Download SFB Study Guide - Cygnet Theatre

STUDY GUIDE WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY Taylor M Wycoff
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Mike & Rhoda Auer; Bill & Judy Garret;
Kamaya Jane & Diane Zeps, in honor of their mother Elaine Lipinsky;
San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture; The County of San Diego
This publication is to be used for educational purposes only.
STUPID F**KING BIRD
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION 1- ABOUT THIS PRODUCTION
From the Dramaturg ..................................................................................... 3
Play Synopsis............................................................................................... 4
Characters.................................................................................................... 4
Who Loves Whom ........................................................................................ 4
About the Playwright .................................................................................... 5
Production History ........................................................................................ 6
SECTION 2- THEMES & TOPICS
The Seagull .................................................................................................. 6
Adaptations .................................................................................................. 7
A Brief History of Theatrical Forms .............................................................. 8
New Forms ................................................................................................... 9
SECTION 3- SEEING THE PRODUCTION
Audience Etiquette ....................................................................................... 10
Post-Show Discussion Questions ................................................................ 11
SECTION 5- RESOURCES.............................................................................. 12
Cygnet Theatre Company values the feedback of patrons on the content and format of its Study Guides. We
would appreciate your comments or suggestions on ways to improve future Study Guides. Comments may be
directed to Taylor M. Wycoff by email at [email protected].
2
SECTION 1
ABOUT THIS PRODUCTION
FROM THE
DRAMATURG
TAYLOR WYCOFF
First impressions are always interesting. It’s amazing the amount of
information we gather the first time we encounter someone, and how
instantaneously we make snap judgments (be they good or bad,
conscious or not). The same goes for plays, and perhaps explains
why playwrights often agonize over a title, changing them again and
again until it’s published and no longer possible. Likewise, throw out a
name like “Shakespeare” or “Ibsen” or “Chekhov” and a litany of
assumptions are bound to cross a person’s mind: old, stuffy, irrelevant,
boring, soooooo many symbols and metaphors, and blah blah blah.
One of the things I love about Stupid Fucking Bird is the conundrum it
presents to audiences and how it refuses to let you make those snap
judgments or rest on your pre-conceived assumptions. My first
encounter with the play went something like this: “ ’Stupid Fucking
Bird?...’ Cool! Another play with the F-word in the title! I hope the rest
of the script is just as bold and fearless. ‘Sort of adapted from …
Chekhov!’ Wait, WHAT? Oh dear…” But what followed was a
rollercoaster of emotions from hysterical laughter, absolute anger,
romantic lust, devastating sorrow, and everything in-between.
Aaron Posner has written a wonderfully fresh, raw, no-holds-barred
play that challenges the notion of what theatre was, is, and could be. It
doesn’t matter if you know Chekhov or not, like The Seagull or loathe
it, love the classics or hate them. Stupid Fucking Bird is Posner’s
highly personal riff that manages to make one of the most influential
plays of the Western canon more accessible than it has ever been.
3
ABOUT THE PLAY
SYNOPSIS
Kind, hopeful Dev suffers from an unrequited love for Mash, who composes cleverly despairing songs on the
ukulele. Mash is desperately in love with Con, a passionate playwright who is deeply in love with Nina, his
beautiful, vibrant muse, and childhood friend. Nina seems to love him back, until she becomes entranced by
Trig, a literary star who happens to be dating Con’s mother Emma, a successful actress who is hopelessly
commercial, in the eyes of her son. With a dead bird, a gun, and a little help from the audience, Con might be
able to win Nina’s heart again… or at least feed his own tentative, morbid creativity. In this edgy, funny, and
compassionate reboot of Anton Chekhov’s famous Seagull, Aaron Posner has created a strong, energetic
ensemble piece, a hilarious and moving meditation on love, art, life, and art.
SETTING: By a lake, late afternoon in the fall; in a kitchen, the following night, and; by the lake, four years later.
RUNNING TIME: Approx. 2.5 hours, including intermission.
PERFORMANCE RATING: R for suggestive themes, strong language, sexual content and nudity.
CHARACTERS
CON:
A melancholy playwright. NINA’S boyfriend.
EMMA:
A successful commercial actress. Mother to CON. TRIG’s lover. A dominating
presence who is always performing herself to some extent.
TRIG:
A famous author. EMMA’s lover.
NINA:
An aspiring young actress. CON’s girlfriend and muse.
SORN:
An intellectual. EMMA’s older brother, CON’s uncle.
MASH:
(pronounced “mosh” like the pit, not what you do to potatoes) EMMA’s part-time helper
and neighbor. A depressed songwriter. Longtime friend of Dev. In love with CON.
DEV:
A tutor. CON’s best friend. Longtime friend of Mash. In love with MASH.
WHO LOVES WHOM
DEV
MASH
CON
NINA
4
TRIG
EMMA
ABOUT THE PLAY
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
AARON POSNER (Playwright)
Aaron Posner (Playwright) is a Helen Hayes and Barrymore
Award-winning director and playwright. He is a founder and
former Artistic Director of Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre, an
Associate Artist at both the Folger Theatre and Milwaukee
Repertory Theatre, and has directed at major regional theatres
from coast to coast. His adaptations include Chaim Potok’s The
Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev (both of which have enjoyed
successful runs at more than 50 theatres across the country and
the latter of which ran for ten months Off-Broadway in 2012/13
and won both the Outer Circle Critics Award for Best New OffBroadway play and the John Gassner Award), as well as Ken
Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion, Mark Twain’s A Murder, A
Mystery and A Marriage, an adaptations of three Kurt Vonnegut
short stories, entitled Who Am I This Time? (and other
conundrums of love). Aaron was raised in Eugene Oregon,
graduated from Northwestern University, is an Eisenhower
Fellow, and lives near Washington, DC.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
Stupid Fucking Bird debuted at Woolly Mammoth in Washington, DC in 2013 and won the Helen Hayes Award
for Outstanding Resident Play as well as the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Play or Musical. It has
since been produced in cities across the country including Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, and more. The LA
production at Theatre@Boston Court received nine Ovation Award nominations including Best Playwright.
“Angsty, raw, and real, this play does not shy away from the hard, but well-discussed philosophical questions
about art, reality, love and life and what it all means. Yet, it does so in a way that’s likely to engage
contemporary theatrically savvy audiences.” —BroadwayWorld.com.
“…an accessible and unfailingly delightful jaunt into misery (or maybe we should say compromised
happiness)…It’s absorbing in its every glance and revealing in its every sigh.” —Washington City Paper.
“…a refreshing splash of cool water on dry, well-trod terrain…STUPID FUCKING BIRD is what you get from a
writer who not only adores the material he’s adapting, but understands it precisely.” —DCist.com.
5
SECTION 2
THEMES & TOPICS
THE SEAGULL
PLOT SYNOPSIS
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
ANTON CHEKHOV
1860-1904
The family and friends of the retired Sorin gather at his country home for the
summer, where his nephew Konstantin has chosen to make his debut as (in his
mind) a revolutionary symbolist playwright. His aim? To tear down everything that
his mother, actress Irina Arkadina, and her generation of artists stand for. With the
help of farm manager Shamrayev, his wife, Polina, their daughter Masha and the
local school teacher Medvedenko, Konstantin has constructed a small stage on the
edge of the lake on which to premier his new work, starring his girlfriend Nina. Also
present are Arkadina’s lover, the famous populist writer Trigorin, and the family
physician Dr. Dorn. When the play goes awry, the relationship between mother and
son reveals itself as quite complex and everyone finds themself in love with
precisely the wrong the person. Later, sensing her fondness for Trigorin, Konstantin
places a dead seagull at Nina’s feet and claims that he will soon kill himself. Nina
declares that she can no longer relate to him and within a week, Konstantin has
attempted suicide. Threats are made and promises are broken as self-interest
takes over with all of the trouble culminating in Arkadina and Trigorin’s departure to
the big city. In the final act we return to Sorin’s home two years later during
midwinter. Sorin’s failing health has brought his sister back for the first time in two
years with Trigorin following close behind. Konstantin has found success as a
fiction writer and seems to have put the pain and frustration of the past behind him
until Nina returns unannounced in a crazed state, pushing Konstantin over the edge
one last time.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Part of the historical significance of the play is rooted in its 1898 Moscow premier.
Not only did it mark Chekhov’s first critical success, but it was also the first of his
plays directed by Konstantin Stanislavski and was the first major success of
Stanislavski’s new Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). While critics panned The Seagull’s
first premier in St. Petersburg, the second opening at the MAT was so successful
that the theatre adopted the seagull as its emblem. Stanislavski’s approach to
Chekhov’s work, and his new “system” for teaching actors further ushered in the
revolutionary new era of realism, ultimately inspiring what we now know as “method
acting” taught by Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, and countless other
20th century New York masters.
6
THEMES & TOPICS
ADAPTATIONS
“While I am still
building plays on the
bones of an existing
piece of literature, my
Chekhov variations
are anything but
reverential. I am not
serving Chekhov. If
anything, I am
subverting him. Or
perverting him. Or
lovingly deconstructing
him or something.
The original work is
just a jumping off
place or an inciting
incident for my own
personal explorations.”
-Aaron Posner in an
interview for The
Playwright’s Playground
Chekhov reading The Seagull to the Moscow Art Theatre. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
There’s a reason that so many people have tried their hand at adapting the script of
The Seagull. The themes of hope, unrequited love, and artistic fulfillment transcend
time, so while Chekhov was writing in end of the 19th century, the piece still
resonates with todays audiences.
Still the question remains, if The Seagull is already held in such high regard, why
bother adapting it when you can just use Chekhov’s original mastery? Not to be
mistaken with translating a script from one language to another, adapting texts
transforms the work into a new form while still retaining the original’s message,
structure, and tone. Posner speaks to this idea in an interview for The Playwright’s
Playground, explaining his desires for crafting a remix of The Seagull:
“I love Chekhov in theory, but I have rarely loved seeing it. He was a
brilliant, insightful, revolutionary, paradigm-shifting author, but then… the
paradigm shifted. He won. The majority of the plays written in the past
100 years owe a great debt to him, but this huge influence has served to
make what was once revolutionary feel historical and often even
hackneyed… So I was hoping if I wrote honestly about things that I really
cared about and tried to put them in a form that would wake me up, not
put me to sleep; that would make me a little bit surprise or even a tiny bit
shocked; that would make me sit forward in my chair and not sit back—
then that might be an interesting thing to do.”
Here is a small sampling of plays adapted from Chekhov’s classic:
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Notebook of Trigorin by Tennessee Williams (1981)
Drowning Crow by Regina Taylor (2004)
A Seagull in the Hamptons by Emily Mann (2008)
Ten Chimneys by Jeffrey Hatcher (2012)
Stupid Fucking Bird by Aaron Posner (2013)
The Misbegotten Hope of the Dirty Bird (or A Meditation on the Proper Use
of Firearms in Dramatic Literature) by Whit Herford (2015)
7
THEMES & TOPICS
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THEATRICAL FORMS
TRADITIONAL THEATRE
Western theatre has its roots in classical Greek theatre, which established the most
basic play genres of comedy and tragedy. As western drama has evolved over the
years, different styles have been created, which reflect the artistic advances as well
as specific interests and values of the times. Some of these styles include:
7th-15th CENTURY
• Liturgical Dramas that enacted certain parts of the Catholic mass,
particularly in the Easter liturgy, and led to the development of Mystery
Plays, Miracle Plays, and Morality Plays
th
16 CENTURY
• Elizabethan Tragedies, often involving revenge, murder, and death
• Elizabethan Comedies, that mixed elements of farce, comedy of manners,
romantic comedy and black comedy
• Commedia Dell’Arte, which explored relationships among different social
classes through improvised scenes between stock characters using
caricatured masks, placed in stock situations
th
19 CENTURY
• Melodramas, the most popular form of theatre for the majority of the 19th
century, were light-hearted plays that revolved around extremes of good
and bad, dealt with sensationalist stories, lacked subtlety in acting, and
served as a means of escapism
th
20 CENTURY
• Naturalism and Realism reacting against the popular melodramatic forms
that preceded them, brought real-life issues and complex characters to the
stage and shifted reliance from action to dialogue
NON-TRADITIONAL THEATRE
While more realistic stories started being portrayed onstage beginning in the 20th
century, non-traditional forms of theatre began to flourish as well. Styles such as
Surrealism, Theatre of the Absurd, and Avant-garde/Experimentalism began to
emerge, and likewise had a significant influence on the traditional theatre
landscape.
DID YOU
KNOW?
Despite rampant unrequited love, tragic decisions and even more heartbreaking
outcomes, Chekhov insisted that The Seagull was in fact a comedy.
8
THEMES & TOPICS
NEW FORMS
In Stupid Fucking Bird CON cries for new forms:
“In real life, people do not
spend every minute in
shooting each other,
hanging themselves or
declaring their love for
each other. They don’t
devote all their time to
trying to say witty things.
Rather they are engaged
in eating, drinking, flirting
and talking about
trivialities—and that is
what should be happening
on stage… On stage
everything should be just
as complicated and just as
simple as in life. People
eat their meals, and in the
meantime their fortune is
made or their life ruined.”
-Anton Chekhov
DISCUSSION
POINT
“But seriously, Good Christ, we need new forms, new passions, new
ideas—something real, you know? Something REAL. Or what the
fuck’s the point? ... New forms of theatre that can actually make you
feel like living better or fuller or or or…MORE. New forms that open up
new possibilities, new ways of being in the world.” (p.26)
This argument, like much of the plot and themes of the play, is pulled directly from its
inspiration, The Seagull, in which KONSTANTIN states:
“But, as I see it, our theatre is in a rut—it’s so damn conventional …
We need new forms. New forms. And if they’re not to be found, then
better nothing at all.” (Milton Ehre, Chekhov for the Stage, p. 22)
When Chekhov was writing, realism was practically unheard of as melodramas
dominated the theatre scene. And Chekhov, like his character KONSTANTIN, was
desperate for a new kind of theater. Up to that point, the idea that theatre should
attempt to present a picture of the world as it really is never occurred to the
theoreticians or practitioners of pre-modern drama. The theatre was an art, and art
was artifice.
But with the rise of the scientific world view came the idea that the stage could not
only reproduce an accurate image of “real life”, but should also become like an
instrument of scientific inquiry into human behavior, a laboratory in which the laws
governing the interaction of human beings and social classes could be studied.
(Martin Esslin, Chekhov and the Modern Drama) And while Zola was the first to
formulate the theoretical concept of the theatre of naturalism and Ibsen was the first
to gain gradual acceptance for it as he did away with the soliloquy and the “aside”
(trademark devices of theatre at the time), Chekhov took things a decisive step
further by rebelling against the artificiality of the conventional dramatic structure. He
preferred illustrating the quirks, futility, and circularity of human behavior over
traditional playwriting tools of tight plotlines and predictable dramatic conflicts.
Do you think Aaron Posner’s work in Stupid F**king Bird is the start of a new form in
theatre? Why?
9
SECTION 3
SEEING THE PRODUCTION
AUDIENCE ETIQUETTE
Going to the theatre is a unique experience, and we all need to be mindful of
“audience etiquette,” or how to behave at the theatre.
When we visit the theatre we are attending a live performance with actors that are
working right in front of us, and the audience plays an essential role in the
performance of a play. After all, without an audience, the actors are still only
rehearsing. Audience members’ concentrated silence and responses (such as
laughing, gasping, and applauding) provide energy to the actors as they work to
bring the performance to life.
Since the actors can see and hear the audience, it is important not to engage in
behaviors that might disturb or distract them, as well as your fellow audience
members. These actions include:
• Talking
• Texting
• Allowing cell phones to ring
• Taking photographs or video
• Getting up to leave before intermission or the end of the show
• Eating or drinking
• Unwrapping candy or cough drops
• Touching the stage or leaning into the aisles
And remember that we follow these rules because the better an audience you can
be, the better the actors can be.
DISCUSSION
POINT
If you were onstage performing a play, how would you want the audience to behave?
Audience Awareness Activity: Before coming to Cygnet Theatre for the first time,
consider the differences between seeing a live play versus:
• Going to the movies
• Attending a live sporting event
• Watching television
10
SEEING THE PRODUCTION
POST-SHOW DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Depending on the time available and your group members’ interests, guide them to
respond to questions selected from those suggested below. Encourage everyone to
participate, while having respect for differing opinions. Individuals can share their
thoughts with a partner or in a small group. Ask for several volunteers to share their
groups’ answers with the larger group.
•
Overall, how did you feel while watching the play? Engaged? Distanced?
Entertained? Bored? Confused? Inspired? What made you feel this way?
•
What did you enjoy most about the play? What did you have trouble
connecting to?
•
What did you learn about the craft of acting from experiencing the play?
What did you learn about the design and production of the play?
•
What did you appreciate most about the performances by the actors?
•
How did the set, props, lighting and visuals contribute to your experience of
the play?
•
How does Stupid F**king Bird compare to Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull?
What is similar? What is different?
•
Are the themes and values of this play relevant today or are they outdated?
•
What do you think constitutes “new forms” in theatre? Do you think Stupid
F**king Bird is a new form?
•
How did you feel when the actors engaged you as an audience member
directly? Was this theatrical device helpful in communicating the play’s plot,
subtext, themes, etc?
•
Is Stupid F**king Bird a comedy or a tragedy? Why?
•
Would you recommend Stupid F**king Bird to other theatregoers? Why, or
why not?
11
SECTION 4
RESOURCES
WATCH Aaron Posner explain why he wrote Stupid Fucking Bird at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNJTocwwH0A&nohtml5=False.
WATCH Aaron Posner explain what happened at Woolly Mammoth to induce
writing Stupid Fucking Bird at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93SjcP1nnCc.
WATCH Aaron Posner discuss his relationship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcdB8TEMjjk.
with
Chekhov
at
LEARN about Aaron Posner’s work as playwright by reading his interview with The
Playwright’s Playground at http://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2014/07/31/playwrightsplayground-aaron-posner-stupid-fucking-bird/.
READ other plays by Aaron Posner like Life Sucks, The Chosen, My Name Is Asher
Lev, and Who Am I This Time? (and other conundrums of love).
LEARN about Anton Chekhov and the impact he had on the theatrical landscape in
Checking out Chekhov by Sharon Marie Carnicke.
LEARN about Anton Chekhov’s innovative approach to theatre in Chekhov and the
modern Drama by Martin Esslin.
READ Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, along with his other classics like The Cherry
Orchard, The Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya.
READ other adaptations of The Seagull, like The Notebook of Trigorin by
Tennessee Williams, Drowning Crow by Regina Taylor, and Ten Chimneys by
Jeffrey Hatcher.
12