Dr. Szlyk's Blog for ENGL 190

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Local Theater -- Red

My husband and I have also been attending performances of contemporary drama. Last weekend we saw Red at Arena Stage, another impressive venue. This venue, however, is quite 21st century.

Red's subject matter is also quite modern and fits into our course nicely. The play is about modern artist Mark Rothko.

You may prefer to see his distinctive paintings in color.

The play is set in the late 1950s when Rothko was completing a commission to paint murals for The Four Seasons, a very expensive restaurant in NYC. Rothko's style of painting was also being challenged by the work of artists such as Andy Warhol. In the play itself, Rothko and his assistant, Ken, a young artist, battle over art and its meaning. I wonder how this play would work as drama read in a class like EN 230. However, visual and aural elements that may be difficult to convey on the page are so important to this play in particular. (It is set in Rothko's studio, a capacious loft with much equipment and many paintings in progress.) Also, as my brother-in-law pointed out to me, this play would be difficult to stage in many settings and requires a venue and company like Arena Stage or its equivalent. For more information, see this article from The NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/theater/30red.html

The scene below is from Arena Stage.

Even the paint that Rothko and Ken throw around the stage requires technical know-how. After all, oil paint is very permanent. Yet, in one scene, Ken cleans it up very quickly.

For reviews of Red at Arena Stage, see the following links:

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/22609.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-hues-blend-evocatively-in-arena-stages-red/2012/01/29/gIQAvA52aQ_story.html

Links to reviews of other productions are below:

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/boston/southend/articles/2012/01/29/in_two_plays_art_and_red_one_question_how_much_do_we_believe_in_abstract_art/

http://thephoenix.com/boston/arts/132294-red-explores-rothkos-emotional-palette/

http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/theater/reviews/02red.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/stage/7790335-421/red-uses-the-stage-as-a-canvas-in-painting-a-volcanic-mark-rothko.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/6767740/Red-at-the-Donmar-Warehouse-review.html

For information about Rothko, see the links below:

http://www.hollistaggart.com/artists/biography/mark_rothko/

http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/dec/12/mark-rothko-red-william-boyd

And what did happen to the murals that Rothko was supposed to paint for the Four Seasons:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2002/dec/07/artsfeatures

To finish, here are links to videos and articles about what it is like to perform in Red.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/04/from-one-artist-to-another-alfred-molina-plays-painter-rothko-on-broadway.html

http://video.pbs.org/video/2194097529/

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=&sc2=features&sc3=&id=128678

The scene below is from Boston's Speakeasy Theater:

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

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Study Guide for Final -- pt. 3 -- EN 190

I think that it's time for part three of our study guide!

Monday's presentations were as follows:

Grant's presentation on Jules Verne, focusing on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Ismail's presentation applying Erikson's theory of development to Death of a Salesman

Pamela's presentation on Cuban poet and painter Armando Vallardes

Inhae's presentation on the Brothers Grimm

Liliana's presentation on Nobel prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa

The picture below is of Vargas Llosa with his first wife, Julia.

We also discussed the ballad, a form present in both poetry and song.

Here are a few more links for you:

In the 1960s, Simon and Garfunkel put E.A. Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" to music. Here is a link to the poem although it is in our anthology:

Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action. The ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza. Incremental repetition repeats one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action. The ballad stanza is four lines; commonly, the first and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and fourth lines contain three feet. Ballads often open abruptly, present brief descriptions, and use concise dialogue.
The folk ballad is usually anonymous and the presentation impersonal. The literary ballad deliberately imitates the form and spirit of a folk ballad. The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk balad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).

Tuesday we saw the following presentations: Hubert's presentation on Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, Wajiha & Jonathan's presentation on Eminem's "Mockingbird," Aurelie's presentation on Victor Hugo's "Demain des l'Aube," and Dexter's presentation on the Beijing production of Death of a Salesman.

We looked at some other forms of poetry. The first is the tanka or waka, a very concise form from Japanese literature. It is actually quite old, dating from the 700s CE (or the 8th Century), and one of its leading lights was a woman, Ono no Komachi who lived during the 9th Century. At that time, upper-class Japanese women were encouraged to pursue literature in Japanese. The men, on the other hand, read and wrote Chinese. Here is the link we looked at:
http://www.gotterdammerung.org/japan/literature/ono-no-komachi/

Her picture is above. She commonly appears in Japanese prints as an archetypal poetess and seductive woman.

One poem was translated by Arthur Waley, a noted translator from the early 20th century. Two were translated by Jane Hirschfield, an American poet, and Aratani Mariko, a Japanese poet.

The second is the bop, a new form developed by African-American poet Afaa M. Weaver.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5773

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22359

Scroll down this link to find another example of the bop poem:

http://jstheater.blogspot.com/2007/04/random-musings-poem-lyrae-van-clief.html

I've also attached Evelyn N. Alfred's bop poem, "flashes: a bop for bix b." Enjoy!

We listened to another one of Afaa M. Weaver's poems. This one is not a bop, and it takes place in Taiwan:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20050

The picture below is of Taipei's most famous "night market."

We finished up with the following presentations:

Joe & Lizzy on 1950s pop culture

Nahom on the American Dream & Death of a Salesman

Clifford on music as literature

Karen, Shennekia, & Jason on song lyrics as poetry

You may also watch Mauricio's video on Cesar Vallejo, the Peruvian poet, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TxM_mvJdlA

Thanks for a great semester!

Attachment: flashes.docx

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Study Guide for Final -- pt. 2 -- EN 190

Tuesday we dug a little deeper into poetry, focusing on voice, tone, and style including line breaks and line length. Terms we discussed included types of line breaks (end-stop, grammatical, and enjambment), types of poetry (narrative, lyric, didactic, dramatic monologue), alliteration, and assonance. Below are links to the poems we looked at and listened to.

We looked at a few more of Charles Bukowski's poems. Perhaps someone would like to present on him and his work. Above is a picture of him from Wikipedia.

Harry Dean Stanton reads "Bluebird":

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

The print version is here together with another poem of his, "The Great Escape":

http://whisperdownthewritealley.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/2-poems-by-charles-bukowski-bluebird-the-great-escape/

Here is Bukowski himself reading "The Secret of My Endurance":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCrn1LDDoRc&feature=related

The print version is here:

http://theinvisiblechoir.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/the-secret-of-my-endurance/

We also looked at and listened to Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California." His picture is above.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15306

For contrast, we added Robert Lowell's "Skunk Hour." His picture is above.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15279

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" exemplifies the classic dramatic monologue:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15701

Below is a picture of Browning with his wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning as portrayed by Frederic March and Norma Shearer. The Brownings had a celebrated courtship and marriage as he helped her elope from her parents' house to Italy.

Here is a link to a video of Li-Young Lee reading from his poems:

http://vimeo.com/25410881

Finally! Theodore Roethke reads "My Papa's Waltz":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTCsVswKc2w

You may prefer Frank McCourt's version without the music and distracting images:

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

Yusef Komenyakaa reads "Facing It."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90yxqlVrLP8

If you were not in class, or if you would like to examine yet another poem, here are the questions we went over in class.

Choose one of the poems we haven’t discussed. How does the poet draw on voice in this poem? What is his/her figurative presence in the poem? What is his/her authorial presence? How does the poet use tone (emotion/irony)? How does he/she use style? How does the poet use plot, character, or setting? Is this poem a good poem? Why? Why not?

Tuesday's poems also include Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll," Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," and Yusef Komenyakaa's "Facing It." Ms. Piercy's picture is below:

Thursday we focused on the sonnet but also examining the villanelle and the sestina. Did you know that there are two types of sonnets (Petrarchan and Shakespearean)? And that the villanelle was once a type of French song? And that the sestina does not rhyme!

It seems like we watched quite a few clips in class that night.

Let's start with Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP06F0yynic

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15557

On to his Sonnet 29, starting with Rufus Wainwright's musical version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6FFtq5CEoM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfyMUo_-3vw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjxnnv0V77o

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16230

Here is the site where we listened to Petrarch's Sonnet 90 in its original Italian:

http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=90

Now let's listen to Elizabeth Bishop's "Sestina":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JbffGoIi30

Here is her villanelle "One Art":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD81XbOG_nQ

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212

Next is "In the Waiting Room," one of her later poems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VRCTzJbHqU

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15211

This is not Richard Thompson's "Sumer is Icumen in," but it will have to do!

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

The lyrics are below:

http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=428

Ah...someone has posted Thompson's "King Henry":

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

http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=585

Here are links about the format of the sonnet, the villanelle, and the sestina.

http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/sonnet.htm

http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/villanelle.htm

http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/sestina.htm

Other poems that will be on the final will be Claude McKay's "If We Must Die" and Helene Johnson's "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem."

Presentations

Monday, August 8 --

Grant McLaughlin on Jules Verne

Liliana Perez on Mario Vargas Llosa

Inhae Hong on The Brothers Grimm

Ismail Hassen on Gilligan's/Erikson's Stages & a story or character
Pamela Hernandez on Armando Valladares La Mejor Tinta

Tuesday, August 9 --

Dexter Chan on Death of a Salesman

Wajiha Fatima and Jonathan Durgam on an analysis of a song
Aurelie Mebou on Victor Hugo's "Demain des l'Aube"

Web-only

Jesenia Romero on Marge Piercy

Nayani Athale on Lynda Barry

Jennifer Guzman on a writer from El Salvador

Anitha Mohan and Davish Chaskar on "Dinner with Dr. Azad" -- Role of Bangladesh/Indian
Patricia Lopez on Pablo Neruda

Thursday, August 11

Naham Hawaz on the American Dream

Clifford Oh on music & literature

Mauricio Silva -- TBA

Jason Mihlfeld on song lyrics as poetry

Shennekia Grimshaw on a song

Joseph Jacob/Lizzy Tabb on 1950's/1960's American culture

If you don't see your name here, be sure to sign up on Monday or Tuesday! Also, Jason has put out a call for people to join him in a group presentation. If you would rather not present in public or by yourself, feel free to join him!