Brownie Points: Play Analysis

I had high expectations when I walked into the Studio Theatre of Regent University to watch the story of Brownie Points come alive before me. I had neither heard of the story before nor had I ever read the script. The little I did know about the play I had heard from one of the actresses who discussed the play with passion. So with what little knowledge I had of the play, I walked in with high hopes, but I am conflicted to whether or not they were met. There is one area of the play that I am not conflicted about in the least, and that would be the area of the set design. At once, the set conveyed the mood of the story and had me reminiscing on my own cabin experiences. The thrust stage was set up at a slight diagonal which made me feel

Although the actresses presented their characters in a well-acted fashion, I was not able to connect with the characters until midway through the play. In one scene two of the characters are in a car having a heart-to-heart. It was the moment where the character of Jamie gives a very passionate and raw expression of her life that I was first able to connect with the story. The actress presented this scene in such a subdued yet passionate manner that it truly felt as if it had been an issue she had been dealing with for years. I was content that I had finally connected with the characters through this small scene of drama, but, just like real life, the moment of drama did not last and I was once again disconnected from the characters. Some of the reason I felt so disconnected from the characters was due to the fact that they were portraying mothers and I did not feel the sense of honest motherhood from these actresses. There was a strong familiar bond exuded by the characters to the children they continually brought up, but it felt more like the love of an older sister than that of a mother. Once again, I did not care for the characters as mothers until much later in the play when the character of Allison finally breaks down in a very real moment