Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

Spankings from Stage (not Movies or TV) and Prose
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daneldorado
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Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

Post by daneldorado »

As I am sure most of you already know, there is a short play "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea" by the celebrated author John Patrick Shanley, who also wrote the Oscar-winning film "Moonstruck" (1987).

Some of the video clips available on the Internet show "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea" ending with a spanking of the female character, Roberta. Others, though they are the exact same story, end with NO spanking. Is this the choice of the directors? Of the actors? Or is it a nod to perceived audience taste?

Web-ed: If you're reading this, it seems like your kind of question.

Cheers,
Dan N.
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Re: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

Post by web-ed »

I thank you, Dan, and I agree this is my kind of question bearing on the theater as it does - in fact, that's why I thought to create this sub-forum a few years ago. However, I don't know the answer :oops: . But I will find out and let everyone know :) .
-- Web-Ed
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Re: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

Post by web-ed »

O.K., I didn't forget about this and located a copy of 13 collected plays by Shanley, but I simply haven't had time to reveal the answer until now.

The spanking scene is written into the play and is not the choice of the actors or director - hooray! Here is the relevant excerpt from Danny and the Deep Blue Sea which takes place near the end of Scene 3 and of the play itself:

Danny: I know. You told me...what you done. An' I don't care. There ain't nobody else. An it's gonna happen. So I do it. I forgive you. You're forgiven.
Roberta: Whaddaya think you are, a priest?
Danny: I am whatever I gotta be. It's over now. You felt bad long enough. You did a bad thing. An it's been biting you in the head for a long time. It's a long enough time. You paid for what you done.
...
Roberta: You can't forgive me.
Danny: Yes, I can.
Roberta: No!
He pulls her to him, and over his knee. He spanks her.
Danny: That's for doin what you did. All right? That's the punishment.
Roberta: I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It just happened ...
Danny: (Putting a hand on her) I forgive you. It's done.

Image
Adam Rothenberg / Rosemarie de Witt in a 2004 New York production

Honestly, I don't think it's much of a play. Modern drama seems obsessed with ugliness and hopeless characters, but we'll let that pass here because there is indeed a good spanking in it, apparently given by Danny to relieve Roberta's guilt. And some women do indeed find expiation for their sins by getting spanked... :)

There is some more discussion and some videos at Mainstream Spanking.
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daneldorado
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Re: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

Post by daneldorado »

Many thanks, Web-ed, for letting us see those several other clips of the spanking scene from "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea." There are some pretty good ones among the seven or eight clips, but as you know some of them are lacking. Surprisingly, my favorite scene is the one directed by the late actor Austin Pendleton. He was a terrific actor, but in the Danny/Roberta spanking scene he allows the "spanking" to end after only one swat. Hey, one swat is NOT a "spanking!" Nevertheless, the two actors are excellent in their roles.

That still leaves the mystery: WHY is it that some performances of "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea" do NOT include the spanking scene at all? At first I figured that maybe whoever posted those clips to YouTube simply deleted them. (You know, strange as it seems, not everybody is as fascinated by spanking scenes as you and I are. :D ) But NO... after careful examination of some of those rogue clips, it really does look as if, for whatever reason, the Powers That Be rewrote enough of the scene to purposely eliminate the spanking from the play.

This is getting too long. I'll conclude briefly by saying that, if you watch many of the online video clips from stage performances of "Kiss Me Kate," you'll find that some of them purposely omit the spanking. I recently saw one where, when Fred Graham says "All right, Miss Vanessi. You asked for it, now you're going to get it...." instead of putting his shrew over his knee, he picks her up and marches off stage with her kicking and protesting. Guess we are supposed to believe he would spank her backstage, away from sight of the audience. But we're not that stupid, are we?

Sloppy stage scenes like that are akin to those old movies where a naughty woman was supposedly spanked "off screen." We all know the actress never felt a thing.

Cheers,
Dan
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