The Girl of the Golden West
When I looked into David Belasco's "The Girl of the Golden West", I saw that it had been regarded as a melodrama. So, when seeing this, I decided to look a little bit more into this.
Melodrama's were introduced and were a typical form of theatre in the ninteenth century. Melodrama is a term that comes from "music drama" where music was used to create and increase already existing emotions for people. Music was also used to signify characters throughout the play. Good and evil are two themes that are expressed throughout the plot and also typical of melodramas. A melodrama posesses a structure of conflict, complication, and then resolution.
Other typical characteristics of a melodrama were that the story line possessed a villian, a hero, who had to overcome overwhelming and seemingly impossible odds, and a damsel in distress. There does, however, always seem to be a happy ending. Because this play "The Girl of the Golden West" takes place during the Gold Rush era, these character personalities go along perfectly. During this time, there were bandits, the good guy, the girl everyone's after, saloons, chases, gambling and drinking. All of these things added up, can heighten our interest because of the pure drama behind it all. It is said that melodrama is one of the most popular forms of playwrite to heighten our emotions.
1. How does the story start out that causes a sense of drama?
2.Can you think of any ways examples throughout the story that your emotions were peaked?
3.Who in the story played the villian? The hero? and the Damsel in distress?
4. Did the overall story line follow the structure of having conflict, compliccation and then resolution?
Sara,
When Rance found out that it was Johnson hiding upstairs, after Johnson's blood went on Rance's hand, I seriously thought that this was it. Rance is going to kill Johnson right then and there. However, it didn't happened. The Girl stopped Rance from hurting Johnson. This was the part that I was expecting some action, but it didn't happen. Which part of the story did you find it interesting?
-Nabila :)
Posted by: NabilaUddin at November 11, 2004 04:15 PMNabila,
Thanks for responding. My favorite part of the whole play was when Johnson and the Girl were at the saloon. It was very deceptive of Johnson to be "hiding out" when it was his plan all along to have been robbing. It was kind of ironic that he fell in love with the Girl and he had not known that he was going to end up in her saloon. At the very beginning stages of the play, I hoped for a love story and a happy ending and that's what it gives you!
Do any of you experts know where Belasco found this story? Did he really write, or is there a California source by someone else, or a folk-story?
Posted by: Richard at February 3, 2006 02:42 PM