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Richard and the Love of the List

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Pronunciation options - “Aunt”

According to the Harvard Dialect Survey conducted in 2003.....you can pick your pronunciation!

That being said, here are my thoughts/suggestions about choosing “Ah-nt” or “Ant” for the show:

1. In general, “Ant” is the much more common pronunciation in the US, with about 75% of nationwide survey participants using this pronunciation.

2.  The approximately 15% of people who use the “Ah-nt” pronunciation are primarily from the East Coast, although again, “Ant” is still more common even in that region.

3. Of the East Coast group, “Ah-nt” is predominantly a Massachusetts thing and not so much a Pennsylvania thing. In fact, the Pennsylvania data show that you’re about as likely to say “Ah-nt” if you live in PA or CA.

So, given all that I would say that if you want to make the Blakes sound “East Coasty” to a California audience, using the “Ah-nt” pronunciation will probably help and isn’t outside the realm of reality.

But if you want to take a more pedantic route - they’re statistically much more likely to be on Team “Ant”.

Here’s the heat map of people who say “Ah-nt”

And here are people who say “Ant”

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It looks like The Looming Tower is available to stream on Hulu and Google Play as well as on Amazon at the link above.

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About the Epigraph

Karam’s first epigraph comes from a famous self-help book originally published during the Great Depression, Think and Grow Rich. Karam says he originally intended it to be sort of tongue in cheek, but ultimately found that he anchored each character in the play with one of the “six basic fears” and built them out from there. While he doesn’t draw the line between each character and their fear, he does say that it’s “not difficult to guess”, so here is my take:

POVERTY - Erik; he focuses on the girls’ ability to make money, talks to Richard about the importance of saving, and can barely admit he has lost his job.

CRITICISM - Brigid; her most obvious relationship with criticism is when she talks about the backhanded letter of recommendation from her professor, but you can also see it in the way that she is highly critical of the rest of her family (often in a “teasing” way) but is highly defensive if they joke about her life.

ILL HEALTH - Deirdre; she puts a brave face on taking care of Momo but her caregiver burnout is showing and many of her updates about others relate to health.

LOSS OF LOVE OF SOMEONE - Aimee; she is stoic in the face of her disease, and fatalistic about being pushed out of her job, but the thing that leads her to desperate phone calls and tears is the ongoing loss of her relationship with Carol.

OLD AGE - Momo; the last real connection we have to her in the letter to Brigid and Aimee focuses on the regret she feels about not doing enough with her life before old age caught up to her.

DEATH - Richard; he is the least obviously fearful of the characters, but he maintains a kind of heartiness with the older characters in the play that seems like it masks a discomfort with people who are aging toward their end of life.

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Deirdre and the Virgin Mary

When Deirdre talks about appearances of the Virgin Mary, “not just in Fatima but in West Virginia,” she is most likely referring to the apparition of Our Lady of Fátima in 1917, Portugal:

Between 13 May to 13 October 1917, 'a lady more brilliant than the sun' appeared six times to three Portuguese shepherd children, Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

The lady asked them to devote themselves to the Holy Trinity and to pray the Rosary every day; prayer would end the Great War then still raging. She also showed them a vision of hell and entrusted them with three secrets.

The children's visions drew thousands of visitors and upset the political balance in the country, with a young, anticlerical republic fighting off a strong conservative reaction. The children were even briefly jailed, and variously ordered to reveal the secrets or admit that they had lied. The local administrator even threatened that he would boil them one by one in a pot of oil.

At the Virgin's last appearance, many of the up to 100,000 visitors reported a 'Miracle of the Sun': multicolored light and erratic movement from the sun. Others saw nothing out of the ordinary.

As predicted by the Virgin, Francisco and Jacinta died soon afterward, in the Spanish Flu pandemic that started in 1918. Lucia became a nun, and sporadically saw the Virgin again later in life, as well as Jesus. She died in 2005, aged 97.

Dierdre may also reference Fátima because she remembers that Pope John Paul II credited Our Lady of Fátima with saving his life in the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981 – the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima. The Pope donated the bullet that wounded him to the Sanctuary at Fátima.  

For more about Marian apparations, check out these sites:

A world map of Virgin Mary apparitions

500 Years of Virgin Mary Sightings in One Map

The Miracle Hunter (comprehensive database of sightings)

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Momo and dementia

Although the script doesn’t specify, it’s most likely that Momo is suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), or a very advanced form of Alzheimer’s disease. FTD is closely associated with the symptom of aphasia or “word salad” in which the speaker is unable to speak in understandable phrases or use the correct word to name something.

I know many of us have firsthand experience with these diseases, but here’s a nice, short article about a film that follows a woman who has dementia. The article is about the film itself, but poignantly describes the filmmaker’s experience interacting with the woman during the film’s making.

https://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/dementia-from-the-inside/

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Scrantonese

Found by our own Jamie Jones, here’s a helpful guide to the Scranton dialect. In 2014, Scranton was in the finals of Gawker’s America’s Ugliest Accent competition!

Kuzzints: Your uncle’s children.

Clozeda light: Will you please turn the lamp off?

Onnakowna: Because (“I got a flat tire onnakowna someone dropped nails on da road.”)

Pellow: Where you put your head when you sleep onnakowna you’re tired.

Buh-uns: Those little white round things on the front of your shirt.

Kupple-too-tree: The number of missing buh-uns you might have.

Hayna: Excuse me, but did I just sound as silly as I think I did? (It really means “ain’t it?”)

Jeet jet?: Gee, I was wondering if you had anything for dinner?

No, jew?: Well, no, golly, but I was wondering the same thing about you.

Jaunt-too?: Do you want to?

Wock: What you take the dog for at night.

Tock: What you do on the phone.

Plimmit: A muted reference to Plymouth, Pennsylvania.

Dee Eynon: Sugerman’s Department Store. (R.I.P.)

Turdy-ate: Used to be WOLF-TV, Channel 38. Now it's WSWB 38.

Up Da Line: Up Scrah-un way.

Nanny Coke: Across the river from West Nanny Coke.

Lannick City: That place on the Jersey Shore where all of the bingo buses are going these days.

Melk: A drink that goes good with cookies.

Da You: The U. (The University of Scranton)

Otto: A car.

Over town: Downtown.

Downtown: Over town.

Tarupe: Throop, Pennsylvania.

Ackamee: The place where you get da grocery order. (ACME R.I.P.)

Haitch Beeyo: HBO, the cable TV all night movie station, I tink.

Baah-ul: That ting dey put Gibbons and Steg in. (A Baa-ul is a barrel, steg is beer)

I totso: I thought so, too.

Corpse house: Where else in the world do they call funeral parlors corpse houses?

Beer garden: The place where you go to pick up a six-pack of Steg.

Wah?: What?!

Tot: What Mr. McArdle tried to do in school :)

Lonn more: It cuts the grass.

Rude aidy: The road that takes you to Penn State.

Atha Leets: Lots of good ones play for Penn State.

Bot tings: What you did with your money at dee Eynon.

Da moll: The Viewmont Mall up on the highway. They’re always having big sales.

Da Steamtown: The other mall over town.

Wadder: Comes out the fosset.

Be-endat: Means “because.”

Hoddog: Tastes great with soss on it.

Fil’em: In some cultures, this is what you say when you bring your empty beer glasses to the bar. Here “fil’em” is the thing you put in your camera.

Arthur Idas: What retired atha leets take Excedrin for.

Burgarly: When you enter a building without permission and maybe take something.

Burgalry: A garbled form of burgarly.

Yuge: Really big.

Zenit: That brand of TV that you watch the Penn State atha leets on.

Swoyerville: Swoyersville. Don't ask why. No one knows.

Hose house: The place where dey keep da fire trucks. Sometimes called a fire barn, and usually found between a corpse house and a beer garden.

Hox: The basketball team in Lanna, Georgia

LCC: LCCC

Axe: Ask

Termistat: thermistat

Bub: light bulb

Winda: as in "closeda winda, da ya live in a barn?"

Haf a cuppa caffee: half a cup of coffee

Up da mall, and down da mall: Viewmont and Steamtown respectively

Karpendale: Carbondale, PA

Sowside Scrah-uhn: Southside Scranton, PA

Nangano: Nagano, Japan, where dey had dem `lympics

Axed: the past tense version of Axe (see above)

Paupack: Lake Wallanpaupack

Quanity: Quantity

Bigmintin: Binghamton

Tumb: (noun) Your thumb; (verb) to hitchhike, example = I tumbed in onnakowna my hog got stolen.

Da boad of em: The both of them.

Ba-troom: a place to relieve yourself

Ba-tree: battery

A couple too tree: How many times have you been on the Coal Mine Tour?

Budaydos: potatos

Chalk-lots: chocolates, what ja buy at Gerty Hocks when yur up da mall, wockin and tockin.

Tinkin: when you put your brain in gear.

Sangwitch: What cha eat when you go up dee Eynon.

dahn tahn DOpahnt: Downtown Dupont, PA

Alla Youz: How you address several people at once

twahny yearce ahgo: 20 Years Ago

radarater: the thing heat comes out of

offah: He knocked da glass offah the table.

roof in the leak: a common saying when water comes down from the roof

nooyourkas: people who vacation in the area (from anywhere outside the area) for the summer, generally found in the Moscow-Gouldsboro area of Lackawanna County

up da mount'n: Montage Mountain Ski Resort, where concerts are held

da rena: First Union Arena, Wilkes Barre PA (also called the "FU Arena")

John: People named John typically don't have last names. They're only referred to by profession as John DaBanker, John DaCarpenter, John DaRoofer (or DaLeaker), or John DaPlumber. A guy named Frank who ordered a cup of coffee in the diner everyday became known as John Caffee. - Dan

warsh: Did you remember to warsh behind your ears? -or- I warshed my shirt.

punkin: Goes well with thanksgiving dinner

doverman: The dog

er wha: or what?

pank: as in if you sit in the snow when you get up it's all panked down, this may strictly be a green ridge thing, but we insist it's a word!

chimley: chimney

pitza frita: fried dough

crick: a place where wadder run truit and ya can go fishen

pie-ano: the music instrument with 88 keys

tray of pizza: tray of pizza

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Freud and The Uncanny

If you are interested in the essay that Karam references, you can find the full text in English here.

I recommend as a companion piece, this study guide from the University of Washington as a way to orient yourself to the structure and themes of Freud’s essay.

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Stephen Karam on The Humans

This is from an interview with Roundabout Theatre Company:

I was thinking a lot about fear and anxiety. The ways human beings cope with their fears. Fear in our culture and fear at home. I wanted to try and locate the black pit of dread and malaise Americans have been trying to climb out of post-9/11 and post-financial-crisis. I had no idea how to do this. I wanted to write about those things…without literally writing about them. I didn’t want to write a play about literal fear or 9/11 or the financial crisis. I was stuck. So I read to get inspired. Lorca’s writing about lower Manhattan (where I live) was a help. In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Lorca wandered around the financial district in New York and managed to capture the thick, grotesque terror that hung the air; he found disturbing and unfamiliar ways of describing very familiar scenes: 

The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills this street believes the world will always be the same, and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever. 

I became interested in his ability to take a familiar thing–Wall Street, the landscape of the financial district–and make it strange. Unfamiliar. (This seems connected to Shklovsky’s idea of defamiliarization–read “Art as Technique”) If you are willing to follow me down this wormhole…all of the above reminded me of an essay I read in college: Freud’s The Uncanny. In it, Freud ponders the question: why do certain stories inspire a deeper, more unsettling kind of creeping horror and uncanny feeling than others? I’m particularly obsessed with his use of etymology to unpack this question: 

The subject of the “uncanny”...belongs to all that is terrible –to all that arouses dread and creeping horror... The German word [for “uncanny”], unheimlich, is obviously the opposite of heimlich, meaning “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home”; and we are tempted to conclude that what is “uncanny” is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar... [But] among its different shades of meaning the word heimlich exhibits one which is identical with its opposite, unheimlich... on the one hand, it means that which is familiar and congenial, and on the other, that which is concealed and kept out of sight…” 

He goes on to mention the possible notion that “…everything is uncanny that ought to have remained hidden and secret, and yet comes to light.” I thought about the way the big human fears surface in various people–how no matter how hard we repress them, they eventually creep into the light, sometimes in fantastic disguises. I thought it would be a challenge to try and write a play about these topics in a manner that might slowly generate the thing it was exploring…a kind of dread. Not in a genre-way, not per a pure thriller like Deathtrap, for example (and I do love a thriller)–but by watching human behavior, which is always what I’m most interested in. It may seem comical that all of this thought resulted in something so simple: a story about a family having dinner. But I do think all of my musings and obsessions are buried deep beneath the play’s purposefully banal premise. I wanted to warp something familiar. But also pay tribute to the tradition of the family play.

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Shlovsky and Defamiliarization

Viktor Shlovsky, a Russian literary theorist, coined the term defamiliarization to describe the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar. As he describes it in relation to language, poetic language is formalized and more difficult to understand than everyday, economical prose speech - the benefit of this is that the artistic form is challenging for an audience to understand and it should be made “difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.”

You can read Shlovsky’s essay, Art as Technique, in which he introduces the concept here.