Post-Show Questions for Discussion and Activities
Note to Educators: Use the following assignments, questions, and activities to have students evaluate their experience of the performance of Talley’s Folly, as well as to encourage their own imaginative and artistic projects through further exploration of the play in production. Consider also that some of the pre-show activities might enhance your students’ experience following the performance.
- Talley’s Folly: A Discussion. Following their attendance at the performance of Talley’s Folly, ask your students to reflect on the questions below. You might choose to have them answer each individually or you may divide students into groups for round-table discussions. Have them consider each question, record their answers and then share their responses with the rest of the class.
Questions to Ask Your Students About the Play in Production
- What was your overall reaction to Talley’s Folly? Did you find the production compelling? Stimulating? Intriguing? Challenging? Memorable? Confusing? Evocative? Unique? Delightful? Meaningful? Explain your reactions.
- Did experiencing the play heighten your awareness or understanding of the play’s themes? [e.g., romantic love and courtship; the clash of people with disparate backgrounds; ethnic and cultural prejudice and intolerance; social expectations regarding love, marriage, family, and procreation versus the interests, wants, and goals of the individual; the position, status, and experience of the outcast or misfit; the yearning for belonging; the repressive and isolating nature of secrets; and the healing power of confession] What themes were made even more apparent in performance? Explain your responses.
- Do you think that the pace and tempo of the production were effective and appropriate? Explain your opinion.
Questions to Ask Your Students About the Characters
- Did you personally identify with either of the characters in Talley’s Folly? Who? Why? If no, why not?
- What qualities were revealed by the action and speech of the characters? Explain your ideas.
- Did either character develop or undergo a transformation during the course of the play? Who? How? Why?
- In what ways did the characters reveal the themes of the play? Explain your responses.
Questions to Ask Your Students About the Style and Design of the Production
- Was there a moment in Talley’s Folly that was so compelling or intriguing that it remains with you in your mind’s eye? Write a vivid description of that moment. As you write your description, pretend that you are writing about the moment for someone who was unable to experience the performance.
- Did the style and design elements of the production enhance the performance? Did anything specifically stand out to you? Explain your reactions.
- How did the production style and design reflect the themes of the play?
- What mood or atmosphere did the lighting design establish or achieve? Explain your experience.
- How did the sound design enhance your overall experience?
- Did the design of the costumes and makeup serve to illuminate the characters, themes, and style of the play? How?
- Additional Post-Show Questions and Discussion Points For Talley’s Folly.
- Ask students to brainstorm a list of themes explored in Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly. [See list of themes above in “Questions to Ask Your Students About the Play in Production, section b.] Ask students to identify moments from the play in which each theme was explored. Ask them if they can personally identify with any of these themes or with anything relating to the characters of Matt and Sally. Have them explain their responses.
- Ask students to consider why Wilson begins the play by having Matt Friedman directly address the audience. What is the purpose of the opening monologue? What effect did it have upon them? Ask them to consider how the play and its effect would be altered if Matt’s monologue was eliminated and the scene opened with Sally’s entrance onstage.
- Talley’s Folly is a two-character play; ask your students to consider the characters of Matt and Sally. Are they dual (or dueling) protagonists or does one of them stand at the center of the play and dominate? Is there an antagonist?
- Lanford Wilson says that all of his plays center on a character with “a beef or a goal.” Ask your students to analyze Talley’s Folly with this thought in mind.
- In Talley’s Folly, as well as in his other plays, Lanford Wilson sensitively and insightfully creates outcast or misfit characters who are neglected or abandoned by their families, who fight through or against prejudice and intolerance, who harbor personal secrets, and who look for (and often find) belonging. Ask your students to consider how Wilson’s identity as a gay American coming of age in the 1950’s may have influenced his special level of understanding the situation and perspective of the outsider. How does knowing that Wilson is a gay American inform your students’ perspective of Talley’s Folly and its characters and their journeys?
- Ask students to brainstorm a list of themes explored in Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly. [See list of themes above in “Questions to Ask Your Students About the Play in Production, section b.] Ask students to identify moments from the play in which each theme was explored. Ask them if they can personally identify with any of these themes or with anything relating to the characters of Matt and Sally. Have them explain their responses.
- Monologue Assignment: “Bookending” Talley’s Folly. Talley’s Folly opens with a monologue. What if it also closed with one? Have your students write an epilogue to Talley’s Folly in monologue form.
- To prepare your students to write the play’s closing monologue, review Matt’s opening monologue at the beginning of Talley’s Folly. Ask your students to consider the overall significance, purpose and nature of the monologue. [Considerations may include: Matt’s monologue establishes his character as a joking and witty person; it creates a close relationship between Matt and the audience; it establishes the overall tone or mood as casual, friendly, humorous, romantic, etc.; it introduces the main action of the play.] Sidebar Discussion: You might also ask your students to consider what Talley’s Folly would be like if Matt’s monologue was eliminated from the beginning of the play and the scene opened with Sally’s entrance onstage.
- Next ask students to decide for themselves which character, either Matt or Sally, should speak the closing monologue and what the monologue’s significance, purpose and nature should be. What does the character want to convey to the audience in this final moment of the play?
- Students should then write their monologues. Once they have completed their monologues, ask them to draft a few paragraphs explaining their artistic intentions.
- Students’ monologues may be read aloud for the class and discussed. Ask students to consider what they find interesting, compelling, unique, meaningful, etc., about each monologue. Also ask students to elaborate on their intentions and process.
- To prepare your students to write the play’s closing monologue, review Matt’s opening monologue at the beginning of Talley’s Folly. Ask your students to consider the overall significance, purpose and nature of the monologue. [Considerations may include: Matt’s monologue establishes his character as a joking and witty person; it creates a close relationship between Matt and the audience; it establishes the overall tone or mood as casual, friendly, humorous, romantic, etc.; it introduces the main action of the play.] Sidebar Discussion: You might also ask your students to consider what Talley’s Folly would be like if Matt’s monologue was eliminated from the beginning of the play and the scene opened with Sally’s entrance onstage.
- Talley’s Folly: The Review. Have your students take on the role of theater critic by writing a review of McCarter Theatre’s production of Talley’s Folly. A theater critic or reviewer is essentially a “professional audience member,” whose job is to provide reportage of a play’s production and performance through active and descriptive language for a target audience of readers (e.g., their peers, their community or those interested in the arts). Critics/reviewers analyze the theatrical event to provide a clearer understanding of the artistic ambitions and intentions of a play and its production; reviewers often ask themselves, “What is the playwright and this production attempting to do?” Finally, the critic offers personal judgment as to whether the artistic intentions of a production were achieved, effective and worthwhile. Things to consider before writing:
- Theater critics/reviewers should always back up their opinions with reasons, evidence and details.
- The elements of production that can be discussed in a theatrical review are the play text or script (and its themes, plot, characters, etc.), scenic elements, costumes, lighting, sound, music, acting and direction (i.e., how all of these elements are put together). [See the “Theater Reviewer’s Checklist”.]
- Educators may want to provide their students with sample theater reviews from a variety of newspapers.
- Encourage your students to submit their reviews to the school newspaper for publication.
- Students may also post their reviews on McCarter’s web site by visiting www.mccarter.org/blog and selecting “Citizen Responses.”
- Theater critics/reviewers should always back up their opinions with reasons, evidence and details.
- Blog All about it!: Talley’s Folly After the Show. McCarter is very interested in carrying on the conversation about Talley’s Folly with you and your students after you’ve left the theater. Have them post a post-show comment on their experience of the play in performance on the McCarter Theatre Blog. To access the blog go to http://www.mccarter.org/blog , select “Citizen Responses” under “Categories” on the left side of the web page, and then scroll the Talley’s Folly entry to find a place to post an inquiry or comment. See you on the blog!
