Author: Alden Yasuda

“You Can’t Take it With You” Critique

December 2, 2019

This was a review on the ICS High School Drama play “You Can’t Take It With You”.

The play “You Can’t Take It With You” was a play written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The story was about an eccentric family who lived in New York. Their family consisted of Grandpa Vanderhof. He has a daughter, Penelope “Penny” Vanderhof Sycamore, who really likes to write because she randomly got a typewriter one day. She is married to Paul Sycamore, a firework manufacturer. They have two daughters, Essie and Alice. Essie is a candymaker who wants to become a ballerina. She is married to Ed Carmichael, a xylophone player and a printer who prints anything. The main character in this act was Alice Sycamore, the only “normal” person in the family. She was somewhat embarrassed at her family even though she loved them a lot. Alice started to date Tony Kirby, who was from a rich family. The play revolved around their love story and how their backgrounds and families affected it. The play ends with a happy ending where Alice and Tony get together and the two families eat dinner together.

This play was a comedy play that was geared towards teenagers and young adults. Even though the plot may sound really serious and not a comedy, there were many small jokes here and there to make the story really funny. Sometimes there were inside jokes that maybe not everybody got but made it really funny. I think that these inside jokes were made to be funny for teenagers and young adults. This is why I believe that this play was geared towards this age group. Anybody younger wouldn’t understand what the joke is and somebody older might not find it amusing. 

There were many things in the play that I really enjoyed, but there were also some things that I didn’t enjoy. One of the things that I did enjoy was the improvisation in the play. For example, I heard that the firecrackers were supposed to go off at the end. But on Wednesday, when I watched the play, the firecrackers didn’t go off. However, I really enjoyed how the actors improvised and acted as if it was supposed to be that way. I actually believed that the firecrackers weren’t supposed to go off. Another part of the play that I really enjoyed was the acting of the play. Throughout the whole play, there were many scenes where I would think that it was impossible for high schoolers to do. For example, there was a scene where Essie lifts up her leg and Tony had to catch it. I was really surprised when I actually saw it and I just really thought that it wasn’t an act that high schoolers would do. Also, there was obviously the kissing scene which was quite a scene that I didn’t think I would see in a high school drama play. This also ties into the improvisation of the play of how good the acting of the play was and how good they were able to improvise each play. However, this play wasn’t perfect and there were some things that I didn’t enjoy. For example, the xylophone playing throughout the play. As a percussionist, there were many things that I found distracting about the playing. I don’t think there was anything that could’ve been done to improve it but personally, it was distracting and wasn’t something I enjoyed. 

Overall, I really did enjoy this play and it was a really interesting and funny play to watch. It had a great plot and the acting behind it was also really good. As I mentioned, there were somethings that weren’t the best in this play but it wasn’t something that could’ve been fixed. I am hoping that another play like this will come out next year and I am looking forward to watching it.

Reflection:

The drama was a really good play and it was really interesting and fun to watch. As I was writing the review, it made me remember every part of the play and it was really cool to write it.

Fischer Essay

October 24, 2019

This essay was a comparison essay between Josh Waitzkin’s life and mine. Josh Waitzkin was the main character in the movie “Searching For Bob Fischer”.

Movie cover of “Searching for Bobby Fischer”

In the movie “Searching For Bob Fischer”, the main character Josh Waitzkin, was a seven-year-old boy who lived in New York. I believe that my life when I was seven years old was pretty similar to Josh Waitzkin’s. There are three main differences and similarities between Josh Waitzkin and my life. My background was really different from Josh’s background from what I saw in the movie. On the other hand, something that was similar was the fact that we both had something that we really enjoyed to do and the way that we were pressured by our parents and friends to perform well.

Thinking of where and when Josh was from compared to where and when I was from, there were many differences that I can identify just from watching the movie. Josh Waitzkin was an American kid living in America from the 1980s while I was a Japanese kid living in Hong Kong in the 20th century. One difference was the privileges we had in our lives. For example, while I have access to iPhones, MacBooks, and different technologies, Josh didn’t have any technologies when he was seven years old. This affected our daily lives in what we do, what we talk about, and what we think about. While Josh spends his afternoon thinking and playing chess, I might’ve been spending my time playing games and thinking about TV shows. Furthermore, he was a native of America while I was like a half-foreigner in Hong Kong. There was no proof from the movie, but I am pretty sure that Josh didn’t feel any difference compared to his classmates in terms of race. I was one of the only Japanese in my grade at that time, which made me feel a difference between me and my classmates. Additionally, I didn’t understand Cantonese at that time so I couldn’t understand some of the topics that my friends were talking about and the Chinese TV shows that my friends watch at home. The place and time that Josh and I came from are really different and it did lead to our lifestyles being different overall.

Even though the places that we grew up in and the time that we lived were really different, we both had something that we really enjoyed to play. For Josh, it was chess which was clearly shown in the movie. For me, I really enjoyed playing and watching baseball. Both Josh and I really enjoyed playing it and didn’t want to stop. Just like Josh, I was never really planning to play it throughout my life and I personally wasn’t planning to play it through middle school and until now. We were both just wanting to play it for fun at that time. However, a difference was the way we were treated because of this. As shown in the movie, Josh was already top-level when he started playing and was better than most adults. Josh was treated like a genius and somewhat like a celebrity who was feared by many players. Because of this, even his dad and his teacher treated him like professional players. Even his teachers and classmates treated him differently because of chess. Unlike him, even though I was considered good in my age group, I was nowhere near being top-level and playing against adults. My parents treated me playing baseball as a game that I do just for fun, nothing close to a celebrity that Josh was treated as. None of my teachers or friends knew that I played baseball so it never affected how I was treated at school. Both me and Josh had something that we really enjoyed to do when we were young, but the way that we were treated because of this was really different.

Continuing off how our parents treated us, we were both pressured to perform well in what we did. For Josh, his parents forced Josh to win all games and his dad even got mad when Josh lost in a tournament. For me, it wasn’t baseball, but it was school. My parents pressured me to constantly keep my good grades and to stay at the top of my class. If I ever did do badly on a test, quiz, or if I ever forgot to do my homework, I remember how my mom would scold me and give me some kind of consequence. Because of this pressure, it made Josh want to quit chess and just go back to a normal life. In the same way, I did really want to quit school even though I knew that I couldn’t. The pressure from both of our parents caused quite a lot of stress in us and I feel that it makes us perform worse in chess or school when we have to constantly think about the pressure that we received from our parents. I’m not saying that it is not good for parents to pressure their children, but I feel that they have to consider their kid’s feelings when pressuring them and make sure that it’s not affecting their daily life and mental being.

Between Josh and me, there are definitely many differences and similarities. There was a difference in the time and place that we were from, there was a similarity in how we had something that we really enjoyed to do and play, and there was a similarity in how we were pressured to perform well by our parents.

Brainstorm:

Reflection:

First of all, I really enjoyed watching the movie because I was able to relate to him immediately. While I was writing the essay, I really felt that it was easy to find comparison.