To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:15:36 -0500
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Adapting Grimm's Fairy Tales...


> Mr. Rogers,
>
> To clarify: you are not suggesting that the ostensive and subliminal 
> endings should always be different or at odds with one another, are you?

Hey, please, I'm not Mr. Rogers.  Robert, Rob or Bob will do.  The endings 
are not necessarily different or at odds with one another, they just give 
the audience that "ahah" moment at a play's conclusion.  For example, take 
"Rocky" again.  It's such a simple story.  Rocky is a down and out fighter 
who gets a second chance to get in the boxing ring and win an important 
fight.  That's the plot (ostensive).  But is that the story (subliminal)? 
No.

Along the way, we are shown examples of Rocky's potential goodness as a 
human being.  Like the scene in which he disappoints his loanshark boss when 
he fails to break the legs of a guy who hasn't paid his debt.  Or the fact 
that he falls in love with a mousy, plain girl.  Or the fact that he has a 
goldfish.  These incidentals hint at the real issue of the story.  A story 
about reclaiming one's dignity in the face of seemingly insurmountable 
adversity.

If Rocky showed no second thoughts about his job with the loanshark, and 
picked a buxom immoral stripper for a girlfriend and had a pit-bull for a 
pet, it would be a completely different story, and we probably wouldn't care 
about him.

Analyze any story - even "Snow White," and you'll see what I mean.

Robert 

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