You know those playwrights who create their own rules? And then we want to be just like them but don't know how because we're not sure what the hell their rules are? Do you know who I'm talking about? Mamet? Brecht? Ibsen?
Let's add Chisa Hutchinson to the list. Hutchinson defies ordinary theatrical planes in order to convey urban hostilities through engaging narratives. On top of her stellar story-telling, she goes above and beyond to manufacture new ways of creating theatre: A made up language (Konsah Yevah); a puppet musical (The Forgetting Place); ironic homophobic and racist epithets (She Like Girls, This is not the Play); very large casts. We learned about Hutchinson today while reading about the opening of her show This is Not The Play at The Cleveland Public Theatre. (Check out the article.) There aren't a lot of plays about race that don't revolve solely around a conflict between two separate racial parties. Hutchinson's show seems to defy expectations by writing characters who experience dilemmas about race from within themselves. By writing about characters fighting their own prejudices, Hutchinson reminds us that racial conflicts don't evaporate at the end of a racial conflict. Her innovative approach to a timeless topic reminds us of its everlasting relevance. Check out Hutchinson's website to learn more about her.
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This month marks the twentieth anniversary of Eric Bogosian's off-Broadway triumph subUrbia which opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre in 1994. The play focuses on one night in the life of a group of suburban twenty-somethings, documenting their desperation, restlessness and reckless boredom. Bravely minimal in subject matter, the show breaks from narrative tradition by focusing on momentum. For his ingenuity and dedication to young voice, we're making Eric Bogosian the Playwright of the Day. It is safe to assume that Bogosian is best known for subUrbia because of its 1996 film adaptation and its celebrity remount in 2006 (Second City Stage). Additionally, and perhaps more severely received, Pulitzer Prize nominated Talk Radio appeared on Broadway in 2007 and Bogosian's solo shows (Among many: Notes From the Underground (1993); Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll (1990)) have been mounted and remounted by actors across the continent. Bogosian has also had an on-screen presence from the early eighties and has written three novels, Mall (2000), Wasted Beauty (2005) and Perforated Heart (2009), each of which are said to include his hallmark dark, direct and comical desperate characters. Bogosian's gift for monologue and his dedication to young voice and subject matter, are gifts to the theatre world. Plays that resonate with young audiences remain initiatory and welcoming to a demographic often left out of what we do. If you like Bogosian's fresh, honest, raw writing, and stellar solo shows check out playwright friends of Newborn Theatre: Geoffery Simon Brown, John Lalchlan Stewart, Catherine Weingarten and Basil Andrews. Playwright of the Day: Paula Vogel In honor of International Women's Day we are exposing our crazy-love-love-love for Paula Vogel. Ms. Vogel is perhaps best known for her iconic 1998 Pullitzer Prize winning show "How I Learned to Drive" which exemplifies her ability to approach taboo with theatricality and beauty. The show waltzes around the topics of incest and pedophilia with such vigor, you can hardly help but viscerally experience the narrative despite it's potentially alienating subject matter. Her weirdo-mind-numbing take on sensitive topics has spread to more recent plays including "The Mammary Plays", "Hot'N'Throbbing" and "The Long Christmas Ride Home. A Civil War Christmas." Vogel is currently a professor at Yale. She has been known for mentoring other iconic female playwrights including the ever-whistful Sarah Ruhl. She has also had two new-playwrights awards created in her honor: The Paula Vogel Award, created by the American College Theatre Festival in 2003, and the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting is given annually by the Vineyard Theatre. Thank you Paula Vogel for instigating new, taboo, freaky and fantastical plays and young playwrights across the world. Happy birthday to American playwright, Charles Fuller! Fuller is most famous for his Pulitzer Prize winning drama "A Soldier's Story". The play speaks to racial boundaries as it tells the story of a Black captain's search for the murderer of a Black sergeant on a US army base. Fun Fact: The show never premiered on Broadway because Fuller refused to drop the last line "You'll have to get used to Black people being in charge." (I found that on Wikipedia so it's really just a rumor but still, super cool) Fuller has written a number of other award winning or nominated works. He is a brave writer, a compassionate dram Part of our Black History Month Series Suzan-Lori Parks is known for many things: her audacity, her complications, her linguistic near-absurdities. Above everything, however, I'd like to commend her for writing works that are meant to be performed. When reading a piece by Parks, it is often hard to hear the dialect and rhythm. After seeing her work performed, however, I've gained a much better appreciation for the visions that she transmits on paper with trust that other artists will portray her work faithfully on stage. As a playwright, it's not easy to take huge leaps and trust that whomever gets their hands on your script. Parks seems to trust us all. Parks writes theatre that could be said to be avante-garde. Her pieces have premiered in theatres and schools across the country with her most notable, Pulitzer-prize winning piece, Topdog/Underdog, premiering on Broadway in 2002. Her works are incredibly contemporary and yet they find a way to revolve around historic issues for the African American population. For example, her 1996 piece entitled Venus depicts the true story of a woman who becomes a spectacle because of the abnormal size of her posterior. The show comments on the construction of African American identity and the stereotypes that abound and plague African American women. The construction of the play is amazing. Metaphor runs at every corner and the language is incredibly tricky, if not completely allusive. However, the show draws strength from its absurdities and makes for an incredible masterpiece on stage. The great thing about Parks is that, and perhaps because of the absurd nature of her writing structure, her works are never preachy. Instead, they are just incredibly interesting and insightful. Her dedication to performance and writing is clear from projects including 365 Days-365 Plays wherein she has written one play for each day of the year. She also tours with lecture and performance circuits. Her dedication to the stage and to performance has contributed to the regeneration of African American theatre. We thank her and we look forward to finding more of her work. Don't Miss This Taped Performance of Pulitzer Prize Winning Topdog/Underdog! www.poetryfoundation.org Born as "Everett Leroi Jones" and known as "The Rebel Poet", Amiri Baraka has infused his career with controversy and contradiction. The interesting thing about his aesthetic, to me, is that, while powerful, it might be too powerful to be realism. Yet, it was Baraka who stated: "A writer is committed to what is real and not to the sanctity of his feelings." After reading The Baptism, I wasn't sure I wholeheartedly believed that Baraka had committed to that philosophy. His work is necessarily emotional. Baraka cared greatly about the unification of the African American community. He wrote for the sake of empowering "Black arts" and seperating them, maintaining, that is, a separation between "Black and White Arts". He therefore committed himself to writing for other black artists and creating communities for other black artists. It was his belief that, if he didn't do that, the White arts community would continue to use Black artists as cultural pawns. As a writer, Baraka wrote through his passion. That passion, absolutely, flies out at the reader and , hopefully at the audience. As a poet, however, he does so in very few lines, very few exchanges and very general scenes. His plays ring bells surrounding important issues surrounding themes of isolation and hypocrisy. Baraka's poetic and dramatic works have therefore always excited the artists working on them as well as the audience in reception. Baraka continues to write and teach today and we continue to hear his voice, loud and clear. Part of our Black History Month Seriesaugustwilson.net I was already eighteen years old when I was first exposed to August Wilson. It seemed late at the time. After experiencing Syracuse Stage's run of Gem of the Ocean, I think I might have pretended amongst my peers that I already knew what a genius he was. I was, absolutely, faking it out of sheer shame that I hadn't already discovered his brilliance. Thinking back, I remember the show visually more than I do textually which is odd because August Wilson crafts text with power. His power, however, doesn't become preachy. The text never overpowers the action. Instead of being caught up in message, August Wilson tells a story. That story paints a vivid, memorable picture on stage. The brilliance of Wilson's storytelling comes from his admiration for the African oral tradition. African American history is therefore a central component of his works. Unlike historical pieces, however, Wilson's pieces move through time. For example, his earlier works including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984) and Fences (1987) are focused on the early migration of Black settlers to the United States. These pieces concern themselves with the transportation and displacement of Black families as well as the discomfort and the estrangement that the Black community experienced in the South. Contrastingly, and always relevant, his later works which include Gem of the Ocean (2003) as well as Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play The Piano Lesson (1990), concentrate on the reunion between families and the corresponding conflicts that arise between family members as a result of having been displaced. Beneath it all, Wilson doesn't point a finger at White communities for the living standards of Black settlers. Instead, he writes about the potential of African American populations to fight for their own future. In his words: What I tried to do in Ma Rainey, and in all my works, is to reveal the richness of the lives of the people, who show that the largest idea are contained by their lives, and that there is a nobility to their lives. Blacks in America have so little to make life with compared to whites, yet they do so with a certain zest, a certain energy that is fascinating because they make life out of nothing--yet it is charged and luminous and has all the qualities of anyone else's life. I think a lot of this is hidden by the glancing manner in which White America looks at blacks, and the way blacks look at themselves.--1984 Interview with Kim Powers, From Theatre, 16 (Fall-Winter 1984, 50-55 As a means of portraying African American life and culture, Wilson uses music, particularly blues, throughout his works. Some of the music is descriptive and integral to the narrative, as in Ma Rainey, and other works use music metaphorically, as in The Piano Lesson. All of them integrate music somehow because Wilson believed it to be an important means of communication. As Ma tells us in Ma Rainey, "White folks don't understand about the blues. They hear it come out but they don't know how it got there. They don't understand that's life's way of talking. You don't sing to feel better. You sing 'cause that s way of understanding life." The final notable part of African American culture that is integrated into Wilson's works is spirituality and mysticism. Wilson uses ritual and mysticism in his works to tie his families and his communities together but also, it seems, to separate them from White communities. A moment in The Piano Lesson stands out, on this note, wherein Boy Willie and Lymon manage to sell their Watermelons to "White folk" for an inflated price because they're able to convince their customers that the watermelons are sweeter due to them putting sugar in the ground. The absurdity wasn't true but the White women believed it because the two populations were segregated and therefore different ritualistically. The Piano Lesson is, of course, a great example of mysticism in Wilson's work as a whole because Berniece's house is haunted by Sutter, a white man that she suspects her brother, Boy Willie, has killed as a means of acquiring his land. The symbol of a white man haunting their house is a vivid impetus for driving the entire narrative of the play forward. Wilson's body of works prove that he is dedicated to bringing Black history to life. He is an iconic African-American playwright and, honourably, our playwright of the day. Check out this Teleplay version of The Piano LessonI can't say too much about this show because, frankly, I'm a little afraid.
Once again, Judith Thompson has made me feel afraid. Of what? I'm not sure. I am sure, however, that, once again, she has confused me by making me confront things I don't ordinarily encounter. Out of all her provocative works, and we all know, it's no secret, Judith Thompson writes provocative theatre, for some reason, Rare was the most provocative to me. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's a project that Thompson worked on with a group of adults who are living with Down Syndrome. They've written the show to express their experiences. This show is part of a serious of works that Thompson has created in which she allows non-actors to tell their stories on stage. (Read about her project). I haven't seen the other works in the series, but, this one was enough to make me question it. Thompson is walking a fine line between sharing sentimental truths and staging a theatrical drama. At what point did the show turn into a spectacle and how decent is that for the storytellers on stage? I also wonder about the legitimacy of the my own engagement. Thompson made me question why I was even watching the piece and I, honestly don't mean that in a bad "this show is boring" way. The show wasn't boring at all. It made me question my instincts as a spectator: Would I listen to these stories if they were told by anyone else? And would I be as compassionate? It's true the piece made me consider and appreciate the lives of the storytellers but the strength of this piece, I think, is it's ability to make me confront my own guilt and fear. It's that feeling you get when you realize how fragile life can be. I felt that for the entire show. The stories we heard were sad. Parts of the piece were endearing and funny but I question if that was because we were unfamiliar with what we were watching. The staging is minimal, with some mask work and a mixture of movement, music, all sorts of fun performance art. I feel a little strange calling this theatre or drama, however, because that turns it into a spectacle and I don't think that's what Thompson intended. I think she intended to give us a window of insight. In that regard, she's succeeded. |
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