Title

Basement

Date of Award

2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

English

First Advisor

Geither, Michael

Subject Headings

Kidnapping -- United States -- Drama, Kidnapping victims -- Psychology -- Drama, Immigrants -- Family relationships -- Drama, Theater

Abstract

Basement is a play in two acts. I began writing this play at a time that I was contemplating a great deal on the idea of individual, human nature, and the consequences of routine, generational suppression of said nature. At the time that this play was written, stories surrounding human subjugation, rape, torture, and murder were very prominent in the news and while the events of Basement have in no way been taken from any of these actual stories, the major themes of Basement were very heavily influenced by these stories of human bondage. As a writer, I consider my primary job to be as a story-teller. And further, as a writer whose ̀home genre,' so to speak, is playwriting, I try to be mindful of the duality of the narrative being told in a play. That is to say, as a playwright, I try to create a visual narrative within the script of my play that is just as engaging, and essential to the over-all body of one of my pieces, as is the written narrative in the form of the words that I put down on the page. To that end, with Basement, as with all of my plays, I wanted to write for any potential space that this play might be staged in. And, in doing so, I hoped to create an environment in Basement, into which the story of the play fully immerses the audience. I tried to accomplish this by putting the audience in a position similar to the character of the Young Man in the play. Being a character that does not know the entire story surrounding his current situation, and only receiving information about his situation at the same time as the audience, I hoped to create a fully realized reality for this play, immerse my audience into said environment, and leave any potential audience members taking the events of the story with them as they leave the theater

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