Sunday, March 6, 2011

Subjective Midterm in EN 230



I thought that you might like to see a picture from the Forum Theater's version of Angels in America.  Above Harper is touring Antarctica while Mr. Lies the travel agent looks on.  (Mr. Lies is played by the same actor who plays the nurse Belize.)

Below are the prompts for your take home part of the midterm.  Please choose one prompt and use the questions to create an essay with an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs, and conclusion.  This essay may be from two to five pages.

Question #1:

Consider the plays that we've read and seen so far this semester (including Living Out and "Soul Gone Home").  What do they tell us about modern and contemporary drama?  (Modern drama includes "Soul Gone Home," Death of a Salesman, and The Good Person of Szechuan.  Contemporary drama includes Fences, Angels in America, M. Butterfly, and Living Out.)  What do these plays have in common?  How are they distinct from other, earlier plays such as Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare's plays, or Ibsen's plays?  (Note that Ibsen *is* modern.)  Consider performance as well as the text of plays.

Question #2:

What does performance add to the plays that we've read?  How does performance limit these plays?  How have watching the various clips helped you understand our plays?  Discuss the differences between film/TV and stage versions.  Can a play still be worth reading if it is never performed?  Why?  Why not?  Consider the argument made in the following 2007 essay from the City Paper:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34341/test-case-scenarios

Question #3:

Discuss the depiction of men and women in the plays we have read and seen.  Does it make a difference when a play was written?  Or whether a play is written by a man, a woman, or someone who is from a minority group?  Consider the role that history, culture, and even genre (comedy, tragedy) play in defining what appropriate masculinity and femininity are.  Also, consider your viewpoint as a 21st century man or woman.

Question #4:

Does realism have a place on the stage?  Why?  Why not?  Support your argument with examples from your reading and viewing.

Below is a scene from a New Delhi theater's adaptation of The Good Person of Szechuan:


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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Study Guide for Midterm -- EN 230




Above is a picture of Syracuse Stage's 2007 production of Death of a Salesman, and below is our study guide.

The following texts will be on our midterm:

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, August Wilson's Fences, Tony Kushner's Angels in America, David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, and Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechuan.

The following performances will be as well:

the scenes from Richard III and Looking for Richard that we saw
the March 3 performance of Living Out

For our first set of links from class, see the link below:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/181

My review of Arthur Miller's Salesman in Beijing is here:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/182

To see the links for Fences, see below:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/183

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/184

A picture from Syracuse Stage's 2010 performance of Fences is below:


I've reviewed two other plays in the Century Cycle as well:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/49/August_Wilsons_Gem_of_The_Ocean_

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/107/More_Local_Theater...August_Wilsons_Radio_Golf

For Angels in America, see the link below:

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/185

This entry has more information about Angels, Living Out, and M. Butterfly (including Madame Butterfly):

http://worldlit2.multiply.com/journal/item/186

East West Theater in LA has done an interesting version of M. Butterfly (see below).  As you can see, the actor playing Song plays "her" as a less girly woman, and the actor playing Gallimard looks a little like Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman.


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Thursday, February 24, 2011

Links in EN 230 -- Angels, Living Out, & M. Butterfly

 
We have tickets for the performance of Living Out on Thursday, March 3!  The performance is in the Parilla Performing Arts Center at the south end of campus.  The play will begin at 8 pm and continue until 10:15 pm with one intermission.  Therefore, we will meet at HU 115 at 7 pm, have a mini-class on M. Butterfly, and walk over to the Parilla Center.

Here are some links about Living Out.  The first review is of a 2004 performance at Bethesda's Round House Theater.


A year earlier the play was performed in NYC:


More recently, Portland Oregon's Actors' Conservatory performed the play:


Below are some links to videos that we saw in class tonight:

The HBO version begins here:


Here we see Prior & Harper's encounter:


Here is a scene with Al Pacino as Roy Cohn.  (Remember him as Richard III?)


These two videos are from the 2010 Broadway revival of Angels:



Note that the second video includes scenes from the second part of Angels.

Ah, time & energy paid off!  Here are some scenes from other stage versions.  The first is from a community college in New Jersey:


Next is a trailer from the University of North Carolina's professional theater:


I'm not sure where this clip is from, but the comments praise it:


I'll close with a few clips from M. Butterfly.

Yes, yes, in the 1990s, there was a movie version starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone:


For an interview with playwright David Henry Hwang, see this video:


This recent version was performed at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater:


Here are clips from Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly.  Gallimard and Song are referring to this opera.




Enjoy!
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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Links for 2/24 -- Angels in America



Yikes!  I didn't leave room for anything for Angels in America.  

First, here is some background about AIDS, starting with one of the first news reports in 1982:


Below are scenes from the 1993 film based on Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On, which investigated our response to AIDS and argued for us to make an effort to search for a cure for the disease:




You may also need background about the Reagan Revolution.  The picture of Reagan's 1980 campaign (a stop in South Carolina) below is from Wikipedia.


Below is a link to CNN anchor John King's interview with conservative activist Newt Gingrich:


You might also like to see CNN's page on Reagan:

This president was also controversial:

The picture below of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg is from MSNBC.  It was taken during their trial for espionage.


Their trial provoked some response in the public.

For information about Roy Cohn, the Rosenbergs, and their historical context, see these sites:




The picture above is from the Guardian.  It is actually of the operatic version of the play, which premiered in 2004.


Finally, here are a few clips from scenes of Angels in America, starting with the trailer for the HBO movie:


Here is a scene with Al Pacino as Roy Cohn.  (Remember him as Richard III?)


Now these versions are from the stage.  The first is a recent Broadway revival.



The actor who played Prior is interviewed here:


Oskar Eustis, the man who commissioned Angels, speaks here:


Here you may watch an interview with the production's director, Michael Greif:


Playwright Tony Kushner speaks here:


I do want you to look at scenes from other productions!



Enjoy!

Dr. Szlyk


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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Links from 2/17 -- Civil Rights Era, Baseball, & the Century Cycle

While I'm online this evening, I'd like to send you links to the clips we watched in class this evening.

Above is a picture of Emmett Till, the boy who was beaten to death in Mississippi in 1955, just two years before Fences takes place.

First are the clips from Eyes on the Prize, a documentary from 1987, two years after Fences was first performed.



I want to add the clip about Emmett Till:

Below is a documentary on the events in South Boston that I had mentioned:


Above is a picture of Jackie Robinson sliding home.  He was also an exciting baseball player.  Below is a picture of Satchel Paige.  



These are the clips about baseball.  First, Buck O'Neil recalls a Negro League World Series game in which legends Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson clashed.


Here Buck O'Neil remembers Jackie Robinson being signed to the major leagues:


The link to the documentary on Jackie Robinson is below:

Denzel Washington recently played Troy in a Broadway revival of Fences:


Ah, here is a collection of scenes from that version!


Kenny Leon directed another version at Boston's Huntington Theater:


Ah ha!  I finally found a number.  Kenny Leon has directed *five* different versions of Fences as well as versions of all but one play in the Century Cycle.


Let's take a look at scenes from the other plays.  Set in the 1900s, the first play in the cycle is the magical Gem of the Ocean.


Here is a link to Kenny Leon in rehearsal at his TrueColors Theater in Atlanta:


You may see clips from Bartlett Sher's production of the next play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, which was set in the 1910s.




The set from this production at Lincoln Center is incredibly different from the set of DC's African Continuum Theater, which I saw.

Wilson's 1920s play is Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the only play *not* set in Pittsburgh:


The Piano Lesson takes place in the 1930s.



Seven Guitars is set in the 1940s.



Fences is Wilson's 1950's play.

See the links below for Two Trains Running, the 1960's play, and an interview with one of its directors.



Jitney, Wilson's 1970's play, was actually written first.  Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf were the last.


I saw the version profiled in this video!!

I had a difficult time finding a clip of King Hedley II, Wilson's 1980s play.


We'll finish with Radio Golf, the last play that Wilson wrote.

Israel Hicks discusses the challenges of presenting Radio Golf.  He has directed all ten of the cycle plays.



For more information about Wilson's Pittsburgh, see this clip:


Below is a picture of Wilson in front of the house where he grew up in Pittsburgh.



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Thursday, February 10, 2011

Links for 2/17 -- Fences & Soul Gone Home

The picture above is from the recent Broadway revival of Fences.


James Earl Jones played Troy in the original Broadway version.


To start with, here is a link to Oberlin's site for its Death of a Salesman:


The pictures from the production are here:


Below is the video from the BBC production that we watched:


The actor who played Willy in the BBC version also played the character on which Norman Lear based his Archie Bunker.


There is no movie version of Fences, but here are some trailers from various productions:

I'm not sure where this production is from:


Denzel Washington recently played Troy in a Broadway revival of Fences:


Ah, here is a collection of scenes from that version!


Kenny Leon directed another version at Boston's Huntington Theater:


In 2007, Portland (OR) Center Stage presented this version:


This version is a film rather than a play filmed:


The last clip is a classroom version from Introduction to Theater at CUNY Baruch:


Here is a video of Langston Hughes' Soul Gone Home.  It was made at Harold Washington College in Chicago.



I will also link to my blog entries on two of August Wilson's other plays from his Century Cycle.

Enjoy!

Dr. Szlyk
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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Salesman in Beijing


Reading Arthur Miller's memoir about his 1983 production of Death of a Salesman makes me realize how much American culture has changed since then and perhaps even how diverse Montgomery County is.  Indeed, Miller observes, "[the actors] are simply the-Lomans-as- Chinese-looking people.  This places them in some country of the mind, not in any earthly geography" (172).  Could one say this about the New York and Boston of *our* today, to use Miller's stage directions?



The picture above is of Flushing, a neighborhood in NYC's borough of Queens.  

The picture above shows actor B.D. Wong who plays a detective on Law and Order: SVU.  As you may know, this show is set in NYC.

However, back in 1983, the Beijing production of Death of a Salesman was groundbreaking.  Although it had been just over ten years since Nixon's visit, China was emerging from a period of isolation and recovering from its Cultural Revolution.  (Miller makes many observations about the impact of this historical period on the Chinese, especially on the actors he works with and the intellectuals he meets.)  The production of Death of a Salesman was therefore part of China's emergence and the development of its theater.  (Miller also notes that his play's approach to time and space was novel to the Chinese.  Most Chinese plays emphasized "realism" and a moral message over interiority and memory.  Ironically, Western scholars such as Robert Brustein criticized Miller for his concern with politics and society.)  

For more information about China's history and the Cultural Revolution, see these sites:





Miller also discusses his Chinese actors' approach to theater.  It is more physical than Westerners' reliance on psychology and motivation.  In fact, Miller is mystified and annoyed by his actors' desire to wear wigs and therefore appear more "Western."  Finally, one actor reveals to him that Chinese actors enjoy dressing up and feeling that, by changing their appearance, they may "change their fate."  Nevertheless, Miller is concerned about the effect that the actors' attempts to look "Western" may have on his play's realism.  It is also amusing to read Miller's complaints about the 1940's long skirts.


At this point, you may wonder whether the play was performed in English or Chinese and whether Miller knew Chinese.  The play was performed in Chinese.  The actor playing Willy, Ying Ruocheng, also translated it, and Miller was quite pleased with this translation.  Miller did not know Chinese.  His wife, the photographer Inge Morath, did, having studied the language for eight years.  Miller also relied on several other translators, especially Ying Ruocheng.  Moreover, this was not Miller's first trip to China, and he and his wife had hosted many visitors from that country (including Ying Ruocheng).  

Here is a picture of the cast of Death of a Salesman with the play's author.

Below is a picture of Ying Ruocheng in another role.  I will try to find out which one it is.  

He, too, has written an autobiography, so I guess I have something else for my summer reading!!

As I close, I wonder what Arthur Miller would have made about the Oberlin production of Death of a Salesman starring Avery Brooks.

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