I will not be preparing an Educational Guide for Big Love. Check the samples I've provided on the class blog, but be mindful of your content requirements: http://shsudramaturgyclass2009.blogspot.com/2009/07/educational-packets.html
An example of an annotated resource link also is posted on the class blog:
http://shsudramaturgyclass2009.blogspot.com/2009/08/example-of-annotated-resource-link.html
Monday, August 3, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Dramaturg's Statement
This is what I, as dramaturg, would share with the director and designers at the first production or design meeting.
The writing of Big Love was inspired by Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women, arguably the oldest extant play in Western civilization. Written in 463 B.C., this tragedy depicts 50 sisters from Argos who were promised in marriage by their father Danaus to 50 Egyptian cousins as part of a peace settlement. Warned by a prophecy that he would be murdered by one of his son-in-laws, Danaus then orders his daughters to kill their new husbands on their wedding night. All the brides comply except for Hypermnestra (Mee’s THYONA), who spares her new husband Lynceus (Mee’s NIKOS), who, in turn, does murder Danaus. In Mee’s play, the Greek-Italian women have runaway to escape prearranged marriages to their Greek-American cousins; upon learning that they still will have to marry their recently arrived fiancées, they themselves then resolve to murder their husbands. While the ends may be the same, the means are not: Aeschylus’ women murder in dutiful compliance with their father’s wishes; Mee’s women murder as deliberate (and much deliberated) rejection of patriarchy.
Big Love is not merely the adaptation and retelling of an ancient tale; rather, it is an assemblage of many texts that include Aeschylus as well as many modern writers. (In the postscript to his online text, Mee identifies eleven of these moderns, the most recognizable of whom is pop-culture guru Leo Buscaglia.) Furthering this notion of assemblage, Mee describes the style of his play as a “collision of text, music and movement” and cautions would-be producers not to discount any one of these three elements. The result is something akin to a period musical comedy: a scene—or long monologue, for there are many in this script—may be followed by a dance, a song, or a fight that may or may not seem to “fit” the tone or style preceding it. The challenge for our production and audiences is to embrace these eclectic and incongruous elements.
Mee states that this world is not to be approached realistically and that the action should be played against rather than within the set, which he describes as more of an “installation.” All the characters are Italian except the grooms, who are Greek cousins who emigrated to the U.S. just long enough ago to have made their own fortunes. (Many plot summaries and production reviews inaccurately identify the brides as Greeks: no, they were to have been married in Greece, the home of their grooms’ families, but they are Italians living not too far from this town.) According to Mee, BELLA and LEO may speak in Italian dialect, but no other characters should have to, which would make the “Englishness” of ELEANOR difficult to establish. Double casting also is suggested and already facilitated by the play’s structure: BELLA may be paired with ELEANOR and PIERO with LEO. While ethnicity is referenced throughout the dialogue, the play is about gender, not race or ethnicity; therefore, non-traditional casting is possible and, given the play’s eclecticism, desirable. Considering the physicality demanded of the brides and grooms, however, actors with physical disabilities should considered for the other characters.
To provide our production with some tangible geographic and cultural references, however, our setting is Castellammare di Stabia (just south of Naples) on a midsummer evening, specifically June 24, 2000. This coastal town is the site of an ancient Roman thermal bath, which was destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption that also buried Pompeii. A popular destination of modern spa-goers and honeymooners, Castellammare is a place where an outdoor tub and foreign houseguests (Eleanor and Leo) seem to make perfect sense as do the ready supply of ripe tomatoes and the cream-filled cakes that become the food fight during the wedding massacre.
Mee’s stage directions provide numerous challenges for our Raven Rep production. From a practical perspective: can we simulate a helicopter arrival for the grooms, find and fill a claw-foot tub, as well as enough formal wear for an unknown number of supplemental brides and grooms that can get bloody and cake-sticky-messy for the wedding massacre performance after performance? What does this imply for floor treatment, particularly given that it must also be used for subtle dances and acrobatic tumbling sequences? In this “battle of the sexes” play, do we subscribe to LYDIA’s nudity in the opening scene?
(710 words so far, but not done yet)
The writing of Big Love was inspired by Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women, arguably the oldest extant play in Western civilization. Written in 463 B.C., this tragedy depicts 50 sisters from Argos who were promised in marriage by their father Danaus to 50 Egyptian cousins as part of a peace settlement. Warned by a prophecy that he would be murdered by one of his son-in-laws, Danaus then orders his daughters to kill their new husbands on their wedding night. All the brides comply except for Hypermnestra (Mee’s THYONA), who spares her new husband Lynceus (Mee’s NIKOS), who, in turn, does murder Danaus. In Mee’s play, the Greek-Italian women have runaway to escape prearranged marriages to their Greek-American cousins; upon learning that they still will have to marry their recently arrived fiancées, they themselves then resolve to murder their husbands. While the ends may be the same, the means are not: Aeschylus’ women murder in dutiful compliance with their father’s wishes; Mee’s women murder as deliberate (and much deliberated) rejection of patriarchy.
Big Love is not merely the adaptation and retelling of an ancient tale; rather, it is an assemblage of many texts that include Aeschylus as well as many modern writers. (In the postscript to his online text, Mee identifies eleven of these moderns, the most recognizable of whom is pop-culture guru Leo Buscaglia.) Furthering this notion of assemblage, Mee describes the style of his play as a “collision of text, music and movement” and cautions would-be producers not to discount any one of these three elements. The result is something akin to a period musical comedy: a scene—or long monologue, for there are many in this script—may be followed by a dance, a song, or a fight that may or may not seem to “fit” the tone or style preceding it. The challenge for our production and audiences is to embrace these eclectic and incongruous elements.
Mee states that this world is not to be approached realistically and that the action should be played against rather than within the set, which he describes as more of an “installation.” All the characters are Italian except the grooms, who are Greek cousins who emigrated to the U.S. just long enough ago to have made their own fortunes. (Many plot summaries and production reviews inaccurately identify the brides as Greeks: no, they were to have been married in Greece, the home of their grooms’ families, but they are Italians living not too far from this town.) According to Mee, BELLA and LEO may speak in Italian dialect, but no other characters should have to, which would make the “Englishness” of ELEANOR difficult to establish. Double casting also is suggested and already facilitated by the play’s structure: BELLA may be paired with ELEANOR and PIERO with LEO. While ethnicity is referenced throughout the dialogue, the play is about gender, not race or ethnicity; therefore, non-traditional casting is possible and, given the play’s eclecticism, desirable. Considering the physicality demanded of the brides and grooms, however, actors with physical disabilities should considered for the other characters.
To provide our production with some tangible geographic and cultural references, however, our setting is Castellammare di Stabia (just south of Naples) on a midsummer evening, specifically June 24, 2000. This coastal town is the site of an ancient Roman thermal bath, which was destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption that also buried Pompeii. A popular destination of modern spa-goers and honeymooners, Castellammare is a place where an outdoor tub and foreign houseguests (Eleanor and Leo) seem to make perfect sense as do the ready supply of ripe tomatoes and the cream-filled cakes that become the food fight during the wedding massacre.
Mee’s stage directions provide numerous challenges for our Raven Rep production. From a practical perspective: can we simulate a helicopter arrival for the grooms, find and fill a claw-foot tub, as well as enough formal wear for an unknown number of supplemental brides and grooms that can get bloody and cake-sticky-messy for the wedding massacre performance after performance? What does this imply for floor treatment, particularly given that it must also be used for subtle dances and acrobatic tumbling sequences? In this “battle of the sexes” play, do we subscribe to LYDIA’s nudity in the opening scene?
(710 words so far, but not done yet)
Friday, July 31, 2009
Statement: Producing the Play
Textual Problems
Big Love operates much like a musical comedy in that it interweaves spoken scenes, song and musical interludes, and choreographed movements. How to make these three different formats work equally well poses the first main challenge in that it greatly affects casting of the roles of the brides, grooms, and Giuliano. A corresponding challenge is whether the director should tackle all three areas or enlist the aid of a musical director and choreographer. Age appropriateness particularly affects the casting of Bella as does Mee’s suggestion for double casting Bella/Eleanor and Piero/Leo. The dialogue clearly indicates that there are an additional 47 brides and 47 grooms to be married; how many are actually included depends on each production’s resources, particularly given that each bridal couple appears in formal wear (and for only this one scene at the end of the play). Performance space poses numerous challenges in that actors must be able to tumble and roll on the floor as well as get it wet (from the bathtub) and sticky nasty (with Bella’s splattered tomatoes early in the play and with all the fake blood and pulverized cake during the wedding massacre). Mee's stage directions indicate that Lydia gets naked and takes a bath (in the filled tub onstage) and that the three first grooms arrive overhead via helicopter accompanied by tremendous wind.
Contextual Problems
As a Raven Rep slot in the Showcase Theatre, our production will face limited financial and spatial resources. If we have three additional couples (instead of 47), then we end up with 12 people in formal wear getting married along with 3-5 guests—15-18 total actors in the Showcase who must also be able to “dance” the wedding massacre. The small acting space also makes the “sticky nasty” scenes difficult for staging and cleanup, and the closeness of the audience could turn the whole performance into something resembling a Gallagher show (the audience has to sit under plastic to avoid the splattered watermelons!). Regarding the number of “triple threats” required by the casting, we will be competing for talent with only one musical (not two as during the fall semester) and one less student-directed slot. Given the physical hazards of the tumbling sequences and the wedding massacre, I think funds should be requested for a workshop with a fight director.
Other Productions' Solutions
Most of the productions employed fight directors and/or choreographers to help with the acrobatic and often dangerous staging. At the University of Washington, the school's rappelling team was brought in to train the grooms how to land on stage. UT Austin went the opposite direction and allowed its bridal couples (all MFA actors) to improvise their fight choreography. Berkeley Rep covered its thrust stage with pink wrestling mats to help soften the actors' fall, while Columbia University seemed to exacerbate the situation by turning the stage floor into a huge sandbox. Some productions (namely the original and subsequent versions directed by Les Waters) employed Mee's double casting for Bella/Eleanor and Piero/Leo, although most others split the roles. The University of Washington had the largest supplemental cast with 7 additional brides and as many additional grooms, while Dallas Theatre Center reduced each by one. Production photos clearly indicate non-traditional casting when regarding race and ethnicity, particularly for the brides and grooms, but no apparent employment of disabled actors in this inescapably physical play.
The Critics Respond
The central issue noted by most of the critics stemmed from the relationship between the text (which is itself an assemblage of pre-existing texts just adapted by Mee) and the staging (both that suggested by Mee's stage directions as well as individual production choices). The issue is, basically, how much is too much? The original director (Les Waters) was both praised and damned for his over-the-top staging when it finally reached (in its fourth incarnation) the Big Apple. Similarly, how big characters might be played concerned some reviewers, who felt that, no matter how outrageous the characters might act, they still must preserve their core humanity. Other reviewers negatively noted the incongruous halting of the action posed by the inclusion of the many, often lengthy, pop culture moments, particularly the two songs; still others welcomed the theatricality as a way of offsetting the long-winded and didactic monologues. Few questioned or discounted the playfulness and sheer fun of the live experience.
(724 words)
Big Love operates much like a musical comedy in that it interweaves spoken scenes, song and musical interludes, and choreographed movements. How to make these three different formats work equally well poses the first main challenge in that it greatly affects casting of the roles of the brides, grooms, and Giuliano. A corresponding challenge is whether the director should tackle all three areas or enlist the aid of a musical director and choreographer. Age appropriateness particularly affects the casting of Bella as does Mee’s suggestion for double casting Bella/Eleanor and Piero/Leo. The dialogue clearly indicates that there are an additional 47 brides and 47 grooms to be married; how many are actually included depends on each production’s resources, particularly given that each bridal couple appears in formal wear (and for only this one scene at the end of the play). Performance space poses numerous challenges in that actors must be able to tumble and roll on the floor as well as get it wet (from the bathtub) and sticky nasty (with Bella’s splattered tomatoes early in the play and with all the fake blood and pulverized cake during the wedding massacre). Mee's stage directions indicate that Lydia gets naked and takes a bath (in the filled tub onstage) and that the three first grooms arrive overhead via helicopter accompanied by tremendous wind.
Contextual Problems
As a Raven Rep slot in the Showcase Theatre, our production will face limited financial and spatial resources. If we have three additional couples (instead of 47), then we end up with 12 people in formal wear getting married along with 3-5 guests—15-18 total actors in the Showcase who must also be able to “dance” the wedding massacre. The small acting space also makes the “sticky nasty” scenes difficult for staging and cleanup, and the closeness of the audience could turn the whole performance into something resembling a Gallagher show (the audience has to sit under plastic to avoid the splattered watermelons!). Regarding the number of “triple threats” required by the casting, we will be competing for talent with only one musical (not two as during the fall semester) and one less student-directed slot. Given the physical hazards of the tumbling sequences and the wedding massacre, I think funds should be requested for a workshop with a fight director.
Other Productions' Solutions
Most of the productions employed fight directors and/or choreographers to help with the acrobatic and often dangerous staging. At the University of Washington, the school's rappelling team was brought in to train the grooms how to land on stage. UT Austin went the opposite direction and allowed its bridal couples (all MFA actors) to improvise their fight choreography. Berkeley Rep covered its thrust stage with pink wrestling mats to help soften the actors' fall, while Columbia University seemed to exacerbate the situation by turning the stage floor into a huge sandbox. Some productions (namely the original and subsequent versions directed by Les Waters) employed Mee's double casting for Bella/Eleanor and Piero/Leo, although most others split the roles. The University of Washington had the largest supplemental cast with 7 additional brides and as many additional grooms, while Dallas Theatre Center reduced each by one. Production photos clearly indicate non-traditional casting when regarding race and ethnicity, particularly for the brides and grooms, but no apparent employment of disabled actors in this inescapably physical play.
The Critics Respond
The central issue noted by most of the critics stemmed from the relationship between the text (which is itself an assemblage of pre-existing texts just adapted by Mee) and the staging (both that suggested by Mee's stage directions as well as individual production choices). The issue is, basically, how much is too much? The original director (Les Waters) was both praised and damned for his over-the-top staging when it finally reached (in its fourth incarnation) the Big Apple. Similarly, how big characters might be played concerned some reviewers, who felt that, no matter how outrageous the characters might act, they still must preserve their core humanity. Other reviewers negatively noted the incongruous halting of the action posed by the inclusion of the many, often lengthy, pop culture moments, particularly the two songs; still others welcomed the theatricality as a way of offsetting the long-winded and didactic monologues. Few questioned or discounted the playfulness and sheer fun of the live experience.
(724 words)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Berkeley Rep 2001
Berkeley Repertory TheatreBerkeley, California
April-June 2001
Director: Les Waters
Scenery: Annie Smart
Costumes: James Schuette
Lighting: Robert Wierzel
Sound: Matthew Mezick
Three breathless brides rush onto a stage which is carpeted with pink wrestling mats (for good reason, as we shall see), wearing white gowns and backpacks and one of them immediately jumps out of her clothes and into a bath. [...] Before the nuptials are concluded we get a food fight, an orgy and bloody murder.
Suzanne Weiss, Culture Vulture
http://www.culturevulture.net/Theater/BigLove.htm
The happily-ever-after ending threatens to define the bigness of the play’s title as universality. Fortunately, Waters’s absurd curtain call upsets the security of that resolution. The cast, mostly brides and grooms still splattered with blood and wedding cake, take their bows while lip-synching and dancing to Prince’s “Kiss.”
Catherine Scott Burriss, Theatre Journal
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theatre_journal/v054/54.1burriss.pdf
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Woolly Mammoth 2002
at The Kennedy CenterWashington, DC
June 2002
Director: Howard Shalwitz
Set Design: James Krozner
Costume Design: Elena Zlotescu
Set Design: James Krozner
Costume Design: Elena Zlotescu
The naked Lydia is greeted by Giuliano, a masked Dionysian transdresser in Barbie-style stiletto heels who pipes an obbligato gay man's version of love throughout the play. After Lydia dries off and puts on her slip, her sisters Thyona and Olympia struggle onstage dragging their hope chest.
Susan Joseph, Didaskalia
http://www.didaskalia.net/reviews/2002_06_17_01.html
http://www.didaskalia.net/reviews/2002_06_17_01.html
James Krozner's set -- part padded cell, part "The Bold Look of Kohler" -- is a particularly whimsical wonder that provides the perfect playground for Howard Shalwitz's intensely physical direction of a top-notch cast, bedecked in wildly eclectic, fantastical costumes by Elena Zlotescu.
Jonathan Padget, Metro Weekly
http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/stage.php?ak=15
Jonathan Padget, Metro Weekly
http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/stage.php?ak=15
Gate Theatre (London) 2006
Gate TheatreLondon, England
September 2006
Director: Melissa Kievman
Design: Hannah Clark
Sound: Neil Alexander
Lighting: David Howe
Choreography: Ann Yee
Design: Hannah Clark
Sound: Neil Alexander
Lighting: David Howe
Choreography: Ann Yee
Melissa Kievman’s colourful, joyous production sports a pink set by Hannah Clark which evokes la dolce vita, the modern Italy of Mee’s text. Her energetic cast swing from lip-synching to pratfalls and from angry declamation to sentimental longing, with little more than the bat of a well-kohled eyelash.
Aleks Sierz, The Stage
So why do I hesitate to recommend this play wholeheartedly? In part because [...] it treats no aspect of its politics - sexual or otherwise - with any seriousness.
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
University of Washington 2009
University of Washington School of DramaSeattle, Washington
February 2009
Director: Desdemona Chiang
Scenic Design: Deanna Zibello
Scenic Design: Deanna Zibello
Costume Design: Kathleen Hegarty
Lighting Design: Lara Wilder
Sound Design: Matt Davis
The production falters ever so slightly during the few momentum-halting musical numbers. Pop culture non-sequiturs are a difficult endeavor and should be included either with caution or absolute abandon. In this case, though fun, they lack the gripping energy of the rest of the play.
Trevor Pendras, The Daily
The play is technically challenging. Chiang called in members of the UW Climbing Club to teach her actors rappelling (for when they make their entrance from the helicopter) and a choreographer to help the actresses fling themselves on the floor multiple times without hurting themselves. A wind machine will help create the illusion of a helicopter, while trick swords will produce the “blood.”
Nancy Wick, University Week
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
