Dr. Woods
Theatre H101
28 November 2007
“Jim Cary’s Seasons of Love”
In the early 20th century there was a multitude of popular theatre which was characterized by its elaborate sets and large, over the top characters. In more recent years playwrights have begun to shy away from the spectacle of theatre and focus on the emotive qualities of the art. A perfect example of this is the performance of the one acts Good Night and In Smoke under the joint title Seasons of Love by Jim Cary. In Seasons of Love and more specifically Good Night Cary focuses on smaller productions which emphasize the acting and words as opposed to a large technical production. The connected theme and similar style creates a loose connection between the two one-acts which allows them to be produced separately or together. The contrast of the two stages of love as presented by two different couples create a deeper, although less obvious, connection between the two one acts which suggest that “love and understanding are essential at any age” (Rousuck). This underlying theme of love throughout all tribulation is presented in two dramatically different ways. In In Smoke the young lovers are burdened by physical handicaps and unseen drug addictions which ultimately drive their passion. However in Good Night the couple’s problems are more abstract. Tommy and Katharine are an aging couple who have reached a certain comfort level with each other, and realize on a stormy night that they have lost the passion which once drove their relationship. Because of the intense situations which drive both plays the speech is elevated to a level which cannot depend on support from flashy technical aspects to enhance the performances.
Good Night is both an actor’s dream and his worst nightmare. The writing exposes the motivations and thoughts of the characters clearly and allows the actors to develop the characters beautifully. However, because there is such an emphasis on the characters there is no room for many technical aspects to bedazzle the audience. This is the case in both one acts Cary presented in the Baltimore Playwrights Festival (BPF). In fact, according to Rousuck the BPF performance of Good Night is “ultimately more compelling [than the performance of In Smoke]” due to the “forceful acting of Joe Cimino”.
Cary’s play ultimately hinges on the ability of the actors to understand and relate to his characters. Unfortunately this tends to mean that the production does not lend itself to younger actors trying to portray Good Night’s characters. However his detailed characterization allows more leeway than other writers when casting. For example Tommy and Katherine’s motives are continually becoming more explicit as the play progresses. Their characters are generally so well defined that there are few, if any questions about the characters by the time the play is over. This is a surprising feat partially because modern theatre tends to have a much more ambiguous message, and partially because that amount of in depth character development in a one act is nothing short of impressive.
Although Cary has many artistic influences such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and David Mamet, perhaps his most influential playwright has been Samuel Beckett. Beckett has so influenced Cary that at times Tommy and Katharine shift away from their naturalistic tones and into the “laconic, deliberately stilted manner of Beckett characters (indeed, they even talk about Beckett)” (Giuliano). Despite Cary’s many influences, perhaps the major reason that he has developed the ability to write compelling dialogue which has no necessity for a large technical production comes from his background with radio. Having grown up in a time before the insurgence of television, his primary form of entertainment was radio programs such as Big John and Sparky (Cary Interview). This history with the spoken word helped Cary to develop his skills as a listener. Because he did not grow up with the flash and bang that accompanies television audio, Cary was able to hone his skills as a listener at a young age. This in turn enabled him to develop the ability to imagine visuals to accompany the spoken word. This ability helps him to use words which are loaded with imagery, which is a skill that is fading in many popular mediums simply because it is no longer necessary with the stressed significance of the physically visual and not the implied. Though some might suggest that Cary’s extensive use of language is somewhat dated, it does nothing but help his director, technicians, and actors to enhance their performance.
Much like his writing style, Cary’s writing process is based on methods which in today’s fast paced world could be considered dated. However, Cary’s “dated” process has been the source of the vast majority of his writings over the past 30 years. Cary’s process is extremely simple in that his major source of ideas is the daily journal that he has kept since 1972 (Cary interview). In fact, Good Night originated from a simple observation of leaves falling that Cary happened to see and record in his journal one day in the early 90’s. From that loose beginning Cary began to flesh out a story which at first became the epigram-like story of Good Night Kiss, a preliminary version of Good Night. Over the next ten years Good Night Kiss went through a variety of changes and readings which eventually led to its transformation into Good Night. Whereas Good Night was a decade long production in the making, In Smoke was a more hurried piece which was inspired by Cary’s encounter with a group of handicapped children. As a result the script seemed much less prepared and meticulously crafted than that of Good Night. However despite all of its preparation even once Good Night was beginning to be produced by the BPF, it was far from being the version which it ultimately became.
Once Good Night was chosen to be a part of the Baltimore Playwright’s Festival, Cary, who is based in Baltimore, was closely involved with the production. Actually the final production of Good Night was influenced as much by Cary’s vision of the piece as what the actors brought to it. This is in large part because Tommy and Katharine were played by the married couple of Joseph and Audrey Cimino. According to Cary, Joseph and Audrey’s own experiences not only enhanced their performances of Tommy and Katharine, but helped to shape and solidify the final characters that he wrote. In fact, considering that Joe Cimino’s acting was described as “forceful”, it is no surprise that Tommy is a character who “isn't content to merely stay inside and curse [in the rainstorm], he throws open the house's double front doors and hurls himself - and a load of invective - into the pouring rain” (Rousuck). On a different side of the same coin it is no surprise that Audrey Cimino’s Katharine is very calm and is “the type who - quite literally when their house loses power in the storm - prefers to light candles than curse the darkness” (Rousuck). Cary’s writing and casting decisions would have been more than enough to create a realistic and believable performance, however he decided that he wanted a surprisingly large set to accompany his work.
Therefore although Good Night could have been produced with no set in the Baltimore Playwright’s Festival there was a surprisingly extravagant set at Cary’s request. A complete rain system was set up to accommodate for the perpetual rainstorm that is a backdrop to the scene inside the house. In addition two large double doors were on the set for Tommy to fling open when he went into the rainstorm. Despite the slightly excessive set which was present during the BPF, other productions of Good Night have been much more minimalistic. One specific production actually incorporated music and dance into its show. Because they had access to an old record player, they would play music to accent the action taking place on stage. Ultimately, Katharine goes over to the record player after the storm and begins to play the music and dance with Tommy as a cultivation of the love that they used to know (Cary interview).
It is important to remember in evaluating the Baltimore Playwright’s Festival’s performance of Good Night that it was presented with Cary’s other one act about the struggles of love, In Smoke. If for no other reason, In Smoke is notable for the fact that its style was a point of departure from Cary’s usual writing style. Whereas Good Night was largely realistic and naturalistic, In Smoke featured asides by its two primary characters which “function somewhat as a Shakespearean soliloquy would” (Giuliano). Unfortunately these asides did not flow well in the course of the play and at times “it feels forced; at others, the line between interior and exterior speech isn't always clear, and Cary drops the device entirely about halfway through the script” (Rousuck). Although Cary’s initial venture into the use of asides did not work as well as he would have liked, he has stated that in later rewrites he would like to clean and clarify the asides rather than removing them altogether from his play.
Another important aspect of Seasons of Love is the amount of contrast that is present between Good Night and In Smoke. Although at first it seems as if it would make for sense to unite the two plays by using the same couple at two different periods of their life or in the least giving Tommy and Katharine a similar visible handicap to the young couple in In Smoke. However Cary’s intent in uniting the two pieces, which were originally unrelated, was to display the idea that “love and understanding are essential at any age” (Rousuck). To this end it makes much more sense that couples with a variety of problems, whether physical or mental, old or young, would further Cary’s aims to show the universality of love more so than one couple progressing in their relationship. It is important to note also that there is a distinct difference in the acting styles of younger and older actors. Younger actors tend to have something that can only be called a youthful exuberance, and this was noticed by many reviewers, especially when so closely compared to the older and more focused energies of Joe and Audrey Cimino. However this is not a bad thing in the least and is in fact exactly what helps to solidify the difference between a couple who is newly in love and one whose love has become so ingrained that it seems stale.
Cary was not the only one who took risks in combining In Smoke and Good Night. The director actually made a rather large choice in deciding to change the order of the one acts depending on the night. Although this seems like it would be a rather small change, it distinctly affects the mood the audience encounters the second play with, and the mood that they leave the theatre in. This is because even though both plays have a relatively happy ending, In Smoke, which deals with teen drug use and physical handicaps, is much darker than Good Night, which features a couple who has lived a very full life. Therefore whenever In Smoke was the second show in the order the audience would leave feeling much more saddened and depressed than after they experienced Good Night, which ends on a distinctively positive note (Cary interview).
Seasons of Love was ultimately a success in Cary’s eyes. This was because of a combination of the skilled and aged acting and influence of Joe and Audrey Cimino, the youthful energies of Paul Emmons and Jane Steffen, and the ability of director Barry Feinstein to “coax sensitive performances from his cast” (Rousuck). Seasons of Love is also a perfect example of the wide variety of ways that a play can take shape from the mind of a playwright. Whether it is inspired by a potentially life changing event such as meeting handicapped children and quickly put onto the page, or it starts with something as simple as seeing the leaves fall and is a decade long process that leads to a final product which is still constantly evolving, the writing process can change from play to play and even sentence to sentence. Ultimately if there is one thing to learn about the writing process from Seasons of Love it is that no matter how organized someone’s journal or “process” may be, inspiration does not always come from the major life changing events; sometimes it is in the smallest beauties that life has in store.
Dr. Woods/Theatre H101
9 March 2006
Pure Confidence
Memorable plays are the ones that provide food for thought as well as entertainment. Audiences need to have their beliefs challenged and be made to think about the topics raised in the play. Pure Confidence by Carlyle Brown tackles a lot of weighty issues, such as slavery and race relations in the Civil War period. The play is historical but also very enjoyable to read and, I imagine, to watch. Pure Confidence explores the human spirit and what it means to be free.
The main character is Simon Cato, a slave jockey. He is owned by two small children and is rented out to horse owners. He is a very good jockey and always rides to win. The man who usually hires him is the Colonel, a rich white man with a horse named Pure Confidence. This arrangement is very profitable for the Colonel because Simon and Pure Confidence almost always win their races and the Colonel only pays fourteen dollars for Simon every two weeks. Simon regularly pleads with the Colonel to buy him once and for all, and let Simon work to buy his freedom. The colonel always denies his requests saying that he already has it better than most slaves. Another horse owner named Dewitt challenges the Colonel to a horserace as a form of dueling after an argument that they had. When the day comes for Simon to be hired out, Dewitt shows up to bid. Normally it was a closed auction since the Colonel had an agreement with the auctioneer. Instead of the normal fourteen dollars, the Colonel has to increase his bid to a hundred dollars but he was still outbid by Dewitt. As a result, the Colonel loses the race and the bet and it costs him over a thousand dollars. That’s when he starts to realize how useless his horse is without Simon, the only jockey that can tame her. He finally agrees to buy Simon, mostly to avoid future financial loss. Simon helps the Colonel and his wife Mattie take care of their farm and train the horses in exchange for credit toward buying his freedom papers. Simon develops a relationship with Mattie’s slave, Caroline, and decides to buy her to be his wife. Mattie is willing to accept this, but the Colonel is more hesitant, perhaps because this means that Simon is moving toward being independent. Finally, an agreement is reached and Simon buys Caroline for four-hundred and fifty dollars and marries her. Caroline continues to help Mattie out around the house and life proceeds as before. Simon buys a horse from Dewitt and decides to train it to race. The Colonel was not happy about this but he eventually agrees to let Simon race his horse when he’s not racing Pure Confidence. One day, Simon and Pure Confidence are racing in the North and the other jockeys gang up on him because he is a slave. This causes Pure Confidence to fall and roll on top of him. Then news comes that the Civil War has started.
In the second act, Simon is working as a bellhop at a hotel in New York after the Civil War. He has given up being a jockey and is living a life where nobody knows who he is. All of his former fame has left him. One day a reporter comes wanting an interview with Simon Cato, the famous jockey. It turns out that the Colonel and Mattie hired the reporter to find Simon and Caroline since it had been years since they had seen them. The Colonel and Mattie are slightly disappointed because Simon and Caroline aren’t ecstatic to be reunited with them. It seems that the allusion that they were all friends is now shattered and they realize that they were slaves and masters. Still, the Colonel and Mattie want Simon and Caroline to come live on the farm with them again. The play ends with Simon discovering what true freedom is.
The idea for this play came from a producer who approached Brown with a question. He asked what Brown knew about slave jockeys during the Civil War. Brown researched the topic and came up with this script. It took about a year and a half to write the play. It was commissioned for the Actors Theatre of Louisville and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. He was familiar with actors from both performing groups and wrote the parts with specific actors in mind. This was an advantage because he was able to write parts that would play up the actors’ strengths as well as provide challenges for them. He did workshops for both productions and although they were different, he was pleased with both of them.
The production by the Actors Theatre of Louisville was fairly elaborate. They performed it on a proscenium stage and used hydraulics to move the scenery. It was very dependent on the visual aspects of the production. On the other hand, at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival it was performed in the round with minimal scenery. Such drastic differences separated the productions but they both did justice to the play. The play was successful in both places because the writing really connects with the audience.
The reason the so much variation is possible in the production is that Brown left a lot open to interpretation. In the script there is hardly any stage direction. There is an occasional description of the surroundings at the beginning of a scene but the dialogue is uninterrupted. This may seem counterproductive if the playwright is trying to convey a certain message or tone, but it doesn’t have to be. It really depends on the playwright’s attitude toward his role in the production process. Brown told me that he thinks of himself as only part of a team that make the performances possible, he doesn’t see his role as being more important than any other role. He feels that such concrete directions for the production would hamper the creativity of the actors, designers, and director. He sees them all as a team united to make the play possible.
I asked him about the lifestyle of a playwright and why he wanted to become one. He said that he has always wanted to be a writer and was enchanted with theatre so he became a playwright. Rather than having a strict writing schedule, he writes when he is inspired to although it’s not a totally freeform process. He cannot have the freedom of writing on such a loose schedule because, as he says, “The landlord likes it when I can pay the rent.” Like many people, he is successful in a career that he enjoys but being productive is still necessary to pay the bills.
Many of Brown’s plays are historically based. He says that a lot of research goes into making the plays semi-accurate to the time period that they are in. He says that he is not overly concerned with being strictly accurate because adding modern elements helps the audience relate and is necessary for creativity. For Pure Confidence he researched the lives of slaves right before the Civil War. There are many misconceptions surrounding this topic. I, for one, tend to think of all slaves as living on plantations and being horribly mistreated. This thinking simply isn’t logical, there had to have been some slaves who had developed skills and were hired out to perform skilled tasks. Simon was one such slave. He had honed a skill for riding horses and was hired out to do this. He wasn’t the only one either. From my understanding, there really were some black jockeys before the Civil War. Also there would have been slaves in other skilled professions. Historical accuracy is even factored into the productions. At the Louisville production, there were people in charge of making sure the props and costumes stayed true to the time period. They even went so far as to try to reproduce the money that was in circulation. Small details like this can add to the audience enjoyment.
Another detail that was included partially for historical purposes is Camp Town Races. Lines from this song appear frequently throughout the script, often as an opening and closing for scenes. Brown said he asked a friend for a song that would have been popular at race tracks in that time period and they came up with this song. The repetition of it is very effective. It adds a nice historical touch as well as providing a sense of continuity throughout the play.
Brown said that one of his dreams for the play was that it could be enjoyed by people of all races. He meant it to challenge the way people think about race relations and has no problem trying to bring people out of their comfort zones. He says that he chose to include the word “nigger” for this reason. It is generally considered an offensive word and he uses it fairly often throughout the play. The reaction to it is very different depending on who you’re looking at. White people tend to be shocked more by it while blacks may think it’s not such a big deal. Adding things like this helps promote better race relations by causing people to confront their stereotypes. Brown said that he has been very pleased by the audience reaction to the play, people of different races can sit together and enjoy the play, though often in different ways.
This theme of race relations was at the forefront of the play, especially in the relationships between Simon and the Colonel and Caroline and Mattie. These slaves and masters have a relationship that seems atypical in that they seem to almost be friends. Things aren’t as simple as that though. Wendell Brock said,
Brown understands the complexities of human relationships, and the delicate dance of manners that existed between slaves and owners, far too well to reduce his characters to stereotypes. Simon may have no legal or civil rights, but he's a master of wit who knows how to manipulate the system to his own benefit. (AJC) The characters have complex relationships, shaped by their emotions and societal expectations of the time period. There are many things worth exploring.
At the beginning of the play the Colonel sees Simon mainly as property. He rents him out for the sole purpose of winning horse races. Simon has proven himself a good jockey so he is of use to the Colonel. Things in the script, however, suggest that they are developing a deeper relationship that is more personal. The Colonel says that Simon doesn’t act like a slave should. Simon is too outspoken and dares to confront Dewitt, a powerful white man. This suggests that Simon and the Colonel converse as free men do, instead of Simon only responding to the Colonel’s requests. The Colonel grows to like Simon but cannot overcome the social expectations for their relationship. He refuses to grant Simon his freedom, the thing he wants more than anything else. He says, “I tell my wife all the time, ‘I like that Simon I love that boy like a son.’ I say, ‘goddamn it I wish that nigger was white.’ ‘Cause that’s the only way you could ever get to be free Simon is to be white. I don’t think that’s going to happen.” (Brown 6). The Colonel doesn’t wish to harm Simon but he is also not willing to help him be free. He refuses to confront social norms to help this slave. In his mind, he is doing enough by providing Simon with a job that he enjoys and treating him well. When Simon says that he wants to be free, the Colonel responds that racing Pure Freedom successfully is freedom. After the wager with Dewitt, when the Colonel decides to buy Simon, they have a breakthrough in their relationship.
Colonel- I’ll have my lawyer talk to your lawyer and we’ll get you down to the farm. I want you to help start running things and getting Pure Confidence right again.
Simon- That mean you buying me and then you going to let me buy myself free?
Colonel- Yes, that’s what I mean
Simon- Shake on it?
Colonel- Simon, I can’t shake your hand in front of all these white folks.
Simon- If you can pat me on the back, you can shake my hand. Is it a deal?
Colonel-…Deal. (They shake hands)
This exchange demonstrates the change in their relationship. They have moved from being solely slave and master to being closer to equals. The public nature of this handshake is especially significant since it was not acceptable at the time. The Colonel is not completely accepting of Simon’s wishes for freedom yet though. When Simon buys his own horse to race the Colonel asks him what he has named it. When Simon replies “Freedom”, the Colonel asks him to change the name to Liberty Lady since most people would not take kindly to a slave owning a horse named Freedom (Brown 41). It is not until after the Civil War that the Colonel is willing to treat Simon as an equal and grant him the true freedom that he has desired for so long.
The relationship between the Colonel’s wife, Mattie, and her slave Caroline is also complex but it is not as prominent in the play. Caroline is a more submissive slave than Simon and she has a more stereotypical slave occupation. She helps Mattie out around the house and is her confidante. Caroline does not try to gain freedom the way that Simon does, but she is willing to be bought by him to be his wife. Her conversations with Mattie consist of Mattie talking and Caroline only responding with brief answers. They are very much one-sided conversations. After the Civil War when the couples reunite in the hotel where Simon works, Mattie tries to revive the relationship that they used to have. Caroline informs her that they were never friends, Mattie was the master and Caroline was the slave and that was basically all that the relationship was. Mattie seemed disappointed by this realization but she probably suspected it all along.
Simon’s ultimate motivation in this play is the desire to be free. It overwhelms him and everything he does is an attempt to become freer. He worked hard trying to buy his own freedom and he bought a wife and horse, trying to establish himself as a free man. In the second act when the reporter sent by the Colonel comes to interview him, Simon talks about his “cost of freedom”, he says:
I hear many a white man talking ‘bout their price of freedom and never work a day in their life. I know what my price of freedom was. It was five thousand dollars, that’s what it was. And I couldn’t even get that. What’s your price of freedom mister Reporter man? How much are you worth? (Brown 59)
The hardships that he has had to endure have made him appreciate freedom even more. It has so much meaning to him because it was something that he had to fight for. When asked, at the end of the play, if he will come back to the farm to help the Colonel, he makes a profound statement regarding true freedom. He says:
Well Caroline, it seems to me that the only time you’re ever really free is when you get a chance to choose. ‘Cause once you choose after that you’re bound to be a slave to something. So, I say while we are in the midst of choosing why don’t we just rest here in our little bit of freedom for a spell (Brown 74).
In this, Simon sums up everything that he has learned over the course of the play. Having the ability to choose one’s path in life is the truest form of freedom.
Pure Confidence is a wonderful play that explores the human character and desires. It breaks stereotypes of slavery and race relations. Its plot flows well and the audience can easily connect with the characters and situations. This play is a testament to Carlyle Brown’s playwriting ability. I hope that this play will continue to be successful well into the future.
Works Cited
Brock, Wendell. “Playwrights Stitch Words in Alabama.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
12 February 2006.
Brown, Carlyle. Personal interview. 14 February 2006.
---. “Pure Confidence”. Draft March 2005. Copyright 2003.
A Survey of the Development and Production of
Sans-culottes in the Promised Land– from Play to Playwright
Within Sans-culottes in the Promised Land, Kirsten Greenidge undertakes issues of race, identity, class, mobility and marital friction (Foster 2004). Greenidge explores these constructs through the ongoing problems of an upper middle class African-American family living within white dominated suburbia Boston. The play surveys the relations of six bold and intriguing characters that struggle to battle both personal and societal demons.
The play depicts a married couple with one child –a young daughter, Greta. The mother, Carol, is confronted with the obstacle of succeeding in her fast-paced law firm. Throughout the play, Carol is literally hitting the glass ceiling at her firm while trying obstinately to push through her own self-imposed social barriers. The father Greg, an architect, is faced with constant unemployment due to his unconventional approaches to building design. He is constantly harassing the female staff of his house and has been labeled with the mark of infidelity from a previous rendezvous with the female help. Greta, neglected by both her parents, is chauffeured around from one costly lesson to another. Facing severe identity and self-esteem problems, she is left to the care of a new nanny, Lena (Greenidge 2004).
Lena also confronts her own personal struggle: illiteracy. In her early twenties, Lena’s character faces the embarrassment of a learning disability that was left unattended to throughout the years. She also has to deal with the Caribbean housekeeper who is upset about being passed over for nanny duty and Greta’s revolutionary teacher from heritage class who is responsible for the growth of a forest at the end of the play in the family’s house –which consequently envelops them all (Foster 2004).
While on the surface, the play seems to emanate family drama, Greenidge is specific in her reference to the play as a satirical comedy. In fact, Greenidge’s vision for the play was drawn from her own personal experiences. Prior to the takeoff of her play-writing career, Greenidge was employed full time as a nanny for an affluent African American family with four kids. Greenidge drew upon her experiences with the children of the family in coming up with many of the scenarios touched upon in Sans Culottes in the Promised Land.
Though Greenidge acknowledges that the identity issues depicted within the play are greatly exaggerated from what she had experienced with the family, she did note that one of the children had commented to her that she would, “look prettier in white skin”. (Friedman 2004) This same scenario is mimicked in the play as Greta, uncomfortable with her own image and identity as young African-American girl, notes a similar conversation with her nanny Lena. As Greenidge watched the family she worked for, a total period of seven years, she began to capture the struggle they battled in instilling values in their children so that they would not resemble Greta’s character. The play is loosely based on the “what ifs” in terms of her own position amidst the family. For example, what if the mom she worked for was not able to balance it all –questions of this nature lead to the obstacles the family faces in Sans-culottes (Greenidge 2006).
Lena’s character was also loosely based on the experiences of one of Greenidge’s co-workers. Her co-worker, in her late twenties, could not read. Like Lena, she was a young smart black woman who had a learning disability that had never been addressed. During her time working for an affluent African-American family, she began to question why her own family had not addressed her disability earlier. Instead, her family tended to dote on her looks rather than focus on her talents –this is similar to how both Greta and her father viewed Lena within the play.
Much of the characters in Greenidge’s works also stem from depictions of her own family members. The portrayal of Greta’s heritage teacher, Charlotte, was drawn from the political rants of Greenidge’s sisters (Foster 2004). David Hancock, a playwright who spoke at the University of Iowa’s MFA program in playwriting, influenced Greenidge early on in her career. He suggested that, “most writers have six to eight characters in their heads and …just keep recycling them,” (Foster 2004). Greenidge recognized that the character of the little girl is always in her plays, as well as her mother, grandmother, and sisters (Foster 2004).
Greenidge’s concept for Sans-culottes originated in 2001. Generally, Greenidge contemplates specific scenes in her head from months to years before beginning to write or piece together a play. For, Sans-culottes in the Promised Land, she used a similar process (Greenidge 2006). During her time as a nanny, Greenidge found herself writing in between caring for the kids and waiting in the carpool lane outside of various schools (Foster 2004). Greenidge was also invited to Sundance’s Ucross retreat in Wyoming. In the mornings at the retreat Greenidge would write Sans-culottes and then work on another play, Rust after lunch (Greenidge 2006).
Nine months after the retreat, and the completion of a first draft of Sans-culottes Greenidge attended New Dramatists, another retreat in which she continued to work on scenes leading to the end of the play. Because of the brief intervals that she took advantage of, many of the scenes in Sans-culottes were constructed as short pieces. When reflecting upon her work, Greenidge suggests that this may be the main reason for the ultimate structuring of the play into smaller scenes –because that is how she had to conceive of the play (Greenidge 2006). After a brief period of dormancy, Greenidge was invited to the Madison Repertory’s Fall Festival of the Future and began work with Randy White. The following spring, White directed Sans-culottes at the 28th Annual Humana Festival of new American plays (Bowen 2004). The whole process from play writing to production took approximately two and a half years (Greenidge 2006).
At Humana, the play was under rehearsal for a brief period of three weeks. Greenidge continued rewriting the script until the final moments of production. She was only in attendance of the first week of rehearsals due to a previous work engagement with the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival. The cast had already done a reading of the play and had been working on the development and portrayal of their characters prior to the Humana festival. Furthermore, Greenidge had worked with the director before, which gave her utmost confidence that her visions for the play would be carried out (Greenidge 2006).
Though Greenidge was content with the performance of Sans-culottes, her audience gave mixed reviews. In general, there was a consensus among critics that Greenidge had a flair for language, but that certain characters, such as Greg, needed to be refocused (Bowen 2004). Another critic commented that the show, “failed to land its punch,” and that the performance was, “frenetic, disjointed,” with an, “overly busy scenic design,” that blurred the play’s message (Pender 2004).
Within the play, Lena (Greta’s nanny) is plagued by her illiteracy. She is unable to work the washing machine because she cannot read the instructions. In order to make her illiteracy more poignant, Greenidge created scenes in which letters fall on her and bury her. Also, towards the conclusion of the play, a forest overtakes the house in order to symbolize a “new world”. Greenidge describes the forest climbing up around furniture and around the individual characters within the play. These aspects of the production are essential in depicting the full effect of the playwright’s concept. Obviously though, they pose as problems for those producing the show. The implementation of the physical presence of these items can be difficult in its format and furthermore, as seen in critiques of the Humana performance, may interrupt the audience’s perception of reality.
Greenidge herself acknowledged that a re-performance of the play might be out of reach due to the technical problems encountered with the growth of the trees inside the family’s home and letters falling from the sky. At the Humana Festival, the problem of forest growth was dealt with by having trees come through trap doors from underneath the stage (Greenidge 2006). The letters that fall at the end of the play were thrown down through a large shoot from above onto the stage, choreographed with type writing sounds. Greenidge is adamant that she will not cut out these particular aspects of the play in the future, despite their problems, because it derogates the original image of the play (Rawson 2005).
As far as the character critique, the play at one point, according to Greenidge had more of Carol and Greg. Consequently though, through the process of revisions, their situations were “trimmed” to create place for the development of characters that assist the family. Greenidge asserts that the play is essentially about the relations of those particular characters, and what happens when the family ignores them. Greenidge is currently considering rewriting the ending, but states that individuals will never be happy with the play concluding as a satirical, cautionary tale (Greenidge 2006).
The aspects that propel this play deal with the notion that the characters have made certain choices within their lives which have come back to haunt them. For example, within the play, Carol spends a great deal of her time focused on achieving success within her career and breaking what is depicted as a “glass ceiling” –the barriers of discrimination that are presented to ethnic minorities in the United States. In the meantime, Carol neglects the acculturation of her only daughter, Greta, into her native African heritage. Greta consequently immerses herself in an imaginary world of fairy tale dominated by depictions of white protagonists. She becomes confused about her own identity and harbors a disdain for her colored skin. Greg (the father) and Charlotte (Greta’s African culture teacher) try to intervene at points in the play, but the characters find themselves caught up in their choices. They instead choose to continue on the same road until what the playwright deems an inevitable end.
One theme Greenidge tries to incorporate within her work is the role of women’s issues (Rawson 2005). As evident in Sans-culottes, having a cast with noticeably only one male role, Greenidge tries to challenge some of the mainstream thoughts regarding women in today’s society. Greg’s character was in fact inverted, and he was placed in a struggle, within mainstream culture. As the ultimate insult to his masculinity, he was demoted despite all of his education, and Carol was placed as the ultimate breadwinner of the family (Greenidge 2006). Furthermore, the play addresses some of the critical issues that women may face in balancing career with family life. In Carol’s instance, she fails tragically at both.
Greenidge has a dominating theme that she tries to incorporate throughout all of her work. That theme deals with the telling of “black stories”. When she began writing, Greenidge stated her goal as putting as many black stories up on stage as she could within her lifetime. She had been acutely aware of the limited number of black roles within the theatre/entertainment industry growing up. As she ventured into the realm of play production, she became frustrated with the few roles offered for her to play. As a result, she began to write plays that showed that, “there are many different kinds of black, and there are infinitesimal numbers of African American stories out there to be told,” (Greenidge 2006).
To a large extent, Greenidge has already succeeded. Other than Sans-culottes in the Promised Land, among the plays that she has written and that have passed into production are Rust and 103 Within the Veil. Rust, produced by Magic Theatre, tells the story of an African-American superstar athlete who tries desperately to cling to his humanity (Foster 2004). 103 Within the Veil tells the true story of Hubert Collins, an African-American who worked as a photographer and janitor in Boston in relative poverty and obscurity (Perille 2005). Collins’ work was forgotten until 103 of his glass negatives were discovered in 1976 –hence the title of the play (Byrne 2005).
With the development and production/performance of Sans-culottes in the Promised Land, her first full play production, Greenidge was able to move onward with her career goals. Currently, her plays are being developed in simultaneous productions, through staged readings and spanning some of the most prestigious theaters across the country including the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, Playwrights Horizons in New York, and the Sundance Playwrights Retreat in Utah. The Actors Theatre of Louisville and California's South Coast Repertory has commissioned her to write works, while her play "Familiar" won a Lorraine Hansberry Award from the Kennedy Center (Foster 2005). Greenidge hopes to continue on with her writing career and if the success of Sans-culottes and her other plays are any indication, she will most likely be a permanent fixture within the theatre arena throughout the coming years.
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Works Cited
1. Bowen, Joseph. "The 28th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays." Theatre News & Reviews. 9 Apr. 2004. 20 Feb. 2006
2. Byrne, Terry. "Greenidge's view of photo lacks focus." The Boston Globe 2 Feb. 2005: 050. Lexis Nexis Academic. The Ohio State University. 27 Feb. 2006. Keyword: Kirsten Greenidge.
3. Byrne, Terry. "The power of three." The Boston Globe 14 Jan. 2005: e09. Lexis Nexis Academic. The Ohio State University. 27 Feb. 2006. Keyword: Kirsten Greenidge.
4. Foster, Catherine. "Timing is right for local playwright." The Boston Globe 14 Jan. 2005: e20. Lexis Nexis Academic. The Ohio State University. 22 Feb. 2005. Keyword: Kirsten Greenidge.
5. Foster, Catherine. "Writing who she knows, playwright finds quirky characters all around her." The Boston Globe 21 Mar. 2004: n1. Lexis Nexis Academic. Ohio State University. 22 Feb. 2006. Keyword: Kirsten Greenidge.
6. Friedman, Angie F. "Playwright explores questions of race." Velocity. 2004. The Courrier-Journal. 20 Feb. 2006
7. Greenidge, Kirsten. E-mail interview. 27 Feb. 2006.
8. Greenidge, Kirsten. Sans Culottes: in the Promised Land. Ms. Theatre Research Institute, Columbus. 2004.
9. Pender, Rick. "Crafty Dreamers." Cincinnati City Beat 2004. 22 Feb. 2006
10. Perille, Gina. "'Veil' conceals photographer's life." The Boston Globe 1 Feb. 2005: e5. Lexis Nexis Academic. The Ohio State University. 25 Feb. 2006. Keyword: Kirsten Greenidge.
11. Rawson, Christopher. "Two playwrights seek chance to tell women's stories." Pittsburgh-Post Gazette 1 Feb. 2005: g-5. Lexis Nexis Academic. The Ohio State University. 1 Mar. 2006. Keyword: Kirsten Greenidge.
Theatre H101
November 30, 2006
Raising the Lives of the Elderly up on Stage as Saints
In order to successfully turn a script into a production on stage, a large number of factors are needed. Some important aspects that must be taken care of include the playwright’s countless revisions, determining the audience for the production, fitting the play’s production into a season of plays at one or more stages, designing a proper set, and assigning a cast that fits and understands each character’s role. This must be done before any advertising or rehearsing can be done for the play. Once this is complete the director can finally begin to attack the issues regarding the presentation and interaction between characters on stage.
One of the first steps in bringing an idea to stage is in getting the play written. Important details, such as the size of the cast and the length of the production, must be taken into account when writing a play. These factors will later affect the types of stages where the play can be produced, since a two-man play would be overwhelmed on a large theatre on Broadway. Sometimes the play must fit with a particular sized theatre company as well. Where advertisements are placed is also important to drawing in the main audiences targeted by a play, because niche groups will only learn about the play being produced in places that they typically frequent. Certainly an African American Heritage play advertised at an Asian Festival should not expect a large turn out as a result of their advertising.
In “Lives of the Saints,” written by Jean Seitter Cummins, Jean said that the first major issue her play faced before it was even written was the issue of a fairly large elderly cast. The play consists of five characters above the age of seventy, and three characters in their mid forties. As a result, there is limited action on stage, since the cast should not be expected to be incredibly limber. If a theatre is able to find an aging cast, then producing this play would be successful because the main audience for most theatrical productions stems from the elderly. A few of the characters are in wheelchairs throughout, with the most elaborate action in the play involving a lift on a van that is used to pick up and lower one of the actors in a wheelchair.
The scenery on stage is explained by stage directions listed in the play, but directors are free to interpret the set in their own way. Jean Cummins believes that the set is best interpreted to have the garden outside the house set in front of the house on stage, with the house moving forward for the middle of the play during the scenes that are focused indoors. Later, the play moves back out into the garden near the end of the play as the scenes move back outside. The shed that is talked about as being off near the side of the garden would not be on stage, since Jean believes the audience should not actually see the shed. This would keep the set fairly basic, and it would work well with a small stage in a smaller theatre, although the play could also work on larger stages. The stage should remain cluttered, both in the garden and in the house, to symbolize a full, well kept garden and an overstuffed house containing the lifetimes of five elderly.
“Lives of the Saints” has never been produced, but it has been read as a staged reading once. If it were produced, the lighting and sound would need to be taken into consideration by the director. The play would need to have a realistic setting, with vibrant green colored lighting during the day, and darker blue lighting during the evening to represent the moonlight in the garden. There will be limited sound effects, such as raising and lowering the lift on the van while Liam is stuck on it, watching a video on a projector from Christmas years ago, or the faint sounds of soothing music in the background of some scenes. If more contrasting colors were used, the lights would detract from the performances of the actors and the set.. The audience needs to see a normal, “down to earth” feeling from the cast to be able to identify easily with the story and its characters.
One interesting possibility for this play would be to change the elderly cast to five young children of Darcy and his wife’s. While greatly changing the chemistry between Ada Clare and the five people she is taking care of, much of the underlying meaning in the story could remain the same. Other changes to the play, such as changing the time of the play to a futuristic setting or historic setting could also be effective if the director handled each issue successfully. No matter what changes are made in the play, Ada Clare can still go through the struggles of breaking free from her Saintly duties of taking care of those around her in order to obtain her own happiness.
The play uses a technique called exposition to inform the audience of much of the different characters roles early on in the first act. For instance, the elderly all gather around and discuss the incident at the shed from years ago. Ned and Nora show how they have a parental personality around their younger siblings, and Ned shows how he has fought with drinking problems through much of life as a result of his harsh upbringing. When Ada Clare shows up on stage, she makes her presence known as the caretaker right away when she scolds Ned for drinking. Lucille comes into the play by singing, and she says little else, revealing to the audience her ineptitude, while Liam is clearly spiteful of his older brother when he bickers about Ned. When Bram finally arrives, he makes the mistake of talking about his wife, who had died just a few years earlier, in order to tell the audience a little about his past and to reveal to the others that he has already been living a normal life before he showed up at the family’s home.
“Lives of the Saints” is meant to show the lives of a family of Catholics who are trying to do the right thing while struggling with their innate tendencies. Ada Clare consistently tries to give herself and her career up to support her elderly family, and Darcy dedicates himself to those in need of help. Ada Clare’s relationship with Darcy represents something all Saints must go through in having to conceal their personal feelings. Darcy eventually shows his fatal flaw when he refuses to acknowledge being on the receiving end of charity from Bram, and instead lies and insults Bram in front of Ada Clare. Lucille’s most influential moment in the play is when she points out the struggles that Saints must go through in a Saintly life when she reads the “Lives of the Saints” poem out loud to the rest of the cast. Lucille’s character is used to present the characters with the truth of their situations, both when she recites this poem and when she controls the lift on the van.
The main focus of this play is in Ada Clare’s attempts to pull away from her Saintly duties and live a typical life. The elderly try to help her accomplish this by being supportive of her photography, but on some level, none of them want her to go. Darcy tries to rationalize this by comparing her to a dove, but the struggles symbolism is best portrayed when Ada Clare loses control of her emotions trying to break a fern out of its pot in order to let it grow. The fern is symbolic of Ada Clare because the fern will continue to grow in the cracks of its pot, destroying itself, unless someone helps it break out and grow twice as strong. Bram represents the outside force that has come to intervene and save Ada Clare from destroying herself. However, it is not Bram alone that can convince her to go to Washington with him, as she must decide for herself that she can leave her position home as the caretaker before she can get away.
Jean Cummins felt that one of the biggest difficulties in bringing this play to the stage would be with portraying the relationship between Ada Clare and Darcy. The relationship can be confusing to an audience who may not understand all of the intentions behind their relationship, since Darcy is married to Ada Clare’s bedridden sister. Many audience members could find themselves uneasy with a relationship between Ada Clare and her brother-in-law. Even more confusing to the audience would be when they find out the truth about the shed incident. Ada Clare must convince the audience that she is going through an internal struggle over her love, Darcy, and her newfound feelings for Bram, or else the audience might get the impression that she was raped in the shed. Jean states that Ada Clare’s relationship with Darcy makes her feel safe at home, and the two are always there for each other, as shown when Ada Clare supports Darcy when he gets drunk and reveals his mistake with the Foundation in the first act.
The elderly still play a crucial part in the plot, since they give Ada Clare reason to stay at the home to take care of them. She believes that she is responsible for whatever would happen if she wasn’t there to watch all five of them, so she is afraid to leave them out of her sight. After much persuasion, Bram is able to convince her to leave the five elderly at home by themselves for one day, and while she is away Liam faints because Lucille repeatedly raises and lowers him on a wheelchair lift. Ned and Liam’s constant bickering and drinking also cause problems that give her reason to believe she is needed there, thinking this is her Saintly duty to take care of them, since they raised her when she was young without parents.
Another thing that the play continually goes back to is how everyone spies on Ada Clare. On separate occasions, Ned and Darcy both reveal themselves after watching over her in the shadows when she is with Bram. Then, in the last scene, Ada Clare realizes that the whole family was listening in on her conversation with Bram. In talking about the shed incident, Ned was also there to catch romance on two separate occasions. After Bram and Ada Clare return from the opera, Ned makes sure to tell Bram about something called the “fairy ring,” after listening in on their conversation. The fairy ring is a story Ned shares with Bram to point out that he is different and excluded from the family of elderly Catholics.
A director should be able to address all these issues and make sure that the main conflicts of the play still show through to the audience in its final production, while any complications or confusions in the play are subdued. This process of bringing a script into production is a long one with many questions that would need to be addressed to have a successful production. The steps of identifying a good theatre company, stage, and advertising are the first steps needed to get the play afloat. Once those issues are assigned, the issues of set design, cast, and character interaction can be presented and dealt with. The play has potential to be successful because there is such a large elderly audience interested in theatre. The key is to reach out to that group, both for the cast and the audience, in order to obtain a good production.
