Our “Ballad” is open, the reviews are coming in (a couple of our faves are here and here) and we are primed and ready for a great run (get your tickets here). The show runs through September 12th.
So what else is going on?
This is an unusual season for us, as we are only doing two shows as opposed to our standard three. There is a very good and very exciting reason for this that will be made clear sooner rather than later, so stay tuned for that.
There will be a formal press release in the coming week or so, but we would like to make mention here that we have three new ensemble members: Melania Lancy, Jon Steinhagen and Bries Vannon. Mel and Bries had been with us as Artistic Associates last season (a sort of part-time designation), but the full-time involvement they were putting in led to their title changes. Mel has been designing our worlds since "Catch-22" in 2004, and Bries has worked as actor or assistant director for several of our shows. Their talent is on full display in “Ballad,” with Mel’s gorgeously run-down general store setting the tone and Bries’ Crazy Merlie Ryan gettin’ his crazy on all over the place.
Jon has appeared in our productions of "1776" and "Six Degrees of Separation." He has also been a very active participant in our monthly Second Sundays reading series, and he may have written a play for a specific company that said specific company is pretty excited about. He is our first “brand new” member since bringing Simone on board over a year ago, and we feel extremely fortunate that he accepted our offer. He brings a ton of experience in multiple disciplines. Plus, we love him.
But when’s the next show? Well, Snook isn’t growing his hair long for nothing. We open "Aftermath" in May at the Raven Theatre. The Brian Jones semi-bio-play-semi-musical will begin light music rehearsals in the coming weeks as the latest draft is turned in and casting is complete. Joe is getting his rhythm guitar on as he preps to play Keith Richards, and we are very excited to report that Nick Vidal has agreed to do his best Jagger for us. The aforementioned Mr. Steinhagen is going to help us put all of the musical pieces together, and I’ll be overseeing the entire matter once I’m finished sweating the script out.
As for a sneak peak, here’s a tidbit with the soft spoken Jones. As is the plays primary purpose to reveal, he was one of music’s true little known geniuses. Just don’t ask him to define Surrealism.
Cheers,
Ronan
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Why Writers Write
One more time into the dramaturgical pool we go, dear readers. My services will no longer be needed at this fair blog as the show is opening on Sunday (get your tickets now!). For this last entry, I want to return to our two authors and pose them each the question: “Why do you write?”
We’ll start with Carson McCullers since this journey began with her. Like many writers, her first passion was actually music. She took piano lessons at an early age and showed quite a proficiency, which led her parents to push her down that career path. At the age of 17 she left her middle class home in Georgia to study piano at the Julliard School of Music in New York City--at least, that’s what she told her parents. During her last years in Georgia, however, there was a slow growing fire burning inside her to tell stories through prose and she saw New York City as the only way to feed this desire. She never made it to Julliard, but instead worked odd jobs while studying creative writing under Dorothy Scarborough at Columbia College. Her first piece, “Wunderkind,” was published in Story magazine in 1935 and her career was off and running.
The above is a happy, tidy little story of success, but her life was far from a fairy tale and her work would reflect this. Her health was always an issue, having battled rheumatic fever as a young girl and living through a series of strokes throughout her life that left her left side paralyzed by age 31. She also battled alcoholism and a brutal marriage to Reeves McCullers (see previous blog). All of this--her poor health, heartbreak and addiction--seemed to contribute to her art. As she said herself, “I want to be able to write whether in sickness or in health, for indeed, my health depends almost completely on my writing.”
Then there is her obsession with love, both good and bad. Tennessee Williams, a close friend of hers in her later years wrote, “Carson’s heart was often lonely and it was a tireless hunter for those to whom she could offer it, but it was a heart that was graced with light that eclipsed its shadows.” This is, I think, where it all begins and ends. Once again, I defer to McCullers, as she says it much better that I ever could:
Now, on to the mysterious Mr. Albee. His childhood couldn’t be any more different than that of his partner in crime. The adopted son of a wealthy couple, he was pushed at a young age towards a conventional and professional life. This clearly did not work out. As he said later in life: “I never felt comfortable with adoptive parents. I don’t think they knew how to be parents. I probably didn’t know how to be a son, either.” He left home before his twentieth birthday and headed for Greenwich Village. Like McCullers, he took on an assortment of odd jobs while he toiled away at the typewriter. Where did this obsession with words come from? It’s quite simple, as he tells it:
So, it was merely a process of elimination with Albee, which meant that, unlike McCullers, it took quite a while to gain the recognition. As soon as he had it figured out, though, it happened very quickly. At the age of thirty, Albee sat down at the typewriter and banged out “Zoo Story” in a flurry of creativity. His first play equalled his first success and the rest, my friends, is theatre history.
For those that are yearning for more info, a bibliography is below and there will be even more tidbits in the lobby display. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you at the show!
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
Bottoms, Stephen, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Edward Albee. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Burch, Ron. “The Real McCoy.” Southern Reader. 2005. 6 July 2009.
Carr, Virginia Spencer. The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2003.
Dews, Carlos L., ed. Illumination and Night Glare: The Unfinished Autobiography of Carson McCullers. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.
Gussow, Mel. Edward Albee: A Singular Journey. New York: Applause, 2001.
Infoplease. 2009. Pearson Education. 28 July 2009.
Kolin, Philip C., ed. Conversations with Edward Albee. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. “1930s Timeline.” About.com. 28 July 2009.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. “1910s Timeline.” About.com. 28 July 2009.
Taylor, Col. Samuel. “Depression and War.” Our Georgia History. 19 July 2009.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia. 6 April 2005. University of Georgia. 6 July 2009.
Thompson, Neal. Driving With the Devil. New York: Crown Publishing, 2006.
Wikipedia. 2009. Wikipedia Foundation. 1 July-28 July 2009.
We’ll start with Carson McCullers since this journey began with her. Like many writers, her first passion was actually music. She took piano lessons at an early age and showed quite a proficiency, which led her parents to push her down that career path. At the age of 17 she left her middle class home in Georgia to study piano at the Julliard School of Music in New York City--at least, that’s what she told her parents. During her last years in Georgia, however, there was a slow growing fire burning inside her to tell stories through prose and she saw New York City as the only way to feed this desire. She never made it to Julliard, but instead worked odd jobs while studying creative writing under Dorothy Scarborough at Columbia College. Her first piece, “Wunderkind,” was published in Story magazine in 1935 and her career was off and running.
The above is a happy, tidy little story of success, but her life was far from a fairy tale and her work would reflect this. Her health was always an issue, having battled rheumatic fever as a young girl and living through a series of strokes throughout her life that left her left side paralyzed by age 31. She also battled alcoholism and a brutal marriage to Reeves McCullers (see previous blog). All of this--her poor health, heartbreak and addiction--seemed to contribute to her art. As she said herself, “I want to be able to write whether in sickness or in health, for indeed, my health depends almost completely on my writing.”
Then there is her obsession with love, both good and bad. Tennessee Williams, a close friend of hers in her later years wrote, “Carson’s heart was often lonely and it was a tireless hunter for those to whom she could offer it, but it was a heart that was graced with light that eclipsed its shadows.” This is, I think, where it all begins and ends. Once again, I defer to McCullers, as she says it much better that I ever could:
The writer by nature of his profession is a dreamer and a conscious dreamer. He must imagine, and imagination takes humility, love and great courage. How can you create a character without love and the struggle that goes with love?
Now, on to the mysterious Mr. Albee. His childhood couldn’t be any more different than that of his partner in crime. The adopted son of a wealthy couple, he was pushed at a young age towards a conventional and professional life. This clearly did not work out. As he said later in life: “I never felt comfortable with adoptive parents. I don’t think they knew how to be parents. I probably didn’t know how to be a son, either.” He left home before his twentieth birthday and headed for Greenwich Village. Like McCullers, he took on an assortment of odd jobs while he toiled away at the typewriter. Where did this obsession with words come from? It’s quite simple, as he tells it:
When I was six years old I decided not that I was going to be a writer, but with my usual modesty, that I was a writer. So I started writing poetry when I was six and stopped when I was twenty-six because it was getting a little better, but not terribly much. When I was fifteen, I wrote seven hundred pages of an incredibly bad novel—it’s a very funny book that I still like a lot. Then, when I was nineteen I wrote a couple hundred pages of another novel, which wasn’t very good either. I was still determined to be a writer and since I was a writer, and here I was twenty-nine years old and I wasn’t a very good poet and I wasn’t a very good novelist, I thought I should try writing a play, which seems to have worked out a little better.
So, it was merely a process of elimination with Albee, which meant that, unlike McCullers, it took quite a while to gain the recognition. As soon as he had it figured out, though, it happened very quickly. At the age of thirty, Albee sat down at the typewriter and banged out “Zoo Story” in a flurry of creativity. His first play equalled his first success and the rest, my friends, is theatre history.
For those that are yearning for more info, a bibliography is below and there will be even more tidbits in the lobby display. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you at the show!
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
Bottoms, Stephen, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Edward Albee. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Burch, Ron. “The Real McCoy.” Southern Reader. 2005. 6 July 2009.
Carr, Virginia Spencer. The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2003.
Dews, Carlos L., ed. Illumination and Night Glare: The Unfinished Autobiography of Carson McCullers. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.
Gussow, Mel. Edward Albee: A Singular Journey. New York: Applause, 2001.
Infoplease. 2009. Pearson Education. 28 July 2009.
Kolin, Philip C., ed. Conversations with Edward Albee. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. “1930s Timeline.” About.com. 28 July 2009.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. “1910s Timeline.” About.com. 28 July 2009.
Taylor, Col. Samuel. “Depression and War.” Our Georgia History. 19 July 2009.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia. 6 April 2005. University of Georgia. 6 July 2009.
Thompson, Neal. Driving With the Devil. New York: Crown Publishing, 2006.
Wikipedia. 2009. Wikipedia Foundation. 1 July-28 July 2009.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The World Around Us
Hello, dear readers. So, we’ve talked about Georgia during the Great Depression, but there’s a whole world out there that we haven’t discussed. Now, this is an isolated town and a great many of the residents probably don’t even know there is a world around them (I’m looking at you, Merlie Ryan). However, when you see our show and if you listen real closely to the cafe chatter, you might hear tell of the current events of the day. I’m not naming any names, but that particular character who enjoys reading the local paper is the impetus of this blog. In addition to giving an actor some fodder to play with, this informal timeline will hopefully give you a more specific idea and context of the time of our “Ballad.”
We begin with the beginning. We’ve placed this in the year 1930 because that was the year of the great Georgian drought. As Rainey 1 says in the first scene, “We all be thirsty from the lack of rain.” We know from a previous post that Georgia was hurting in a big way, but so was the rest of the country. With the market crashing the previous October, President Hoover had to appoint the Commission for Unemployment Relief. To compound the problems, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act is passed by Congress, which causes foreign trade to decrease sharply and the depression to worsen. In other news, astronomers discover Pluto, which recently didn’t work out too well for Pluto; and in weird news, N.Y. Supreme Court Judge Joseph Crater liquidates all of his assets and disappears, never to be heard from again. I can only imagine what our twenty-four hour news networks would do with that.
Now, as the narrator says, four years go by--like that. This brings us to 1934 and the country is still deep in the Depression. The New Deal, which was implemented by Roosevelt the previous year, is beginning to help the country’s economy. On a global level, Adolf Hitler becomes the Fuhrer and the USSR is welcomed into the United Nations. Also in the headlines, Bonnie and Clyde are shot and killed by the law and the cheeseburger is officially invented, though not in the same place.
We return to our “Ballad” and find Cousin Lymon asking the all important question, “Who is Marvin Macy?” (pick up your buttons at the show). To answer this question our narrator takes us back about sixteen years to the Macy brothers and a young Miss Amelia. It’s 1918 and the world is at war with the United States entering the battlefield the previous year. The Allied troops are making their presence known in the Russian Civil War and the Spanish influenza epidemic spreads throughout the world. In lighter news, Daylight Savings Time is established and the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series (surprise, surprise).
Over the next two years, while Marvin Macy is cleaning himself up to court and finally marry Miss Amelia, the world is changing. The Treaty of Versailles is signed to end World War I, though the results are mixed. On the homefront, the 18th Amendment is adopted, which begins Prohibition and drastically affects towns like our “Ballad” (see previous blogs). In theatre news, Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play, “Beyond the Horizon,” is produced on Broadway; it wins the Pulitzer and is deemed the first American drama.
With Lymon’s question answered, we return to 1934 and move right along to the climatic fight around a year later. As Amelia and Marvin are greasin’ up, President Roosevelt is instituting the second phase of the New Deal, which includes programs like social security and farm assistance. In theatre news, George Gershwin premieres “Porgy and Bess” on Broadway and the Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series (the latter being the Theatre of Cruelty).
For three years Miss Amelia waits on her stoop for Cousin Lymon to return, which brings us to 1938. Our town is quiet now, but the world keeps spinning around it. Hitler marches into Austria as the Nazis are sending tens of thousands to concentration camps. Orson Welles sends a panic across the nation that aliens are attacking with his broadcast of “War of the Worlds.” In sports news? Don’t ask. Alright, fine: the New York Yankees beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series.
Some things never change.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
We begin with the beginning. We’ve placed this in the year 1930 because that was the year of the great Georgian drought. As Rainey 1 says in the first scene, “We all be thirsty from the lack of rain.” We know from a previous post that Georgia was hurting in a big way, but so was the rest of the country. With the market crashing the previous October, President Hoover had to appoint the Commission for Unemployment Relief. To compound the problems, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act is passed by Congress, which causes foreign trade to decrease sharply and the depression to worsen. In other news, astronomers discover Pluto, which recently didn’t work out too well for Pluto; and in weird news, N.Y. Supreme Court Judge Joseph Crater liquidates all of his assets and disappears, never to be heard from again. I can only imagine what our twenty-four hour news networks would do with that.
Now, as the narrator says, four years go by--like that. This brings us to 1934 and the country is still deep in the Depression. The New Deal, which was implemented by Roosevelt the previous year, is beginning to help the country’s economy. On a global level, Adolf Hitler becomes the Fuhrer and the USSR is welcomed into the United Nations. Also in the headlines, Bonnie and Clyde are shot and killed by the law and the cheeseburger is officially invented, though not in the same place.
We return to our “Ballad” and find Cousin Lymon asking the all important question, “Who is Marvin Macy?” (pick up your buttons at the show). To answer this question our narrator takes us back about sixteen years to the Macy brothers and a young Miss Amelia. It’s 1918 and the world is at war with the United States entering the battlefield the previous year. The Allied troops are making their presence known in the Russian Civil War and the Spanish influenza epidemic spreads throughout the world. In lighter news, Daylight Savings Time is established and the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series (surprise, surprise).
Over the next two years, while Marvin Macy is cleaning himself up to court and finally marry Miss Amelia, the world is changing. The Treaty of Versailles is signed to end World War I, though the results are mixed. On the homefront, the 18th Amendment is adopted, which begins Prohibition and drastically affects towns like our “Ballad” (see previous blogs). In theatre news, Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play, “Beyond the Horizon,” is produced on Broadway; it wins the Pulitzer and is deemed the first American drama.
With Lymon’s question answered, we return to 1934 and move right along to the climatic fight around a year later. As Amelia and Marvin are greasin’ up, President Roosevelt is instituting the second phase of the New Deal, which includes programs like social security and farm assistance. In theatre news, George Gershwin premieres “Porgy and Bess” on Broadway and the Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series (the latter being the Theatre of Cruelty).
For three years Miss Amelia waits on her stoop for Cousin Lymon to return, which brings us to 1938. Our town is quiet now, but the world keeps spinning around it. Hitler marches into Austria as the Nazis are sending tens of thousands to concentration camps. Orson Welles sends a panic across the nation that aliens are attacking with his broadcast of “War of the Worlds.” In sports news? Don’t ask. Alright, fine: the New York Yankees beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series.
Some things never change.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A Sense of Setting
The stock market takes a nosedive. The banks are collapsing. Loans are near impossible to get for the lower class and small businesses are dying off. Sound familiar? I’d be willing to bet that most folks would assume I’m talking about our current economic crises, but as you’re sitting there reading a dramaturgical blog (nerd), you know I must be talking about something else. Yes, dear reader, this was life in our town of the sad cafe. But it goes much deeper. Welcome to Georgia during the Great Depression.
To best understand what impact the Great Depression had on our small, rural town, let’s rewind a decade. During World War I, the demand for cotton created a boom in the industry, but by 1920, with the war over and the demand gone, cotton prices plummeted. The farmers were forced to use every inch of land and put in twice the labor just to keep up. Many deserted the farms for the city, while others had no choice but to become sharecroppers under large landowners (i.e. big business). You’d think that would be enough, but the bad news didn’t stop there. Boll weevil, a nasty little bug with a penchant for chowing on cotton as a young larvae, first showed up in 1915 and just eight years later, it had destroyed 2.6 million acres of cash crop. Want a little salt in the wound? Because the farmers had to plant every bit of land they had in order to keep even, the soil became depleted. This, along with the stripping of natural forests which left the farms helpless against erosion, turned once fertile ground into a wasteland. This was the condition of our little town as they approached the stock market crash in October of 1929.
It’s like they didn’t even have a chance. While the urban parts of the state were relatively protected because of recent industrialization and a large bump in their workforce due to the influx of former farmers, the rural areas were decimated. If one even needed a bad omen, the decade began with the worst drought in the history of the state. As the Depression continued, the conditions just got worse and worse. Hope arrived with President Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933 and his subsequent New Deal, but Georgia, again, got the short end of the stick. Its governor at the time, Eugene Talmage, felt Roosevelt and his New Deal were full of communist ideals and stopped at nothing to block their influence. This lasted until the end of his term when he was mercifully beaten by E.D. Rivers. Finally, Georgia could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I’ll wrap this up, but before I do, let me bring it briefly back to our “Ballad.” Try to put yourself in the middle of this devastation. Picture a home with no electricity, no running water, and no indoor plumbing. The most common meals are some combination of molasses, fatback and cornbread. If you own a farm, it’s in foreclosure and your fields are decimated and no longer plowable. If you’re working at the cotton mill, the jobs are disappearing quicker than the cotton. Picture all of this and it’s no wonder that the good people of our “Ballad” flocked to Miss Amelia’s cafe. Stay at home in the dark and chew on a piece of fat off the back of the pig or walk on down to the cafe for some homemade moonshine, a little comforting company and a menu of fried chicken, ham, winter peas, hominy grits, and collards.
This is what the cafe meant to this town.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
To best understand what impact the Great Depression had on our small, rural town, let’s rewind a decade. During World War I, the demand for cotton created a boom in the industry, but by 1920, with the war over and the demand gone, cotton prices plummeted. The farmers were forced to use every inch of land and put in twice the labor just to keep up. Many deserted the farms for the city, while others had no choice but to become sharecroppers under large landowners (i.e. big business). You’d think that would be enough, but the bad news didn’t stop there. Boll weevil, a nasty little bug with a penchant for chowing on cotton as a young larvae, first showed up in 1915 and just eight years later, it had destroyed 2.6 million acres of cash crop. Want a little salt in the wound? Because the farmers had to plant every bit of land they had in order to keep even, the soil became depleted. This, along with the stripping of natural forests which left the farms helpless against erosion, turned once fertile ground into a wasteland. This was the condition of our little town as they approached the stock market crash in October of 1929.
It’s like they didn’t even have a chance. While the urban parts of the state were relatively protected because of recent industrialization and a large bump in their workforce due to the influx of former farmers, the rural areas were decimated. If one even needed a bad omen, the decade began with the worst drought in the history of the state. As the Depression continued, the conditions just got worse and worse. Hope arrived with President Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933 and his subsequent New Deal, but Georgia, again, got the short end of the stick. Its governor at the time, Eugene Talmage, felt Roosevelt and his New Deal were full of communist ideals and stopped at nothing to block their influence. This lasted until the end of his term when he was mercifully beaten by E.D. Rivers. Finally, Georgia could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I’ll wrap this up, but before I do, let me bring it briefly back to our “Ballad.” Try to put yourself in the middle of this devastation. Picture a home with no electricity, no running water, and no indoor plumbing. The most common meals are some combination of molasses, fatback and cornbread. If you own a farm, it’s in foreclosure and your fields are decimated and no longer plowable. If you’re working at the cotton mill, the jobs are disappearing quicker than the cotton. Picture all of this and it’s no wonder that the good people of our “Ballad” flocked to Miss Amelia’s cafe. Stay at home in the dark and chew on a piece of fat off the back of the pig or walk on down to the cafe for some homemade moonshine, a little comforting company and a menu of fried chicken, ham, winter peas, hominy grits, and collards.
This is what the cafe meant to this town.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
"The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," Directed by George C. Scott?
Here’s an example of a great story that, in no way, will help us put up the play…but it’s just too damn good to not share. This is the story of “Ballad’s” Broadway premiere.
On the first day of rehearsal, Albee addressed the actors: “You’re good actors. Alan’s a good director. Ben’s built a nice set. So if the play’s lousy, it’s my fault. And that’s why the first day of rehearsal is depressing to me.” As the story goes, this was just a bit of an oversimplification.
Alan Schneider was pegged to direct the play since he had quite a history with Albee, having just directed his biggest hit, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” It should be pointed out that, not coincidentally, Schneider was Beckett’s favorite American director as well. Once casting began, Albee insisted on Colleen Dewhurst for Amelia and, while being perfect for the role, she clashed with Schneider from the beginning. Now, this wasn’t unheard of, as Schneider had the same relationship with Uta Hagen during ‘Virginia Woolf’, but as they approached previews for “Ballad,” Dewhurst said the director, “was beginning to show signs of cowardice. He was frightened by the material.” To make matters worse, she decided to have her husband, George C. Scott—yes, that George C. Scott—re-choreograph the climatic fight scene. After running through the new version, Schneider, who knew nothing of Scott’s involvement, objected to what he saw. A huge blowout ensued with Dewhurst storming out and refusing to take any more notes from her director. Eesh.
To make matters worse, the play went into rehearsal in the form of three long acts. Albee promised to cut and cut he did, but for every scene that was scratched, the narrator got a long monologue to replace it. Roscoe Lee Browne, who played the narrator, said, “I would have a new speech incorporating most of a scene they just deleted. They didn’t realize I was complaining when I said, ‘Gentlemen, there’s something wrong with this fellow who comes to tell you what you’ve just seen, what you’re now looking at and what you’re going to see.’” Dewhurst became increasingly frustrated over having to fight the narrator for her territory on stage. Browne, her friend, said, “In her rage, she would say to Schneider, ‘you have this wonderful actor stuck out there.’ By the time we were in previews, Colleen was in deep trouble with the piece. She knew of course she needed another eye to see what she was doing. It couldn’t be anybody onstage, and she would not allow the director to do it.”
Enter George C. Scott. At his wife’s request, he sat quietly in the back of the theatre, diligently taking notes. Scott, Dewhurst, and Browne all got together afterwards and went through the play line by line. Scott recommended cut after cut of the narrator’s speeches and gave them both his notes. By the time they were finished, the narrator’s role had been sliced from over twenty speeches to eight. Now came the tricky part: convincing Schneider.
Browne went to his director with Scott’s ideas disguised as his own. Much to his shock, Schneider admitted that the cuts made sense, but they’d have to be approved by Albee. That evening, Albee came backstage at Browne’s request and the two of them sat down the script. Albee’s replied, “You’re still saying those dreadful words? Take them out!” When asked if he ever told Albee about Scott’s influence, Browne replied, “Never! Never, never, never. It would have been most indiscreet to mention it.” Did Schneider ever know? No, Brown replied, he “would have wondered, who else was directing the play?”
Not exactly the portrait of professionalism you’d imagine backstage on Broadway. Happy to report that the most drama we’ve had thus far are an onslaught of Crazy Merlie jokes followed by uncontrollable laughter.
Pretty good story, huh?
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
On the first day of rehearsal, Albee addressed the actors: “You’re good actors. Alan’s a good director. Ben’s built a nice set. So if the play’s lousy, it’s my fault. And that’s why the first day of rehearsal is depressing to me.” As the story goes, this was just a bit of an oversimplification.
Alan Schneider was pegged to direct the play since he had quite a history with Albee, having just directed his biggest hit, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” It should be pointed out that, not coincidentally, Schneider was Beckett’s favorite American director as well. Once casting began, Albee insisted on Colleen Dewhurst for Amelia and, while being perfect for the role, she clashed with Schneider from the beginning. Now, this wasn’t unheard of, as Schneider had the same relationship with Uta Hagen during ‘Virginia Woolf’, but as they approached previews for “Ballad,” Dewhurst said the director, “was beginning to show signs of cowardice. He was frightened by the material.” To make matters worse, she decided to have her husband, George C. Scott—yes, that George C. Scott—re-choreograph the climatic fight scene. After running through the new version, Schneider, who knew nothing of Scott’s involvement, objected to what he saw. A huge blowout ensued with Dewhurst storming out and refusing to take any more notes from her director. Eesh.
To make matters worse, the play went into rehearsal in the form of three long acts. Albee promised to cut and cut he did, but for every scene that was scratched, the narrator got a long monologue to replace it. Roscoe Lee Browne, who played the narrator, said, “I would have a new speech incorporating most of a scene they just deleted. They didn’t realize I was complaining when I said, ‘Gentlemen, there’s something wrong with this fellow who comes to tell you what you’ve just seen, what you’re now looking at and what you’re going to see.’” Dewhurst became increasingly frustrated over having to fight the narrator for her territory on stage. Browne, her friend, said, “In her rage, she would say to Schneider, ‘you have this wonderful actor stuck out there.’ By the time we were in previews, Colleen was in deep trouble with the piece. She knew of course she needed another eye to see what she was doing. It couldn’t be anybody onstage, and she would not allow the director to do it.”
Enter George C. Scott. At his wife’s request, he sat quietly in the back of the theatre, diligently taking notes. Scott, Dewhurst, and Browne all got together afterwards and went through the play line by line. Scott recommended cut after cut of the narrator’s speeches and gave them both his notes. By the time they were finished, the narrator’s role had been sliced from over twenty speeches to eight. Now came the tricky part: convincing Schneider.
Browne went to his director with Scott’s ideas disguised as his own. Much to his shock, Schneider admitted that the cuts made sense, but they’d have to be approved by Albee. That evening, Albee came backstage at Browne’s request and the two of them sat down the script. Albee’s replied, “You’re still saying those dreadful words? Take them out!” When asked if he ever told Albee about Scott’s influence, Browne replied, “Never! Never, never, never. It would have been most indiscreet to mention it.” Did Schneider ever know? No, Brown replied, he “would have wondered, who else was directing the play?”
Not exactly the portrait of professionalism you’d imagine backstage on Broadway. Happy to report that the most drama we’ve had thus far are an onslaught of Crazy Merlie jokes followed by uncontrollable laughter.
Pretty good story, huh?
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
What We Drinking?
“The whiskey they drank that evening is important. Otherwise, it would be hard to account for what followed. Perhaps without it there would never have been a cafe. For the liquor of Miss Amelia has a special quality of its own. It is clean and sharp on the tongue, but once down a man, it glows inside him for a long time afterward. And that is not all. Things that have gone unnoticed, thoughts that have been harbored far back in the dark mind, are suddenly recognized and comprehended. A man may suffer, or he may be spent with joy--but he has warmed his soul and seen the message hidden there.”
--The Narrator, ‘The Ballad of the Sad Cafe’
Now that’s some good liquor. Where can you get some of that, you may ask. Well, it’s my job to tell you. Fair warning, though. As it happens, some Georgia Moon corn whiskey (today’s equivalent) has been floating around our space for about a year now. When a bottle of liquor lasts that long around Signal, it says something.
It turns out it was the northern Irish (God bless ‘em) who brought the process of moonshine to the American colonies during the 18th century. It’s a relatively simple process in two steps: fermentation and distillation. The fermentation is the process of breaking down the starches of the corn grain into sugars. To speed this up, sugar, yeast and malt can be added to the mix, making up the mash. Once you had the mash, the distillation of the alcohol was achieved by heating it, which would separate the alcohol from the water. That vapor would then be chilled and, voila, moonshine. This was all done in a homemade still and then kept, usually, in mason jars (though Miss Amelia of “Ballad” was fancy and kept hers in barrels).
Before the Civil War, moonshining wasn’t even moonshining yet; it was a respectable practice by farmers who were just making a little extra on the side with their excess crops. Crafty. It wasn’t until the federal government tried to tax what they referred to as “luxuries” in the 1860’s that the term “moonshiner” came into play. Those that didn’t want to pay the tax on the liquor they were making were forced to carry on under the light of the moon. Not paying taxes was one thing, but when prohibition came along, moonshining made the transition from tax evasion to out and out against the law.
Now, we come to the 1930’s; around the time of our “Ballad.” Despite prohibition, moonshining was a good option for farmers and, given the economic climate, it was often the only option. At that time, unskilled laborers were making around 40 cents an hour, but one trip to Atlanta would bring in forty dollars. Hmmm, twenty dollars or four hundred dollars a week? Easy enough to figure that one out. Now, the danger wasn’t so much in making the moonshine, but in transporting it. It had to be at night and it had to be fast. So, bootleggers, or “trippers,” became adept at souping up their V-8 Fords into what was called “tanker cars”...and even more adept at driving them. This, folks, was not only the inspiration for “The Dukes of Hazzard,” but the beginning of Nascar as we know it. In fact, the first stars of Nascar all got their start running liquor in the moonshine business. So, when Cousin Lymon tells Miss Amelia he wants to “go in the Ford tomorrow,” he’s not talking about a country ride in the jalopy.
Thirsty? Yep, me too.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
--The Narrator, ‘The Ballad of the Sad Cafe’
Now that’s some good liquor. Where can you get some of that, you may ask. Well, it’s my job to tell you. Fair warning, though. As it happens, some Georgia Moon corn whiskey (today’s equivalent) has been floating around our space for about a year now. When a bottle of liquor lasts that long around Signal, it says something.
It turns out it was the northern Irish (God bless ‘em) who brought the process of moonshine to the American colonies during the 18th century. It’s a relatively simple process in two steps: fermentation and distillation. The fermentation is the process of breaking down the starches of the corn grain into sugars. To speed this up, sugar, yeast and malt can be added to the mix, making up the mash. Once you had the mash, the distillation of the alcohol was achieved by heating it, which would separate the alcohol from the water. That vapor would then be chilled and, voila, moonshine. This was all done in a homemade still and then kept, usually, in mason jars (though Miss Amelia of “Ballad” was fancy and kept hers in barrels).
Before the Civil War, moonshining wasn’t even moonshining yet; it was a respectable practice by farmers who were just making a little extra on the side with their excess crops. Crafty. It wasn’t until the federal government tried to tax what they referred to as “luxuries” in the 1860’s that the term “moonshiner” came into play. Those that didn’t want to pay the tax on the liquor they were making were forced to carry on under the light of the moon. Not paying taxes was one thing, but when prohibition came along, moonshining made the transition from tax evasion to out and out against the law.
Now, we come to the 1930’s; around the time of our “Ballad.” Despite prohibition, moonshining was a good option for farmers and, given the economic climate, it was often the only option. At that time, unskilled laborers were making around 40 cents an hour, but one trip to Atlanta would bring in forty dollars. Hmmm, twenty dollars or four hundred dollars a week? Easy enough to figure that one out. Now, the danger wasn’t so much in making the moonshine, but in transporting it. It had to be at night and it had to be fast. So, bootleggers, or “trippers,” became adept at souping up their V-8 Fords into what was called “tanker cars”...and even more adept at driving them. This, folks, was not only the inspiration for “The Dukes of Hazzard,” but the beginning of Nascar as we know it. In fact, the first stars of Nascar all got their start running liquor in the moonshine business. So, when Cousin Lymon tells Miss Amelia he wants to “go in the Ford tomorrow,” he’s not talking about a country ride in the jalopy.
Thirsty? Yep, me too.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Real Love Triangle
Okay, here’s a real good one. The more I find out about Carson McCullers (author of the novella), the more I am extremely curious about her…because, after all, I am a curious person. As it turns out, this little love triangle between the woman, the criminal and the hunchback is a bit of a mirror held up to the life of the author. In the spring of 1941, Carson was temporarily reconciled with her husband, Reeves McCullers, and they both fell in love with a composer, David Diamond. Carson had no problem with her husband having an affair with a man; in fact, she encouraged it as she, herself, was bisexual and felt it could be a special kind of bond. However, when the man Reeves was with was also her object of affection, things changed. To put it mildly, it all got a bit complicated and ended with their second separation.
Ten years later, she was in a New York City bar, hanging out with W.H. Auden…as you do. She noticed a couple and proceeded to observe them: "a woman who was tall and strong as a giantess, and at her heels she had a little hunchback." Weeks later, an "illumination," as she calls it, struck her:
"I was still working on ‘Member of the Wedding’ when with a sudden voltage I remembered the hunchback and the giantess. There was a strong impulse to write that story, suspending ‘Member of the Wedding,’ so I went back to Georgia to write ‘The Ballad of the Sad Café.’ It was a torrid summer and I remember the sweat pouring off my face as I typed, worried that I’d broken faith with ‘Member of the Wedding,’ to write this short novel. When I finished the story I jerked it out of the typewriter and handed it to my parents. I walked for several miles while they read, and when I’d come back I could see from their faces that they’d liked it. It was always my father’s favorite work."
I can’t help but wonder if her folks knew her personal inspiration for the story. At the completion of the novella, she told Diamond, "Darling, ‘The Ballad of the Sad Café’ is for you."
It’s safe to say that this connection wasn’t lost on Albee. After he had gotten the go ahead from McCullers to write the adaptation, he wrote to David Diamond about the idea, presumably feeling him out. Diamond wrote back to him saying that it was a fine idea and Albee was off.
Ah, the theatre.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
Ten years later, she was in a New York City bar, hanging out with W.H. Auden…as you do. She noticed a couple and proceeded to observe them: "a woman who was tall and strong as a giantess, and at her heels she had a little hunchback." Weeks later, an "illumination," as she calls it, struck her:
"I was still working on ‘Member of the Wedding’ when with a sudden voltage I remembered the hunchback and the giantess. There was a strong impulse to write that story, suspending ‘Member of the Wedding,’ so I went back to Georgia to write ‘The Ballad of the Sad Café.’ It was a torrid summer and I remember the sweat pouring off my face as I typed, worried that I’d broken faith with ‘Member of the Wedding,’ to write this short novel. When I finished the story I jerked it out of the typewriter and handed it to my parents. I walked for several miles while they read, and when I’d come back I could see from their faces that they’d liked it. It was always my father’s favorite work."
I can’t help but wonder if her folks knew her personal inspiration for the story. At the completion of the novella, she told Diamond, "Darling, ‘The Ballad of the Sad Café’ is for you."
It’s safe to say that this connection wasn’t lost on Albee. After he had gotten the go ahead from McCullers to write the adaptation, he wrote to David Diamond about the idea, presumably feeling him out. Diamond wrote back to him saying that it was a fine idea and Albee was off.
Ah, the theatre.
Your humble dramaturg,
Snook.
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