The play The Physicists started off with several pages of description of the setting. In the midst of this excessive description, the author offered the explanation "The action takes place among madmen and therefore requires a classical framework to keep it in shape." The author explains also that the play will adhere to the Aristotelian unities of place, time, and action. It is my understanding that these unities of Aristotle were typical for a tragedy. Therefore, I assume that this play will be somewhat tragic.
For me, the tragedy came not from the events but from the setting. All of the action, that is, all of the acts were set in the same dreary sitting room. I think the best description of this room is claustrophobic. When reading, I scrunched up my shoulders because even through the pages I could feel myself being stuck in the tiny room. The three pages of description suddenly seemed well done. Although eerie, the room was the perfect place for this comedy. It was the room, in fact, that helped me to see the humour in the play more than anything. This classical setting helped to draw out the satire in The Physicists. If the play had taken place in a larger, less eccentric room, the acts of the alleged madman wouldn't be satiric but rather only strange.
In the back of the book, there are listed twenty one points to the physicists including the points that playwrights and physicists are not able to avoid paradoxes. The cramped quarters of the room also lend themselves nicely to the paradoxes in the play.
In conclusion, the setting in the play, the sitting room in the madhouse, is the perfect setting for a play that is tragically comedic, stuffed with mad physicists and rife with paradoxes.
While I agree that the setting played a key role in setting the tragic mood, I also believe that the characters seemed to have some sort of tragic flaw associated with them. This tragic flaw to me was greed. Einstein and Newton wanted all the knowledge for themselves (and were even willing to kill each other over it), and Mobius wants to keep it all under wraps. In the end, Mobius gets his wish to be trapped in that room and his buddies are now stuck with him!
ReplyDeleteI thought Einstein and Newton were being patriotic and wanted the secrets for their country. The doctor is the one who was greedy. She referenced all her family being crazy and herself being the sole heir almost as if she were bragging. She gave me a creepy feeling from the start of the play. The creepy, tiny room definitely enhanced that feeling. I can picture a big 1-2-3 on each huge wooden door in a tiny, stuffy, smoky room.
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