Blood Wedding: Journal One

"Visual action can be as important on the stage as speech." How far do you agree with this claim? In your answer you should refer to two or three plays you have studied.

I agree visual action is a very important aspect to the interpretation of these tragic plays because of the contrast of the stage directions. In the "Wild Duck" the stage directions were very descriptive down to the last item on the set, all placed a certain way and a certain color. Every single page has some description of the emotions and movements the actors are portraying which means to Ibsen the direction were symbolic and important. This importance in the stage directions brings symbols and further complements what the characters are doing in that scene. For example when Hjalmar is confronting Gina after having a long walk with Gregers Gina "(putting the shade on the lamp)" which is symbolic for her putting a filter on the truth so it would not blind someone (Ibsen 182). This portrays  there is a reason Ibsen wanted everything to look a certain way on stage and not changed to something else because it is all symbolic. The setting and the physicality of the characters in the "Wild Duck" is just as important as the speech because of the lengthy directions Ibsen uses and the descriptions of every movement a character makes. The visuals of this play are very descriptive as opposed to the "Blood Wedding" which has very vague stage directions and places importance on the dialogue. However due to this lack of description it is hard to follow what is going on and gives the reader room for imagination. "Blood Wedding" does not lead the reader step by step like Ibsen does. Ibsen creates a picture for his audience which is not as present in the "Blood Wedding" which makes the stage directions there are in the play significant because without them one would not be able to understand or make sense of the play. An example of these vague directions is "(the bride throw down the flowers)" if Ibsen had written this play he would have described these flowers as orange and told the reader they were made of wax however since Lorca is a different style of writer he left out these details to be figured out later through the dialogue (Lorca 41). Both the vagueness of the stage directions which create the visual action and the descriptiveness of them makes them just as important as the speech. Without the stage directions when the description is vague there is a necessity for them in order not to get lost, and with the abundance of detail one finds symbolism that complements what is said in the dialogue. Therefore I agree "Visual action can be as important on the stage as speech".