you talked about the main character being beaten up by masked marauders, and then ended with a smiling pig mask.
ReplyDeleteI also like the punny title to your blog. Skimming over your other posts, I think it fits.
Thanks Ms. Romano! Yeah, I think staying neutral as the writer is pretty tough. But maybe not necessary--it's probably sort of like coming up with a counterargument, and then failing to refute it?
ReplyDeleteLuke--thanks so much! Yeah, reading plays is a cool and kind of weird experience--considering that being read isn't really the intended form for the audience to receive them--and there are a lot of fantastic absurdist plays out there. I saw a production of ¨The Metal Children¨ at a school I was visiting and interviewing at last year. Their production was really cool, and I thought the script was captivating, so I was excited to finally get around to reading it. I've heard a lot about ¨A Clockwork Orange,¨ and would really love to read it. I get where you're coming from, and that seems like a really cool parallel. You should check out a post I wrote a while back about a play called ¨The Pillowman¨--it's about as dystopian, violent, and ridiculous as it gets.
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