Another play in the midst of madness

I'm going nuts trying to get a whole bunch of work done at once, along with two meetings tonight, so here goes nothing...

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is a play by Paul Lindel with only three main characters, all of them female and at very different life stages. The play focuses on the growth of Tillie despite the dangerous influences of her old sister, Ruth, and unbalanced mother Beatrice. Only occasionally do Nanny-an elderly boarder in their home-, Janice-Tillie's rival at the science fair-, and Mr. Goodman-Tillie's science teacher- enter the scene. Beatrice ruminates almost constantly on her own failure in life, and makes it clear that she will force the same on bright, promising Tillie. The plot itself centers around Tillie's science fair project, exposing marigold seeds to radioactivity to see how the dangerous energy will effect their growth--and therein lies the central metaphor! Tillie has prerecorded voice-overs about the significance of every atom from the Big Bang as the source of all life.

As a piece of literature, this may not be a great fit for students that aren't otherwise theatrically oriented. The stage directions alone are dripping in symbolic language, and the theatrical element of the voice-overs combined with the very every day plot action of the play makes for a pretty heavy show. The extremely specific set layout makes me think that this is a show that would make more sense being performed and seen by an audience than read on the page. Overall, it was a play I really enjoyed as a theatre minor, and think is a great read for anyone involved in theatre, but it doesn't really fit the bill of a Young Adult novel--too focused on metaphor than perspective. It's a great story of development of a young adult, but as I have learned, that does not make a YA novel!

Recommended grade level: 10-11, theatre classes
Appropriateness: doesn't fit the YA bill, but effective for a theatre study in high schools