Mere Mortals By David Ives: Play Analysis

In Mere Mortals a play by David Ives,is made up of multiple one-act plays. Each play demonstrates its own take on life, understanding of the world and interpretations of what people go through on a daily basis. All of these plays are comedic, and they have a hidden meaning behind the humor. This allows for the writer to establish another dimension to get the meaning across.
The leading play of Mere Mortals, is “Mere Mortals.” In this play, three every day construction workers analyze and hypothesize the outrageous claims, that each of them could actually be the Lindbergh Baby. Making them the son of Czar Nicholas the second and Marie Antoinette. This play touches base on some of the ways that people jibber jabber at work. This play brings a zany view to the conversations and communications that could take place in the everyday blue-collar work places.
In “Foreplay,” Chuck, a self-styled Don Juan, and his girlfriends on a date at the miniature golf course, where he utilizes the borderline, sexually provocative golf jargon, to prey upon his persons of interest.
When they arrive at the second hole, a slightly older Chuck II appears with a different date. Nevertheless, Chuck III, now past his prime, being in his late thirties, he arrives with a young date. His latest date does not get his jokes, and worse, she is beating him at their golf game. This is a provocative play and it is a tribute to his father, which makes the reader wonder “what in the world is wrong with his father?” This makes the play stay in the mind of the reader because the way that it ends causes the reader to feel befuddled and slightly
noxious. In “Time Flies,” two lonely but sweet young mayflies meet at a pond and really hit it off. Unfortunately, Horace and May watch a nature program on their first night out and realize that they have a lifespan of only one day, and the day is already half over, thus leading Horace and May to the malice conclusion that their lives are already half over. In this play, David alludes to the ideology that humans are after all an animal, and sole purpose is to repopulate. In “Speed the Play,” a parody of David Mamet lampooned works, presenting these complete works of the master of scatological dialogue in just under eight, male-bonding minutes.
In “Dr. Fritz,” Vaudeville reigns as an American tourist in pain seeks medical help from an exquisitely interesting souvenir seller, named Maria who channels an even zanier German surgeon named Dr. Ringsvwandl. The comedy steps up when the doctor, whom appears to be the same person as the souvenir seller, recommends an operation. This is an intriguing skit, because the play is like one of those short comedies shoes of a small island, where there is one person in the town and they take on all of the responsibilities. In “Degas, C’est Moi,” A man wakes up one morning and decides to be the French artist Degas. The best place to do that is in New York City where he encounters all that makes great art. In this act, David Ives establishes the idea that people can be whom every they desire to be. He uses humor to do so, he does this by having the main character literally act as a French artist. This skit is a hyperbole, for the whole play is practically founded upon an exaderation of the belief that people can be whomever and whatever they set their minds too. Thus provoking comedic principles in the play.