Conceit
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The Given Circumstances:
The given circumstances for I’M ALIVE are as such: The events of the play takes place in a small town of I-95 (which runs down the west coast) that has red dirt, in the middle of an “indian summer”. Lang controls the movement of time and space throughout most of the play, and to an extent, how the audience perceives the events and the characters as they appear on stage. She is not an objective narrator. Lang is in possession of Dead Dog (whether or not she killed the dog herself is unclear) and plans to sacrifice her to a witch named IKKI IKKI. Lang is best friends and romantically involved with another little girl named Jak, and together they enjoy taunting Jak’s cousin Florian, who works at the Pic-N-Pak.
Atmospheres: The Anti-Bildungsroman, The Garbage of Eden, and The Ugliness of Little Girls
The Anti-Bildungsroman is structurally important to the arc of Lang’s Character and the arc of the play. In a Bildungsroman, at the end of the narrative, the protagonist has worked through their struggles and come out with some greater wisdom and entered adulthood. Conversely, in an Anti-Bildungsroman, the protagonist does not “come of age” at the end of their journey and they receive no wisdom, no clarification, and no clean passage into adulthood. Rather, their journey represents a sort of “undoing” of character, and they become reduced and disillusioned by their experiences. At the end of I’M ALIVE, Lang’s expression of wrath costs her everything and she gains nothing from discovering her primal character. It is important that the play does not feel resolved and that the audience enters during a time of change, but leaves with a sense of loss. We are constantly building up, just to be left empty and haunted.
The Garbage of Eden represents the superimposition of Lang’s lush imagination on to the wasteland in which she lives. It is unclear just how much of what we see belongs to Lang’s perception and what is objective reality. We want the play to feel like it takes place in an area that is both decomposing and in the process of rebirth, much like Lang’s notion of herself..
As such, it’s important that the world of the play takes on a sort of “life after people” vibe, that has vestiges of the familiar but are being reclaimed by the great and terrible beauty of nature. This uncanniness supports Lang’s isolation and her inability to connect with the mundane world, while at the same time expressing her immense power over space, time, and perception.
Important Verbs: to tear, to crush
To tear is a verb that somehow encapsulates both birth and death, both beauty and violence. A young butterfly tears through its cocoon, just as a knife can tear through skin, just as saplings tear through the earth. It’s such a perfect movement for the experience of adolescence as well; their bodies, their emotions, their presence in the world is tearing away to reveal something new. Do things tear open, tear into, or tear apart? In which moments does tearing represent birth, a new beginning? When does it represent destruction? How can we physically represent the violence and beauty of nature on stage?
To crush is to hold something, or someone, so tightly that your need for control destroys it. There are many instances of crushing in the play: physical crushings(like Dead Dog or Jak) and emotional crushings (like how Rhonda crushes Langs soul or how Dex and Tweek crush Florian’s sense of safety) To crush something requires time, effort, and determination; you truly have to commit to the destruction. How do we create a feeling of escalating crushing in the space? Who is the crusher? Who is crushed? How does an embrace turn in to an act of violence?