structure and form maps
Here are some tools for understanding the form, structure, and style of a day!
The translator, Josephine George, describes the play's various worlds as different "manifestations of existential crisis". The characters seem to jump between different planes of existence/levels of reality, which Chapdelaine indicates with her use of space on the page (see the Characters page in the script for the code in her words). When highlighting your lines, it might help to also note for yourself in which world your character speaks, based on the key below:
We switch between these levels of reality a lot in the play, not to mention jumping between locations. So here are the simplified rules of the world as we've broken them down for our production. This visual aid shows where the different types of spaces in the play fall on the spectrum of "realistic to surrealistic". Going on a scale from 1-10, with 1 being pure realism and 10 being wild, out-there surrealism:
"Every day, twenty-four hours. It’s too much and not enough at the same time. Every day the same thing, the same order of events, the sun tracing the same line. The morning, the afternoon, the evening then the night. On a loop. Forever." - Debs, midnight
This plot bead shows us how Alfonso, Debs, Harris, and Nico divide their time throughout the day. Since each scene is an hour of the day, it marks each scene/beat on a 24 hr clock. The hours are marked around the circle and divided by thick black lines into wedges. And because some scenes jump between the stories of multiple characters, there are thinner lines dividing each scene into mini-scenes/beats as needed. Each beat is color-coded to show in which world/level of reality it happens. It's a little hard to read, so if you need clarification please reach out.
