Dear Helen

These days find me in Portland, writing a new play. The play is Helen, a companion piece for Cressida, a prequel that starts after Helen, having been abducted by Theseus, returns to Sparta and ends with the dawning of the Trojan war. 

The impetus behind Helen was a nagging sense of guilt, supplied by my inner feminist, during rehearsals for Cressida. When workshopping the play, the cast and I discovered the utility of bashing Helen of Troy. We needed some spark for the affair between Cressida and Diomedes. She loves Troilus deeply and he has no reason to trust her. Both, however, have a rebellious side. They question the war and they hate, hate, HATE Helen. 

In Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Diomedes dares to say the following to Paris about Helen:

For every false drop in her bawdy veins

A Grecian life hath sunk; for every scruple

Of her contaminated weight

A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak

She hath not given so many good words breath

As, for her, Greeks and Trojans suffered death. (4.1.71-6)

In Cressida, I had Diomedes speak these words to Cressida in response to her raging at the futility of the only two recourses available to Trojan women, prayers and tears. In this new context, Diomedes' lines are meant as proof that Grecians and Trojans, men and women, alike are in the same figurative terrible boat, (they are actually on a literal boat, at the time) and Helen is to blame. The irony that on Cressida - a project whose mission was moving a woman from the margins to the center - so thoroughly disparaged another woman was not lost on me. I joked that the only proper penance was to write a play for Helen.

I am not sure when Helen went from an intriguing joke or fanciful daydream to an artistic mission. Once again, I am starting with Shakespeare and tracing the literary heritage forward and backwards from there. Helen has precious few lines in Troilus and Cressida: however, one of them goes to the heart of the ambiguity of Helen's story. She tells Pandarus, "Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all" (3.1.100). What love is Helen referring to? Does she predict (or, after seven years of warfare, concede) that Paris' love for her spells the downfall of Troy? Or is it her love for him? Or is she thinking of Menelaus' love for her? How does she feel about her estranged husband? Does it matter? Love is a plague on both their houses.

Such a conclusion may feel mature even as it cheats the reader of Helen's story. In Troilus and Cressida  that is alright. That play is not Helen's story. The more I worked on Cressida, the more I came to respect the way Shakespeare interrogates perpetual warfare and the sexual double standard. Someday I'll direct his play. For now though, I want another play. I want Helen's story: a tale of love, adultery, religious visions, rape, and growing up the prettiest girl of all. Helen is a complicated character. Helen will be an apology to her, not for her. 

Head of Helen by Sculptor Antonio Canova

Leaving Staunton

Sometimes you discover a piece of poetry at the perfect moment when your world aligns with the concerns of the poem in such a way that you experience that delicious delusion that the author wrote this particular poem just for you. I had that serendipitous pleasure the other night when reading Allen Ginsberg’s My Sad Self.

Ginsberg opens the poem with a recollection of observing New York City from the roof top of the RCA building through eyes ostensibly made red from weeping. The sorrow comes from the loss of treasured eras in one’s life – and – the inevitability of those losses. The poem is remarkable. Ginsberg’s typography reinforces a sense of an inner eye meandering down city streets and memories of love affairs and friendship. I find myself, of late, indulging the same sort of exquisite nostalgia that permeates My Sad Self. I am about to graduate with my Masters of Fine Arts and leave the town of Staunton, Virginia.

Staunton is a beautiful little town filled with old Victorian homes in various states of repair. The skyline is littered with steeples. Church bells pronounce the hour. Trains whistle through the night. Yes, there is a troubadour. A chalk graffiti artist has tagged the underpass in my favorite park with the word “LOVE.”

I have experienced a lot of love in Staunton. I directed five plays here. I assisted in some capacity on a half dozen others. I found a handful of kindred spirits: the kinds of collaborators who will fight you because they are going to stand by you over the long haul. It is here that my ear has begun to tune itself to the music of Shakespeare’s meter; that I wrote my first soliloquy. 

And now it is time to go. Another poem comes to mind: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 110. –“Alas, tis true, I have gone here and there / And made myself a motley to the view.” – The arts make for a nomadic existence. Sometimes literally. More than that though, the ephemeral nature of the work means a constant cycle of love and loss. Of course, that is part of the pleasure, the opportunity for reinvention. You have to be willing to start over. But sometimes that requires a mourning period, a time to retrace your steps, to reread the poem that Ginsberg may have written just for you. 

Photo from one of my sentimental walks

P.S. I was going to link to My Sad Self, however, none of the various poetry places on the web do the text justice in terms of the poem's layout. Find it in print.

Also, Staunton has gotten some press lately for its charm. Travel and Leisure listed it as having one of the "Greatest Main Streets in America" and the Smithsonian listed it as one of "The 20 Best Small Towns in America." Just sayin'.

Cressida, Boldness Comes

When Cressida reveals her love for Troilus, she frames her heart as her gift from boldness. Before meeting Cressida, a pining Troilus compares his heart to an open ulcer. Once confronted with the imminent loss of Cressida, Troilus imagines the act of handing her over to that of a priest sacrificing his own heart. In her final speech, Cressida reckons with what her heart now sees.

José Rivera in his “36 Assumptions about Playwriting” quotes William Faulkner as saying “the greatest drama is the heart in conflict with itself.” Shakespeare filled Troilus and Cressida with such conflicts. Troilus does not want to turn Cressida over. But he does. Cressida does not want to betray Troilus. But she does. The fact that neither of them has much choice in the matter does not make it any easier. Rather the antithesis of desire and limit drives the desperation of the play.

The limits in Cressida derive from a stagnant and apathetic political world. As one of my actors observed, the men in Cressida are incredibly high status characters (kings, princes, generals) who have very little power. The network of political and social alliances formed by the Trojan War overwhelms them. Greeks and Trojans, alike, seem to succumb to Gloucester’s vision of the universe in King Lear: “as flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods, they kill us for their sport” (4.1). 

Cressida opens tonight at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, VA. Two Performances Only. 8 pm January 30^th and 31^st. Admission is Free.

Cressida is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. To read more about the adaptation, see my previous post To Cressida, With Love or Notes from the Breach: A Tale of Unmoderated Grief in the Shakespeare Standard.

To Cressida, With Love

After Cressida confesses “Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day / For many weary months,” Troilus asks “Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?” She replies with one of the best speeches Shakespeare ever wrote: “Hard to seem won, but I was won my lord.” And so was I; I have loved Cressida ever since.

And I’ve been angry at Shakespeare on her behalf, not so much for what she endures as for her final words. The morning after Troilus and Cressida’s first night together, news arrives that the Greeks are willing to hand over a valuable prisoner of war, the Trojan commander, Antenor, in exchange for Cressida. The Grecian commander, Diomedes, has already arrived to deliver her. Troilus promises to sneak into the Grecian camp to see her but cannot prevent her going or promise to aid her in escape. Behind the exchange is Cressida’s own father, Calchas, who knows nothing of his daughter’s new found love. Calchas, a prophet, betrayed Troy, abandoned his daughter and has lived an exile in the Grecian camp ever since. When Cressida arrives at the Greek camp, the generals take turns kissing her in a scene which has variously been interpreted as proof of Cressida’s promiscuity, a cross-cultural misunderstanding, and a gang-rape. Troilus does sneak into the Grecian camp only to see Cressida award Diomedes the sleeve that Troilus gave her at their parting. So after being torn away from her new lover, kissed by all the Grecian generals, and having to come to a heartaching decision about whether to place her trust in Diomedes, what does Shakespeare give Cressida to say? A misogynist soliloquy that ends with one of the worst rhymes in all of Shakespeare: "conclude" and "turpitude."

There are lovers of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida who will emphatically argue that Cressida’s final soliloquy is appropriate. The play is a deeply cynical look at the distance between people’s aspirations and their behavior. Cressida learns to think women are sinners who cannot trust their own eyes because everyone in Troilus and Cressida is invested in rationalizing their own inadequacy rather than striving for a better world.

Such a viewpoint takes into account the epic scale of Troilus and Cressida. Shakespeare devotes less stage time to either of the characters for whom he titled the play than he does in Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra. Troilus and Cressida speak roughly 23.5% of the lines in their play; Romeo and Juliet’s lines account for 38.5% of that text, and Antony and Cleopatra out-talk all the lovers with 49% of the dialogue. And while the men speak more than the women in all three plays, Cressida says less than Troilus by a greater proportion. Antony has 5% more lines than Cleopatra. Romeo says a mere 2% more than his Juliet. Whereas, Troilus has double the lines of Cressida. No wonder Cressida can get lost in her own play. It’s not really hers.

So I have given Cressida her own play. From Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida I have sculpted a shorter play, Cressida, that focuses on her journey. The text is still 90% Shakespeare (turpitude aside, the man’s writing is awesome in every sense) and 10% mine. I have added bits of her father’s back story back in – according to The Iliad, Calchas is the one who advises Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter so that the winds return to sail their ships to Troy. Calchas involvement in such an incident disturbs my Cressida. It is one of the earliest lessons she learns about the value of women in her society. I have also restored some elements of Chaucer’s Cressida. In Troilus and Criseyde, Cressida dreams that an eagle rips her heart out and replaces it with his own. (Fantastic.) Chaucer presents the dream as equally violent and erotic, such a dream seemed the perfect premonition for Cressida of the courage she needs. Cressida is a story of love in a time of war; a coming of age tale; a legend of loss. 

If you're near Staunton, Virginia, come see Cressida at the Blackfriars Playhouse. 8 pm. January 30th & 31st.

Top Ten Theatre Going Experiences of 2011

Theatre practitioners frequently pass through an apathetic audience member phase. They do not want to devote their recreation hours to their work. They cannot shut off their inner critic. Either they nit pick a show to death as it transpires before them or they turn the experience into a prediction game. Moreover, theatre tickets are expensive. I sympathize. Nevertheless, seeing shows is part of the work. In addition, the work is not just about staying current, scouting talent, and stealing. When you watch a show, you practice listening, you gain comfort with the public expression of emotion, and you observe the strangers known as your fellow audience members. Linklater helps. Watch with your mouth open, lips slightly parted, and tip of the tongue against the bottom teeth. Go with friends. Go alone. Go, go, go.

I am always going to remember the shows I worked on in 2011. I want to reflect on the shows I saw as an audience member: the shows that touched my heart in ways I had not known were missing: the shows where the crowd was carried away: the shows that inspired. Besides, I am kind of a list junkie, slap “top ten” in front of something and the chances that I will read it go up at least forty percent. I hope you’re a sucker for “top ten” too. Therefore, this is a list of my best theatre going experiences of 2011.

Equivocation

by Bill Cain

directed by Bill Rauch

@ Arena Stage

 

Equivocation was a revelation: thought provoking, tender, and outrageously funny. A commission from Robert Cecil on behalf of King James takes Shakespeare and the King’s Men into the belly of the governmental beast. Yes, there are many jokes that having a Master’s degree in Early Modern Drama will help you to catch. Yes, there are many jokes aimed at theatre practitioners. However in this dense and intricate fast-paced production; neither is a requirement. Apparently, there are a good many jokes for Catholics and Jesuits or so a review in the Catholic magazine America tells me.

José Rivera advises playwrights not to fear the big themes. Bill Cain is brave. Equivocation takes on torture, the reformation, terrorism, our relationship to God, parents and children, mentorship, grief, and accountability. Cain is structurally daring as well. Doubling not only deepens the resonance between characters (i.e. the flawed but sage-like priest Garnett and the flawed but fatherly leading actor Richard Burbage) but also allows scenes to morph before us from depiction to memory to the King’s Men performance of the experience. Equivocation trusts theatrical magic. It would not work as a movie. I left Equivocation deliriously happy and humbled that I have chosen the profession of Shakespeare, of the King’s Men, of Rauch, of Cain, of Equivocation’s cast.

Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

directed by Amanda Dehnert

@ Oregon Shakespeare Festival

There are quite a few Julius Caesar haters in my graduate program. They baffle me. Sure, the play fails the Bechdel test with its two marginalized female characters that never speak to each other. Yes, the argument over who pays the troops is hard to follow and hard to care about. Yes, the people come off as morons. I still love Julius Caesar. Obligatory personal disclaimers: Julius Caesar is the first play I acted in and the first play I directed for an actual paycheck: we have a history.

Still Julius Caesar gripped you by the chest and threw you around. The play had immediacy. The costume design was all muted earth tone cold weather disaffected hipster with high fashion touches. There were the faintest traces of Benazir Bhutto and Princess Leigha in Caesar’s clothing. The clothes had rank, style, and personality. The set was paint cans, workbenches, and rehearsal chairs. Dehnert staged the show in the round to further emphasize the political sphere as an arena. Actors sat in the corners, observers awaiting their entrances. We were in this world together. Beneath the power politics of Julius Caesar however is a desperate yearning, to fulfill one’s destiny, to achieve, to serve one’s nation, to prove a loyal friend. Forgive another Rivera reference. He urges dramatists to remember that “character is the embodiment of obsession. A character must be stupendously hungry.” Julius Caesar at OSF got this. Hard core. Bad ass.

The Language Archive

by Julia Cho

directed by Laurie Woolery

@ Oregon Shakespeare Festival

A guide dog in the house is a good sign. If you do not enjoy the production, you can just stare at the cute animal and entertain warm fuzzy contemplations of our interconnectedness. However, even my love of puppies could not wrench my eyes from Language Archive. Moreover, the play provides all the warm fuzzy contemplations of our interconnectedness you could desire. Confessions from a disconnected marriage start the piece. The wife cries all the time and leaves her husband secret messages, riddles of her heartache. The husband buries himself in work preserving dying languages. He does not know it but his assistant carries a torch for him, setting aside her own dreams to devote herself to him. A suicidal old man and a love for fresh baked bread rescue the wife. A language teacher frees the assistant. In addition, an old forever quarreling couple that happen to be the last speakers of their language goad the husband along his emotional journey. Ever experienced unrequited love? Ever fallen out of love? Ever fallen in love? Ever lasted in love? If your answer is “yes” to any or all of the above then The Language Archive is for you. Tears ran down my face. It felt wonderful. And just my luck, the guide dog stayed for the end too. 

Waiting for Godot

by Samuel Beckett

directed by James Ricks

@ Henley Street Theatre

If you make plays, you frequently end up choosing what play to go see by whom your friends are. That is how a car full of us ended up driving two hours to see a production of Waiting for Godot. Our friend was playing Estragon. As we had seen his show stealing turn as Leonato in a production of Much Ado About Nothing, earlier that year, we had high hopes. Captivating performances from the entire ensemble rewarded our optimism. Sometimes the character’s perseverance filled you with hope. Other times you winced as though caught in horror at laughing at a suicide note. Moreover, I confess, the giggles from our party were just a split second ahead of the joke. We just knew Estragon that well. Sorry other patrons. Sometimes you cannot hold in your love or your laughter.

August Osage County

by Tracy Letts

directed by Christopher Liam Moore @ Oregon Shakespeare Festival

directed by Patrick Smith @ Oak Grove

I had the good fortune to see both a stellar professional production and a noble community theatre production of August Osage County. I got my snazzy A+ seating ticket to August through staff rush. The man next to me asked when I had gotten my ticket. Just a few minutes before, I replied. He explained that my seat had belonged to his wife. She had gotten sick and he had turned her ticket back in that night. I told him I hoped his wife felt better soon but appreciated their consideration in turning the ticket back in. He wanted to hear about my internship. I learned about his son, an equity actor in Seattle. We laughed, cried, and exclaimed under our breath through the spellbinding three hours of family drama. At the end of the show, we shook hands and exchanged “good to meet ya’s.”

A few months later I almost did not go see August again. Even though it was outdoors, a friend of mine was in the role of Little Charles, and another friend invited me. I feared my over active critic would run a side by side comparison all night long. I came to my senses. Stopped being a spoilsport and accepted that I should go. And, Oh. My. God. 

There were maybe 18 people in the audience and everyone had a connection to the performance. There were the undergraduate girls watching their professor play Violet Weston. There were the high schoolers watching their friend play Violet’s granddaughter, Jean Fordham. Perhaps, familiarity bred permission. Perhaps, few of the high schoolers or undergrads had been to a play before. Perhaps, the plot twists in August are just that shocking. The audience shrieked, laughed, talked back at the performers. It was crazy. The audience was their own show.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Preview Performance)

by William Shakespeare

directed by Kate Powers

@ American Shakespeare Center

Almost Blasphemy Tour

Another packed house at the American Shakespeare Festival. Rather than sitting up in the balcony, I sat alone downstairs. Except no one was alone during Midsummer. Laughter created community as we giggled, squealed, and convulsed over this madcap story of love and transformation. Previews tend to attract hard core ASC fans; people who want to laugh, who want to love the show, who are familiar with the ASC aesthetic and at home in the playhouse. It is a rowdy crowd, one that knows Midsummer. Not this Midsummer. Sure, the contrast between the Indian inspired costumes and dance choreography of the fairies and the Elizabethan dress showed a little more of a directorial hand than the ASC usually cops to. However, these smart design choices were only part of what excited the crowd that night. Mostly it was the steady stream of showstoppers in the second act. There were the normal ones: the Helena-Hermia face off and the rude mechanicals' play. But there was also the literal rocking of the ground by the newly reunited Oberon and Titania, the rock rendition of the fairies blessing, and Puck’s freestyle break dancing to cover Titania’s costume change into Hippolita. Nothing like being in a crowd of strangers who feel like friends discovering a classic is even better than you thought it was.

Trick to Catch the Old One (Closing Performance)

by Thomas Middleton

directed by ... who needs a director?

@ American Shakespeare Center

Actors Renaissance Season

Tiffany Stern’s scholarship on Early Modern rehearsal practices are the pretext for the American Shakespeare Center’s adventure in director free, designer free, play making. Year after year, with limited resources and a compressed rehearsal schedule, the ensemble creates bold, raucous, rousing theatre. As an audience member, I love it. As a director, I find it humbling in the best of ways and terrifying in the worst. Trick has not really been performed much in the past 400 years. Trick is surprisingly modern though. It is a city comedy. Prostitution jokes. Class jokes. Deception gags. It is a forefather of the Importance of Being Earnest, Great Gatsby, Pretty Woman genre.

I saw the closing performance of Trick. Closing nights are magical. They are poignant and daring. Trick closed back in April. I can barely remember what caused the moment that merits its inclusion on my top ten list. However, this I know, laughter stopped the show. Dead in its tracks. The performers attempted to restart, the audience drunk with power applauded their efforts, which kept it from restarting. Of course, eventually it did begin again. However, for a suspended moment the audience ran the show, rewarding the actors for an amazing performance with gleeful, riotous, thunderous laughter.  

Imaginary Invalid

by Moliere

adapted & directed by Tracy Young

@ Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Ignorance can spell theatrical bliss. I knew precious little about Tracy Young’s adaptation of Imaginary Invalid. The first musical number came as a surprise. The play’s finale had that feel good in the face of death, go out and seize the day, wipe away that tear and smile sort of charm. Moving, affecting, simply wonderful cheese. The music was a love letter to Phil Specter. There was a projection of the Eiffel tower and a giant blue nude sculpture in the middle of the living room! Fantastic. The nurses of the celebrity doctor looked like something out of a Lady Gaga video. Imaginary Invalid, I will still love you tomorrow. 

Superior Donuts

by Tracy Letts

directed by Chris Baumer & Mendy St. Ours

@ Live Arts

Ticket waiting lists are great. If you get in, you will enjoy the show more for it. Psychologists have done studies. Five minutes before the start of Superior Donut’s my friend and I did not know if we would get in. Apparently, the board of directors, along with their friends and family, had chosen to attend that night. Well-dressed people were mingling all over the set. House music from the bar next door reverberated in the tiny third floor theatre. It felt like crashing a party. The show won me over. Despite the script’s reliance on the interior monologue technique that the lighting design accentuated by having a reflection spotlight to accompany each. When characters confess things within their own psyches; the confession risks them nothing. It cheapens the revelation. How about Hamlet with all those soliloquies? Hamlet is not talking to himself! Or he shouldn't be, he's talking to the audience. Furthermore, those soliloquies are not a device for delivering back-story as they are in Donuts. They had the audience. I found myself a foaming at the mouth universal lighting zealot by darkened room revelation #4. Still, the show belongs on this list. Lady’s performance was breathtaking. The characters pour over poetry and the novel as though America could really be healed through those turns of phrase, as though they could be healed. How could I not love a show that loves words that much? I couldn’t.

Tamburlaine

by Christopher Marlowe

directed by Jim Warren

@ The American Shakespeare Center

Confession, I dramaturged Tamburlaine, so this entry is a bit of a cheat. However, watching the play Saturday afternoon toward the end of the Blackfriars Conference was a highlight in an extraordinary week. I had not seen the show since opening and by that time, it felt like ancient history, time flies fast in the theatre. The Blackfriars Conference is a five day extravaganza of performances, key note speeches, paper presentations, and plenary sessions at the Blackfriars Playhouse on the subject of Early Modern drama and performance: past and present. The top scholars and competitive doctoral and graduate students pack the playhouse. They are a critical, intimidating, challenging, and hugely appreciative. The mood can be combative as the audience folds its arms, presses in, and seems to dare the actors to prove that there is something better in performance than they find on the page, that this company is as good as its hype. Tamburlaine is prepared for such a battle. The play goes for the jugular. It is relentless. It is bloody and bombastic. At the end of the second interlude, all the actors participate in a rendition of the God’s Gonna Cut You Down. The audience ends up clapping along. The actors throw down six black banners. On a bare stage, the result is spectacular. By that point, the audience is with the actors and Marlowe rewards this trust with two of the best suicide speeches in all of Early Modern drama. One in verse and one in prose for good measure as first Bajazeth then Zabina brain themselves against a cage. Bloody brilliant.