August Wilson & The Philadelphia

I found August Wilson's monologue brilliant.  The writing is simple yet effective and tasteful. His use of diction for Sam gives the feel that Sam is down to Earth and even without reading the description one can see that Sam has approached life honestly by what he says. I also like the irony at the end when Mr. Collins interrupts Sam. I feel this also highlights a theme of absurdity in life where it does not matter if what your saying is right but what matters is the qualifications you have. In other words, representation is held higher than reality.

 

The things I want to take from this work is Wilson's use of lyricism in his dialogue while creating a diction that stays true to the character and the overall work. Also I want to take the idea of using irony to create humor and have it be able to intertwine with other aspects of the work for the piece to come together so that the characters' dialogue is set equivalent to their actions.

 

The Philadelphia was absurdity at it's finest. With the lack of transitions between ideas and also with a lack in pretty much everything conventional David Ives dose not have limits on where he can go with his work. This creates humor because the reader or someone seeing the play dose not know what to expect. Also identifying absurdities presented around a character by saying that they fell in pocket, a black hole called Philadelphia is genius. I don't even think Donald Barthelme could beat that idea. 

 

The things I want to take from this work is the way Ives pokes fun at something, such as Philadelphia or Cleveland, and be able to use it as he does. For example, "you're in a Philadelphia. That's all."  Calling some ones situation a Philadelphia is humorous on many different levels. Also, I would like to take his overall use of the absurd and try to put it in my writing.