Jan: Reflection on the play

Jan C. Navarro

Professor Cynthia Pittmann

Engl 3103-134

10 March 2018

A Reflection on My Magnus Opus

            “A Man named Richard Cory”. That is the name I gave to the script. Now what first started as an idea thanks to wonderful ideas that were contributed by my classmates, it slowly became a reality. The idea sprouted when I was in the train and the song “Richard Cory” by Simon and Garfunkel came out in my music player. Now this song, a song that I’ve heard multiple times, even considering one of my favorites, well when I heard it this time, something clicked inside me, and I knew that I wanted to write a play based on the song. After some researching, I soon remembered that the original “Richard Cory” was a poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Now that I had the “background” information for the play I was ready to start writing the script. Now in both the poem and song, there’s a twist implemented, that twist being that Richard Cory, a man who was described as “… a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim.”, as well as being rich or as the poem says, “And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—”, he shoots himself in the head. Now when a person reads the poem or even hears the song, the first thought that would probably go through their mind is “Why the hell did he kill himself?” And the answer is quite simple and yet tragic. Richard Cory suffers from depression. That was going to be the focus of our script. How one man has to combat the demons inside his head, which were personified as a being named Dee Sion, which would always talk down to him and make him feel less than he actually is, until he is finally overwhelmed and exhausted by the constant harassment that Dee puts on his day to day that he takes his own life.

            The character I played in the play was John Doe, his name is the name they usually give male victims that don’t have any identification with them when their body is found, he is supposed to be the representation that Richard Cory has with the common folk or those of a lower social class that he is. He’s a flat character and his purpose is to inform Richard Cory about the success that the company has achieved. He’s later promoted to CEO by Richard Cory for his hard work, loyalty, and dedication that he’s given to the company. The scenes in which he appears in are Act 1, Scene 1, Act 1, Scene 4, and Act 1, Scene 5.

            Overall, I had fun doing this assignment, I know I’m not the best actor, but damn did I had fun, and seeing how my other group members acted as well was something great. But mayor props to Hector and Valeria who nailed their roles perfectly as I would have imagined it in my head. But as for me, I would stick more in the writing than the acting, or maybe with enough practice, I could be decent at it.