Dr. Szlyk's Blog for ENGL 190: theater

Showing posts with label theater. Show all posts

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Local Theater -- The Gaming Table

Although Susanna Centlivre wrote The Basset Table...I mean...The Gaming Table long before our era begins in EN 230, I'd like to post a quick review of the performance my husband and I saw today at the Folger Theater in DC.

One of the advantages of living near DC is the ability to see performances of plays that are no longer performed as often. The Folger Theater is a particularly suitable venue. The two-story stage with its sweeping, wooden staircase represented an eighteenth-century London mansion in a way that a more typical stage might not.

This performance reminded me that Restoration comedy is fun to read--and watch. The performance was fun and funny without being condescending or condescended to. Neither did it creak. The actors were skillful, and parts of the play were discreetly updated here and there. Since we associate basset with dogs rather than with cards, the play's title became The Gaming Table. After all, the play is about women who gamble on cards, love, and men. The prologue and epilogue included references to Congress and women's roles today.

Like many Restoration comedies, The Gaming Table brings together several couples in a merry round of romance. Centlivre gives us four to be exact. First is Lady Reveller, a spunky widow, and her beau Worthy, who wants her to give up gambling. Next is her cousin Lady Lucy, a serious young lady who prefers the playhouse to the gaming table, and Sir James Courtly, a not-so-serious man. Another cousin, Valeria, would seem to prefer science to love...except that she is in love with the charming Ensign Lovely. And then there are Mr. and Mrs. Sago, Pud and Kiki...except that she appears to love gaming and Sir James more than she loves her husband. Other characters throw in complications. Valeria's father intends for her to marry Captain Hearty who would rather not marry her. And then there are Buckle and Alpiew, the servants of Worthy and Lady Reveller respectively.

But all's well in the end.

Here are links to a few reviews of The Gaming Table:

http://dctheatrescene.com/2012/02/02/the-gaming-table/

http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/articles/play-dc-the-gaming-table-the-folger-theatre.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/performing-arts/the-gaming-table,1213012/critic-review.html

http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/susanna-centlivres-the-gaming-basset-table-at-the-folger/

For more information about the play itself, see The Folger Theater's website:

http://www.folger.edu/woSummary.cfm?woid=677

For more information about Susanna Centlivre who wrote The Basset Table in 1705, see these links:

http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=4035

http://www.juggernaut-theatre.org/first100years/centlivrebio.html

See these links for a review of an earlier revival of The Basset Table:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=108015&sectioncode=26

UMBC has a podcast of a performance:

http://www.umbc.edu/theatre/z_bassettable.html

Chicago's Alcyone Festival in 2008 included a performance of another of Centlivre's plays:

http://halcyontheatre.org/boldstroke

The Busy Body was staged in NYC in 2010:

http://who-will-kiss-the-pig.blogspot.com/2010/08/saturday-evening-in-washington-heights.html

The blog entry above has many pictures!

The Wonder was also staged in NYC. This appears to be a more modern version.

Langston Hughes, The Playwright

You may know Langston Hughes (1902-1967) as a poet, the author of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "I, Too, Sing of America," and "Theme for English B." These poems are quite famous. (Below is a link to Hughes reading "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," a poem that he wrote when he was seventeen!)

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15722

You may also know Hughes from your freshman composition class. Many teachers assign Hughes' "Salvation," a piece from his autobiography, The Big Sea.

http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG200-dwc/hughes.htm

However, Hughes was also a playwright, and "Soul Gone Home" (1937) was one of his many efforts in this genre. Here is a link to an article about a recent performance of this play:

http://www.campusecho.com/hughes-spirit-lives-1.2679964

I'm surprised that there haven't been other revivals, but here is a review of an opera based on Hughes' play.

http://cvnc.org/article.cfm?articleId=12

Ah, here is a review of a performance of the play at Purdue's Black Cultural Center:

http://archive.purdueexponent.org/interface/bebop/showstory.php?date=2002/11/1&section=features&storyid=BCCReview

A picture of this 2002 performance is below:

Hughes wrote a number of other plays and librettos for operas, and during the later part of his career, he became increasingly successful. Staging his plays could be frustrating, and he often had to fight for them. In 1930, he collaborated with Zora Neale Hurston on a play, Mule Bone, but their partnership fell apart. Ultimately, she claimed that the finished play was hers and hers alone. As a result, the theater company that had been planning on performing the play decided not to do so, and the play would not be staged until 1991, long after its authors' deaths.

A review of this play is below:

http://my.en.com/~herone/MuleBone.html

Written in 1930 and performed on Broadway in 1935, Mulatto was Hughes' first play.

http://experiencinghistory.blogspot.com/2011/10/langston-hughes-mulatto-hits-broadway.html

Hughes' Black Nativity (first performed 1961) is probably his most famous play. You may even be able to see it next Christmas in DC!

http://www.examiner.com/gospel-music-in-washington-dc/black-nativity-at-h-street-playhouse

http://www.blacknativity.org/index.html

http://www.thehillishome.com/2009/12/singing-praises-for-black-nativity-at-h-street-playhouse/

This online exhibit at the University of Kansas gives an overview of Hughes' career as playwright and songwriter:

http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/exhibits/langston/playwright.htm

For more of an overview of Hughes' career, see these links:

http://education.goodmantheatre.org/the-nativity-2/langston-hughes-and-his-works/

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83

Monday, June 22, 2009

Pictures from Live Arts' Mother Courage (Charlottesville VA)

While I'm online today, I'd like to post some pictures from Live Arts' production of Mother Courage. (Live Arts is a community theater group from Charlottesville, VA, and my sister-in-law and her husband are very much involved in this group.

)

Here is Mother Courage pulling her cart.

Mother Courage is selling a capon (or chicken) to the Cook.

Yvette sings a song about her affair with the Cook.

Mother Courage is doing brisk business at her canteen.

Yvette arrives with her husband who is going to buy Mother Courage's cart for her.

Am not sure which scenes these are:

Below looks to be the scene where Kattrin is killed.

Mother Courage sings a lullaby to her dead daughter.

Here you may see the stage where everything took place.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Study Guide for Drama & Theater (Spring 2008)

The picture above is from Oregon State University's 2005 version of A Doll's House. Yes, yes, it is set in the 1950s...in Dallas, TX. For more about this production, see the two links below:

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/May05/dollshouse.htm

http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2005/05/13/Diversions/a.Dolls.House.To.Close.Osu.Theatre.Season-2293784.shtml

Drama – playscript, text, includes stage directions, playwright’s conception, playwright's intentions

Is it still worth studying a play that is no longer performed?

Theater – performance, central idea, director, actors, audience, set, costumes, sound;

elements of play: action or plot, character, setting, spectacle, mise-en-scene, thought/language, song and dance, (at times) translation

In the pictures above, Avery Brooks performs the roles of Willy Loman (stage--Oberlin College) and Othello (stage -- DC's Shakespeare Theater).

Avery Brooks – films tell stories; theater is a place to explore ideas

Aristotle – unities of time, place, action

Henrik Ibsen's A Doll’s House (1879) -- problem play; well-made play; realism; original version is in Norwegian; first version performed in US was in German; in German version, Helmer makes Nora look at the children she would be abandoning; Nora is the central figure; altering her character would change the whole purpose; Nora's relationship with Helmer; Nora's relationship with her children; we saw most of Patrick Garland's film of A Doll's House (1973 -- Claire Bloom, Anthony Hopkins, Ralph Richardson) as well as several scenes from Joseph Losey's film from the same year (1973 -- Jane Fonda, theater actor David Warner, Trevor Howard), Mabou Mines' production (tall women, very short men), and the Hunger Artists' version (set in the 1950s).

See this link for scenes from the 1973 version of A Doll's House starring Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins:

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

See this link for the scenes of the other 1973 version starring Jane Fonda and David Warner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWM3PB0OI4s

See this link for the Mabou Mines version of A Doll's House:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHn2FxLJOoI

The picture above is of Nora and Doctor Rank.

See this link for the Hunger Artists' 1950s version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3CIsynKa4

Mother Courage – set during Thirty Years’ war, written at the beginning of WWII, Brecht already in exile, relationship of songs & plot,epic theater, alienation effect, how to portray Mother Courage, Mother Courage's children (Eilif, Swiss Cheese, Kattrin), Chaplain & Cook,

See this link for the Antaeus Theater Company's trailer. However, the picture above is from Live Arts' recent production in Charlottesville, VA.

Anteus Company's MC -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUmpBu_qkD0

See this link for more images of Mother Courage in performance. Several are of Helene Weigel, Brecht's wife (the woman above).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYcpY7P0qcc

Monday, April 6, 2009

More Mother Courage

Here, in fact, are a few more videos of recent productions. The first was at William and Mary. (The picture above is from this college production.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYwFzBNk2k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC7senNIlyo

The second is the production that starred Meryl Streep. Tony Kushner did the translation of Brecht's play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mz5I1LmLLw&feature=related

Another is by the Antaeus Theater Company, a professional theater company from LA. It includes many of the songs from Mother Courage so that you may see them acted out. Unfortunately, it is hard to find a picture from this production! Below is a picture from rehearsal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUmpBu_qkD0

Here is a YouTube video on Brecht's life and works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu_jOEAwQ6Q

The picture is from USC's site on Brecht.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Tartuffe!

The picture above is from a recent production of Tartuffe at SMU in Dallas. Yes, yes, yes, it's a modern-dress production, but this picture above gives you a good idea of what this satirical play will be about: a conman passes himself off as a spiritual advisor in order to bilk a wealthy man and his wife.

See this site for a summary from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival:

http://www.osfashland.org/browse/production.aspx?prod=60

See this site for a biography of the playwright Moliere (1622-1673):

http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Theatre/Moliere/moliere.shtml

The picture below is from a French bio pic of Moliere:

As I look around, I see a number of (more or less) modern-day productions, but I'd like to show you some pictures of more historically accurate versions. Tartuffe was written and first performed in 1664, so I want to emphasize the historical aspects of this play. It is timeless, but I want you to realize that this play is a 17th century satire and was performed at the French court (which probably explains the ending!).

Here the maid Dorine confronts Tartuffe in a production at the East Carolina Playhouse in Greenville.

In the picture below, Orgon hides under the table and hears Tartuffe propositioning his wife. The production pictured is from Hampton-Sydney College in Virginia:

These actors from the University of South Carolina played this scene even more farcically:

I guess this must be the most celebrated scene in the play as when I looked for other interpretations of this play I saw this print from 1892:

This woodcut (of the same scene) appears to be from the 17th or 18th century.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Waiting for Godot at the Warehouse Theater

This afternoon my husband and I went out in the insane heat to see Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot at DC's Warehouse Theater, a gritty venue north of Gallery Place/Chinatown. This play may not quite be the kind of contemporary play that the City Paper's critics would like to see more of, but I thought that it was well worth reviewing for the EN 202 blog. Moreover, Waiting for Godot has been an extremely influential play, even from its first performances.

Did you know that Waiting for Godot was originally in French? Its author, Samuel Beckett, was born in Ireland, but he chose to write in French (after WWII) because that language enabled him to "write 'without style.'" (At the time, he was living in Paris.) Beckett then translated his play into English, his first language.

The premise of Waiting for Godot is this: two men Vladimir or "Didi" and Estragon or "Gogo" are waiting in a field by a tree because Godot, a man who has agreed to help them out, has said that he would be coming there. It's not clear where the men are or when the play takes place. At one point, Vladimir and Estragon talk about picking grapes somewhere in France and being together for fifty years. However, this is not a realistic play. In fact, critic Normand Berlin notes that Beckett refused to answer famed theater actor Ralph Richardson's questions about the characters in his play. For Berlin himself, the absence of specificity or backstory was exciting, and he views the two characters as archetypes.

Along the way, Vladimir and Estragon chat to kill time. At times, they discuss very mundane matters, and Estragon grumbles about his ill-fitting boots. Then he turns around and suggests to his companion that they hang themselves on the tree. They do not because they have no rope with them. They also motivate themselves to wait for Godot and, at one point, mistake Pozzo, a wealthy man with a slave named Lucky, for him. One of Godot's servants then arrives, informing the two men that his master will not be coming. After a brief intermission, the play begins again, and it is the next day--or is it? First Vladimir and then Estragon return to the stage. Vladimir is cheerful, trying to remember a song about a dog; the other man straggles in, without shoes and with scrapes and bruises from a fight. The two men reconcile and talk about going off separately. Again Pozzo comes on stage. This time he is blind, his slave is mute, and both helplessly fall down onto the ground. They need Vladimir and Estragon's help to get up. Again Godot's servant comes on stage. He does not recognize Vladimir or Estragon even though Vladimir begs him to. The servant leaves, followed by the two men.

The actors at the Scena Theater (Chris Davenport and Dan Brick) look relatively young as you may gather from the picture above. Here are some pictures of other pairs. James Laurenson and Alan Dobie portray a more elderly pair.

Charles Spencer's review is also well worth reading as he discusses the difficulties of staging Godot in the 2000s, more than fifty years after the play's exhilarating debut:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/10/11/btgodot11.xml

The Classical Theater of Harlem traveled to New Orleans to perform Waiting for Godot. Mother Jones' Nick Baumann has written about their open-air performance:

http://www.motherjones.com/arts/feature/2007/11/waiting-for-godot-in-new-orleans.html

Colleges like Wichita State University in Kansas and Montreal's McGill University have staged this play as well. The photo below from Wichita State shows Lucky and Pozzo as well as Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky is the young woman with the bags.

The picture below is from McGill's performance:

For more information about this production, see this link: http://media.www.mcgilltribune.com/media/storage/paper234/news/2004/02/10/AE/Two-Guys.And.A.Tree-603040.shtml

The picture below is from a 1984 bilingual production (Hebrew and Arabic) staged in Haifa, Israel

I will close with a link to Normand Berlin's article that truly puts Beckett and Godot in context:

http://www.samuel-beckett.net/BerlinTraffic.html

Dr. Szlyk's Blog for ENGL 190