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)