Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Oroonoko
Once again we have a woman masquerading as a man. I think it would be tiresome to think of reason why I woman would want to dress as a man if I were a playwright, but apparently it was quite amusing and appealing for 18th century drama. Unlike Marriage a la Mode, the combination of both a comic and tragic plot didn’t flow in this play. I found that the tragic plot was too heavy in comparison to the comic plot and they didn’t work well together. The tragic plot resulted in death and suicide which more gruesome than the tragedy in Marriage a la Mode. I did however enjoy the character of Daniel, and the fact that charlotte outwitted the other characters (even though she had to dress like a man to do so.) It would be interesting to read the original story of Oroonoko and Imoinda written by Behn because it probably goes into more detial about the lovers and their story.
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2 comments:
Yes, it will be interesting to hear what everyone thinks, especially as so many liked Dryden's play.
I think it would be tiresome to think of reason why I woman would want to dress as a man if I were a playwright, but apparently it was quite amusing and appealing for 18th century drama.
Apparently they'd come up with just about any reason under the sun. The things a guy will do to look at a girl's legs, huh? ;-) Though I think the most forced instance of "girl dressing up as boy" was in "The Country Wife". The rest of the time, it was the women's idea to dress up, but in that play Margery just went along with what her husband wanted. As a result, she made a pretty lame boy!
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