Magnolia Character Analysis

By watching Fordham’s adaptational production of Magnolia, a play by Regina Taylor, before reading it, helped me understand the play in a comprehensive way. The elements provided by the designing, lighting, set, props, cues and emotional intensity the actors portrayed shed an all-embracing experience to the script. The outcome of the production did the play justice. Yet, the plotline was somehow arduous to follow in terms of the plot details and in identifying each the characters though the actors portrayed their characters quite individualistically. At the beginning,, the characters were singing all together, blacks and whites, to the tunes of “The Times They Are A-Changin” by Bob Dylan, setting the tone that times were changing, particularly

However, the play itself, was set in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement, where abolitionist movements diffused and civil rights movements took place; times which echoed the division between the North and the South, during the conflicts between antislavery abolitionists and pro-slavery. The set, particularly when the families were sitting on two tables across from each other, made the distinction clear without an awareness of the plot in advance. In addition, costumes played a major role in distinguishing class status and time periods as portrayed by the waitress uniform or by the suits the men wear as compared to the dresses of the socially powerful white women. However, while the message was clear, the specific individuals’ situations presented by the characters were difficult to keep up with. Moreover, the idea of how the same thing can mean very different things for different people was not presented clearly. For example, the house and the magnolia tree reminded Lily of her childhood, family history and roots in the land born on while for Thomas, they remind him of all the pain slavery brought upon him and how his brother died there. The idea of past and present was foggy. However, the fact that the costumes distinguished the characters,