Summary:
In Death and the Maiden, stage directions present us with real places, people and problems and try to transmit the author's intentions through our emotions in order to engage us mentally. The audience in The Visit however, is left emotionally untouched because of the extreme irony and absurdness of the action.
How do Stage Directions Help to Promote
Character Strengths and Weaknesses
In plays unlike in other written works, the author has one different vary powerful and effective tool at his disposal, for portraying characters and influencing the audience: stage directions. In the following two contrasting plays, The Visit and Death and the Maiden, the stage directions have a very different purpose. We will look closer into how Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Ariel Dorfman have used this very influencing feature to affect the reader and develop their character's strengths and weaknesses.
The two plays differ greatly in style and intention, thus the stage directions in each must also contrast each other and work towards creating that contrast. While Death and the Maiden is a realist play, seeking to engage and interact with the reader on an emotional level, in order to arouse thoughts and reactions in him, The Visit is a Brechtian style theatre work. In Brechtian theatre, or also known as "theatre of the absurd", the playwright's goal is to detach the audience from the action and so undermines the illusion of theatre itself. This alienation effect is used because Brecht believed, that feelings clouded the audience's perception and thus influenced their thinking and reactions to the play.
In both plays, we are confronted with a female protagonist. The women have both suffered immensely due to previous weaknesses. Now they have returned to portray and dominate the stage because of the weaknesses of the others. It is important to emphasise that more than half the stage directions are concerned with them. This alone, already shows how important and influencing these characters should turn out to be.
In Death and the Maiden, our protagonist, Paulina Salas is introduced in the very first, opening paragraph of the play: "[Paulina] hurriedly stands up, goes to the other room, looks out the window... goes to the sideboard, takes out a gun, stops when the motor is turned off" Short, simple and precise, sentences reflect her state of mind and create a feeling of speed and the sense that Paulina is in a rush. She appears anxious and jumpy. There is something about her character that makes her feel unsafe and scared. Since this is a realist play, the setting chosen must be plausible and easy to imagine as authentic and existing in reality, otherwise the feeling of realism might be lost. "sounds of sea... beach house... curtains blowing in the wind..." are one of the first things we are exposed to in the stage directions and we are immediately transferred to such a place in our imaginations.
In Friedrich Dürrenmatt's, tragi-comedy The Visit, the setting is presented to us by "four men and an unspeakably ragged fifth (so are the other four)" which describe the piteous state of their town ludicrously, in turn, one after another, while sitting on a bench, watching the trains go by. This already creates a feeling of ridiculousness and the audience is only left as an outside observer without any real feeling towards any one. The feeling of illusion and detachment increases as we are introduced to the blind pair of Clair's servants (Koby and Loby) who repeat her every command twice in a humorous and childish fashion.
As we later find out, the action in Death and the Maiden is set in a country that has until recently been under a very strict and brutal dictatorship regime - not very much unlike Chile, where people who knew too much or opposed the government, were imprisoned and/or mysteriously disappeared. Paulina, who has had to experience this first hand, believes the man who enters her house that night, Dr Roberto Miranda, to be the main person involved during her kidnapping, torture and multiple rapes. As she vividly recalls her experiences of her imprisonment to the doctor as he is tied down to a chair, "first imitating the voice of Roberto and then of a man. 'Give her a bit more. This bitch can take a bit more. Give it to her' 'You sure Doc? What if this cunt dies on us"' 'She's not even near fainting. Give it to her, up another notch.' That same voice, next to my ear, mixed with saliva." These few lines reconstruct the action only too realistically for the audience, as it takes in the vulgar language and the darker and more sexual connotations of "that voice mixed with saliva." The cold reality of this, sparks the audience's feelings of pity and sorrow towards Paulina and help us to better understand her treatment of Roberto.
The name of the man she has been tortured for is Gerardo Escobar, who has now been named head of a commission to investigate the crimes against humanity committed during the regime and expose the wrongdoers, but not punish them. From a man in a such position we would expect someone with much more control and persistence then we actually observe. We are encouraged to think about what is at stake for him here. The country in now under a democratically elected government and many people want the past revealed and the criminals dealt with. The old regime leaders however, still have power and control over the army and want the past forgotten. Gerardo is faced with the dilemma of justice through revenge. The problem - only very true and real, forces the reader to think about how he, himself would react in a situation like this and is a part of the playwright's goal.
In The Visit, however we don't experience this mental bonding toward the characters and their problems. Everything is meant to separate us and our emotions from the action of the play. Our protagonist, Claire Zachanassian, seems to be all artificial. During a conversation in Konrad's Village Wood, she is flattered by Ill on how beautiful and unchanged she is. "Don't be daft. I've grown old and fat. And lost my left leg. An automobile accident. But they made a splendid job of the artificial one, don't you think? (She pulls up skirt, displays left leg.) It beds quite well" is the response he receives. Then as he kisses her hand she informs him that "It's artificial too. Ivory." Ill, horrified, asks her if she is all artificial, at which she replies: "Practically." All these relations to senselessness and the almost total absence of feelings and lack of intonation during their conversation together, remind us of the typical stereotype of the rich and powerful, greed obsessed man.
The scenery and setting of the forest itself is not much more genuine. Dürrenmatt selects
The four men from the beginning to "stand around in a half-circle, holding twigs at arm's length to designate trees." With all these laughably unnatural features and references to falseness we are pulled away from reality and are only left as sideline observers without getting emotionally involved.
For both plays, stage directions have very different goals and effects. In Death and the Maiden, they present us with real places, people and problems and try to transmit the author's intentions through our emotions in order to engage us mentally. The audience in The Visit however, is left emotionally untouched because of the extreme irony and absurdness of the action. As with all Brechtian theatre works, this is done to prevent our emotions from getting in the way of our thinking and thus, not making biased conclusions.
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