The Love Suicides at Amijima

I should be grading my papers from EN 101A, and in class we are moving on beyond drama to...film, but I thought that I would post a quick blog entry on the play that we have just read, The Love Suicides at Amijima.  The picture above is from a 1997 English-language version performed at NYC's LaMama Theater.  For more information about this production, see this link below:

http://www.theatrejapan.com/amijima.html

A professor at Washburn University in Kansas has posted background on the play. 

http://www.washburn.edu/reference/bridge24/Chickamatsu.html

For more information about bunraku (the genre that this play originally belonged to):

http://www.japan-zone.com/culture/bunraku.shtml

http://www.sagecraft.com/puppetry/definitions/Bunraku.hist.html

http://www.puppetcentre.org.uk/animationsonline/aotwentyone/ao21_whatsinaname.html

Here are video clips of bunraku although not of Love Suicides:

http://www2.ntj.jac.go.jp/unesco/bunraku/en/video.html

In 1969, a film version of Love Suicides (Double Suicide) appeared:

http://www.gotterdammerung.org/film/shinoda-masahiro/double-suicide.html

Scenes from Mother Courage By Brecht

I thought that I would put together an entry linking to various videos of Mother Courage.  They will have to do until someone decides to film this play or I decide to spring for a DVD from Germany.  First, though, here is a review of the production pictured above:

http://www.musicomh.com/theatre/mother-courage_1106.htm

Here is a quick scene from an Illinois' high school's production:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S5XZgV2Hd0

This production is by "Theater Bayside":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Y-icyZFZg

This video of "The Death of Kattrin" is short, but the scenery looks more professional:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwa_Z2iQP00

Villanova University's Theater Department has a slide show of its production of Mother Courage and a video of the set and costume designers at work:

http://villanovatheatretalk.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

I am desperate, so I am going to add some reviews with extensive pictures and/or description!

See this links for pictures from Rutgers-NJIT's production:

http://theatre.njit.edu/pictures.php?d=mothercourage&n=MOTHER%20COURAGE%20AND%20HER%20CHILDREN

Minneapolis'  Frank Theater has done Mother Courage recently.  For once, the play is reviewed glowingly!  See the second link for an interview with Wendy Knox, the founder of this theater:

 http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/minn/minn171.html

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/10/20/wendyknox/

In 2003, a theater company in the UK put on a production with disabled actors:

http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2003-02/mothercourage.htm

A year later, The Eclipse Theater Company toured the UK with its version of Mother Courage translated by Afro-British playwright Oladipo Agboluaje.  In this version, Mother Courage is set in modern-day West Africa.  For more details, see these links:

http://www.eclipsetheatre.org.uk/mcahc.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northamptonshire/stage/2004/mother_courage.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/going_out/on_stage/2004/03/mother_courage/preview.shtml

http://www.theatrevoice.com/listen_now/player/?audioID=483


These reviews from Pittsburgh and San Diego may explain why I am desperate!

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A24565

http://www.sandiego.com/option,com_sdca/target,9e394025-6005-4bb4-b426-15f018d60a0d/

Belated Review of MC's Chicago

Taming of the Shrew

  To prepare for Prof. Eckert's talk on Monday March 24, "'Our lances are like straws':  Irony, Rhetoric, and The Taming of the Shrew," I'd like to post a little information about The Taming of the Shrew.  Otherwise, as much as it would be interesting to have another perspective on drama, we won't get as much as we should out of the talk.

The picture above is from a recent local production of Taming at the Shakespeare Theater.  Here is a link to the web site for that production.  As you'll see, it is a very full website with not only a synopsis and reviews but also interviews, a photo gallery, scholarly articles, and even a video trailer!

http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/details.aspx?id=110&source=l

See this link for an audience member's response:

http://twohourstraffic.blogspot.com/2007/10/shakespeare-theatres-taming-of-shrew.html

Or this summer we could go to Utah to see Taming.    Actually, you may find the articles on this site useful.

http://www.bard.org/plays/shrew.html

Here are pictures from other recent productions all over the world:

http://www.cambridgeshakespeare.com/

http://www.chicagoshakes.com/main.taf?p=2,17,5

Even better, the University of Victoria, a Canadian univiersity, has a series of links to performances from 1908 to just last year!  Most are in English, but there are some in German!

http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Theater/sip/play/Shr/main.html

In the late 19th and early 20th century, The Taming of the Shrew was quite popular as this page from Emory University shows:

http://shakespeare.emory.edu/playdisplay.cfm?playid=27

A professor at Virginia Military Institute has put together a number of links on the play's performance history:

http://academics.vmi.edu/english/shrew.html#Performance

But here are some videos from You Tube.  The first contains scenes from a 1960s version of Taming of the Shrew starring Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.  I showed this movie to my Shakespeare on Film class at Purdue University, and they really enjoyed it--even though it was "old."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmOQh5RNveQ

This video shows Kate and Petruchio's wedding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K2gb9BZcSE

I think that my EN 102 students at Purdue would have preferred this version done by high school students a la Jerry Springer (do you remember him?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej4ojXbxy2g

Or would you prefer John Cleese's Petruchio?  (Hmm...how would Steve Carrell be in this role!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2NnhBNq6h8

In the UK, The Royal Shakespeare Theater staged both The Taming of the Shrew *and* John Fletcher's sequel (in which Petruchio is tamed!):

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/reviews/the-taming-of-the-shrew-royal-shakespeare-theatrebr-the-tamer-tamed-swan-theatre-stratforduponavon-594449.html

Here Professors Lisa Jardine (an expert on Shakespeare) and Gordon McMullan (an expert on John Fletcher) and actor Alexandra Gilbraith discuss the two plays and Shakespeare's attitude towards women:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_23_sat_01.shtml

To see what The Tamer Tamed looks like, here is Shakespeare and Company's collection of pictures from its 2005 production:

http://www.shakespeare.org/gallery/tamer

Acting throughout the Ages

More on Brecht

  The picture above is from the recent production of Threepenny Opera (the most famous play by Brecht) with Cyndi Lauper and Nellie McKay.  Here is the video preview for that production--direct from You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A3CR5K8-ys

YouTube also has audio recordings of Lotte Lenya's versions of songs from the Threepenny Opera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo7LpEkkAk0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V_iLXkx1Uo

Bertolt Brecht sings here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY

Although I've posted this blog from the dramaturg of Villanova's production of Mother Courage, I think that it's worth reposting for the information about Brecht:

http://villanovatheatretalk.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

I've posted this article on epic theater and Brecht's biography elsewhere as well, but I'm sure that you'll find it useful here:

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_epic_theater.html

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_bio.html

Deustche Welle, the German broadcasting service, has put together a picture gallery on Brecht and his work.  One picture is of Helene Weigel, his second wife and the most outstanding Mother Courage:

http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_imagegalerie/0,2172,2128266_page_1_lang_2,00.html

Here is a biography of Ms. Weigel.  Again, she is pictured as Mother Courage although she portrayed many other roles in her husband's plays.

http://www.artsalive.ca/en/thf/histoire/comediens.html#weigel

Brecht spent some time in the US while he was in exile from Germany.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2125885,00.html

Here is an article about the Brecht-Weigel House in East Berlin.  It includes some information about Ms. Weigel's work after her husband's death when she led the Berliner Ensemble, the theater company that they had founded together.

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/chnn/CHNN17HOU.html

In 2001, a movie was made about a day in Brecht's life:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,531391,00.html

Let's finish with some articles on Brecht's influence on later theater.  The first is from Brandeis University's production of The Good Woman of Setzuan.

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_influence.html

The next is from Deutsche Welle:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2127719,00.html

Prof. Edward Isser of the College of the Holy Cross discusses Brechtian influence on the performance of Shakespeare!

http://www.holycross.edu/departments/theatre/eisser/BrechtianShakespeare.html

Midterm Study Guide -- Spring 2008 -- plays (A Doll's House)

  At this point, our unit on drama is not yet finished.  (After break, we will read Mother Courage and The Love Suicides, a German play and a Japanese play respectively.  If you saw Chicago, you may find some of Brecht's techniques in Mother Courage a little familiar.)

This study guide will focus on A Doll's House and an overall discussion of drama and theater.

-- Drama refers to the author's play script as it is published.  Theater, on the other hand, refers to the performance of the play and all the "extra-textual" elements: casting, costumes, sets, mise-en-scene, the reading of lines, sound, lighting, music, and venue.  For example, a performance of A Doll's House at the Theater Arts Arena will be very different from a performance of the same play in a park or in a classroom.

-- An important element of theater is the central idea of a performance.  This central idea will determine casting, staging, costuming, and even reading of lines.  The central idea will also affect the audience just as much as an audience may determine a play's central idea.  Audiences who see many plays and are willing to experiment will accept a more adventurous production and central idea.  Audiences who see fewer plays will probably be more conservative.

-- A Doll's House (1879) is one of Ibsen's problem plays.  In other words, in this play, Ibsen (1829-1906) explored a pressing issue and encouraged his audience to think about it.  He guides his audience rather than telling them what to think or entertaining them.  The problem play relies on a proscenium arch stage, which frames the action and distances it from the audience.  (Did you know that in Aphra Behn's day wealthy theatergoers could sit on the stage--and leer at the actresses & smirk at the audience?!) Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and wrote in that language, but his plays were quickly translated into English and became popular for more intellectual audiences.  Ibsen's advocates in English included the great novelist and would-be playwright Henry James, theater critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw, and the actor Elizabeth Robins.  Another advocate was our anthology's translator, William Archer (1856-1924).

-- The BBC version of A Doll's House that we saw in class dates from 1992.  There Juliet Stevenson plays Nora, and Trevor Eve plays Helmer.  This version is fairly conservative: it is set in the 1870s, and the scenes that we saw were indoors.  Other noted  versions of A Doll's House on film were theatrically-released movies from the 1970s: one starring Claire Bloom and another starring Jane Fonda (see above).