Sweat which is attentively designed and dynamically acted is Free Essay Example

Sweat, which is attentively designed and dynamically acted, is a roughed-up jewel. Just when the situations and relationships seem settled, Nottage gives the scene a slight revolve, revealing new and complicating facets. Nottage allows drama to emerge through prisms of race, gender, and class. Which allows us to see how passionate she is, by making the political feel deeply personal. She also allows her characters to open up and explain themselves in ways that could alternately attract and repel sympathies. This is a true ensemble work and one that demands a collective bargain with audience attention.

Sweat is a quietly compassionate and uncondescending play, because of how it explores the decline of industry and the crippling of unions that brings the manufacturing class into racist and anti-immigrant positions.

Realism embraces the insight that people are products of their environments. So, in order to understand a character, the audience must also view the character’s environment in much detail. In the play, Sweat, it dissects the insidiousness of privilege and entitlement.

This was set as a reminder that there is always someone on a lower plane that you can blame for all your troubles, and also there will always be someone who stands to profit from your loss. This play is a contemporary example of realism because the characters in the play relate back to their environment which takes place at a washed-out bar. The personalities, motives, and decisions of each character is dependent on the environment. In the bar we have character’s like Chris’s father, a maddened drug addict who has lost the respect of his family.

Jessie as a lonely woman hiding in a glass of alcohol, though her two friends was clashing throughout the play, she still appears to harbor most of the blows. These are just a few examples on how this play could relate back to realism.

The characters of the play each have a motive and ethical viewpoint that eventually shaped the way they think, and this deciphered how they will act upon them. These are revealed to the audience through their conversations and interactions with the other characters, whether in disagreements or mutual conversations. Considering the characters, Tracey and Cynthia, their motives were finally uncovered while in a disagreement. Tracey and Cynthia are two close friends, they can even be considered best friends, are torn apart and at odds, when Cynthia decides not to strike, along with Tracey and friends, against their factory.

Cynthia, who has recently been promoted to management at the factory, decides that she should stay at the factory, instead of striking with the Union. She discloses that she does not fully agree with her friends striking. She states, “I know it hurts, babe. Take the deal” (80). However, throughout the play, Cynthia proves that she has a deeper meaning on why she is staying instead of striking. She states, “Call me selfish. I do not care, call me whatever you need to call me, but remember, one of us has to be left standing to fight” (83). Even though, her decision to not walk out and strike with the Union is deemed as the ultimate betrayal, she had reasons on why she should remain in her position. She believed in order to continue the fight for her friends, it would be more sensible and smarter to have someone fighting on the inside. However, as the Union stand as one, Cynthia is still viewed as a traitor in the eyes of her friends. Cynthia seemed to appeal to loyalty, even though her methods of doing showed otherwise. It was expected that she would strike with the Union, since those were her friends. However, she believed that staying with the factory would help them achieve the goal of defect more effectively. Her morals prove to be complicated and debatable.

Tracey, the close friend of Cynthia, believed that everyone in the Union must move together and in unison. She believed that her close friend Cynthia, who is supposedly apart of the Union, has a commitment or duty to walk out and strike with the Union. She states, “But, I remember thinking: That is my friend· She will fight for what she loves, even if it means getting scrappy and looking ugly” (82). She goes on to beg, “Walk out with us” (82). She asserts that, by Cynthia choosing to stay in her position of management, she is not fighting for what she loves or what is right. Throughout the play it is slowly revealed that she does not accept the fact that Cynthia may be continuing to stay in order to fight for them, instead of striking with the Union. She questions Cynthia, “You want us to feel sorry for you?” (83). Tracey stands on the fact that the Union is supposed to move together and stay together, and Cynthia should have respected and uphold the standard like everyone else. Therefore, Cynthia and Tracey remain at odds and feud. Tracey appealed to loyalty to her friends, Union and community, and she was morally committed to what she believed in.

The goal of the play Sweat was achieved. The purpose and the goal of the play was to clarify and expose the power of big businesses in the working class. The people of the working class were greatly affected by the factories. The working class had to come together in unity to defeat and overcome the authority in big businesses like the factory. Even though thee characters in the factory were dependent on the factory, they were not all fully united in fighting against the authorities either. Some believed that striking and walking away was the way to fix the layoffs, and others believed that staying and fighting, by accepting certain deals, was the only way combating against the odds. The characters in the play seemed to lack understanding of each other’s morals and methods of their approaches. They were divided in the fight and ultimately failed in their fight all together. Notttage achieved the goal of conveying her message to her intended audience.

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