Shadows on a Wall
Date
2023-05
Authors
Flowers, Gwendolyn
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Abstract
My Capstone project is the script of a play that I have written. The play follows a university student named Madison who moves away from his sick mother to go to college and find somewhere that he belongs. Over the course of his first semester, strange things start to happen to and around Madison that make him question what is real and what isn’t. He tries to find comfort in the people around him, (his philosophy professor, roommate, and mother), but soon finds that they may know more than they let on. The play culminates with Madison confronting his existence as a piece of entertainment for an audience as he decides to break free of his assigned fate and create a new life for himself in the real world.
My goal was to create a world and set of characters that becomes increasingly immersive to the audience as the main character’s mental state seemingly decreases, thereby making the audience more and more invested in the play’s events. Through this I hoped to explore the relationships between audience, character, and creators.
I hope to make the audience think about our connection to the characters and worlds we create and whether they can grow past our initial plans for them. What independence does a written or performed character hold outside of what they are written for? Are we to fictional characters what any hypothetical gods are to us? What are the ethics of putting characters through horrific things for entertainment purposes, and why do we love watching it so much?
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Keywords
play, theatre, script, Plato, Camus, philosophy, fourth wall, Allegory of the Cave, Sisyphus
Citation
Flowers, G. (2023). Shadows on a wall. Honors College, Texas State University.