Talk:The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

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Note[edit]

i was told this was a black comedy, but this article doesn't make it seem like that, was i lied to?

I don't think that it's possible to tell in this story that Tillie is "tomboyish". She very rarely says anything and you can't tell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Involutaryhaxor (talk • contribs) 16:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not really a black comedy, although Beatrice can be funny, in a brutal way, at times. And I don't think Tillie comes across as "tomboyish" either, unless her interest in science can be seen as tomboyish (which seems like a stretch to me).76.68.39.169 (talk) 06:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Beatrice was certainly verbally abusive towards her daughters, but can she really be described as physically abusive? She refers to a spanking she received as a child, but I don't think she ever hits her own children.76.68.39.169 (talk) 06:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Debut theater[edit]

Text indicates that it had its debut in 1964 at Houston's Alley Theatre, but the infobox indicates it had debut in New York City. This Howard Gotlieb Archive page indicates that a version premiered in Houston in 1964. Does anyone have good source to cite to fill in the performance history details? The Alley Theatre entry cites an entry at enotes.com which looks rather blog-like and appears uncredited. Oswald Glinkmeyer (talk) 19:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Four years later we call it "a 1964 play" in the lead sentence and cite a 1964 world premiere in Houston in the lead. I cannot reach the linked pdf source at www.alleytheatre.org, which we label "Retrieved 2011-03-06".

We give it "Date premiered April 7, 1970" in {{infobox play}}, evidently the off-Broadway NYC premiere. Template documentation instructs "The date it was first performed; (see below [details about format only])", which suggests world premiere to me.

Among the Zindel's works in the Library of Congress Online Catalog (Zindel, select "LC Online Catalog", etc), The Effect of Gamma Rays appears in 1970 represented by three English-language theatre programs and a French-language book (Montréal: Leméac, 1970; 70pp, illus.). As English-language book it appears in 1971 with 1970 copyright date and subtitle a drama in two acts.56pp 108pp, illus.

I don't know the conventions of this industry. --P64 (talk) 18:21, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A Google cache of a former Alley Theatre webpage ([1] ) gives the Alley's premiere date as May 12, 1965: "May 12, 1965: The Pulitzer Prize winning Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, by Paul Zindel, has its world premiere at the Alley Theatre." Almadenmike (talk) 02:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Alley Theatre's current history webapge ([2]) says this: "During the hot summer of 1963, a city-wide campaign yielded 25,000 individual gifts, securing the grant and assuring there would be a new theatre for the Alley. ... By the following Spring, ... the Alley received both a playwright in residence award from the Ford Foundation (for Paul Zindel) and another grant of $1.4 million from Ford Foundation to support innovative theater architecture." Possibly the play was written at the Alley in 1964 and premiered there in 1965, which may account for this Alley source ([3]) showing its dates there as "1964-65". Almadenmike (talk) 02:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

TV Production[edit]

I was under the impression that I had seen a TV production of the play early on. Is it just my memory playing its usual trick on me? Or was there a TV version, one not mentioned here? Abenr (talk) 04:39, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Los Angeles times obit ([http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/29/local/me-zindel29[) said: "A shorter screen version of "Marigolds," produced on public television in New York in 1966, prompted Charlotte Zolotow, a Harper & Row editor, to urge Zindel to write young adult fiction." Almadenmike (talk) 03:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Theatre Terminology[edit]

I'm not at all sure one can say as a simple statement of fact that Tillie is "the protagonist" and Beatrice "the antagonist" as the article presently does. Why and in what ways are the two characters presumed to fit these rather outdated terms? Zindel's work doesn't really fit the strictures once applied to all "Realist" drama in my view; it seems rather Procrustean to bend and shape the work to fit the critical terms. At the least, one should expect some explanation as to why these terms are appropriate for these characters. I would suggest eliminating the terms altogether; they really serve little purpose in a discussion of the separate characters.Doc5467 (talk) 04:53, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]