Sweat Blog
For this blog on Sweat I chose the prompt regarding the career of Lynn Nottage based on "making invisible people visible".
To begin with, throughout Sweat we can see the contrast between two different worlds. One on a global scale and one within Reading (the setting for the play). This contrast can be seen before every scene. For example, in Scene 1 of Act 1, it is stated that the "Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 776.68 points"(5).This is contrasted with the people of Reading celebrating at the "Annual Fall Festival" at a farm (5). For the people of Reading, the outside world is "invisible" and vice versa. While the world is undergoing massive change, many citizens are oblivious to it. The changes to the world are quite literally "invisible" to the people of Reading. Even though the world itself is invisible, the effects are not. The effects of NAFTA for example, have influenced all areas. Even in Reading, people are being laid off, such as Tracey, and there is nothing that they can do since the plants can "move the whole factory to Mexico"(72) and they can have anyone "stand for sixteen hours and be happy making a fraction" (72) of what the people in Reading are making. This constant contrast with invisibility and visibility throughout the play further highlights a main point being made in the play, the ignorance and the consequences of it. In addition, this visibility connects everyone who are going through the same situation. An example of this within Sweat is when everyone is laid off, and Chris mentions how "He's hustling. We're all hustling" (102) in reaction to Oscar going to work at Oldstead's. When Oscar's life is known and everyone sees that he is also working extremely hard to make money and support himself, Chris, Stan, and others understand that they are all in the same boat wanting a similar life. When the "invisible" or "quiet" person (Oscar) is made visible, everyone has a sense of relatability and connection with him.
It is because of this the invisibility/visibility shown throughout the play is very important. This play makes the struggles and life of people in smaller towns be known to the general public. For a person in a more developed area, it might usually be hard to fathom that there are places where people are losing jobs and struggling to make ends meet in a world with booming economy. These struggling people represent the "invisible people" in our society. The people whose lives go unnoticed, the people who constantly live a life of struggle regardless of the economy and other factors. Making these people "visible" to the public not only informs everyone of our society, but also sometimes connects to everyone. Some situations within this play such as the struggle to find a job, drug addiction, and etc. are very relatable to some parts of the general population. And it is this relatability that somehow connects completely different people, forming a community of like-minded/similar people.
I really liked how you talked about the contrast of the two worlds and related it to the background information section before each scene. I did not understand why Nottage included this section before each scene. However, after reading your blog, I understood why Nottage included this and how it contributed to the idea of visibility. Overall, your blog allowed me to see many different interpretations that I haven't seen before.
ReplyDeleteI like how you proved that the invisibility/visibility is what made this play important. I also chose to analyze the same prompt and thought you made a good point with relatability.
ReplyDeleteI like how you picked a certain meme that talked about a different scenario with a little bit of humor. I also definitely agree with the idea that the goal of Lynn Nottage in this play was to show the invisible people contrasted with everything in the news.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you tied the concept of invisibility to the story on both the local and worldwide news. It must’ve taken a lot of time to look through the introduction part of each scene. You really showed how our communities have a huge role on what we see in the world especially when you contrasted the fall festival and the Dow Jones. The people of Reading, don’t care about how the larger world is working, because they’re living their own lives.
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