Chatting with our demons, on heroes and anti-heroes

Having recently seen two vastly different plays that each include discussion around war or terror, discipline and how we prepare for things, I wonder if it is possible to dramtize contemporary issues without the passage of time to lend perspective. John Patrick Shanley's "Defiance" covers material from the early 70's. Brett Neveu's "Weapon of Mass Impact" seems so very current. I think one succeeds and the other needs some more thought. In addition Evan Smith's "The Savannah Disputation" tackles the search for heroes in the world of today.

Shanley's play is set within the world of the career military in the early 70's. The main issue at hand is race, though there is plenty of room for all sorts of bad behavior. His main topic is the nature of heroes, how are they created, how they behave, can they tangle with women succussfully (in the standard world of real people it seems that men are heroes and women foil their man's best self if they cannot reinforce it). His main character aims for hero-state but misses, never resting on cynicism as a crutch. Does that mean he was never meant to be a hero? Defiance also points to Martin Luther King as hero and as the black captain's excuse for avoiding acts of heroism, though it is his final inability to avoid hero behavior that lends the drama credence, keeps the action moving forward and brings about the end of the Lt. Colonel.

What is the difference between the failures of hero Odysseus when returning to the ever-waiting Penelope and the Lt. Colonel's single transgression? According to the Mrs. it is that he reaches for heroism when he himself isn't one and thus, cannot make the mark. Whereas Penelope expects and demands a hero and thus, does Odysseus' behavior remain heroic. Is this a modern failure to allow for heroes?

After seeing Evan Smith's new play, The Savannah Disputation, I would add another question. Is it possible to be a hero and a cynic at the same time? Women seek heroes, Mary is looking for one in Father Murphy and he acts heroically at the end of the action, but his cynicism shines through as well. Does cynicism make room for an anti-hero?

Neveu's focus is on preparing for a kidnapping and perhaps other acts of terror, how to prepare a potential victim through study, enactment, discussion between victim-students. All the students are women, they are quite different in their character expression, though all are roughly the same age, ethnic and socio-economic background, outwardly the same woman times three. This playwright is always willing to look at fear emotions, internal turmoil, current events as a driver for topic and plot.

Weapon fails to stay on course because the main premise has more to do with exposing ugly feelings while remaining essentially attractive. The emotional crushing of the 'nicest' woman, the woman who truly wants to be liked is at the center of the piece and it has nothing to do with preparing for a kidnapping and is out of place with the device used. This leaves the viewer with two stories that have little to do with each other.

This is a piece in progress and before I finish it, I wonder if anyone else has thoughts? I do believe the subject matter on heroes is what these playwrights are chasing and I find the topic fascinating. How does Joseph Cambell's reflections on being our own heroes work in this thematic area? How about the lack of public heroes lately--our complex world buries their stories. United flight 93 involved heroic behavior unknown until recently (though I believe it happens all the time). And how is it that most compelling stories focus more on those who try and fail to live up to their own expectations?

Theater in all its variety - Chicago has it

In the last week (and 2 days) I have seen a short-story film noirish Coranado, a brand new cops angst ala TV in A Steady Rain, an extreme post-modern Thyestes, the wildly entertaining So Good It Makes you Wanna' Holler, a traditional but finely wrought Suddenly Last Summer (featuring exquisite set design and costumes and some chilling acting), Kurl Weil-Berlin to Broadway (a review) and Hello Dolly with a stripped down cast. You can't say Chicago is not indulging in the full gamut of genres.

The two pieces that demand the most attention here are the Thyestes and the musical/review Makes You Wanna' Holler, Old v. New Style.

I note Thyestes because it disappointed, which probably says more about me than the production. I came away with a sense of stridency, shrill delivery from an actor not noted for shrill, a sense of two men mis-cast (though upon reflection, aren't we all somewhat mis-cast in our lives?).

A friend recently noted: ...to simplify this issue with two questions: Is Thyestes a striking, artful piece of theatre--why or why not? Could Akalaitis have done more with the very ingredients that she herself selected? I think I see untapped potential in this production....Perhaps Akalaitis, whom I admire, actually did not go conceptually far enough. One thinks here about the "Theatre of Cruelty" popular in the 60s. She is surely aware of the fad. I wonder how this might have helped Akalaitis with focus. Even choices.

The theater of cruelty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_Cruelty) offers some good insight into what Akalaitis might be trying to achieve with Thyestes. The upfront cruelty that Seneca portrays stands as his commentary on past and present employers (Caligula and then Nero, under whose employment Seneca was ordered to and did in fact commit suicide). The play itself is about cruelty, who are its perpetrators and its victims. And the pitched attack that Atreus plans and executes against Thyestes is in keeping with the play's theme.

What I found lacking was character development in either Thyestes or Atreus. They each portrayed static men, already bound in the present reality of past choices. So from a dramatic standpoint, the play is rather dull because it is unrealistic to expect Thyestes to get smart and head for the hills. Neither does any rightminded individual believe that Atreus will relent and refrain from tormenting Thyestes, he won't change course, but he sure doesn't have much fun with it either. I like my tragedy to be the worse with possibility of alternate routes away from disaster.

What I did take away from the production was that pushed beyond endurance, we are all like one or the other of the brothers, either melodramatic-to-insane (I'm not talking road rage, but in truly terrible circumtances), or wooden and innefectual on decision making that will change the course of the future. And of course one suspects our director is commenting on our national leader(s) who seems to be perpetually either willfully cruel in pursuit of war to the cost of all other programs under his pervue or a dullard.

At the other end of the spectrum, Makes You Wanna' Holler so far exceeded expectations because it has both giant entertainment value and a seriousness in both story telling and production quality. There is tension on what the outcome might be and the ensembles (new style v. old style) are powerhouses of talent. It is both a joy to see and hear and just so much fun I wanted to get up and join in (some of the audience were in fact invited to and did so). It's easy to play down the value of a show that offers so much sheer fun, but this show has both, though I would like to see a bit more dramatization to more the story forward.

I learned more from Thyestes because I had to thrash out my lessons and grind my teeth on the tough sinews and bloody soup of the play itself as well as the production. But I'm revisiting Makes You Wanna' Holler as often and with considerably more enjoyment of its lessons.

What is Redmoon up to these days?

I just got back from a fascinating screening of a review film (that's my term, I mean a compiled film of a live event) that captures a show that Redmoon artistic director Jim Lasko collaborated 'ensemble' to create with several Australian folks (tech design, artistic direction and they had a fabulous musical designer who seemed to have some stand-alone direction, Basil Hodges).

The overall concepts fit with Redmoon themes and style from the past. What really caught my attention was how successful they were (with the addition of really choice music from the 17th/18th century British Isles traditions - brought to America/Australia - work songs, minstrelsy, vaudeville traditions, plus didgery do, some intriguing drumming, etc. all set out in a through-composed format) in making a documentary that gave at least a strong taste of the live production.

At the q&a session following the viewing, Jim was quick to say that film does not serve the live medium - agreed. But they did have some gains. The ability to show details of face, interior space, 3-dimensional stuff that can be lost to an outdoor audience was impressive.

Mst of all I was captivated by the organic creativity used, with some linear plotting, references to many cultures (really all continents except for Africa and perhaps Antarctica), the story visited timelines in multiple directions. The beginning references the end, the middle; other sections of the piece do likewise. In discussions of the limits of linear approaches this piece makes good use of linearism, but is not bounded by it.

What I really liked about the piece (probably more readily available to the live audience, but glimpsed in the film version) was the marrying of social consciousness-driven thinking, art for art's sake, risk (by designers, but much more by those suspended in the rigging), cohesion through music design, questions viewed multiple times in different media (live actors, puppets, lighting as artistic voice, minstrelsy and circus arts, song-enactment, and from the film perspective--use of close up/full screen cinematic perspective).

Bravo, Jim and Co!

Definitions and Assumptions

To begin with a quote from a recent comment: "One of the challenges inherent in exploring both of these questions [artistic voice and what is art] is the need for vigilant definition plus careful assessment of personal/collective assumptions. Without attention to both of these hinges on reality, discourse turns muddy, even as mental streams tend to dry up."

I have been busily stripping away as many assumptions as I can (well, ok that's the goal, I'm not there yet). In my tiny world of learning I have been soaking up teachings this summer. One of them is apparently called "MicroInequities" - I believe this is a trademarked term and I love the content encompassed. 10% of our communications are verbal, the rest are non-verbal including body language, pauses in delivery, tone of voice and the flying saucers we envision as we allow the inner critic to dominate the field and tear apart our unworthy opponents.

A microinequity is the small, yet potent message we actually send as we smile and deliver some sultry palaver of platitudes. While that issue may or may not have much relevance in the artistic process, the assumptions that feed into this behavior are at the core of the issue. Why do we make stuff up about: people, places, created works, ourselves, everything?

As I walk about, lie around and just do my daily stuff I'm assuming all of these things. That person has all this baggage I have endowed him with, even though I know nothing about it and he would laugh at what I have assumed. As I am practicing the big strip tease, lose it or name it, I have all of these wild artistic notions. For example...

Returning this morning from a walk in the park I saw a young boy, an old man (truly, those were not assumptions, though I can't say what the ages are, but shorter than adult growth and reclining, with cane and grey haired) I examined my internal dialog. First I decided they were grandson and grandfather. Strike that, could be any relationship. They are definitely male people, humans, persons of color, could be any class, might be any relationship, although it's before 8am, so someone probably knows they are together.

The boy was chasing the geese into the south pond at Lincoln Park. Awesome - just what I always want to do. The older man was ensconsed in a chair with a fishing rod, instructing the boy (he said "do it [this] way", I think it's fair to say he was the teacher). Without going into more assumptions, I named my issue (now don't go making assumptions) and thought how much I would like to be one or both of them (probably not the geese or the possible fish on the hook). They belonged to each other.

What if the story is taking place somewhere else, New Orleans, Mars, a ritzy apartment in Vegas? What if only song is involved? Or dance? Photomontage would definitely show the perspective of the geese, quite possibly the fish as well. I would suggest that to build an entire story about who's who, what the relationship is and then impose a plot is an example of linear thinking.

If this is the case, I finally understand what linear thinking is. Send me your thoughts.

Voices in Voice

The Jeff Wall entry in "Artistic Edges" got my mind moving on the notion of "voice", especially when it comes to thinking about voice operative inside artistic activity. And once the issue of voice raised its head, mental machinery sprung the haunting question, "What do we mean by voice when talking about artwork?

Clearly the word voice can have multiple meanings; and with regard to artwork, it can involve any genre. Such spread/flexibility/elasticity in using the word makes the list of inherent operative phenomena connected with "voice" seem legion. So what goes on in voice? Are we talking here about things like soul action, interactive contexts and conditions, dialectical activities that involve the liveliness of modulation, inflection, intervals and time? Or taken from another angle, is voice better understood in terms of personality coupled with matters of style [which in turn includes some of the previous items]? Then again is voice better grasped as something indigenous and organic--a phenomenon deeply concerned with personal makeup, self-identity, and integrity all round? With all these possibilities in mind, is voice one item on the preceding descriptive list of words and phrases? Just some of these items? Perhaps all of these items? None of these--something quite different and unique to itself?

On the negative side, what prevents a distinguishing voice from emerging, that is, from asserting itself in a given artwork or act of making? Does the "no voice" problem imply a deficiency of craft, that is, poor knowledge/skill about some facet of the making process [a technical problem], or is the issue something deeper--something more psychological and spiritual--a problem more directly tied to the actual "content" of what the voice projects [including emotional content]? If this is the problem, then getting a handle on voice may involve issues like inadequate depth perception, insufficient personal risk, over use of linear/technological thinking that turns one's mental movements [with its latent voice] into something flat and colorless so that one judges results by saying, "but there is no their there." In other words, a non-voice with little that is distinguishing/remarkable/personally differentiating, especially in spark and tone.

As suggested previously, the preceding questions apply in some way to all genre in the arts. Hence, voice with its nuances and complications involve singers, dancers, poets, painters, playwrights, and movie directors. Moreover, the preceding questions also relate to issues that involve both a private and a public voice [audience matters], especially the "vocal" challenge of moving from one voice to the other. Too much attention to one can potentially kill the effectiveness of the other. For example, when moving from a private voice to a public one, the result often seems less dynamic and colorful. Why? Is the problem a failure on the part of the artist to risk? Lack of personal self-confidence? Too much outer-direction? Too strong a reliance on experts and/or authority? Too much worry over technique ? Too little project focus due to fear? Too much external social pressure so that a distinctiveness gets lost? Enter the intimidating critic from whatever place/location.

Now back to Jeff Wall. What does all the preceding have to do with him? Perhaps it is time to ask, what is the nature of his voice? Where does it come from and/or how does it come about? Which of his works render voice most distinctly? Most effectively? And why?

Perhaps the moral of the story about a voice is this--"know thyself." And when you have found a self, "speak it"--fearlessly and honestly. Pastiche has its limits.

(This is a cut and paste from work originally posted by Donna)