There was so much repitition, from the gunshot, to specific phrases, to the use of Our American Cousin as the echo of The Founding Father's death, etc. But I was especially intrigued by the repetition of this silence in the script. Parks puts this scripted silence between Brazil and Lucy over and over in the second act. I am really interested by the idea to write out the silence as lines, instead of stage directions. The visual performance will lose that specificity. The only time this scripted silence occurs in Act I is at the very end between Lincoln and Booth, right after Booth yells "Thus to the tyrants!" There is a tension in the air in the final death, unlike the previous reenactments. However, in Act II, these silent moments do not always signify tension. For instance, in this moment, I read it as a moment of intimacy between the two characters, as Lucy remembers the past: a heightened emotional state, but not dramatic tension.

Agnes earlier mentioned that Tobias would leave his room and sleep in hers, implying that they do not normally sleep in the same room. Then, Agnes depicts her parents in a similar way of being in separate heavens. It seems like both marriages are this balancing act of how they are viewed vs how their relationship actually works. While there are blatant problems in Agnes and Tobias' relationship (an affair, fighting, separate rooms, etc.), they still, or more accurately, Agnes still tries to balance the internal reality with the external denial of problems. Agnes wants to have this image as the good mother, the good wife, the caring sister, the polite neighbor. However, in attaining the image, none of the attributes fit: she is resentful, manipulative, provocative, etc. In this attempt to have her roles perfectly balanced in her life, the relationships have become completely unbalanced.

Claire ponders if she should refer to the person Tobias cheated with as a girl or a woman, clearly there being a distinction in her mind. Then, she goes on to say there is hardly a distinction, contradicting herself. As the audience does not have more context on this affair, we do not know if girl or woman feels more appropriate, or what meaning Claire has put to the terms. It reminds me of her distinction of alcoholic and drunk, maybe in her mind one is acceptable and one is not? I wonder if she is not truly trying to make a distinction, but to provoke a reaction to Tobias, as if insinuating it was a "girl" would be worse. If so, Tobias does not appear to rise to the bate, only trying to derail the conversation as a whole.

I'm interested in the lavatory as a hidden space. While it is hidden to the audience, it is known to the characters, unlike the dumbwaiter. At first, Gus seems to go to the lavatory as a distraction, or to kill time. In fact, Gus asks "when is he getting in touch?" (88) and when Ben can't answer, he pivots to talk about how the lavatory tank won't fill. Towards the end, when Ben forgets the detail about Gus having a gun, Gus then leaves to the lavatory again. Every time Gus enters the bathroom it is during a moment of uncertainty, as if he's trying to gain control or calm his nerves. It's particularly interesting that it's offstage, therefore hidden from the audience, because we can only assume what he is doing. While he could just be going to the bathroom and trying to get the toilet to flush, I read into it an anxious behavior of trying to gain some semblance of control. Then, the element of the actual flushes feels very important. The first time the toilet flushes is after Gus asks "Don't you ever get a bit fed up?" (90), and then again it flushes right before Gus has the moment realizing what Ben is about to do. Both of these moments occur in moment of recognition for Gus: that he maybe isn't fit for his job, and that Ben is presumably about to kill him. If before he was trying to gain control by this action of flushing the toilet, it's unexpected flushing adds another layer of his lack of control over the situation at hand.

In this moment where the Bishop looks in the mirror for the first time, he is in this state of undress, part the "role" of a Bishop, and part the "role" of his true sinful self. In saying to Irma that he wants to be by himself, he is meaning with the physical reflection of himself. He also directly asks the mirror question, but is quite literally asking this reflected version of himself. He is essentially having this identity crises of who he is and how the world sees him. When he says, "And in your gilt-edged glass, what was I? Never - I affirm it before God Who sees me - I never desired the episcopal throne," this conversation between him and his reflection reminds me of a post-death judgement of God. Moreover, that his reflection is a bit of a omnipotent version of himself who knows all of his desires and intentions, even those not truly known to himself. In this moment in the brothel, staring at his reflection, he is laid bare (both inside and out).

This whole scene, where Jean starts turning into a rhino, and then Berenger sees rhinos everywhere really struck me as a funny moment. The dialogue and stage directions are written in a serious way, but I can't imagine seeing this scene and not laughing. Every time Jean exits the stage (enters the bathroom) and returns, he looks more and more preposterous: turning greener, growing a horn, in various states of dress, etc. In addition to the visual clues, the noises Jean makes are honestly funny: he is supposedly making a "fas and furious gabble" and rhino trumpets. The images and sounds together remind me of a skit where the gag just keeps increasing and becomes almost nonsensical - like an SNL skit. As Albie touched on, when they finally turn into rhinos they turn into only rhino heads - it seems like a final joke on the audience. The whole time reading this I kept trying to picture it in a suspenseful, serious manner, but couldn't help but picture this absurdity as comedy.

In these lines, Hamm and Clov discuss the current state of nature, including the famous line, "There's no more nature." While this line feels bleak, it is very matter of fact, almost devoid of emotion. In Lavery and Finburgh's article, they write about this line, arguing not that nature is no more, but that the concept of nature is not the same: "that nature was always already an idea, a trope or cultural construct produced by humans for their own purposes" (Lavery and Finburgh 18). In other words, that while nature is physically still there, the human concept of nature is no more. This interpretation is interesting when considering how the characters understand nature. However, I was intrigued less by Clov's statement that there was no nature, than by Hamm's conclusion that "Nature has forgotten us." There is a wistfulness which I read into this line. While Clov seems to view it as humans out-living nature, Hamm's line sounds as though nature will make it though, but humans will not; that nature resilient in a way humans are not. It questions whether we are merely a player in nature's game, or if nature is simply a concept that revolves around humans.

The forcing of Lucky to dance seems like they're torturing him for their entertainment. The viewing of his suffering for their enjoyment comes with a moment of recognition. Pozzo says that while Lucky used to "caper for joy," he now views it as being "entangled in a net." However, this change from ignorant pleasure in watching him dance to knowing about his suffering is further made tragic by the fact that the characters do not seem affected by this recognition. This moment feels tragic in that it evokes pity for Lucky from the audience, yet it does not appear to evoke pity in the other characters, who enjoy the show, and in fact subject him to "thinking" next. Therefore, this moment seems to only loosely fit some of the components of "tragedy."

Throughout the play we see characters that represent archetypes: the father, the mother, the mistress, the violent boy, the over-sexualized girl. But this instance is the first reference in the play where it slowly becomes clear that Henry is Cain. This direct biblical reference/character made me think a lot about the concept of God producing life like a play. The choosing of names/characters, like Cain from the bible, and Sabine to represent the mythological rape of the Sabine women, reflect a very intentional choice on Wilder's part. By bringing these religious, historical, and mythical stories and intertwining them with the characters in his play, it is as if God (or fate, or some higher power) has assigned these roles and is watching humans fail over in over, like in a dramatic play.

This moment at the end gives more insight to the role of climate. Fuchs asks, "Is the environment on this planet lush and abundant, sere and life-denying, airless and suffocating" (6). This line (and other clues in this monologue) give an interesting (non)answer to this. Churchill doesn't establish a consistent climate; rather it is a climate that could turn either way depending on which "side" you were on. This varying climate adds to the absurd nature of the play, where the world of the play appears ridiculous to our eyes. However, this particularly adds to the concept Fuchs discusses where we cannot examine the world within the context of our world.