Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead envy

We are in the middle of the Drama unit in my AP Lit class, and it is fantastic. So far, we have read Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller!! Perfection!! Possibly a post dedicated just to Miller is in order?), Trifles, Hamlet, A Doll's House, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard.

R&G especially inspired a word lust and an envy that happens whenever I read something so fantastic that it makes me want to cry because of the sheer brilliance of the writing. It makes me so jealous that I didn't write it, I think My God I wish I wrote that! I and then I go off into my room and write until I can't anymore.

In Stoppard's R&G, he rewrites the story of Hamlet through the eyes of courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were both minor characters in Hamlet. The way that Stoppard writes the play, intertwining R&G's stories into the original story of Hamlet, sometimes even incorporating scenes pulled straight from Shakespeare's play. I love the way he makes the characters, two bumbling idiots who spout truths about death and the meaning of life. I have a feeling that I'm going to keep coming back to reread this one.

Miller's Salesman was another example. His use of lighting as a way of cuing a flashback was ingenious. Whenever Willy is flashing back to a memory, the lighting changes and flute music is cued to tell the audience that this scene is set in a happier time in the Loman family's life. This element actually inspired me to use a similar tactic in the play that I am writing now. Miller's use of symbols, like the stockings from the line where Biff says "You gave her mama's stockings!" pull the play together. Lines like Biff's here really got to me, especially when I was watching it at a theater about 40 minutes away from my house. when I heard that line, I had an "a-ha" (who else thinks of "Take On Me" when they see that?) moment and everything came together. The meaning of the play and key to the unraveling of Biff and Willy's relationship. 

Trifles by Susan Glaspell and A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen were so inspiring and thought provoking that I'm including them in a post about Feminism in early/turn of the century Lit (coming soon! *imagine this being said in an epic Morgan Freeman voice*). 

That's why sometimes it seems so daunting, opening a fresh new Word document or turning to a blank page in my notebook. What if what I write is no good? These masterpieces float around in the back of my mind and somehow my fingers can't move from being frozen, poised over the keyboard. I talk myself out of writing so easily. The little devil that sits on my left shoulder whispers evils into my ear and beats me back, away from the computer to the TV or the fridge. But I've recently found that writing is a lot like life. If you don't take that chance, you're not only letting that bitchy little devil win, but you're cheating yourself out of something special. I've learned that I have to write, even if I think what I do write sucks and no one will like it. Taking a leap of faith in writing is the only thing a writer can do. After all, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead wasn't written in a day.