On the first day of Winter Intersession 2022, I will introduce my students to a winter-themed stage play: Bus Stop.  In the first scene of the first act, a freezing snow storm hits a small town in Kansas.  This is the 1950s.  The entire play is set inside a seedy, dingy bus-stop café that must stay open all night to accommodate passengers stranded by the blizzard.  Playwright William Inge is from Kansas, and he knows the landscape. The snow may serve as a metaphor for all the lonely people he grew up with. I’m betting my students will prefer this play to their other college readings.  It’s real-life trauma that make for the best stories.  Here, the sadness is brought in by the busload.  Jaja. A lot of distressed characters.  Put them all in the same room overnight without any chance for warmth or sleep, and I call this a GoodRead!

Will my students recognize snow as metaphor?  If someone told me a person is cold or frosty, I would think they were distant, unfriendly.  Loneliness and isolation is a obvious theme in the play.  Cherie is 19-year-old passenger on the bus:   She is a struggling nightclub performer who is being led away against her will by a demented cowboy.  She has hopes and dreams, but none of them have anything to do with the man she is with.  Grace, the owner of  the bus-stop café,  lives in an empty apartment above.  Her husband has disappeared a long time before.   She takes on brief sexual encounters with bus drivers and occasional passengers, but they leave her so fast, it only makes her more lonely.   I’m planning my first lessons as I write this. I hope to discuss Figurative Language.  Symbolism.  Juxtaposition.  It’s cold inside this café.  Each of the characters seem to be fighting back tears

I just read of an interesting psychological experiment out of the University of Toronto that might fit our initial discussion. Psychologists Chen-Bo Zhong and Geoffrey Leonardelli claim they can draw a straight line from feelings of isolation to physical feelings of coldness.  In their studies, they put together a diverse group of test subjects and asked them to relate their feelings of rejection and/or despair. Like, what did it feel like – in terms of temperature – when they failed in a social situation or a job interview?  Here is the interesting part: in one of their surveys, they asked their volunteers to remember/document room temperature with each experience – Zhong and Leonardelli say they can prove on a scientific basis that “social exclusion literally feels cold.”   Brrrrrrrr!

My students enjoy reading about Marilyn Monroe.  In many of my clases we discuss both her life and her death.   In the film production of the stage play, Marilyn plays Cherie.   We will all see the parallels between Marilyn’s struggles in real life and Cheries tragic circumstances in print.  In Cherie, Marilyn had to recognize certain characteristics from her own troubled life.   Here Marilyn used her Method training to bring out both the vulnerability and toughness in her role.  How did she do? Film critic Susan Doll wrote this: Marilyn didn't just act the role of Cherie-on-screen, she became Cherie….

I’ll dedicate a few Zoom Meetings to Readers Theater.  We’ll learn about Stagecraft and Actors Studio.  More Marilyn!  Method actors dig down deep inside of themselves for a memory or an experience  that will help them recreate the true emotions of their character they are playing.  Marilyn’s emotional investment in her role will inspire my students.  Like Cherie, Marilyn was a dreamer. From an early age, when she was separated from her mentally ill mother, she lived her life bouncing between orphanages and foster families. She grew up lonely and vulnerable.  On the big screen, her pain is written all across her face.

I know.  I know. Teaching drama online will be a challenge.  I expect a few of my lessons will be new and confusing to my students, if not a little intimidating.  Few of us will know anything if at all about life in Kansas in the fifties. But William Inge is  still  celebrated as  legendary playwright. The multi-dimensional structure of his work will inspire our critical thinking skills.  I’m looking forward to see my students share their views on our class discussion boards. And of course,  Marilyn provides us  all someone  to root for!

Below:  I share a scene from the movie Bus Stop. At the time the film was made, Marilyn may have been the most famous woman on the planet.  But, it wasn't always like that. She never forgot her past.  She knew struggle. She demanded to act in this scene with a minimum of makeup.  She ripped her own fishnet stocking (because she was supposed to be poor!)  And when a drunk customer in the scene accidentally touched her behind, she slapped the shi*t out of him!