- Brief Plot Summary
Losing the fate in God represents a tribulation moment in Ken Carpenter’s life, who feels distracted and uncomfortable. He suddenly believes that people are not the product of a miracle of God, but only accidental science, and he is very frustrated that he cannot understand the stars. His wife, Nancy cannot help him with his problem, but she suggests Ken to speak to reverend Todd. Reverend Todd understands that Ken’s only reason for feeling odd is the fact that his mother, Cammie is ill and demented and he advises Ken to go on a vacation on his own.
He leaves his family and takes the train to London. In train he meets Pat Monday, a divorced woman with whom he will have one – night – stand, as the woman seduced him. In his vacation to London he also meets Tamyra, a bartender with whom he interacts a lot during his stay in this town. He makes acquaintance also with Harry, Tamyra’s flat mate. They start on the wrong foot, but they manage their differences and start working together, as Harry teaches Ken to sculpt and together they create sculptures of Tamyra, who serves them as model.
In the meantime Ken’s mother, Cammie dies, and Ken feels uncomfortable again, with where he is. He smashes his sculptures, as a symbol of his adversity against his lost faith from the past. He refunds his trust and goes back home to his mother funeral, and finds a cruel judgment from his daughter Ashley, who condemns him for going away and not giving any sign. He also finds his wife, with confused feelings being happy to see him after several weeks of absence and in the same time angry because he gave her no sign during this time. Nonetheless, she decides to forget him, when Ken explains her that he has found his faith in God.
B. Analysis of Conflict
The author of “Man from Nebraska”, Tracy Letts, sets his play around a religious subject: loosing fate in God. This generates the conflict of the play, as this fact determines him to take a break from his day to day life and to go on a vacation, for finding his fate elsewhere. And he succeeds in this desiderate, as he finds God in an unexpected place, in a flat in London, where he created some pieces of sculpture after Tamyra’s model.
The play sets Ken at a crossroad moment in his life, determining his conflicting estate of going away from home and his religious environment, to stay among strangers, in a place that has nothing to do with God or religion, which is precisely the setting in which he finds his love for God.
This indicates that God is not in a church, or in a religious book or in the devout religious books. The fact that he found his faith in a place with no relation to religion illustrates that Ken was disengaged by the mechanical way of illustrating one’s faith, thru a structural strategy of developing a relationship with God, in three steps, as presented in the beginning of the play: “the first part, conversion, and the second part baptism (), part three, Christian growth” (Letts 4).
C. Concept for Production
Before the curtains are drawn, a sound of bells and a religious chorus would sing the prayer song that Ken and Nancy sing in the play: “All on the altar, dear Jesus, / Master, I hear thy call” (Letts 4). Next, the curtains are drawn and one next to another, kneeling down sit Ken and Nancy, singing along with the chorus and the priest in front of them. The audience would be included in this act, as the other parishioners participating at the religious ceremony. To include the audience directly, the reverend Todd would address them directly, watching them and asking them if they know the three steps of developing a relationship with God. Depending on the case, if the pastor receives an answer or not, he will utter a speech underlying the importance of these three steps for a real Christian. In this time, Ken would look up.
The explanation for his attitude should come in the following act, when Ken would continue to look up, with tears in his eyes and confusion in his soul. The décor of the stage should be relevant, revealing a dark sky lighted up by stars. Next, Ken would start a conversation with his wife, expressing his sadness for his mother being in a lost state of mind and the fact that he does not understand the stars (to which he was looking up) and also that he lost his faith in God.
At this moment, the reverend Todd enters with Ashley, Ken’s daughter, telling her the story of Mr. Spears, a man from his parish, who left his home to go to California, where he is playing the organ in a “hippie heavy metal band” (Letts 4). He sees Ken distressed and departed and begins a conversation with him, as Ashley and Nancy discretely leave the room for letting the two men talk. Listening to his story, the pastor recommends Ken to take a vacation. Sceme ends.
The next scene finds Ken in a setting looking like a train, sitting near a woman named Pat, who is talking somehow obscene, sending him clear sexual invitations to which Ken cannot resist. They pull the curtain on the window of their train compartment, indicating that they consume a sexual act. When he raises the curtain, Ken is sitting at a bar, without Pat, but near another woman, much younger than him and very attractive, who is serving him alcohol, although he did not use to drink. Moving away together from what seems to be a bar, they move towards the right side of the scene, where an armchair lies and next to it, pieces of stone, appearing to be some kind of sculptures. Harry, Tamyra’s flat mate, enters the scene, and puts up a fight with Ken who was strangely analyzing one of the stones, accusing him of not having the sense of art. As the fight goes on like this, Ken is committed in demonstrating to Harry that anybody can do what Harry calls art, and he picks up a stone and a carving hammer and starts carving. Next, both men start carving, as Tamyra is posing for them. The scene ends with two men carving furiously, while the woman poses relaxed. The next scene opens almost the same, only that the men are no longer furious, but detached, even making jokes with. This atmosphere is interrupted by a phone call. Ken answers and he is shocked to learn that at the other end is his daughter Ashley, who is informing him that his mother died. Without saying a word, he returns to his sit, continues carving and carries on his conversation with Harry, as if nothing had happened. However, shortly after, he cracks the statue he was working on, picks up his jacket and runs off the door. The next scene sets Ken near the coffin of his dead mother, talking with his daughter, who is condemning him for his behavior. Nancy appears in the middle of the quarrel and her face expresses joy and irritation in the same time. She smiles, because she is happy to see him after two weeks of absence, but avoids his touches because she is upset. As Ken explains her that he found God, he stretches his hand and she reaches to it, hugging him.
D. Ideal cast
Ken Carpenter – Kevin Spacey – because he has the approximate age to play the character, he is white (as the play did not suggest any other way), and he has a serious appearance, passing as a middle class religious man, but he also has a wild side, indicating his moment of lost.
Nancy Carpenter – Julianne Moore, a white actress, over 50, having a domestic attitude and she could easily pass as a religious woman, much in love with her husband and devoted to her family.
Cammie Carpenter – Betty White, a white actress over 80, she could play the role of a demented old lady with Alzheimer, transposing very good in the character.
Ashley Kohl – Jessica Chastian, around 30 years old, has the severity and the firmness to adapt to Ashley’s character and she resembles to Julianne Moore.
Reverend Todd – Robin Williams – because the play indicated that the reverend has humor and irony, features that the actor wears like a glove. He has the artistic force to express the character of a very pious and religious man and to influence others.
Pat Monday – Stella Ann Ward, she has an electric power, attractiveness and she can be the woman that no man can refuse, alluring them with her passion and her erotic energy.
Tamyra – Keira Knightley, a very beautiful and attractive young woman, she has the naughtiness, the adventure sense and a free spirit fitted to play the role of the young bartender.
Harry Brown – Christian Bale, because he has an artistic flavor and passion, plus the masculinity needed to play the character.
E. Analyze the two major characters
Ken Carpenter passes through a crises moment in his life, as he feels he has lost his faith in God. His objective is to regain his faith and his balance. One could say that he passes through the middle age crises and he needs to get out of his environment to become comfortable with himself again. In his journey, which is an initiatory travel, he discovers various obstacles that stay in the way of finding his trust in God and to find himself. Meeting Pat and having a one – night stand with her, developing a relationship with Tamyra and Harry, drinking alcohol, all these make him feel a new man, but in the same time, these are the obstacles that drive him precisely to finding his true self and reconnecting with God. He met his objectives at a very high stake: the risk of losing his family. However, he found his inner peace, understood himself and regained his family back, because he was confident that he knew what he wanted and he knew who he was.
Nancy Carpenter, his wife, is the prototype of the devoted mother and wife, sacrificing her happiness for the sake of the ones she loves. Her objective is to see her man happy and at peace with himself and she encourages him to take a vacation on his own, although she feels that this is a high stake of never seeing him or hearing from him again. And precisely the fact that he does not give any sign in the period when he disappeared is what constitutes an obstacle in the way of knowing that her husband is at peace with himself and that he has found God.
F. Stage, Lights, Costumes, Sound, Music
The stage should be divided into more corners, each being humanized with a different action. Likewise, the lights should accompany the action and depending on the emotion and the tension that the actors transmit, there should be different light intensity and even a discontinue light, for example in the moment when Ken hears that his mother has died.
The sound should be well distributed so that it could be heard all around the theater hall and there should be also inserted several musical arrangements, mixing religious themes (played by chorus or instrumentally) with hippie heavy metal guitar chords. As for the costumes, the characters should express their status, belonging of the middle class and their level of faith, and they should be separated: the people in Nebraska wearing normal, decent clothes, in open colors (indicating that they are at peace and in harmony with God), and the ones in London should wear hippie clothes, short dresses and tights for ladies and leather pants or dirty – cut jeans for men, inclusively for Ken. His costumes should also represent a characterization for him, as a person transcending through different worlds for finding himself and God.
G. Comparison with “August Osage County”
In “August Osage County”, Beverly’s leaving away from home is a similar act with Ken’s vacation by himself. The familial plot is in “August Osage County” is intense, and at a certain level so is the one from “Man from Nebraska”. However, in the second play, the plot is more intense during the London adventure. Depressions and addictions are common features in both plays and so is the loosing of hopes, of balance and of self.
However, in “Man from Nebraska” the head of the family is temporarily lost and refunds himself after taking a break from his ordinary like. On the contrary, Beverly, the head of Weston family takes a vacation to escape from his ordinary life and he finds his peace in committing suicide. Although he takes new ways in life (having an affair and drinking), Ken comes back to his old lifestyle, realizing who he is. His family is not as complex as Beverly’s and the sentimental complications solely occur in the London environment. The theme of dementia appears in both plays, but in “August Osage County” the demented woman is also a drug addict and unlike “Man from Nebraska”, where Cammie, Ken’s mother dies, Violet continues to bad – mouth her relatives throughout the play.
The plot is much more dynamic throughout “August: Osage County” and the characters evolve, while in “Man from Nebraska” the characters’ evolution is mainly focused on Ken.
These similarities and connections, but also the different points between the two plays will contribute to directing “Man from Nebraska” by giving it a more dynamic approach, combine with hysterical aspects and a spice of dark humor, in the London episode. In addition, the comparison is also effective for emphasizing the fact that Ken is going on an initiatory journey, having hopes and expectations for regaining his faith and his balance, although, just as Beverly, he faces the middle age crisis.
Works Cited
Letts, Tracy, August: Osage County. Theatre Communications Group. 2008. Print.
Letts, Tracy, Man from Nebraska. New York, Northwestern University Press. 2006. Print.
