Northern Vermont's home for contemporary theatre
Vermont Stage
  • Shows & Events
    • Airness
    • Venus in Fur 2023
    • The Bake Off 2023
  • Donate
  • About
    • Equity and Inclusion statement
    • Past Productions >
      • Winter Tales 2022
      • The Pitmen Painters
      • Women in Jeopardy!
    • Staff
    • Board of Directors
  • Where
    • Accessibility
    • Safety Precautions
  • Education
    • Vermont Young Playwrights
  • Contact
    • Available Jobs
    • Get Involved

A dramaturgical look at A Doll's House, Part 2

1/4/2019

2 Comments

 
Dramaturgy by Danielle Sessler

In 1879, when Nora closed the door on her husband Torvald and their three children at the end of Ibsen’s groundbreaking play, A Doll’s House, the world responded in shock. Ibsen's Nora was criticized for being an irrational and frivolous narcissist, an ‘abnormal woman,’ a ‘hysteric,’ a vain egotist who abandons her own children. Ibsen himself was accused of advocating the destruction of the family, and with it, morality itself. Perhaps the crux of the societal concern lay in the fear that this new type of Victorian woman would not only destroy the institution of marriage, but that she would turn gender roles, as they knew it, on their head.  As one theatergoer expressed, “Women, in refusing to be compliant, were refusing to be women.”
 
It feels appropriate that now, over a century since Ibsen’s classic premiered, Lucas Hnath (Red Speedo, The Christians, Death Tax), an American playwright, would choose to write A Doll’s House, Part 2, not just as a response to Ibsen’s classic, but as a contemporary continuation of the discussion.  Set 15 years after Nora’s disappearance, she has returned, and what ensues may at first feel period - after all, it’s only 1894.  But the series of lively debates, questions and arguments presented on marriage, gender roles, motherhood, and love, are as pertinent to today’s contemporary society as ever.
 
Hnath, in an interview with Charlie Rose said, “I think the thing that Ibsen kept coming back to in all his plays is how are we not free, and how could we be more free, and is that really truly even possible?” Over a century since Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the landscape of women’s rights and gender expectations have vastly changed, and yet the question still remains as pressing as ever – how are we not free, and how could we be more free?
 
Brief Snapshot of Women’s Rights in the Victorian Age:

  • Under Coverture, a doctrine of English common law, a married woman’s identity – legally, economically and socially – were consumed by the man she married. This law prevented a woman from owning property, entering contracts, or keeping any wages that she earned either before or after her marriage. She was considered one with her husband, and had no separate rights.
  • The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 made divorce more accessible to the average citizen – but the grounds for obtaining a divorce were not equal for men and women. A man could file on the basis of adultery solely, but a woman had to prove cruelty in addition to adultery, and she was very unlikely to be granted custody of their children.
  • Middle and lower class women had little choice in terms of work: governesses, factory workers, clerical positions, and if it came to it, prostitution. Some exceptional women, however, made a great deal of money writing books. That being said, even the most well-revered Victorian lady novelists published their works under pseudonyms. Marian Evans had the nom de plume of George Eliot, and Charlotte Bronte went by Currer Bell.
 
Today, for the first time in American history, there are more unmarried women than married women, as well as there are more women with higher educational degrees than men, and yet stigmas and inequalities surrounding single women and “spinsters” persist. Beliefs that unmarried women are sexually promiscuous, that they are denying their innate femininity by rejecting procreation and marriage, that they are “crazy old cat ladies,” still permeate our culture. And although the workplace has caught up significantly, overall women only earn on average 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man, and the rights of women are still greatly debated in our homes and in our politics.
 
To this day, it is still just as shocking that a woman would walk out on her family, and children raised with just a father and no mother is much more uncommon than the alternative. Nora was a trailblazer of women’s liberation and feminism – widening the options, and carving a path for a larger, more encompassing, fulfilling future.
 
"Today's unmarried and late married women are walking a road toward independence that was paved by generations of women who lived singly when it was far harder to do so than it is today. Crucially, many of those radically single and late-married women were the ones who were able to devote their unmarried, nonmaternal lives to changing the nation's power structure in ways that might better support today's army of free women." Rebecca Traister, All The Single Ladies. 2016. 
 
Vermont Stage will present a A Doll’s House, Part 2 written by Lucas Hnath, directed by Margo Whitcomb at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center from January 23, 2019 to February 10, 2019. 
2 Comments

“Just a Man”: Katori Hall’s deeply human Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in The Mountaintop

4/1/2015

 
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I’m just a man…I’m a sinner, not a saint,” confesses Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in The Mountaintop, Katori Hall’s reimagining of the famed Civil Rights Movement leader’s last night in this world. In The Mountaintop, we visit the Memphis motel where King was staying when he was assassinated in April, 1968. But, as the character’s statement above indicates, this is no docudrama or reverential tribute to the Reverend’s achievements. Rather, Hall suggests that behind closed doors, Martin Luther King was more ordinary than we might expect. Yes, he had a heroic drive to crusade for justice, and an extraordinary ability to inspire millions with his speeches—but Hall imagines that underneath the brave words, he must have harbored flaws and fears we can all relate to.

The Mountaintop’s depiction of Dr. King is a blend of fact and authorial invention. As Hall explained in a 2013 interview with NPR, “This play is highly fictionalized, almost anti-historical, even though it starts on April 3, 1968.” King was indeed lodging in Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel that evening, having flown to Tennessee to support black sanitation workers on strike. What transpires in Room 306 in Hall’s script, however, is her fantasy about what his state of mind might have been. The story begins when King returns to the room, having just delivered his prophetic “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address at Mason Temple. He’s tired, stressed, and craving a cigarette. Welcome distraction arrives in the form of Camae, a young maid who brings him coffee and a newspaper. With no small amount of flirting, he convinces her to keep him company for a while. Initially she’s intimidated by his celebrity, but as the night wears on, she proves more than a match for the venerable “Preacher Kang.” She questions the efficacy of his emphasis on non-violent methods of protest. She calls him out for having smelly feet. And when he jumps at the sounds of the storm raging outside, or clutches at his overburdened heart in a moment of panic, she’s a source of solace.

A Dr. King who smokes and drinks whiskey? A Dr. King who’s faced bomb threats and bullets and police brutality, but is afraid of thunder? It might seem hard to believe—shocking, even. But in pulling him off his pedestal, Katori Hall is after something much deeper. She describes her portrayal as “a very human approach to Dr. King.” According to Hall, it’s easy to look at a figure like Martin Luther King, Jr. and forget that, like us, he was once flesh and blood. Our history books have elevated him to near-sainthood, making his myriad accomplishments seem superhuman. Seeing King light up a cigarette or notice an attractive woman or reach out for reassurance brings him back down to earth. He becomes someone with whom we can empathize, because he’s fallible and vulnerable. And all that he’s achieved becomes even more impressive, because we realize it was the work of a man, not a myth.

Exploring King’s humanity is also a project of personal significance for Hall. An African-American woman from Memphis, she grew up literally surrounded by the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement—and aware that, for all the Movement’s successes, as a society we still have farther to go in the march toward true equality. For example, despite the substantial progress King made with desegregation in the legal system, Hall’s was the only black family in their neighborhood. “I had to contend with people hating me for no reason at all… just due to our unfortunate history as Americans,” she has said. “I just had to figure out, where does this come from? What are we fighting for?” In The Mountaintop, we watch King ask himself the same questions and admit to Camae that he feels like a failure. Hall’s digging into King’s doubts illustrates a difficult answer: meaningful change usually can’t be achieved quickly or without struggle, and there’s always more to be done. In his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, King envisioned a better future almost within reach—but in Hall’s play, no matter how hard he fights the fact of his imminent death, he won’t live to see his dream become reality. Now, Hall implies, it’s our turn to fight for the better future that King foresaw.

It’s no wonder that The Mountaintop has resonated with audiences both in America and abroad. Upon its 2009 London premiere, it won the prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Play. In 2011 it was produced on Broadway, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, and has spread to countless other stages across the country. With heart, humor, and theatrical spectacle, Katori Hall’s luminous play reminds us that if King could accomplish so much despite his many foibles, than maybe in our own small ways, we can too. As Hall puts it, “Showing the humanity in our heroes allows us to see the hero in ourselves.”

—Hannah Rae Montgomery

Reprinted with permission by Actors Theatre of Louisville

Unmasking the Origins of Or,

1/13/2015

 
Playwright Liz Duffy Adams Reflects
By Danielle Girard
playwright Liz Duffy Adamsplaywright Liz Duffy Adams
Ever heard of Aphra Behn—the first professional female playwright who was also a spy? Most people haven’t. Even Liz Duffy Adams, playwright of Or,, a self-professed lover of Restoration Drama who received her Masters in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama didn’t learn about Aphra Behn until after she graduated. There was no mention of Behn in Adams’ year-long dramatic literature survey course at Yale; no exposure to the playwright’s successful, but largely overlooked, work.

“Some years ago a friend asked me to write a verse prologue for her production of The Rover. I’d never read or seen Behn so I read several of her plays and biography and, of course, began to find her extraordinarily interesting,” says Adams.

As Adams explains it, Aphra Behn came from a modest background, but formed bonds with the aristocratic family for which her mother served as a wet nurse. Behn educated herself by using their extensive library and later developed connections that would land her a job spying for the English crown in the 1660s. Her life, by modern day standards, was certainly unique. She was widowed in 1667, ended up in debtor’s prison during her espionage career, and wrote over a dozen successful plays, as well as verse and fiction.

“She’s such an exciting person. When you do any research about her, I mean—there was no place in that society, that culture, at that time for her, and she created a place for herself,” Adams went on to say.

Writing the prologue for her friend’s production of The Rover sparked Adams’ desire to explore Behn through writing. She wrote a 10-minute rhyming couplet play, Aphra Does Antwerp, about Behn for a festival in 2001, and for years since has been trying to find an entry point for a full-length play.

The opportunity came in 2008 with a New Dramatists play workshop in New York. The playwright spent two weeks feverishly writing Or, in a tiny attic room—where August Wilson used to write—and workshopping the play with actors. “I used Aphra’s work as a jumping off point and inspiration,” explains Adams, “without aiming at a pastiche or copy.” She also tried to avoid writing “a stodgy, old-fashioned biopic type play. I wanted it to be a play of our time.” The resulting farce mixes modern and classic, prose and verse. It is full of gender bending, intrigue, and mad-cap antics—elements of Restoration Comedy that are equally hilarious today.

Or, captures Behn on the cusp of the transition between her life as a spy and as a playwright, two realms—theatre and espionage—which Adams believes have much in common.

“There’s a lot of things having to do with masking and disguise; masking and revelation; hiding and revealing and negotiating as she had to in a world in which it was very brave to be yourself,” elaborates Adams. “And this is something I think we’re all kind of familiar with too, in our own ways.”

These timeless themes inspired Adams to use Or, to draw thematic parallels between the 1660s, the 1960s (the era of her childhood), and present day. “I’m interested in writing historical plays because I’m interested in the cyclical view of history, the way that things keep coming around over and over and over again and the parallels that exist between eras—the ways in which they’re the same and the ways in which they’re different,” explains Adams. In Or, these thematic parallels often manifest themselves in the notion of freedom: personal freedom, sexual freedom, political freedom, and freedom of ideas.

Or, serves as a break from Adams’ traditional body of work. “My previous work has been largely in the realm of science fiction, however unlikely a theatrical genre that may be: post-apocalyptic settings,” says Adams. “I have noticed that there is a through line through all my work. It seems that the one thing that makes it possible for me to write a play is when it is, on some level, about recreating civilization after or during catastrophe. Whether that’s a destroyed, embittered London, like in Or, or a post-apocalyptic world.”

Adams is intrigued by the sense of renewal that arises with the recreation of a civilization after destruction. She explores the existence of a “subculture that can look incredibly naïve, but is exactly what gives us hope” in such times. Adams explains that the characters of Or, are perfect examples of “a subculture of artists and thinkers and people who actually, as Elvis Costello sang, want to know ‘What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?’”

Adams hopes that Or, offers an exciting and fun evening of entertainment that provides audiences with a dose of hope and joy. “I think people sometimes strangely underestimate audiences and think they need to be jolted,” stresses Adams. “I want them to feel awake, the way I want to feel awake when I’m in the theatre, thinking and feeling. And I hope I’ve helped to create an environment for that kind of experience.”


Reprinted with permission from Seattle Repertory Theatre.

Dr. Betsy Allen-Pennebaker on dramaturgy for "Venus in Fur"

3/18/2014

 
Picture
I've been a member of the Vermont Stage Company board for several years now, but in one of those random coincidences, I also happen to have a PhD in Austrian literature, hardly ever used for its original purpose (I teach in Champlain College's interdisciplinary "Core" program, which doesn't offer German). For this production, Cristina asked me to dust off my degree and delve into the life and times of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who was born and lived for most of his life in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (until he fled to Germany to escape a four-day jail sentence for a minor slander charge - he was fond of punishment, but only on his own terms).

Because I had limited time, and I knew that Cristina and the actors would be reading the play backwards and forwards, I decided to focus my dramaturgical efforts on providing history and background for them. Basically, I wanted to give them all kinds of extra "ingredients" that they could mix into their performances however they wanted.

I got really into it. Sacher-Masoch and his wife Wanda (yes, pronounced "Vanda") were some interesting folks, let's just say that. I delved into some of the theories about masochism, which is still very poorly understood. I also did a little art historical research (Sacher-Masoch was obsessed with paintings of women in fur), and I followed up the references to Goethe, which permeate both Sacher-Masoch's novel and Ives' play.

When I was done I delivered 50 pages of rough dramaturgical notes and my copy of Faust to Cristina, telling her that it needed to be on Thomas's bookshelf in the show (you can see it there, on the bottom) - not only because both Severin and Thomas make Faustian bargains, but also because Thomas is a snob and he's going to make sure that all those "stupid actresses" know that he can read Faust and Venus in Furs in the original, thank you very much.

Then came the fun part: I went to the show last Friday and got to see what Cristina, Jordan, and Deanna had done with all my notes.

What I got was a surprise! When I read Ives' play as a dramaturge, I was doing it with my "Germanist" lenses on - and, well, I think it's fair to say that there's not normally much occasion to look for humor in German literature. When I came to the performance as an audience member, though, I found myself at a play that was not only smart and full of all sorts of clever allusions, but also really, really, really funny. My husband and I had big grins on our faces the whole time! It was a great evening and a wonderful reward for all my hard work.

I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did!

Betsy

P.S. When you come to the show, you can read some of what I learned in the dramaturgical insert that's included in everyone's program. I hope you find it interesting! And, for those who perhaps have a masochistic streak, Cristina's posted my full 50 pages of notes here for you to take a look through.


    Archives

    January 2019
    September 2018
    April 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All
    Acting
    A Doll's House
    American Hero
    A.R. Gurney
    Art
    Bess Wohl
    Beyond Therapy
    Blackberry Winter
    Christopher Durang
    Costuming
    Curious Incident
    Dancing Lessons
    David Ives
    Designing
    Directing
    Dramaturgy
    Fun Home
    Greg Pierce
    I And You
    Jon Robin Baitz
    Karen Zacarias
    Katori Hall
    Lauren Gunderson
    Liz Duffy Adams
    Mark St. Germain
    Mothers And Sons
    Native Gardens
    News
    Nina Raine
    Or
    Other Desert Cities
    Part 2
    Playwriting
    Q&A
    Slowgirl
    Steve Yockey
    Terrence McNally
    The Bake Off
    The Call
    The Dining Room
    The Mountaintop
    The Quarry
    Tigers Be Still
    Tribes
    Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike
    Venus In Fur
    Yasmina Reza

Season Sponsors
Picture
main street landing logo
Picture
Join our mailing list