Synopsis Of The Play 'A Man Of No Importance'

A Man of No Importance
While watching “A Man of No Importance,” written by Terrence McNally and directed by Amanda Wansa Morgan, my eyes were opened to having empathy for those who feel as though they have lived their lives in a prison. The production was vivid with a wonderful aura about itself, and I enjoyed the scenery as well as the music aspect. The music, which was written by Stephen Flaherty and directed by Alexander Crosett, gave the play a lighter touch for such a heavy subject. Whenever things would get serious in this play, the music would brighten the tone.
This play portrayed a man— Alfie Byrne— average, nice, well-known, yet passionate. He is going through the motions in life without one person. That one person he is longing for …show more content…
It opens in March on a rainy day in Dublin, Ireland. The characters in the play utilize England as a place where there is no judgement from religion, and where most people go that do not stick to the “right” way to live. There were two characters from this play that specifically stuck out to me. They both go to some sort of extent to live the way they feel as though they were meant to live. Although they try to be their true selves, the weight of Dublin’s social and religious pressures hinders them. The first one, Alfie, seems to feel guilty. While at the beginning it was hard to decipher what he was feeling guilty about, something was bothering him. He would go to confession regularly, and stop himself after confessing his regular sins. It seemed he was pondering on whether or not he should tell God what was going through his head. Although ironic (because God knows your thoughts before you say them aloud), Alfie does not go on to confess the sin that he is committing. At the end of the play, Alfie comes out as his complete authentic self. He was living his authentic self through his play productions and his reading of Oscar Wilde on the bus every day, yet something that was obviously hindering him was able to be out in the open at the end of this play. The other character, Robbie, stuck out to me specifically as well. He seems to be just the average bus driver— …show more content…
The south is a place that isn 't as welcoming for the LGBT community, and this play give insight into their minds, because they are humans as well. All humans hold the same rights, no matter who they love. Although this was set in another country a century before, it could easily be produced with Georgia in the 21st without changing much at all. A feminist philosopher was quoted in Critical Ethnography by saying, “Traveling to some one’s world is a way of identifying with them... because by traveling to their “world” we can understand what it is to be them and what it is to be ourselves in their eyes.” What I got from this quote was that the “traveling into someone else’s world” that I can relate to would be seeing Alfie’s thought process and getting into his head, seeing things from his perspective. Only then will you have empathy for people and treat them with love and respect, because it is not our job to judge people, it is our job to love