Show and Tell #3

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds was written by Paul Zindel in 1964. The play has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1971) and a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. It was first performed in 1964 at the Alley Theatre in Houston.

                The plot of the story takes place in the fifties following the launch of sputnik. The protagonist of the show is Tillie, a young girl who is constantly abused by her mother, teased by her classmates and bullied by her sister. Her mother is an alcoholic hospice nurse and her sister has mental issues after seeing one of her mother’s patients die. The inciting incident of the play is when Tillie enters the science fair after being approached about it by her science teacher. Her project is focused on the effect of gamma rays on the growth of marigolds. Tillie’s mother, Beatrice, hates the idea and eventually goes on a drunken rampage, and kills the girls’ rabbit. This sends Tillie’s sister, Ruth, into a seizure. The entire incident is followed by Tillie presenting a final monologue about her hope for the future.

                The first dramaturgical choice that I noticed in the play was the choice to have three different test subjects for Tillie’s experiment. The three different man-in-the-moon marigolds each received different levels of radiation, and each had different results. The flower which received the most radiation was decrepit and dead, the one that received little radiation had slight mutations and the one that received a moderate dosage of radiation had beautiful mutations. The flowers can be viewed as symbols for Tillie’s family. Beatrice constantly drinks and is like the most radioactive flower and is wilting away. Ruth, who is praised by her mother and isn’t as abused, has mental issues but is otherwise okay. Tillie, who receives a lot of abuse from her mother, has a beautiful mind and a positive outlook on the future.

                A second dramaturgical choice in the play was the death of the rabbit. The rabbit represented a bond between the two young girls, Tillie and Ruth. In the scene where Tillie gets home from the science fair, Ruth is really excited that she won and it appears as if the sisters now have a new bond that they can build upon. The rabbit is then found dead and this sends Ruth into convulsions. In the following scene, Tillie speaks about her hopes for the future and seems to be a much stronger individual than she was at the start of the play. I believe that through her new bond with Ruth, she is more confident and much happier, and when the rabbit died, she wasn’t as shaken as she might’ve been before.

                The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is full of parallel symbols that reflect the changing relationships of the characters in the plot. This was really rushed and terrible. So, this is the conclusion I suppose.