Big Love: preliminary media research

The play makes me think of the "ideal house" I described in my Italian 1 class. You know what the first year of a language class is like, everyone practices the exact same sentences in pairs, just translated into any of the million different languages of the world. When I asked to describe my ideal house in my limited Italian, I certainly made sure to include "una terazza" in the house one the oceanside in Spain. But Italy is cool too. Really, all that's required is the ocean.

Whenever you read something, you create the set in your mind. Well, that's not what happened this time. I imagined this play taking place in the set I'd already created a year and a half ago, in Italian class.

I very much think that the play takes place in the real world. The characters are ridiucluous and over-the-top, but they're just reacting in extremes to the world as they see it. There's also something wild about it, which I associate with warmth- both the temperature and the colors.

It took me awhile, but I was able to come up with some songs that remind me of the play for one reason or another.

A Man, by Alanis Morrisette

The lyrics are a pretty interesting twist on the usual Alanis bitterness- the feminist takes on the voice of a male who is angry about the stereotypes used against him. Exploring sexism from the male point of view doesn't happen very often, which makes this song resonate pretty strongly with Constantine's speech.

I'm Just a Girl, by No Doubt




And for the flip side- the more common look at gender roles from the female point of view. (The lyrics can be found here.)

Non Siamo Soli, by Eros Ramazzotti and Ricky Martin


At first I think this song only reminded me of the play because it's in Italian, but some of the lyrics somehow work for me- they talk about "reading life's instructions in a book that will never be written," which just reminds me of the young characters of the play and how mostly they just can't figure out how to deal with the world around them.

Mozart and Madness, by Savatage



(Apologies, but the only version I could find of the song happened to be of some random people playing it in their living room...)

This song is from the rock opera by Savatage (who eventually spun off into the TransSiberian Orchestra), so their mix of heavy rock and classical music, in this piece especially, reminds me of the high contrast found all throughout the play. It's both calm and frantic, and frantic within the classical context really reminds me of the play.

Although I didn't find any really *great* images that I loved, I found quite a few that were pretty good. I've picked out some of the best below.








I love this photo. The terra cotta is just the texture I'm looking for, and the colors are so vivid.















I especially like this one- again, it mixes the old and new. The cliff looks ancient, but the building on it looks very modern.


I identified quite a few "futuristic" bathtubs (by using those exact words in Google's image search, actually) that I think are pretty fantastic.






This image really strikes me for some reason. It's actually a photo I took during my spring break trip to California. I didn't even think of Big Love at the time, but something about it just interested me, so I snapped the photo (which unfortunately didn't even come out too clearly), and lo and behold, it became a really central part of the inspiration. (Comparing it to my final production is pretty interesting!)