Aquarium Aquarium was a group of four one act plays written by Joe Dennison and directed by Mike Moran. The first play was split in half. The actors did one half of it as a prologue and the second half as an epilogue. The actors eliminated the fourth wall and made it quite clear they knew the audience was there, and interacting with them. The two characters James Edward Lee and Bruce Godfrey are actors who are trying to perform a two man version of the play ‘Waiting for Godot’. The second play entitled Goon was a satirical comedy about a prison system of the future.
The two characters, Mo and Vic, are in a maximum security co-ed prison that seems more like a summer camp than a prison. In the prison’s attempt to rehabilitate the prisoners they make the roommates choose everything together. All of their choices have to be the same, they have to eat the same meals and watch the same television programs. Vic and Mo are totally different so this comes as a challenge to them, they reveal what got them into the prison in the first place. The play was full of satirical jokes such as the prison was co-own by Disney, the prisoners were called ‘guests ” instead of inmates and instead of bright orange jump suites they wore khakis and polo tops with hello my name is… name tags, which makes them look more like camp counselor or sales people at the Limited.
The third play was entitled Smile. It is a play where two characters, Larry and Sidney meet in a locked and windowless hospital room. Larry has amnesia and can’t remember anything about who he was and what he was like. He then decides to find a new identity. Sidney tells him that he had fallen on her and she ultimately tells him that they are dead. The last play was called Time.
It was about a mother, and a daughter’s, Fay and Kit, shaky relationship. The details of their past are made pretty vague in the play. The daughter is in an institution and her mother comes to visit her for their annual reunion and they get in a fight about the past and what has happened to Kit to put her in an institution. The playlet I am going to do a script analysis on is my personal favorite of the four Goon. The time period of the play was the near-future. It was very important to the play because it was a satire about the future of the prison system.
The costumes and language was in no way futuristic but the situation of a summer camp like prison was. The production was trying to emphasize the future of the prison system based on the way it is going now, prisoners treated like collage students and campers. It was also trying to emphasize the old saying don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Mo looked very normal and was up-tight and sarcastic, while Vic looked like a prisoner and had a very mean criminal attitude. At the end Vic gives into Mo after she tells him that she murdered her husband for having all of the disgusting qualities that Vic had shown he had, such as a love for watching sports games and being a slob. It was very successful in conveying these points and it was done in a funny and entertaining way.
The conflict between the two characters was their opposite tastes. Vic is a steak and meat lover ‘I like meat so rare it moves’ while Mo is a vegetarian. Vic liked sports games sports games and more sports games while Mo watched Ally McBeal and Melrose Place. Even though they had completely different tastes they were forced as part of their rehabilitation to do the same thing and have the same tastes.
Also there was the conflict that they had to live with each other for the next 20 years knowing the awful truth about the others past. That Vic is a rapist and Mo is a killer. The set was pretty much a bare stage with two cots in two corners and a night stand in another corner. The play was good enough that it could stand on it’s own without fancy lighting effects, costumes, set or props. The theater was very small and there were seats on all sides of the stage which was very interesting and you could see the audience reaction sitting across from you. Overall I felt that this was a excellent set of plays with excellent acting.
All of the plays had a sense of mystery about them and a surprise ending.