Analysis Of “Who Am I This Time?” by Kurt Vonnegut

Following the incredibly pathetic community theater production of Cyrano De Bergerac, the main director of said group retires, passing the reigns on to her right hand. He gets the group’s most talented actor, Charlie for the lead in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, the camera appearing to be shaking and hand held, possibly meant to represent a confused mental state or frame of mind. However, there’s no actress for the role of Kim. After meeting the socially awkward Helena at the store, he decides to invite her to audition, what fallows will change both her and Henry’s lives for good.

            Among certain details to be found rather interesting is how Helena can be seen waiting for her turn to audition wearing warm, earthy colored clothes but is sat completely alone, while everyone else is happily bantering and chatting, but dressed in cooler, more subdued colors. Helena’s audition starts rocky, her acting robotic and mechanical, showing she has difficulty empathizing with other human emotion, either real or fabricated, like the pages of a script. She’s also uncomfortable with great amounts of physical contact, when we see a point of view shot from her perspective showing the librarian’s face so close to both her, and us. But when Charlie arrives and undresses for his audition, which makes use of the “zoom in-pull out” dolly shot famously put to use in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”. When their intense duel audition is over, both need to take time to decompress, the passion of the page having bled into reality for the pair.

            Overnight, Charlie has undergone a very literal transformation in the role of Stanley, his acting and devotion to character reminding us of actors such as Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis. Helena has fallen very much head-over-heels for him as well, that is, with Charlie as Stanly, rather than Charlie as Charlie. Poor, broken, hollow Charlie, found on a doorstep and unable to develop a proper familial connection with anyone, only able to express how he feels through the words pf others, rather than his own. This information comes too light when after rehearsal one night, Helena invites him on a “picnic” with a view of a “vista”, in reality only a theater backdrop. Once again, replacing the actual thing with a man-made imitation of said thing.

            After the show ends, Henry goes back to being the awkward man-child of before, and Helena realizes this while still so passionately in love with him. She is shattered, and isolates herself again, but now wares cold colors. Helena soon, however, makes the connection we have already made, and begins talking to Henry via the great romantic texts of antiquity. The story ends with her being proposed to through the words of Oscar Wild’s “The Importance of being Earnest”, so now, she’s married a man pretending to be someone else, with the help of a story about man romancing a woman while pretending to be someone else, how very Meta.  

            Another thing that should be mentioned is this films use of mise en scène. While only a low budget TV movie, it has quite an interesting use of camera work, movement, and composition. This is worth mentioning seeing as how many TV productions made during the early 80s had a very static and uninteresting style (ironically) reminiscent of stage and theatre productions, which this film just so happens to be about.