Every Tuesday night, at 6:30 p.m. at the Whole Art Studio Theatre at 246 N. Kalamazoo Mall, from now until the end of the semester…
the Graduate Playwriting Workshop invites you to join them for readings of these works-in-progress:
NOVEMBER 4
Cemetery Row, Act One
by Karen Wurl
A very free adaptation of the classic ballet Giselle, set in a college neighborhood in Milwaukee. Singing barista Lauren meets Josh, a cute guy from out of town who isn't quite what he appears to be; meanwhile, random guys keep washing up dead on the shore, Lauren’s friend Drew can be annoying, and Lauren is haunted by a dead girl. Can she find love? (To be continued.)
NOVEMBER 11
Justice for All
by Kevin Dodd
An exploration of the morality and practicality of Capital Punishment in the United States. This docu-drama traces the journey of a boy who brutally murdered two young girls and how the repercussions of the act and his trial rocked the community and nation.
NOVEMBER 18
The Manumission Manifesto
by Jason Lenz
A pet funeral home curator is forced to struggle with an absurd series of circumstances as he seeks to answer the seemingly simple question: why are there suddenly so many dead cats coming into the funeral home? As he delves deeper into his investigation, he discovers a trail of breadcrumbs that exposes the truth behind the surreal and oppressive nature of the world around him.
NOVEMBER 25
Bearing Daughters
by Mikala Hansen
In an effort to "save" the family, Joan reveals to her daughters, Elizabeth and Diana, that they must produce a son to preserve themselves as well as the family's line. Joan explains how the possible breach of a contract their ancestors made with the Devil threatens the family's survival, which forces Joan's daughters to question her sanity as well as her story's truth. After Mary, Joan's thirteen year old daughter, becomes pregnant in her own attempt to "save" the family, they continue to quarrel over who's to blame for this, what actually happened, and what should be done.
DECEMBER 2
In the Window
by Robert Kirkbride
A man becomes obsessed with the idea of voyeurism after receiving a telescope.
DECEMBER 9
Half Empty
by Joe Sanders
Concerning our hero, Charles, the woman who loves him, the friend at his side, the country indebted to him, a witch's curse, a deal with the devil, and a list of priorities...
Previously workshopped in this series: Adam Pasen’s new adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and K. Frithjof Peterson’s Kalopsia.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Some call him Tom Stoppard, but I call him Tom "Don't Stop-pard"
As others have already discussed in their own postings, I find positing Stoppard's Arcadia as a perfect play to be intrinsically problematic, not due to the source material but rather to the unavoidable subjectivity I am forced to impose upon the concrete, objective concept of "perfection." As Stoppard himself says of perfection through Barnard in Arcadia: "Don't confuse progress with perfectability. A great poet is always timely." What we call "perfect" now is mostly a composite of fad, fashion, and personal opinion. The very plays we uphold and "perfect" examples from the past we would rip to pieces if written today, and I find myself wondering whether or not I am capable of even recognizing perfection if presented with its minions, craft and inspiration.
For instance, I could discuss the incontestable topical authority evident in Stoppard's discussion of English gardens, but I don't believe a perfect play necessarily requires extensive research. I could focus on the blinding theatricality of the final scene, which juxtaposes two scenes taking place in the same room over a century apart and coherently intercuts the dialogue and action. Yet not all great plays make excessive use of their own theatricality and this would be a judgment call on my part. I could address the wealth of Wildian wit inherent in such lines as Brice telling Septimus of Thomasina that "as her tutor you have a duty to keep her in ignorance," or mention the well of subtext, most often sexual, available for actors and directors to mine in most interactions between men and women. Yet I would be forced to concede that there are plenty of plays that don't feature a single epigram yet are still superior, and also that "True West" is arguably a perfect play even though I don't think underneath the jabs the brothers want to sleep with each other. Well, they do in MY version, but anyways...my point is that perfection is problematic.
So, in order to operationalize "perfection," I concluded that there may be many perfect plays in the world, but that each one sets up its own objective criteria for being perfect, and its perfection then resides in its ability to meet that criteria. In the opening scene of the Arcadia, Stoppard has Thomasina and Septimus create a metaphor concerning jam in rice pudding:
Thomasina: When you stir your rice pudding...the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trials...but if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before...you cannot stir things apart.
Septimus: Time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it forever. This is known as free will...
Regardless of the inclusion of this passage, structure would be one of the highlights of Stoppard's wonderful play. However, in these lines Stoppard hand-delivers a method for reading his work. He sets up a highly original and unique structure in lieu of the traditional inciting incident/rising action/climax/denouement and then methodically goes about bringing this new form to fruition in the form of his play. It is for this reason that I propose structure as the perfect element in Arcadia.
1. The structure, rather than rising and falling, is stirred, which is to say that each scene adds another twist or turn that seems to further complicate matters, much like each new turn of the spoon creates another red rivet of jam in the pudding.
2. Whether the spoon is moved forward or backward in the jam, the action still has the same effect of propelling the mixture to its resolved "pink" conclusion - the jam cannot be "unspread" just by mixing the spoon back in the other direction. Much in the same way, each scene in the past and its corresponding scene in the present creates a dialogue or "call-and-response," where a question is raised and then echoed in the mirror scene, i.e. the strange practice of characters in different centuries and oblivious of one another offering food to tortoises, or the repetition of Lady Croom's line, "I do not know when I have received a more unusual compliment" in scene six by Hannah in modern times in scene seven. Each response echoes its mother call but does not resolve it. Instead it further complicates it and drives the action on.
3. Finally comes the thrashing stir of the "mixing" scene (scene seven), where characters from both epochs are juxtaposed suddenly and without explanation, occupying the same set and speaking lines to each other. Contemporary music from the present plays over the waltz in the past. Space and time dissolve like strips of white pudding and red jam, irrevocably blending and mixing into pink. The new mixture is different than the pure white pudding at the start - it is altered, but stable and consistent once again. The play has worked itself out, like a cat's cradle that for one extra loop utterly disentangles itself and becomes a piece of string again. The moment is when Valentine and Hannah and Septimus and Thomasina observe the same diagram from centuries apart and draw the same conclusion - feel the same feelings. Synchronicity. Uniformity. Pink.
4. As Septimus points out, this "pink" is a foregone conclusion. No matter what variation of stirs you may make, the end result it always the same. The universe itself is cooling, he points out, and will "all end up at room temperature." This may seem like determinism or unavoidable fate, yet Stoppard makes a strong case for free will; Septimus later says of life that "the procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it." In the same way, there is nothing outside the container of pudding, and though we may know pink is the inevitable outcome, we need not succumb to living out the ends as the means. There is freedom in knowing the outcome, however unpalatable, after all. As this pertains to Arcadia, we find out relatively early from dialogue in the modern scenes that Thomasina is to die in a fire. This is the inescapable "pink" outcome. Yet the fire, which would be staged in another play and constitute the climax, is only alluded to in Arcadia with Thomasina taking the candle upstairs at the end. Her death is not what Stoppard wants us to take away - it is merely the approaching pink, meant to add meaning and beauty to the stirs of her spoon that remain. What matters is each individual stir she makes as she twirls her spoon in her pudding. This unrepeatable human signature is what Stoppard argues is free will - the unique permutation with which we stir ourselves to our eventual pink conclusion.
5. Hence, Stoppard creates a structure for his play that doesn't merely ape life but informs life - informs audience how to experience life even as it informs them how to experience the play. It is an affirmation and an invocation - to exercise your own free will, grab your spoon and start stirring. Stoppard ends his play with an image of Gus appearing in full Regency attire in the final modern scene and bowing awkwardly in an "invitation to dance." In the past, Septimus and Thomasina dance as well. Stoppard invites us to bow awkwardly. Dance badly. Appear in ridiculous costume. Whatever you have to do. Only accept the invitation. Only keep dancing.
For extending its study of structure into a lesson and model for life, I believe Stoppard's Arcadia to be a perfect play.
Sorry this was long.
AP
p.s. If I did this in class I was actually going to bring in rice pudding and jam and stir it to make my point. Then I was going to let you eat it. It made the presentation a lot cooler. If you feel cheated just respond to this thread and I'll hook you up with a snack pack and some Smuckers. No joke. Peace out.
For instance, I could discuss the incontestable topical authority evident in Stoppard's discussion of English gardens, but I don't believe a perfect play necessarily requires extensive research. I could focus on the blinding theatricality of the final scene, which juxtaposes two scenes taking place in the same room over a century apart and coherently intercuts the dialogue and action. Yet not all great plays make excessive use of their own theatricality and this would be a judgment call on my part. I could address the wealth of Wildian wit inherent in such lines as Brice telling Septimus of Thomasina that "as her tutor you have a duty to keep her in ignorance," or mention the well of subtext, most often sexual, available for actors and directors to mine in most interactions between men and women. Yet I would be forced to concede that there are plenty of plays that don't feature a single epigram yet are still superior, and also that "True West" is arguably a perfect play even though I don't think underneath the jabs the brothers want to sleep with each other. Well, they do in MY version, but anyways...my point is that perfection is problematic.
So, in order to operationalize "perfection," I concluded that there may be many perfect plays in the world, but that each one sets up its own objective criteria for being perfect, and its perfection then resides in its ability to meet that criteria. In the opening scene of the Arcadia, Stoppard has Thomasina and Septimus create a metaphor concerning jam in rice pudding:
Thomasina: When you stir your rice pudding...the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trials...but if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before...you cannot stir things apart.
Septimus: Time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it forever. This is known as free will...
Regardless of the inclusion of this passage, structure would be one of the highlights of Stoppard's wonderful play. However, in these lines Stoppard hand-delivers a method for reading his work. He sets up a highly original and unique structure in lieu of the traditional inciting incident/rising action/climax/denouement and then methodically goes about bringing this new form to fruition in the form of his play. It is for this reason that I propose structure as the perfect element in Arcadia.
1. The structure, rather than rising and falling, is stirred, which is to say that each scene adds another twist or turn that seems to further complicate matters, much like each new turn of the spoon creates another red rivet of jam in the pudding.
2. Whether the spoon is moved forward or backward in the jam, the action still has the same effect of propelling the mixture to its resolved "pink" conclusion - the jam cannot be "unspread" just by mixing the spoon back in the other direction. Much in the same way, each scene in the past and its corresponding scene in the present creates a dialogue or "call-and-response," where a question is raised and then echoed in the mirror scene, i.e. the strange practice of characters in different centuries and oblivious of one another offering food to tortoises, or the repetition of Lady Croom's line, "I do not know when I have received a more unusual compliment" in scene six by Hannah in modern times in scene seven. Each response echoes its mother call but does not resolve it. Instead it further complicates it and drives the action on.
3. Finally comes the thrashing stir of the "mixing" scene (scene seven), where characters from both epochs are juxtaposed suddenly and without explanation, occupying the same set and speaking lines to each other. Contemporary music from the present plays over the waltz in the past. Space and time dissolve like strips of white pudding and red jam, irrevocably blending and mixing into pink. The new mixture is different than the pure white pudding at the start - it is altered, but stable and consistent once again. The play has worked itself out, like a cat's cradle that for one extra loop utterly disentangles itself and becomes a piece of string again. The moment is when Valentine and Hannah and Septimus and Thomasina observe the same diagram from centuries apart and draw the same conclusion - feel the same feelings. Synchronicity. Uniformity. Pink.
4. As Septimus points out, this "pink" is a foregone conclusion. No matter what variation of stirs you may make, the end result it always the same. The universe itself is cooling, he points out, and will "all end up at room temperature." This may seem like determinism or unavoidable fate, yet Stoppard makes a strong case for free will; Septimus later says of life that "the procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it." In the same way, there is nothing outside the container of pudding, and though we may know pink is the inevitable outcome, we need not succumb to living out the ends as the means. There is freedom in knowing the outcome, however unpalatable, after all. As this pertains to Arcadia, we find out relatively early from dialogue in the modern scenes that Thomasina is to die in a fire. This is the inescapable "pink" outcome. Yet the fire, which would be staged in another play and constitute the climax, is only alluded to in Arcadia with Thomasina taking the candle upstairs at the end. Her death is not what Stoppard wants us to take away - it is merely the approaching pink, meant to add meaning and beauty to the stirs of her spoon that remain. What matters is each individual stir she makes as she twirls her spoon in her pudding. This unrepeatable human signature is what Stoppard argues is free will - the unique permutation with which we stir ourselves to our eventual pink conclusion.
5. Hence, Stoppard creates a structure for his play that doesn't merely ape life but informs life - informs audience how to experience life even as it informs them how to experience the play. It is an affirmation and an invocation - to exercise your own free will, grab your spoon and start stirring. Stoppard ends his play with an image of Gus appearing in full Regency attire in the final modern scene and bowing awkwardly in an "invitation to dance." In the past, Septimus and Thomasina dance as well. Stoppard invites us to bow awkwardly. Dance badly. Appear in ridiculous costume. Whatever you have to do. Only accept the invitation. Only keep dancing.
For extending its study of structure into a lesson and model for life, I believe Stoppard's Arcadia to be a perfect play.
Sorry this was long.
AP
p.s. If I did this in class I was actually going to bring in rice pudding and jam and stir it to make my point. Then I was going to let you eat it. It made the presentation a lot cooler. If you feel cheated just respond to this thread and I'll hook you up with a snack pack and some Smuckers. No joke. Peace out.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Female Playwrights Accuse Producers of Sexist Bias
Charging Bias by Theaters, Female Playwrights to Hold Meeting
Frustrated by what they describe as difficulty in getting their work produced, some female playwrights will air their grievances with New York theater representatives on Monday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/theater/25women.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Monday, October 20, 2008
Perfect Play: Miller's "Death of a Salesman"
I'm going to do something a little different with this post. Instead of focusing on my TOP 10 reasons why I think that Miller's "Death of a Salesman" could be considered the perfect play, I'm going to focus mostly on my TOP 1 aspect of this play I truly feel is perfectly executed and which I feel perfectly connects everything else into perfection: Miller's use of musical cues.
First, I must admit that I love the theme of this play... I can’t think of a theme more timeless in the US than that of the "Struggle for the American Dream". For those who need a refresher: Miller uses Willy Loman as his vehicle to show how the American Dream is no longer viewed as something that needs to be earned (like back in his fathers generation), but as something that is now thought to be intrinsic; that can be achieved through external materialism. He does not see the value of accomplishment through what his hands have created, but how many people approve of his physical presentation and personality. This becomes his tragic flaw, so to speak.
However, a great many plays use this theme and, even if Miller were the first to use it (which I doubt he was), that doesn't inherently grant this as a perfect play. So, onto my TOP 1 reason why I feel the musical cues combine with this classic theme to make "Death of a Salesman" a perfect play:
(1) Miller's uses symbolic musical cues to offer his audience a tragic glimpse into the superficial expectations, as well as the overall sense of confusion, caused by the modern blurred concept of the American Dream. Miller begins the play with the sound of a flute to establish the nostalgic fantasies of the Dream, describing it as "small and fine, telling of grass and trees on the horizon". This colorful "horizon" represents the most important aspect of what the American Dream stands for: hope of a better tomorrow. This also becomes the "theme" for the plays lead character, Willy Loman.
Like Willy, many characters in the play have their own theme song. There is "gay and bright music" for the boys and an "idyllic" tune for the recurrences of Ben’s character. Like a television commercial jingle, these themes are meant to create different moods that, as the patterns are established for each characters musical cue, subliminally indoctrinate the audience into certain expectations within the plays action. Soon after the play begins, the audience becomes aware that the music either indicates a shift in time or prefaces the re-emergence of a character. These expectations create a complacent attitude within the audience that works toward establishing a mindset similar to that of Willy Loman. Without having to think or worry about what is going to happen next, the audience gets a full taste of Willy’s tragic flaw.
As more and more music permeates the action, a sense of confusion is created about what is real and what isn’t. For example, early in the play, the music is spaced out between long passages of action and dialogue; but as Willy’s equilibrium becomes less stable, more music is added, steadily increasing in rapidity from its "slow and fine" introduction and ultimately building to moments like "a single trumpet note [that] jars the ear". In addition, the character themes are interspersed with "raucous music" and songs that often rise "to a mocking frenzy". These eventually spread an insecure, uncomfortable feeling throughout the audience as upbeat musical directions coincide with the tragic drama occurring on stage. This eclectic use of music blends and swirls together in a soup that fogs the mind, similar to the blurred ideals of Willy Loman’s character.
As the play reaches the final moments, reality has spiraled so far out of reach for Willy that he actually begins to react physically to the to the plays musical cues: "Suddenly music, faint and high, stops him". It is at this moment, where the spatial barrier between audience and stage vanishes, that the audience is finally able to connect in thought with Willy, neither being able to tell the difference from reality and fantasy. Like a pressure cooker comprised of Willy’s lost hopes and dreams, those in attendance experience Willy’s boiled over feelings of powerlessness as the music "rises in intensity, almost to an unbearable scream". As Willy exits the stage and drives off in his car, the music "crashes down in a frenzy", signaling the death of the salesman. As the family stands over Willy’s grave in the requiem, the "music of the flute" resonates, an indication that Willy has perhaps brought more hope to their lives in death than he could in life.
That ended up being longer than I thought it would... but hopefully I made my point.
Monday, October 13, 2008
NOV 1st Full-Lengths
In class and on the posts we've stressed the 10 min. and One Act options available through submission to the ACTF festival - email submission by Nov. 1st. I wasn't aware until today that you may also submit full-lengths for ACTF. Here's the site:
http://www.kcactf3.org/full_length_play.htm
All twenty dollar submission fees are waived this year. And because this competition weeds out the original plays by students that are sent as a production - the field is slightly narrowed. The play if selected at the regional festival to advance to nationals is up for a host of playwrighting awards which provide not only a wonderful paid vacation and major venue at the Kennedy Center, but some prizes include enterance into some O'Neil programs, active memembership in the Dramatist Guild and a host of other professional goodies.
This is for students only. Submit when you can because what an amazing opportunity that only lasts the duration of your enrollment.
Kris
http://www.kcactf3.org/full_length_play.htm
All twenty dollar submission fees are waived this year. And because this competition weeds out the original plays by students that are sent as a production - the field is slightly narrowed. The play if selected at the regional festival to advance to nationals is up for a host of playwrighting awards which provide not only a wonderful paid vacation and major venue at the Kennedy Center, but some prizes include enterance into some O'Neil programs, active memembership in the Dramatist Guild and a host of other professional goodies.
This is for students only. Submit when you can because what an amazing opportunity that only lasts the duration of your enrollment.
Kris
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window
1. This is definately an idea play. A self proclaimed play about intellectualism. Sign never forgets it's about what the ideas do to the people. It never wanders or meanders in it's philosophy, rather the philolosphy manifests itself in the disappointments and trainwrecks that ensue.
2. The play is unafraid of it's own sentiment. In the same way that the ideologies never distract from the characters. This play manages to hug a fine like which allows it to never drift into melodrama or sentiment when it would be so easy to do. Consider the closing dialogue by Sidney: "Yes...weep, darling. Weep. Let us both weep. That is the first thing: to let ourselves feel again...and then, tomorrow, we shall make something strong of this sorrow.,." This could be a horrible dialogue for a scene between Iris and Sidney if it occured anywhere but here. The emotion is so powerful because this is a break from Sidney and Iris' banter and disconnect we've seen through the entire piece.
3. The way characters connect through myriad theatricality. Consider the ways characters come together philosophical debate - Alton and Sidney. Dance - Iris and Sidney. Song - Wally and Sidney. Dream - wonderfully theatrical scene at the beginning of Act II where the apartment is the mountains and Iris is his mountain girl and she slips into his dream. The interconnected dialogue of David, Sidney, and Gloria - all is guilty, none is guilty.
4. The structure of this piece if deft beyond belief - one of my essential qualities of perfection or "well madeness." Act one sets the table at a delibrate pace, act two covers a much longer period of time and clips through the conflict knowing not to linger because we know the stakes so well after act one. The structure also allows for a certain degree of predictablity. By the end of Act I we can see the writing on the wall - we know what's at stake and we can feal the house of cards trembling as the breeze picks up. But the way Hansberry drops story lines in and out and immerses us so makes us surprised when Gloria shows up even though we know she's coming, we know it will end badly, but her timing is so spot on it still feels startling. The same can be said of Mavis entrances and references to Alton and Gloria's potential engagement.
5. Another mark of a perfect play for me becomes the playwrights ability to vanish by exploring and exposing the best and worst parts of herself in every character. Despite the cultural and racial differences we can see Hansberry everywhere and seeing her everywhere makes her literally vanish and leave us only with the characters.
6. It's ability to be so true to its time that it became prophetic. "The play was produced a year and a half before white liberal intellectuals were to be confronted by the spectre of black power. Sign was a conscious warning. Lorraine Hansberry speaking to those white intellectuals of her own generation and telling them to prepare for what was to come" Julius Lester, Villiage Voice, 1970.
7. Just amazingly crips even when lofty dialogue. Same of my favorites. "In order to do things you have to do things." - Sidney "I have experienced the death of the exclamation point!" Sidney "There are no squares, Sidney. Believe me when I tell you, everybody is his own hipster." Mavis
8. The play is unfraid to tackle all the big themes at once - life, death, sexuality, politics, gender, race, class, and philosophy. It looks all of these in the face mocks them, berates them, hates them, and ultimately loves them.
9. It's an undeniable tragedy but it never loses hope. No matter how foolish that hope may be it understands its necessity.
10. It recieved utterly mixed reviews. What a silly criteria for a perfect play. However, it was not only ahead of its time, but there was a unmistakable quality about it that made it survive when it should have only recieved a short run due to opening reviews. It wasn't harshly recieved but many reviews contained the phrases "flawed as it is" "inspite of it's flaws." What saved the plays run was a letter I will include here:
The news that Lorraine Hansberry's "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" faces closing should disturb all who love theatre.
Miss Hansberry's new play is a work of distinction. It contains the humor and insight we associate with the finest traditions of our stage, and it is written with profound respect for the human condition.
"Sidney Brustein" is concerned with the turbulent life of our times. It is, in turn, powerful, tender, moving and hilarious.
Whether it survives will be determined this week. We, the undersigned, who believe in it enough to pay for this ad, urge you to see it NOW.
James Baldwin Anne Bancroft Mel Brooks Marlon Brando Paddy Chayefsky Sammy Davis Jr. Ossie Davis Ruby Dee William Gibson Lillian Hellman Sidney Kingsley Viveca Lindfors Mike Nichols Arthur Penn Frank & Eleanor Perry Shelley Winters
The New York Times, 1964
A whether recieving mixed reviews by critics that recieves such praise and support from its artistic peers has accomplished something we all strive for in our art, and certain should be considered a mark of perfection.
2. The play is unafraid of it's own sentiment. In the same way that the ideologies never distract from the characters. This play manages to hug a fine like which allows it to never drift into melodrama or sentiment when it would be so easy to do. Consider the closing dialogue by Sidney: "Yes...weep, darling. Weep. Let us both weep. That is the first thing: to let ourselves feel again...and then, tomorrow, we shall make something strong of this sorrow.,." This could be a horrible dialogue for a scene between Iris and Sidney if it occured anywhere but here. The emotion is so powerful because this is a break from Sidney and Iris' banter and disconnect we've seen through the entire piece.
3. The way characters connect through myriad theatricality. Consider the ways characters come together philosophical debate - Alton and Sidney. Dance - Iris and Sidney. Song - Wally and Sidney. Dream - wonderfully theatrical scene at the beginning of Act II where the apartment is the mountains and Iris is his mountain girl and she slips into his dream. The interconnected dialogue of David, Sidney, and Gloria - all is guilty, none is guilty.
4. The structure of this piece if deft beyond belief - one of my essential qualities of perfection or "well madeness." Act one sets the table at a delibrate pace, act two covers a much longer period of time and clips through the conflict knowing not to linger because we know the stakes so well after act one. The structure also allows for a certain degree of predictablity. By the end of Act I we can see the writing on the wall - we know what's at stake and we can feal the house of cards trembling as the breeze picks up. But the way Hansberry drops story lines in and out and immerses us so makes us surprised when Gloria shows up even though we know she's coming, we know it will end badly, but her timing is so spot on it still feels startling. The same can be said of Mavis entrances and references to Alton and Gloria's potential engagement.
5. Another mark of a perfect play for me becomes the playwrights ability to vanish by exploring and exposing the best and worst parts of herself in every character. Despite the cultural and racial differences we can see Hansberry everywhere and seeing her everywhere makes her literally vanish and leave us only with the characters.
6. It's ability to be so true to its time that it became prophetic. "The play was produced a year and a half before white liberal intellectuals were to be confronted by the spectre of black power. Sign was a conscious warning. Lorraine Hansberry speaking to those white intellectuals of her own generation and telling them to prepare for what was to come" Julius Lester, Villiage Voice, 1970.
7. Just amazingly crips even when lofty dialogue. Same of my favorites. "In order to do things you have to do things." - Sidney "I have experienced the death of the exclamation point!" Sidney "There are no squares, Sidney. Believe me when I tell you, everybody is his own hipster." Mavis
8. The play is unfraid to tackle all the big themes at once - life, death, sexuality, politics, gender, race, class, and philosophy. It looks all of these in the face mocks them, berates them, hates them, and ultimately loves them.
9. It's an undeniable tragedy but it never loses hope. No matter how foolish that hope may be it understands its necessity.
10. It recieved utterly mixed reviews. What a silly criteria for a perfect play. However, it was not only ahead of its time, but there was a unmistakable quality about it that made it survive when it should have only recieved a short run due to opening reviews. It wasn't harshly recieved but many reviews contained the phrases "flawed as it is" "inspite of it's flaws." What saved the plays run was a letter I will include here:
The news that Lorraine Hansberry's "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" faces closing should disturb all who love theatre.
Miss Hansberry's new play is a work of distinction. It contains the humor and insight we associate with the finest traditions of our stage, and it is written with profound respect for the human condition.
"Sidney Brustein" is concerned with the turbulent life of our times. It is, in turn, powerful, tender, moving and hilarious.
Whether it survives will be determined this week. We, the undersigned, who believe in it enough to pay for this ad, urge you to see it NOW.
James Baldwin Anne Bancroft Mel Brooks Marlon Brando Paddy Chayefsky Sammy Davis Jr. Ossie Davis Ruby Dee William Gibson Lillian Hellman Sidney Kingsley Viveca Lindfors Mike Nichols Arthur Penn Frank & Eleanor Perry Shelley Winters
The New York Times, 1964
A whether recieving mixed reviews by critics that recieves such praise and support from its artistic peers has accomplished something we all strive for in our art, and certain should be considered a mark of perfection.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Glass Menagerie Rules!
First of all, I have to preface all my remarks with the confession that Tennessee Williams and I are like this (though you can’t see it, I’m doing that intertwined-fingers thing that indicates unspeakable intimacy – I’m not even being sardonic, guys), and The Glass Menagerie is the reason why. The Glass Menagerie is also the reason I primarily write plays (as opposed to songs or screenplays or short stories), and in a lot of (tangible and intangible) ways, it’s my model of all a play should be – which is why I have no qualms at all about presenting it as The Perfect Play, despite my wondering at the utility, or even possibility, of such a label.
The Perfect Play. It’s a little like saying that, say, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” is The Perfect Pop Song. Or wait, perhaps that should be “Ever Fallen In Love.” One could easily argue for either, or for yet another possibility, or another, or another... It’s pretty subjective. I mean, it’s not as if Perfect Pop Songs are a dime a dozen, but it’s not as if candidates are wholly scarce, either. And while there’s common ground between Steely Dan and the Buzzcocks, there’s also a world of difference. Both belong to differing schools, or sub-genres, of pop music, in much the same way that Anton Chekhov and Thornton Wilder, for instance, represent different moments, different movements, in theatre.
Yet, as one might well argue that either “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” or “Ever Fallen In Love” is Perfect on the basis of how one must undeniably respond on a visceral, even cellular, level upon hearing the same, I first put it to you that The Glass Menagerie is perfect in that it evokes a profound cathartic feeling in the reader/viewer.
Here’s my attempt at a list of reasons, beyond my central reason given above, why The Glass Menagerie is Miss Perfect Play, Twentieth Century:
- It was, in my opinion, the peak acheivement of one of our most important and gifted dramatists, though it came quite early in Williams’ career. (Why this should be, to me, is inseparable from his progressive alcoholism and drug addiction – he had many good – excellent! – years as a vibrant and important writer, but I believe he came to calcify, to repeat himself, to decline as an artist, gradually and inevitably as his substance dependence worsened over time. I don’t love him less for that, and I identify with him all the more, but I do wonder what he might have created had he been able to get clean.) While Streetcar and Cat and many others definitely hit their marks, and are forever embedded in the cultural consciousness, in Menagerie Williams is:
- his most overtly confessional. In his later plays, he continues to expose himself emotionally – any student of Williams understands how much of himself he put into his characters and plays, as opposed to, say, Arthur Miller, who never once seems to be taking an emotional risk or alluding to autobiography (even when he is in fact doing both). In all his plays, but none more so than Menagerie, Tennessee Williams seems to be stripping and asking the audience for forgiveness and compassion – for himself, first, and for the human race as a consequence. (Does a play need to do this? I don’t know, but to me, all the best and most moving do, from Chekhov to Shepard, from Shakespeare to Brecht, from Wilde to Mamet to fill in the blank with the name of any playwright who’s touched you and whom I have neglected to mention.)
- In Menagerie, Williams is also his most postmodern, using Brechtian devices, direct address and soliloquy. And lest it go without saying, using them well.
- Menagerie is inherently theatrical. It’s meant to be a live event, on a stage. It’s a great story, yes, and it doesn’t require a lot of bells and whistles, but it is built for theatre. The film versions, while impressive in their own way, are but pale, pallid reflections of the real thing. Film does what it does, and theatre does what it does, and Menagerie is a good –a Perfect? – example of what theatre does.
- Structure in Menagerie is flawless. It’s minimal and elegant. Like the play itself, it looks simple, but it’s more emotionally-logical than chronological. The play has elements of kitchen-sink realism, but goes beyond the boundaries imposed on that genre.
- It’s so producible that it became the model: small cast, simple set, flexible staging. (It’s simple to stage, but not necessarily easy.)
- Williams’ language is amazing. Not just his dialogue, which is lyrical yet speakable, but even his stage directions are elegiac and fine. Let directors cross these babies out!
- I defy you to think of another play whose scenes are more used in acting and directing textbooks. There's a reason for Menagerie's ubiquity. The Glass Menagerie is a meaty, rewarding challenge to actors and directors alike.
- Menagerie is unarguably tragic, but it’s sharply humorous at the same time. To me, no Perfect Play could be wholly one without the other – the interplay of comedy and tragedy is a hallmark of Perfection.
- Tennessee Williams loved and was profoundly influenced by Chekhov, worshipped and adored him, considered him the ideal writer. Williams wrote an adaptation of The Seagull, called The Notebook of Trigorin, first produced in 1981. (It's not as good as The Seagull, I think, and it's not as good as The Glass Menagerie.)
- Tennessee Williams wrote articulately, passionately, often, and evangelically about the practice of writing, and to read his notes about how he wrote this play or that, or how writing continually saved him from the insanity he clearly feared, is to be converted to Writing. I can't think of another writer who so nakedly and unabashedly loved the craft of writing.
Tennessee Williams is my soul mate. He came to me in a dream and smiled quietly and gave me a stolen videotape. (Or was it a folder? In any case, I know it was stolen. He had stolen it, and was proud of his theft – and he wanted me to do as he’d done.) He passed his legacy on to me (and ma
ybe to you, too), and I have so far failed to make proper use of it, but I know he’s still smiling at me, quietly, no doubt sipping from some bottle or other.Note: Of course, everyone knows the Perfect Pop Song is “History Lesson, Pt. 2” by the Minutemen.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Give it up for OT!
Why Our Town is a perfect play:
1. Meant for the stage - A perfect play should be the epitome of theatre, making it untranslatable to other artistic media. We need to ask: why is it a play and not a novel, poem, song, or film? Our Town thoroughly utilizes the theatricality of the stage in such a way that makes it work exclusively as a theatre piece. Meanings are expertly layered and the audience’s role defined in an almost Brechtian way (identifying the actors names, detailed pantomimed activities, the Stage Manager speaking directly to the audience, planted actors in the audience, etc).
2. The play magnifies the “eternal” conditions of human life and community by setting its sights on the specificity of individual lives in a particular time and place. Through a handful of folks, Wilder speaks volumes on the nature of life, community, relationships, and death.
3. The way Wilder constantly focuses his lenses in and out and speeds up time to highlight moments of the play. For example: the Stage Manager freezing the action to tell us when and how a character dies after they’ve just entered; describing the “time capsule” in the new cornerstone of the new bank which will contain a copy of the play; “the mountain got bit away a few fractions of an inch; millions of gallons of water have passed by the mill; and here and there a new home was set up under a roof.”
4. “…it seems to me that once in your life before you die, you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.” (Mrs. Gibbs). Wilder, like the most caring and detailed artist, paints a magnificent portrait of a community reined in by their inability to see beyond their immediate circumstances. As Emily remarks, “we don’t have time to look at one another.”
5. The Stage Manager. An ingenious creation who, like Boal’s Joker, serves as a mediator, instructor, and friend for the audience. Simultaneously a stand-in for the spectator and for God, he (or she) alone can be a character in the play, an audience member, and a manipulator of the theatrical world. If the central characters are limited by their perspectives, geography, and mortality, the Stage Manager provides the perfect counterpoint as one who is able to both transcend and traverse these boundaries.
6. Soda Fountain Scene (Act II) – An extremely rich scene brimming with subtext and enough sexual tension to choke a cow (Bessie, that is). Very fun for actors and director alike.
7. Rebecca’s description of the letter her friend received. It’s a simple moment, but an effective one that sums up our place in the metaphysical scheme of things, just in time for the closing of Act I:
“REBECCA: …Jan Crofut; the Crofut Farm, Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America.
GEORGE: What’s so funny about that?
REBECCA: But listen, it’s not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God,--that’s what it said on the envelope.
GEORGE: What do you know!”
8. It is easy to screw up. I figure that if a play is perfect, then it should be nearly impossible for imperfect directors, actors, and designers to put together a good production. Out of the three or four times I’ve seen Our Town, only one production has been good—and it was VERY good, which convinced me of its worth. If the artists involved don’t make full use of the play’s theatricality, depth, and simple beauty but instead dwell in sentimentality, the piece simply drowns in boredom.
1. Meant for the stage - A perfect play should be the epitome of theatre, making it untranslatable to other artistic media. We need to ask: why is it a play and not a novel, poem, song, or film? Our Town thoroughly utilizes the theatricality of the stage in such a way that makes it work exclusively as a theatre piece. Meanings are expertly layered and the audience’s role defined in an almost Brechtian way (identifying the actors names, detailed pantomimed activities, the Stage Manager speaking directly to the audience, planted actors in the audience, etc).
2. The play magnifies the “eternal” conditions of human life and community by setting its sights on the specificity of individual lives in a particular time and place. Through a handful of folks, Wilder speaks volumes on the nature of life, community, relationships, and death.
3. The way Wilder constantly focuses his lenses in and out and speeds up time to highlight moments of the play. For example: the Stage Manager freezing the action to tell us when and how a character dies after they’ve just entered; describing the “time capsule” in the new cornerstone of the new bank which will contain a copy of the play; “the mountain got bit away a few fractions of an inch; millions of gallons of water have passed by the mill; and here and there a new home was set up under a roof.”
4. “…it seems to me that once in your life before you die, you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.” (Mrs. Gibbs). Wilder, like the most caring and detailed artist, paints a magnificent portrait of a community reined in by their inability to see beyond their immediate circumstances. As Emily remarks, “we don’t have time to look at one another.”
5. The Stage Manager. An ingenious creation who, like Boal’s Joker, serves as a mediator, instructor, and friend for the audience. Simultaneously a stand-in for the spectator and for God, he (or she) alone can be a character in the play, an audience member, and a manipulator of the theatrical world. If the central characters are limited by their perspectives, geography, and mortality, the Stage Manager provides the perfect counterpoint as one who is able to both transcend and traverse these boundaries.
6. Soda Fountain Scene (Act II) – An extremely rich scene brimming with subtext and enough sexual tension to choke a cow (Bessie, that is). Very fun for actors and director alike.
7. Rebecca’s description of the letter her friend received. It’s a simple moment, but an effective one that sums up our place in the metaphysical scheme of things, just in time for the closing of Act I:
“REBECCA: …Jan Crofut; the Crofut Farm, Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America.
GEORGE: What’s so funny about that?
REBECCA: But listen, it’s not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God,--that’s what it said on the envelope.
GEORGE: What do you know!”
8. It is easy to screw up. I figure that if a play is perfect, then it should be nearly impossible for imperfect directors, actors, and designers to put together a good production. Out of the three or four times I’ve seen Our Town, only one production has been good—and it was VERY good, which convinced me of its worth. If the artists involved don’t make full use of the play’s theatricality, depth, and simple beauty but instead dwell in sentimentality, the piece simply drowns in boredom.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Mid Amer Theatre Conf Call For 10 Min Plays/Oct. 15th Deadline
Great Regional Conference!
SF
Call for ten-minute play scripts,
actors, directors and dramaturges
For the
PLAYWRITING SYMPOSIUM
The Playwriting Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference seeks playwrights, actors, directors, and dramaturges to participate in our Mid-America Dramatists Lab, which produces a series of staged readings of ten-minute plays.
Taking our lead from the conference wide theme of "Poor Theatre," the ten-minute plays will speak, either thematically or stylistically, to the shifting aesthetic, political, and economic landscapes of playwriting and new work production in the new millennium.
This is a juried event, and the call for actors, directors, and dramaturges is directed primarily at professional and academic theatre artists who are either faculty or graduate students at colleges and universities seeking the opportunity to present their work to their peers.
The plays will be rehearsed and presented as concert readings at the conference with invited directors, actors, and dramaturges. All theatre artists who are selected to participate in this event must register for the conference; there is no funding from the conference for travel or lodging costs.
PLAYWRIGHTS
Paul Bernstein, Symposium Chair
paulbern@camden.rutgers.edu
The Mid-America Theatre Conference
March 5-8, 2009 - Hyatt Regency, Chicago
Call for ten-minute play scripts,
actors, directors and dramaturges
For the
PLAYWRITING SYMPOSIUM
The Playwriting Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference seeks playwrights, actors, directors, and dramaturges to participate in our Mid-America Dramatists Lab, which produces a series of staged readings of ten-minute plays.
Taking our lead from the conference wide theme of "Poor Theatre," the ten-minute plays will speak, either thematically or stylistically, to the shifting aesthetic, political, and economic landscapes of playwriting and new work production in the new millennium.
This is a juried event, and the call for actors, directors, and dramaturges is directed primarily at professional and academic theatre artists who are either faculty or graduate students at colleges and universities seeking the opportunity to present their work to their peers.
The plays will be rehearsed and presented as concert readings at the conference with invited directors, actors, and dramaturges. All theatre artists who are selected to participate in this event must register for the conference; there is no funding from the conference for travel or lodging costs.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS OCTOBER 15!!!
For more information, follow this link. http://www.wiu.edu/matc/CFP%20PlywrtgSym.html
Also, playwrights may contact symposium chair, Paul Bernstein at paulbern@camden.rutgers.edu. Actors, directors, and dramaturges may contact symposium co-chair, Jon Herbert at herbertj@otc.edu
Jon Herbert
MATC Playwriting Symposium 2009 Co-Chair
"Society does not move on it's own; it has to be pushed."
--Augusto Boal
SF
Call for ten-minute play scripts,
actors, directors and dramaturges
For the
PLAYWRITING SYMPOSIUM
The Playwriting Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference seeks playwrights, actors, directors, and dramaturges to participate in our Mid-America Dramatists Lab, which produces a series of staged readings of ten-minute plays.
Taking our lead from the conference wide theme of "Poor Theatre," the ten-minute plays will speak, either thematically or stylistically, to the shifting aesthetic, political, and economic landscapes of playwriting and new work production in the new millennium.
This is a juried event, and the call for actors, directors, and dramaturges is directed primarily at professional and academic theatre artists who are either faculty or graduate students at colleges and universities seeking the opportunity to present their work to their peers.
The plays will be rehearsed and presented as concert readings at the conference with invited directors, actors, and dramaturges. All theatre artists who are selected to participate in this event must register for the conference; there is no funding from the conference for travel or lodging costs.
PLAYWRIGHTS
Paul Bernstein, Symposium Chair
paulbern@camden.rutgers.edu
The Mid-America Theatre Conference
March 5-8, 2009 - Hyatt Regency, Chicago
Call for ten-minute play scripts,
actors, directors and dramaturges
For the
PLAYWRITING SYMPOSIUM
The Playwriting Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference seeks playwrights, actors, directors, and dramaturges to participate in our Mid-America Dramatists Lab, which produces a series of staged readings of ten-minute plays.
Taking our lead from the conference wide theme of "Poor Theatre," the ten-minute plays will speak, either thematically or stylistically, to the shifting aesthetic, political, and economic landscapes of playwriting and new work production in the new millennium.
This is a juried event, and the call for actors, directors, and dramaturges is directed primarily at professional and academic theatre artists who are either faculty or graduate students at colleges and universities seeking the opportunity to present their work to their peers.
The plays will be rehearsed and presented as concert readings at the conference with invited directors, actors, and dramaturges. All theatre artists who are selected to participate in this event must register for the conference; there is no funding from the conference for travel or lodging costs.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS OCTOBER 15!!!
For more information, follow this link. http://www.wiu.edu/matc/CFP%20PlywrtgSym.html
Also, playwrights may contact symposium chair, Paul Bernstein at paulbern@camden.rutgers.edu. Actors, directors, and dramaturges may contact symposium co-chair, Jon Herbert at herbertj@otc.edu
Jon Herbert
MATC Playwriting Symposium 2009 Co-Chair
"Society does not move on it's own; it has to be pushed."
--Augusto Boal
Friday, October 3, 2008
NYTimes review of Chekhov's Seagull
Review of new production of The Seagull, featuring Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard, among others, in a new version by Christopher Hampton. I haven't read this version, but I can recommend Tom Stoppard's version, also.
Thwarted Souls’ Broken Wings
Ian Rickson’s magnificent production of “The Seagull” is the finest and most fully involving production of Chekhov that I have ever known.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
No Such Thing As A Perfect Play...
... Except Uncle Vanya (Overmeyer). And here's twelve reasons why (in no order):
1) Failure spectacularized. Idleness is raised to the level of high tragedy. As one theory posits tragedy as an infection, so these characters appear to have succumbed at that destructive level with their idleness, and we witness the "havoc wreaked" as Astrov says. As Astrov says on 867 (Senelick) Act Four: "The two of you have infected the rest of us with your idleness. I was attracted and did nothing for a whole month." [See that speech.]
2) Fantastic curtain lines. "This is agony." "The answer is no" (in response to the request to play piano.)
3) "Guns and Roses". Tragically comic use of two iconic props right on top of each other by Uncle Vanya.
4) Chekhov's finest three sentence bios. Consider how each character has one of those paragraphs we've discussed that so perfectly defines their essence. In Vanya they seem particularly sharp, funny and devastating.
5) It's claustrophobia. Chekhov's smallest cast show. And the characters all feel on top of one another. No breaks from each other with random folks wandering in and out. It may take place over time, but it feels as if it's a just an hour. Mamet praises Cherry Orchard because it's great scenes hanging around the devise of selling the orchard. But the characters aren't so lucky here. There is no "Cherry Orchard" or "Moscow" to distract them. One is introduced ("I'm selling the house.") and it's ignored. All they have is each other, and it ain't pretty.
6) Uncle Vanya. He's such a wonderful character. "Good weather for hanging oneself..." So sad and so funny. I saw Joe Chaikin play him, so my heart was immediately one over. But this is a remarkable creation of humor and pathos.
7) "That want to want". There is something going on so fundamental in Vanya. There is this desire to desire again. I love how when the Professor proposes to sell the house it disintegrates into a screaming match between him and Vanya about "what do you want?" When he just said what he wanted. Characters are trying to get back to something so essential to what is the brutal part of their existence.
8) It's non-realistic elements. I know the removal of soliloquy was seen as a move forward in Chekhov's dramaturgy, but I love the direct address here (as well as its meta-theatricality, such as "that only happens in social purpose stories" or some such). It serves the wonderful sense of...
9) "Theatrical inevitability" so well. I love how the drama plays with our sense of knowing none of these relationships are coming to anything so it must be about something else... (See #7).
10) The exchange on 863 V: "To act like such a fool; to shoot twice and miss both times! That's something I'll never forgive myself for!" A: "When the urge to shoot came you should have blown your own brains out." Astrov tells him a few times of how he could've killed himself better. (See #1).
11) Sonya's closing monologue. Again, so sad and funny. One can almost read hope.
12) Not until Beckett is there a play about nothing where there is more going on. Chekhov so perfectly captures the futility of filling one's days by so wonderfully demonstrating how folks succumb to the daily rituals that they imagine are making meaning.
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