Fontanelle

The last few days have been interesting to say the least. I feel sort of cut off from the world if you will during the facebook fast of mine. I mean, I have no idea what anyone else is doing for their weekend, let alone what they ate for their artsy midday snack. But then again, I suppose it is good to recognize the pros and cons of technology in general. 
Take, for example, some plans I thought I might have for this Saturday night. Usually, I would await an invitation on the social media to the event but to confirm that I indeed had my Saturday evening to myself, I had to make a phone call to confirm. (Anyone who knows me knows I pretty much entirely loathe phone calls... ironic that I work in a call center-- so it is always a pretty big deal to my nervous system when I get up the drive to actually make a phone call... ridiculous, I know, but I guess that is what I get for growing up in this text/IM based age.) But aside from that and not knowing what my little sister's plans are for her birthday tomorrow, I have quite a bit more time to myself. 
I have actually taken to starting the Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and I tell you what, it is a lot easier to take in and digest the writing style and material at 22 than it was in my 6th grade year of elementary school. It is a great piece though and I cannot wait to see what the rest has in store for my creative and imaginative thought processes

Now to address my title. Aside from having the intense pleasure of spending the afternoon with my friend, Miss Bennett, eating fries and Frostys while talking about the intricacies of life (that may or may not have addressed the ridiculous yet fun experiences of dating), we went to the matinee showing of Fontanelle, the play writing debut of a Mr. Bushman (a friend of mine who I think is going to go a long way). It was quite the play, to be sure. 
Firstly, might I point out my love of the small details? Well-- within this play, there is a pet turtle (not the main focus, of course, but still integral) and I was delighted to see that they used an actual turtle! (I think there might even have been two... but I could be wrong.) 
Also, toward the very end of the play, two of the characters briefly touch on how much it rains in the month of April (probably why it is one of my favorite months) and the boy (played by a certain Mr. Isaacs) had left his hat sitting on the ground to catch the rain. The kiss that the audience was waiting for happens and then! He puts his hat on and totally drenches himself! Of course this play was done inside and it didn't rain at all today but, ah, the love and attention to the details of the script. That is what makes it rich.
It also helps when you cast the characters perfectly and I suppose if I were to ever see it performed by a different cast, I would forever be biased to this first exposure and the love I developed for the actors as they embodied the characters they were cast to play. But I get ahead of myself. 
I should probably lay out a synopsis. April Wellington is a college-age girl who has been raised by her mother, Caroline. Her father is an architect who chose his work over Caroline and his daughter after he gets an offer in Paris, France. Of course at first Caroline tries to make it work although she never wanted to leave Pittsburgh, but her emotions and nerves become completely frayed and she ends up moving back to Pittsburgh with April. 
It is mother and daughter for ten years. Out of the blue, Mr. Patrick Wellington comes home. (During his short stay, the Twin Towers are brought down on September 11-- a beautiful parallel of things that happen when they are least expected and definitely grounding.) When April's father asks Caroline to start afresh with him (even asking her to move though he should know by now how she feels toward anywhere that is not Pittsburgh), Caroline blocks him out. And although he had promised that he and April would do something together after school, he gathers his things and leaves.
When Patrick passes away in a car crash, April's boyfriend finally convinces her to travel to Pittsburgh with him so that she can make amends with her mother who she stopped trying to understand and respond to feeling that Caroline is stuck in a dream world where she blocks out everything that might affect her in a negative way. 
Now, with Caroline's poor history with men, she believes all men are dogs and that her daughter should give none of them the time of day. It is rather beautiful though how April helps Caroline snap back to reality-- Patrick may not have been able to get past his love of work but he loved Caroline until the end and not all men were the same (although they all do dumb things from time to time.... but then again doesn't anybody? I mean it, I am not letting Caroline off the hook completely but that can wait a moment...).
That is when she introduces Kyle (the boyfriend) and we fade out...

Ah! There are so many intricacies in this play! I really wish I had had the funds to watch it again for the night showing so that I could give a more rounded and clear review but I suppose this will have to do.
Firstly, I love the way they chose to present it. It was a very simple set (my favorite kind, although every now and again it is nice to see brilliant orchestrated backdrops such as are seen in the Phantom of the Opera and other such large scale plays and musicals) and I will admit it confused me a little at first because the first to enter are April and Kyle obviously coming to Pittsburgh in the morning but then she starts talking of Caroline waking up followed closely by Caroline walking on set... but they do not interact. Then it hit me when they went back to Kyle and April (after having introduced Caroline's best friend and the fact that there was to be no child portraying the toddler April but rather having the actors act to space [which was a brilliant choice... especially seeing as at one point, Caroline practically screams at April to stop crying and it would have been just that much harder to watch had an actual child been on the receiving end]) but they were in two different time frames! 
(Side, side note--- the thing I love about Ted as a playwright is the fact that his concepts could easily be adapted in film format.)
Anyway, it was interesting to see Caroline and Patrick get older and realize that they have a hard time communicating. In my perception, Caroline is so very unyielding at times to seem ridiculously stubborn and hard to work with. However, it does not help that Patrick finds a way to get what he wants (first by dancing around the subject and moving to Paris anyway without weighing all the pros and cons with Caroline) and then when she has finally snapped, he ignores her upset condition, thinking that somehow it will work out.
The final straw is when she leaves but he does not follow. For ten years. Her point is poignant when she asks him why he comes back and when he talks of staying to be a father to April she finds he isn't coming for her like, undoubtedly, she was always hoping he would over the ten long years she has had to stew about the whole predicament. 
(Heavens, I wish I could be so much more articulate about everything that I loved about this play.)
Jumping to the acting: April was excellent. They used the same girl for both the 20+ aged April as they used for the pre-teen child. It was fun to watch her let herself be so childlike in tantrums and the genuine naivety of a child when Patrick comes back into their lives even for that brief moment. As they sat and watched the Twin Towers falling over and over again on the television, just the two of them, she proclaims that she knows he is going to stay with them. He asks how. She says she just knows. Children are so quick to hope and look for the best in people--it makes one wonder what the world would be like if we were to never lose the surety that we used to face life with as kids. Every day was an adventure but our parents would be there, and there was always someone to support us (at least this was my experience growing up and I am thankful for it). 
An interesting thought that was brought up within the play surprised me in the fact that this play was written by a young man of 22. I don't believe it was a "main theme" so to speak, but toward the beginning of the play, April confronts Kyle about her appearance and whether he finds her pretty (this being around the same breaths of conversation in which they discussed why he was withholding his first kiss from her). 
Insight to Cassidy moment: I have always wondered what it would be like to have grown up without my father and brothers. I have never questioned whether they thought me pretty. Even my older brother who I am sure thought me a pest oftener than not would tell me from time to time what made me pretty. My younger brother would embarrass me with his proclamations of how pretty he thought I was. And my father? I have never doubted his opinion of me--even the first time I cut my hair short after having had long hair for a good 6 or so years, he thought me pretty and told me so. 
My heart aches for the young women whom search for acceptance and "love" from the men around them by displaying their bodies in the ways that the media tells them is the way to attract the opposite sex and get them to tell them that they are beautiful. 
Heavenly Father set forth the organization of the family for more than one glorious purpose, I am sure. But how loving His mind was to hope to bless each of His daughters with earthly fathers whom would love them for just being themselves! Whom would tell them that they are beautiful even on their off days! It breaks my heart further when a girl has a father but he does not uphold his job, his sacred duty, to love her and show her how a man should treat her. Dignity and respect and love. Why must men give in to addiction and abuse that creates the anger and unjustified self-righteousness that makes them feel justified in breaking the hearts of their daughters? 
How many tears must He count from the eyes of His daughters who He has entrusted to men that before being sent here vowed that they would protect their honor, virtue and integrity? Makeup will only cover black eyes for the busy passer-by. Their deaths will not go unanswered for! Arise and be men. Stop subjecting your daughters to the pain that you should be protecting them from. 
I love my Father, my father and brothers. And I am so grateful for the men who protect their daughters and raise up their sons to be men ready and willing to rise to the call of our Father to be the protectors of His daughters. 
On this note, I am also thankful for my mother who taught me how to treat men who treat me right and how to tactfully brush past those who will bring me no good--whether it be their own choice or the way they were raised.
And I am also thankful for women who nurture their sons and daughters the way the Lord intended them to instead of twisting their perceptions of what is expected of them when they move on with their lives and are set to live on their own. Women who also allow their husbands to love them and who love and show appreciation for the good things that their husbands do. (I am certainly a big fan of instilling gentlemanly propriety and manners in young men even when they are in single digits-- when a door is opened for me whether it be to a building or to a car, I feel loved and respected. I know some women say that chivalry is dead and that a man opening a car door for them makes them seem weak and dependent but you know what? Heck with that! There are times when I girl needs help into a car! Especially when she might be wearing heels... and I'm not even going to go into the whole pencil skirt thing. But winter times are especially dangerous, I will have you know...)

Wow... that was quite some tangent. I apologize. 
Now where was I...
Ah yes. Aside from the insight that was shown toward the insecurities girls have, there was also the comical moment when a first time father is thrown into the situation of trying to give his teenage daughter advice and good quality analogies to get her through the more trying periods of her life... and utterly failing. But the daughter still getting something out of it in the end.
And that brings us to the title of the play: Fontanelle.
The definition that Patrick gives to April is that fontanelles are the air pockets of a turtles shell that makes it light enough to carry all its life on its back. (Hence the turtle throughout the play.) He tells her this in reference to her yellow rain boots, saying that they are her way of being able to walk on air, tread lightly through life, etc.
At the end of the play, Kyle mentions that her boots must be her fontanelle. She gives him a curious look having just remembered the memory of her and Patrick speaking of the definition of fontanelle and asks Kyle to tell her the definition. He proceeds to give her the one that is usually first in the dictionary (from what I can guess from looking it up on google to be sure I got it right). Fontanelles are the spaces covered in membrane between the five separate plates of an infants skull that make it so the infants head can move through the birth canal. The point being, that the fontanelles are what make it possible to get through. 
To get through. The boots might not help her walk on air or float over her hardships and trials but the fact that they have been an integral symbol throughout her life shows that perhaps they are what she has used to get through her past hardships and what will help carry her through the death of Patrick and the renewing of the relationship between April and Caroline. 

Have I said how much I loved this play? 
Anyway. Now that I have been working on this blog for the past couple hours (a long pause at the beginning due to my roommate putting Gilmore Girls on in the same room as me possibly being one of the main distractions) I think it is about time to lay it to rest for now.

Until I write again.