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CHARACTER OVERVIEW

Susan

 

  • My first impressions of Susan was that she is the stereotypical mother at that time. She is safe, and does what is expected of her, and conforms to societal norms.

  • “I was a witch and never knew it. I killed my babies. I didn’t know I was so wicked…” (Churchill 174) —> This quote is significant because it shows how Susan believes in authority. She trusts what people of power tell her, and is easily brainwashed by society. When Packer and Goody accuse her of being a witch, and torture her, she ends up believing them and is convinced she has sinned, so much so that she rats out Alice, her dearest friend.

  • “And Susan, her friend, is like possessed screaming and crying and lay two days without speaking” (Churchill 165) —> When Jack and Margery arrive at the public square, they are intent on having Alice found guilty of witchcraft. As they ramble back and forth about the various crimes Alice has performed as a witch, they mention how Susan, Alice’s friend, was harmed by Alice, and lay two days without speaking. I find it interesting how at this point, Susan is still viewed as a victim of another witch’s spells, and it is only a matter of time before she herself is accused of being the perpetrator, no longer the victim.

  • Susan represents the belief in the system. She is a product of the brainwashing society imposes, and stands to show the audience the affects of scapegoating. Susan’s character symbolizes how power can be abused. She is naive to a fault, and is taken advantage of by those in power as they use her vulnerability to advance themselves. She is easily manipulated, and when Packer accuses her of being a witch, she eventually believes him to a point where she herself tries to convince Alice that “If we’re hanged, we’re saved, Alice, so we mustn’t be frightened.” (Churchill 174). 

 

CHARACTER IMPRESSION CATEGORIES

Joan

  • Animal/Insect - Cat: Partly because of her relationship to Vinegar Tom, but also because like a cat she is vicious and just seems mad at everyone, although in reality she won’t actually hurt you.

  • Most Important Scene From Play: Joan’s confession at the end of the play; it’s the epitome of her character, she is angry and bitter and harsh and doesn’t care anymore. It is her last attempt to just say “screw you” to the world and try to be the martyr and take the blame so the others won’t die.

  • Costume: Joan wears a red and black plaid/flannel shirt, and everything else is black. She is harsh on the outside, and dresses in a more masculine manner which is in a sense her way of showing that she doesn’t care what anyone thinks, she’ll wear what she wants to. It has a bit of a dark undertone, to match her character and the dark humour that is part of Joan.

  • Emotion - Anger: Joan has a lot of built up anger against basically everyone. She is bitter, and is the type of person that has an issue with everyone. Whether it be her own daughter, Margery, or the townspeople, she does not play well with others and is angry at the world.

  • Time of Day - Night: I think Joan is someone who is more comfortable in the darkness. She does not fit in well with others, and at least at night she has no expectation of social interactions. In her past, nighttime was when she sold herself to make a living, and now she stays at home with her grandson while her daughter does the same thing.

  • Drink - Alcohol: Although there are many different kinds of alcoholic beverages, and personality types that go along with each one, I think Joan would be pleased to have anything with some sort of alcohol content. Anything that would make her life seem a little less miserable will do. (This is also alluded to when Joan asks Margery for some yeast, and Margery is reluctant to give her as she feels Joan will use it only to make beer).

 

CHARACTER OBJECTIVE

Ellen

 

  • Ellen’s super objective in this play is to show the truth and timelessness of the issues in the play. Ellen is smart, and caring, and is demonized when she has done nothing wrong. Her objective in the play is to be the voice of logic and reason, and in a sense Ellen represents the everyday woman.

  • Ellen’s objective in her scene with Betty is to save both Betty and herself. Ellen is very much the mother figure, taking care of others and being the voice of reason. In this scene Betty comes crying to her looking for a way “out” and Ellen is the one to tell her the sad truth, that the best way to be left alone is to conform. After Ellen convinces Betty to leave, the focus switches to Ellen herself. Betty asks her “what are you going to do?” and this is evidently the question that Ellen now has to ask herself. Instead of helping others and advising “clients” as she has in all her other scenes, now Ellen has to advise herself. She knows that she has done nothing wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Ellen’s objective in this scene is to find a way to save herself, whereas previously she was always composed and solving other people’s problems, now she must try and use her wit to solve her own.

 

SITE

Hagey Hall 280

 

  • The site we chose to use as our stage for the third section of the play was a classroom in Hagey Hall. We chose this because we wanted to have an academic feel to the performance, and we used the classroom setting to illustrate the abuse of knowledge that can occur in universities. We took a topic that is rather cruel and uncomfortable, and by performing it in a conference style the content was completely legitimized only because it was presented in an academic manner. Certain aspects of the site were very important for this, including the projector and the stage. The stage was only slightly taller than the ground, but this small step made a big difference. The step up showed how those on the stage (i.e the presenters and those with ‘knowledge’) saw themselves as superior to the people sitting in the audience. Additionally, the projector really added to the academic feel of the room, and specifically when various women were interrogated/tortured on the stage, the light of the projector was aimed directly at their face to intensify the feeling of embarrassment and guilt. Overall, the site was significant in forming the conference feel of the performance, and was effective in portraying the theme of the abuse of knowledge.

Dramaturgical Analysis

THEMES

  • One of the themes in Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom is gender inequality. Throughout the play women are oppressed, and witches are scapegoats for anything that goes wrong. In the first scene we meet Alice. She has just had an encounter with “A Man” in the dark alleys, and it is evident already that while both parties participated in the act, Alice is considered a whore while The Man is not. He can do what he likes, behave however he wants, without societal consequences, while Alice is condemned for her behaviour. Another example of this is how even though Joan’s husband beat her, Joan tells Alice that she would still be better off with an abusive husband then without one at all, as having a husband would mean they would  have food to eat. Women are completely dependent on men in society, and their status and wellbeing are severely diminished if they are without men.

  • The theme of the power of knowledge is portrayed in Vinegar Tom. With knowledge comes power, and Packer and Goody use this power to their advantage, while harming others. They use their knowledge to manipulate others into believing what they want them to, and furthermore convincing them to act on these beliefs. Additionally, they use their knowledge for personal monetary gain, in a town where it is clear that there are many impoverished people. 

 

DICTION

  • When Kramer and Sprenger speak, they speak more eloquently and with more sophistication than others. They have a very fast paced jargon back and forth between them, and use very scholarly language. This high level intellectual language exemplifies their characters as scholarly academics that use words that make them sound more important than their peers. For example, Kramer says “delegated by letters apostolic” and Sprenger later responds “their insatiable malice”. This is contrasted by the villager style of speech used by other characters.

  • Another example of diction is when Jack comes into the barn where Margery is trying to churn butter, and hears Margery chanting about the butter. The repeated verse of “come butter come” signifies the challenges in Jack and Margery’s relationship. The language is used as a sexual innuendo for Jack’s struggles to be intimate, and for the hardships in his marriage to Margery.

 

BEAT ANALYSIS

Scene Sixteen

 

The scene I chose to do a beat analysis for is Scene Sixteen, where Betty comes to see Ellen at her cottage. In our performance, both Ellen and Betty were attendees at the conference, and Betty came to see Ellen in the washroom of the conference centre. 

 

  • The first discovery is when Ellen tells Betty that her best chance of being left alone is to marry a rich man. Until this point, Ellen had been doing her own thing, putting on makeup, and not really paying much attention to Betty, but then she puts on her glasses, and tells her the truth. The easiest way to have everyone stop bothering you is to just do what they want. They won’t be off your case until you do, and at least this way you can be left alone. You can sit on the lawn, sing, order dinner, and not have to constantly explain yourself. This is a discovery for both Ellen and Betty because until this point Betty believes that getting married can’t possible give her what she wants, and Ellen explains to her that marriage is the best it is going to get for her, and although it doesn't seem like a good answer for Betty, given her other options it is the best way to achieve her goal of being left alone.

  • The next discovery is when Betty asks Ellen “What’s going to happen? Will you be alright?” (Churchill 169). This is an important question as it is a shift in the Ellen’s objective. Until now, Ellen has been all about helping others, telling them what they need to hear and putting on a brave face so that it looks like she has it all together. Now, it becomes real that she isn’t safe. It hits her that she doesn’t know if she is going to be alright, and she really starts to freak out on the inside.

  • The last line of this scene, when Ellen says “If I keep calm and explain it, they can’t hurt me” is the final beat in the scene. Ellen is scared, and worried for her life. She knows she has done nothing wrong, but more importantly she knows that they won’t care. Ellen is in a sense lying to herself, she know what is about to happen but she is continuing on with the false sense of hope that the truth will save her. She knows what she is facing, and she has chosen a course of action. She will stick by her beliefs until the end, and try and appease them with logic when they are only out for blood.

 

Character Assignment

MAYTAL PERLMAN

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