Theatrical Haikus

I haven't updated much. Been on the road as they say. I'm vacationing now so I don't have as much time/as much internet access so the next couple of posts will be brief. I thought perhaps I'd write some haikus. Here we go!

Mother Courage:
Wartime travelling
selling stuff off a wagon
too bad your kids died

Phaedra's Love:
You're all related
Stop having sex together
I'm going to throw up

Suddenly Last Summer

It was very short and read almost like a science-fiction story. I couldn't help but keep thinking that while reading it. Each event, the set, the way the characters spoke were all exaggerated, yet rooted in mysterious realism.

I didn't even think that Sebastian might be gay, which is unusual for me, because I find a way to create subtext where there is none. I thought he just used people to get what he wanted and in the end that didn't work out for him. Karma's a bitch. And the exaggeration and the fantastic imagery mirrored the fantastic life he had created for himself. The plants were wild, untamed, beautiful, and dangerous.

Suddenly!

Suddenly Last Summer is a play that happens suddenly. If you don't pay attention, you might miss it. It felt like as soon as it got started, it ended. The main character is never on stage but is the most three dimensional thing on stage. There could have been separate plays could have been written about each of the other characters, but Williams didn't feel like it, so everyone else is there simply as a vehicle for the main character.

And yet I was kind of charmed by the whole thing. I know that in the movie version, which I haven't seen, Mrs. Venable is played by Katharine Hepburn so I had her voice in my head reading all of those lines, and that was just endlessly entertaining. The set, in my mind, was this magnificent, science fiction inspired land - the love child of George Lucas and Willy Wonka. It all seemed so fantastical.

I think that Sebastian was meant to be closeted and that was the reason he needed Catherine and the reason for his death. It makes sense anyway. But then I think about youth and age, which certainly came up a lot. Sebastian's death, at least the version we are told, is pretty similar to the story about the sea turtles that Mrs. Venable tells. The sea turtles have just hatched and are trying to escape to the sea, leaving the protective shell their mother left for them. In a way, Sebastian tries to do the same thing, and like the baby sea turtles, is devoured.

Or he could be gay and thus cannot survive. The end.

Also, things I've been neglecting to mention

Execution of Justice - kind of dense and weighty but said a lot silently.

Venus - a very cool basket.

Execution of Justice

Usually I'm not a huge fan of courtroom dramas - but I do love Emily Mann.

Her ability to weave narratives from myriad sources and create original "documentary" drama is astounding. Piecing together documentary footage, courtroom transcripts, interviews, news clips and making a piece of art that isn't too confusing or overwhelming is quite a feat. Somehow, Emily Mann manages to do do that.

She also makes very sociologically interesting dramas. Which, of course, piques my interest.

Is Execution of Justice one-sided? Perhaps. Artistically irresponsible? Perhaps. Did I enjoy it because I'm a left-wing lesbian? Perhaps. But I still loved it.

The Long Christmas Ride Home

I thought it was fitting to read this on a long car ride to a Christmas party in Seattle. Fighting off car sickness added to the experience.

I absolutely loved this play. I don't think it was perfect, the adult sisters could have been more fleshed out, but I was okay with the imperfections. Something about it was just so heart warming that I couldn't help but love it. In the introduction, Paula Vogel talked about how community Christmas pageants had the ability to create magic by "communal participation in the make-believe of the spirit." She really achieves that here, even with the really dark subject matter, all of it is sort of suspended in wonder, which maybe wouldn't have come across if the story had been told in a different way.

Reading this play also gave the added joy of the wonderful stage directions. I love how playwrights can write really dark material but lace it with humorous stage directions. Albee does that too, some of his stage directions in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf are fantastic.

My favorite was,

"(Stephen bends over a la Harvey Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy. Because I have personally never been in a back room. The puppet stands beside him; side by side they simulate a sexual act that means this play will never be performed in Texas.)"

I feel like Vogel is there, in the stage directions, tending to her play. That way she's still connected to future productions of the piece, even if she isn't physically there.

August Osage County

I'm not going to lie, I was little bit tipsy while reading this play. Which was actually appropriate.

It was as much about getting old as it was about a crazy family. I found all of the men having affairs with younger women and powerlessness of the women quite disturbing. It wasn't just that Violet had lost control of her family, but that she tried to compensate for her lack of control over her relationship by taking control of her children. As Barbara loses her husband to a younger woman, she tries to do the same.

In the end, I was also quite disappointed that Ivy didn't turn out to be a lesbian. Perhaps her life wouldn't have been ruined by growing old with some man that would just end up leaving her. Maybe that's the real message here.

Drunk Enough to Say I Love You

I agree with a lot of what Megan said, I definitely think this is something to be seen rather than read. I wondered if it should be read almost as a continuous monologue or with pauses and rests. Speaking would also give it more a musical, lyrical quality which is harder to see when it's read.

Most of the political stuff went completely over my head.

I think I wanted to see more of American as a person. I wanted the relationship explored more, as opposed to what they do in the relationship. The control on both sides. They both need each other, by the end that's very clear. I wanted them to be more of people. If you're personifying America, you might as well go all the way. All the political discussion, is that work or sex? Or is the difference between the two so blurred that it doesn't matter anymore. It seemed clear to me that Guy is in love beyond escape. Kind of like Bella and Edward from Twilight. That's disgusting. But what kind of patriotism is that? Is it patriotism? Is there a difference between love and what Guy seems trapped in? If Guy is a citizen, does Sam only need him or is there something beyond that? Should the country love its people or should it be a one-sided relationship?

I don't know if that's what Churchill set out to do, but those are the sorts of things I wanted to know.

Drunk Enough To Say I Love You

I wish that I could have seen this play. Reading it really didn't give it much context. I wanted to take more time to work through it, to understand it, piece it together. Reading it left me feeling unfulfilled.

I had to read a lot of these scenes a second time. Or a third. Which was fine because the play was so short. I know plays are supposed to be performed and not read silently, but I still kept wishing that I was seeing it or even hearing it instead of trying to make sense of it in my head.

Otherwise, I liked it. It's a little too black and white/"America is evil" for my taste, but the idea of depicting America as this totally aggressive, dominating person in a sadistic relationship is quite fascinating and original.

Overall: Not a great read, but certainly an original, challenging play that I'd love to see or work on.

December: Thurston County

Last night I got August: Osage County out of the library while I was on a walk with the family. I read part of it while waiting with my cousin for the train, then I went to the holiday play (read 1940s Christmas romance), read part of the play while waiting for the show to start, read part during intermission and finished it when I got home. It was sort of an odd juxtaposition. Because this play is fucked up.

It's kind of like a modern Long Days Journey into Night with the drinking and the drugs. But there's a difference of agency. James Tyron is full of passive suffering, trying to control his family. Beverly Weston gives up completely and I think that gives him more control. The rest of his family is forced to act as opposed to assuming he will pick up the slack. Then there's Mom with a Mission as opposed to the frail insanity of Mary Tyrone.

It's brilliant, but it's really fucked up. I was kind of disappointed that Ivy didn't turn out to be a lesbian. Everyone's just so fucked up. There's really only a couple of issues, but everyone else seems to just get fucked up by association. Like Ivy and Little Charles, who seem to be trying really hard just can't escape their family.

August Osage County

I don't have it. If I don't read a play today but I read two whenever I get that one does it still count as reading a play a day? Discuss.

Ruined

I didn't even know what to write about this play last night. I wanted some time separated from it.

I was reminded by the conversation that Lena and I (kind of) had, albeit briefly, with Suzan Lori Parks when Lena asked about writing for a particular cause. It seem from having read the introduction that Lynn Nottage had a "cause" in mind when she first set to work on this play. She travelled to Uganda and collected women's stories. And yet, the characters in the play are fantastic. She did not "lose" the play to the cause, she made the cause real by developing the characters.

I loved Mama Nadi. So much. She reminds me of the countless women I've spoken to in the United States who are brave in the face of danger, who protect their children at all costs, who struggle daily to survive, and yet they keep heading forward. As Lena said, perhaps we are removed from this situation, how much can we really understand? But the point of making these stories accessible is to make them relatable to us - We can see some of ourselves in these characters.

I just thought it was really, really great.

Ruined

My cousin is visiting, we're watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince while drinking spiked eggnog. I don't exactly know what's in this, but it's good. Not sure this is the best situation to be writing about Ruined, but I'll try.

Even with the help of alcoholic eggnog, it might be too soon to write something that isn't analytic about this play. I loved how it was so jaded and broken, but still naive and idealistic.

Salima's last line, just before her death was so haunting.

"You will not fight your battles on my body anymore."

There's some pretty serious rhetoric in this play, but it doesn't detract from the characters' story. But the wording of Salima's last words makes it seem like a willing sacrifice. She knows she cannot have the baby because Mama Nadi will throw her out, but she can't go with her husband because she won't survive the prejudice of the village. So she choses death. But in a way, she is the sacrifice. Once she dies the violence within the play ends. Instead of making a pure triumph for women, Nottage shows their destruction. That makes the message more powerful, I think. If we see the anguish and the horror we are more aware of the problem.

But how much can we understand this problem? It's something that we cannot imagine. Something so personal and so invasive that how could we possibly be able to contemplate it? Maybe we have to have something like with Brecht was trying to do, total destruction of comfort and normality. Maybe that's the only way we can come close to understanding what these women are going through.

The Ghost Sonata

The first thing I did with this play was make a chart of all the characters and how they were related. That didn't actually illuminate much. Everyone is connected with everyone, but it doesn't really matter. In the end it comes down to two people and a third who's introduced in the third scene.

Technically speaking, that's rather bad form Mr. Strindberg.

Which got me thinking that maybe it's not bad form. The cook is Hummel, that seems logical. Then we've actually known the character since the beginning of the play. I wonder if all of the characters reproduce themselves. That way there's really only three, maybe two characters in the whole thing. Very neat.

I think there's a lot of commentary about how to be alive. Or how not to be alive. Lots of people seem in various forms of death or incapacitation. Hummel in the wheelchair and on crutches, the Mummy bound by the wrappings (I think, I'm taking Mummy literally) and locked in the closet, the dead consul. The only person who is still alive is the Student, but he even seems to be succumbing to the lifelessness of the rest of the characters. I wonder if Strindberg meant this play as a gloomy forecast on the state of the world or a warning to the next generation.

But really, Mr. Strindberg, the milkmaid's just sloppy. She's totally a lose end. You're supposed to wrap those up. Is she the girl Hummel lured out on the ice? You could do better with that.

I'll Sonata Your Ghost.

This morning I got to the train station at 9:15 and there was a large crowd of people already standing there. Apparently, they had been waiting to get into Philly since 8 AM. They had been on a train that got stopped for half and hour, then backed up and dropped them back at our stop. The tracks were out of power.

Everyone was very confused about what was happening and when we were going to get into Philly. After waiting half an hour, we finally got on a train. Two stops later, the train lost power, and we all had to get out and wait again.

At this point, the people who had been waiting to get on a train since 8 AM were on their own, personal train to crazytown. One woman was on the phone yelling to somebody, "I can't take this. I'm just going to go home!" and dramatically ran down the stairs of the platform. I'm not exactly sure where she was heading since we were at a different stop.

I was about an hour late for work. Needless to say, I read the entire play for today while waiting, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Which brings we to my next point: Stridberg was probably on his own personal train to crazytown when he wrote Ghost Sonata. A death screen? Really? "Bring in the death screen!" I challenge you to say those words aloud and not laugh.

There were some good parts of the play. I appreciated his attention to the visual elements of the play. He really fleshed out how he wanted it to look so you were better able to see it as you read it. There are terrifying images right from the beginning with the dark lady standing at the staircase, motionless.

Strindberg and Christmas

It's Monday morning.

Philadelphia just had an epic snow storm of epicness, around 2 feet. My whole body is sore from shoveling out the driveway.

The snow has cleared enough for me to make it into work. Which is good, because I need some extra money for Christmas, but bad, because I'd like to continue my pattern of sitting on the couch all day reading plays and watching TV.

Although, this blog is kind of like Christmas everyday. Lena and I are on opposite coasts. By the time she posts as night I'm already asleep, so I wake up in the morning to see what she wrote. And when I post in the morning, she has to wait until she gest up to see what I wrote!

In that spirit, here's a little Stridberg gift for you, kiddo:
http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/home.html

Now I'm off to work!

Reaching for Venus

An epic tale of suspense, intrigue, and tragedy

This all starts with my library. I love our library system, the Timberland Regional Library. Twenty seven libraries throughout the state which share a book collection of over 1.6 million books. I don't know how many people get access to books who wouldn't otherwise have them.

Our library has the play Venus. However the book is actually in Centralia. That detail slipped my mind when I was first looking for plays and I realized yesterday there was no way a book was going to get to me from Centralia today. No problem, I thought, I'm sure I can find Venus around somewhere. Suzan-Lori Parks is badass and awesome, her work should be all over the place.

Yesterday I checked two of the independent bookstores in town. Not only no Venus, but no Suzan-Lori Parks at all. I found that slightly fishy.

Today, realizing time was of the essence, I went to Borders. I love independent bookstores, but when I need something now, corporate efficiency is the way to go. Once again, no Suzan-Lori Parks. I did get the new Margaret Mallory book, which looks just as... romantic as the last one.

I left feeling a bit bewildered by the lack of Suzan-Lori Parks love in my hometown. This afternoon a friend and I were driving to Seattle to pick up another friend of ours from college. Seattle, I thought, big city, lots of people and bookstores and they're sure to have it. We got Parker and went to the bookstore for the University of Washington which was basically a mini Borders. They didn't have it. We packed up and went to the giant used book store two doors down. They didn't have it either.

I wasn't ready to give up, so we drove back to Olympia. On the freeway there was the worst rain storm ever. The rain drowned out the CD player. My windshield wipers, churning away at their highest setting, shoveled what looked like slabs of rain off of the window. All I could really see were the two red taillights of the car in front of me. I followed them and I hope that person could tell what lane we were in. It was all rather harrowing.

After surviving that, I went to Barnes and Noble, confident I had found a bookstore big enough to have what I was looking for. But no, not a single play by Suzan-Lori Parks.

This is my theory. I think there is an inherent problem with Washington as a state. Something has happened that has made us unworthy of Suzan-Lori Parks, and whatever it, I intend to right that wrong.

Also, Venus is coming from Centralia soon.

Venus

The "Hottentot" Venus.

Ugh.

What a sick, sick piece of history!

I wasn't quite sure if I'd be able to stomach the play, knowing about Sarah Baartman. I was interested to see what Suzan Lori Parks would do with Sarah, because despite the literature written about her, there is little known about the person that she was. Parks neglected to give much character to Sarah. Although the play is named for her, it is titled Venus, not Sarah. Much of who she is or was is left to the director's and actor's imaginations.

The prevalence of the autopsy reports were quite gruesome - yet effective. Parks completely captured the scientific/sexualized phenomenon surrounding her, and the reports allowed her to fuse the two together in a very disturbing manner.

I don't even know what else to say so I'll leave it at that. I could go for a happy play tomorrow. Too bad we're doing Strindberg!

Six Degrees of Separation

So apparently I've already failed this challenge because I forgot to post yesterday. But I did read the play. So we're halfway there. I assume I will be less forgetful over time.

What was most engaging for me about this play, and perhaps it's my sociological background, was the importance of credentials. I know that I should be thinking about how strangers wander in and out of our lives and how someone we passed on the street yesterday could be a part of our lives three years later.

It's challenging you to think about what is real and what matters. Ouisa, at least for a moment, realizes how intelligent Paul must be to pull off all these cons. But what is the difference between "artificial" knowledge and actual cultural capital, actually growing up in an apartment outside of Central Park and growing up wherever Paul did? He was able to slip into a world he did not grow up in and fit in - how is that knowledge and skill so different from not growing up there? It makes those credentials we see as being so important, the Harvard degree, the famous father, seem so arbitrary. And yet, they are everything.

It's also challenging us to examine why those credentials are important. Why does Paul have such a drive to want to fit into these peoples' lives? Where does he come from? Why does he want to erase his given name or his original speech pattern? Does he not value himself and where he comes from?

I guess my point is that the play is as much social commentary as it is about Six Degrees of Separation between each person. Yes, we may be connected to everyone we run into, but we're also very isolated. We may pass someone on the street who we can connect to somehow, through strings of acquaintances, but that doesn't mean that we can suddenly fall in with any crowd, that social stigma and credentials don't put up barriers between each person that we meet.

Six Degrees of Separation

I guess I'll get this started. I really like this play. I read it while sitting at Starbucks. There was a guy sitting outside in overalls who really needed a hair cut and a shower and I thought, I could connect the two of us if I could get the right six people. That was a sobering thought.

I like what this play has to say about the effects we have on each other. This troubled, brilliant boy walks into the lives of these people who are otherwise quite numb to the rest of the world and he changes them irrevocably. But what's so moving about it is that we don't know how he's changed things. It's both good and bad and I think that's why it has the impact that it does. We are constantly surrounded by people and somethings I think we forget that. I walk in the city and no one looks at each other. There are all these people out there - go, look at them, talk to them, figure out what they're doing and maybe you want to do that too. People change you.

There. That's what I got from this play. People - the final frontier.

Play List

The Schedule

Dec 19 – Six Degrees of Separation - John Guare

Dec 20 – Venus - Suzan Lori Parks

Dec 21 – Miss Julie - August Strindberg

Dec 22 – Ruined - Lynn Nottage

Dec 23 – August Osage County - Tracy Letts

Dec 24 – Drunk Enough to Say I Love You - Caryl Churchill

Dec 25 – The Long Christmas Ride Home - Paula Vogel

Dec 26 – Execution of Justice - Emily Mann

Dec 27 – Suddenly Last Summer - Tennessee Williams

Dec 28 – Mother Courage - Bertolt Brecht

Dec 29 – The Wedding Dress - Nelson Rodrigues

Dec 30 – Phaedra’s Love - Sarah Kane

Dec 31 – Flu Season - Will Eno

Jan 1 - Buried Child - Sam Shepard

Jan 2 - Curse of the Starving Class - Sam Shepard

Jan 3 - Tooth of Crime - Sam Shepard

Jan 4 - LA Turista - Sam Shepard

Jan 5 – God of Carnage - Yazmina Reza

Jan 6 – Melancholy Play - Sarah Ruhl

Jan 7 – Body Awareness - Annie Baker

Jan 8 - Tongues - Sam Shepard

Jan 9 - Savage Love - Sam Shepard

Jan 10 - True West - Sam Shepard

Jan 11 – Blue Window - Craig Lucas

Jan 12 – Fences - August Wilson

Jan 13 – The Syringa Tree - Pamela Gien

Jan 14 – This is Our Youth - Kenneth Lonergan

Jan 15 – The Mistakes Madeline Made - Elizabeth Meriwether

Jan 16 – [sic] - Melissa James Gibson

Jan 17 – Woyzeck - Georg Buchner

Jan 18 – The Killing Game - Eugene Ionesco