Friday, July 19, 2013

Wordwhacking in Terra Incognita

"We both agreed to eschew the jellied viscera," explains a character in Eric Overmyer's 1986 play On the Verge--and  that line is just one reason I'm excited about teaching the play in Concepts of Nature this fall. True, my students will have to keep a dictionary nearby in order to enjoy the delicious wordplay, but the play rewards the effort. "Eschew the jellied viscera"--roll that around on your tongue a few times and you'll see what I mean.

But will my students get it? I laughed out loud at a scene dealing with the hazards of cannibalism ("There are two types of people in the world. There are cannibals--and there are lunch."), but I doubt that my students will spot the allusion in the title of the scene: "High Tea--Or, Many Parts Are Edible." (Did you ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible!)

They'll have to look up palaver, pasha, and perhaps even poobah, and they'll have to discover what punji sticks are to understand why a petticoat might be protective. They'll have to bushwhack through Terra Incognita and consider, with the three main characters, whether a rusted eggbeater might function as talisman, totem, amulet, or marsupial's unicycle.

They will encounter a Yeti not abominable but adorable, a troll who collects tolls and is not quite Robert Lowell, and a gerbil in a dirigible. My students will have to slash their way through a jungle of succulent verbiage and a Himalaya of historical allusions, and they'll need a trusty sherpa to guide the way. 

That would be me. I'd better grab my machete and a tub of Cool Whip because, as the play reminds us, "You're not gonna find a lot of Saint Bernards with Cool Whip in their kegs."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They'll need Partridge and the OED, which naturally rhymes with tree.

D.

Bev said...

Yes, but will Partridge and the OED tell them about Euell Gibbons, or is that chore up to me?