School for Scandal

I think I am finally starting to understand what Kirk meant when he said that this play was "indicitave of its time period, but the way in which we access it can be universal." Obviously the idea was that misfortunes dealing with higher class society (which usually results in death) and the lower class society (which often is just comical, but can also lead to death) must not have been as prevelant. This leads us to be able to infer that, although still relatively sparse, a middle class seems to have been growing. No longer is the separation between peasants and noblemen as great as it once was. An expanding merchant class allows for different situations in everday life. For the plays of lowerclass, its all about finding food, shelter, and clothing. With the powerful people, it was all about who can get to be the most powerful and stay in power. This new middle class, however, begins to set a new precedent by living life not too differently than the way we live it today. This is your basic soap opera, only all of the rumors are fake.

In high school I performed in a production entitled "Rumors." It was a comical play, with MANY of the same elements that a School for Scandal had: heads popping out left and right, people JUST missing the person talked about by a split second, telephone effects, and more. This play obvsiously is the persona of its time period, but that doesn't limit its effectiveness of empathy over time.