Download Mind the Gap: Engaging Modern Audiences

“Mind the Gap:
Engaging Modern Audiences through Re-Imagining Classical Theatre”
A graduate thesis by
Alexander Nathan Kanter
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Performing Arts
at
Savannah College of Art and Design
 October 2013, Alexander Nathan Kanter
The author hereby grants SCAD permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and
electronic thesis copies of document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter
created.
Alexander Nathan Kanter
Author
Signed
Date
Professor Michael Wainstein
Committee chair
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Date
Professor Laurence Ballard
Committee
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Professor Vivian Majkowski
Committee
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Date
“Mind the Gap:
Engaging Modern Audiences through Re-Imagining Classical Theatre”
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Performing Arts Department
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Fine Arts
at
Savannah College of Art and Design
By
Alexander Nathan Kanter
Savannah, GA
 October 2013
This thesis is dedicated in loving memory to
Mr. Patrick Dearborn,
without whose mentorship and guidance,
I would never be the artist I am today.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the following people for their support and assistance during the
production of Purgatorio and writing of this thesis:
Professor Laurence Ballard, Blythe Beard-Kitowski, Bill DeYoung, Clara Fishel, Jane Fishel,
Professor Vivian Majkowski, Colleen Mond, Amaya Murphy, Dayna Miles, Professor Sharon
Ott, Tyler Prinz, Jani Rachelson, Chris Schenning, Daniel Thrasher, Professor Michael
Wainstein, Professor Kathryn Walat. and the bar and kitchen staff of The Sparetime.
“No one merely lives in a private world of his own; he must look beyond his own individuality in
order to comprehend the meaning of his existence in a larger universe.”
-Tadashi Suzuki, “Empty Village” (1982)
Table of Contents
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………1
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..2
Chapter 1: Meeting Medea…………………………….……………………………………….7
A Musical Medea
Medea in Metamorphoses
Discovering Purgatorio
Chapter 2: Dramaturgy of an Adaptation………………………………..……………………15
Euripides’ Medea
Dante’s Purgatorio
Sartre’s No Exit
Revisiting Ovid
Exile and Otherness in the Medea Myth
Wild Time
Chapter 3: The Production of Purgatorio……………………………………………………..38
In the Round
Designing the Cell
Magic of the Mask
Acting Styles
Directorial Influence
Directorial Style
Rehearsal Process
Conclusion: ……………………………………………….........................................................54
Attendance
Masking in the Round
The Actors’ Connection
Adaptation vs. Innovation
Works Cited………………………………………………………………….………………….64
Works Consulted…………………………………………………………….………………….68
Appendix A: Script Analysis……………………………………………….…………………..69
Appendix B: Production Budget………………………………………….………………….…87
Appendix C: Kickstarter Information…………………………………….…………………….88
Appendix D: Rehearsal/Production Schedule…………………………...………….…………..90
Appendix E: Director’s Journal……………………………………...……………...…………..91
Appendix F: Director’s Production Notebook Excerpt……………………………..…………119
Appendix G: Set Rendering and Layout………………………………………….……………123
Appendix H: Press Release……………………………………………………….……………124
Appendix I: Connect Savannah Article…..……………………………………………………126
Appendix J: Promotional/Rehearsal Photos……………………………………….………..….129
Appendix K: Poster……………………………………………………………………….……132
Appendix L: Performance Program……………………………………………………………133
Appendix M: Production Photos……………………………………….………………………137
Appendix N: Performance Video………………………………………………………………141
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“Mind the Gap:
Engaging Modern Audiences through Re-Imagining Classical Theatre”
Alexander Nathan Kanter
October 2013
This thesis explores ways to make works from the canon of western classical theatre more
accessible and relevant to contemporary audiences. Specifically, its primary focus is the process
of producing and directing a production of Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio (2005), a modern
variation of the ancient Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides. The thesis aims to demonstrate
various production techniques and directorial concepts that can be used to engage today’s
audiences and introduce them to the themes and characters of previously intimidating classical
works. Consequently, the thesis attempts to prove that it is through a postmodern combination of
these various techniques rather than strict adherence to any one methodology that theatre artists
can truly reinvigorate interest in the classics, bridging the gap between classically appreciative
actor and passive audience member.
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INTRODUCTION
“In a sense the director is always an imposter, a guide at night who does not know the territory,
and yet he has no choice – he must guide, learning the route as he goes.”
-Peter Brook, The Empty Space (1968) (38)
As terrifying as groundbreaking director Peter Brook’s description of a director sounds, I
have to admit that directing has never been a daunting task for me. There have been plenty of
instances where I have had no idea where the production was going, lost in unfamiliar territory
so to speak, but these moments have proved the most artistically rewarding. By trusting the text,
the actors, and my instincts, I have been able to learn the route as I went, making important
discoveries and choices thanks to the inspiration of the moment rather than my preconceived
ideas. This openness to discovery is an artistic maturation I have developed mostly in recent
years thanks to my graduate studies at Savannah College of Art and Design and has greatly
improved my aptitude as a theatre artist. I used to believe, as Peter Brook did on his “first big
production” of “Love’s Labour’s Lost at Stratford in 1945,” that a good director prepared for
rehearsal by pre-staging the entire show in his “fat prompt book” so as not to show hesitation or
waste time during the rehearsal process (Brook 106-107). I was even praised by a colleague of
mine who had music directed my productions of Little Shop of Horrors (2005), Smokey Joe’s
Café (2006) and “Break/Eulogy for Mister Hamm” (2006) for my intensive preparation for these
productions. While such prep-work certainly kept rehearsals efficient and productive, it denied
the actors and me any room for exploration of the material; I was acting as a theatrical puppeteer,
rather than a director.
Subsequently, two directorial experiences at graduate school helped change my way of
thinking about director preparation. The first was assistant directing Professor Sharon Ott’s
production of Everything that Rises Must Converge and Greanleaf in the Spring of 2012. A
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verbatim dramatization of Flannery O’Connor’s two famous short stories, this production
required a highly presentational style from the actors, delivering narration as well as dialogue
directly to the audience in a dizzying array of solo and choral interlocutions. Knowing how
difficult and unfamiliar this style of ensemble narrative theatre would be for the eight talented
actors in the cast (as well as their understudies), Professor Ott made clear from the beginning of
the rehearsal process that staging these pieces would be a collaborative effort and she would
welcome and encourage creative ideas from cast members as well as her assistants. At first, I
expected this to be a disastrous policy, with too many cooks spoiling the staging soup, lack of
unifying vision, unclear chain of command, etc. In other words, this “open atmosphere of
collaboration” was exactly the opposite of my traditional way of staging a play. But as
rehearsals progressed, I observed a surprising intensity and energy in the actors, as well as a
willingness to rework certain sections over and over, making different choices until we had
collectively discovered staging decisions that felt right for the group. I was shocked to see the
collaborative atmosphere working and learned a lot about my own process through the
experience. Rather than trying to prep my interpretation or suggestions for certain sections, I
learned to open myself up to observing actors’ natural instincts and building from them. I was
learning to listen to the text as delivered by the actor, not my imagination, in order to assist him
or her with operative delivery and image structuring. Most importantly, I was learning to respect
the actors, not just for their talent but their intelligence as well.
The second influential directorial experience was being hired to direct and choreograph
Legally Blonde: The Musical at the Titusville Playhouse in Titusville, FL in June of 2012.
Especially with the added responsibility of choreography, and the fact that my cast was to consist
of over forty high school-aged actors, I was extremely anxious to receive the script and begin my
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prep-work for the two-week rehearsal period. Unfortunately, due to mailing logistics and timing
issues, I did not receive my script and score until three days before I arrived in Titusville to begin
directing. I barely had time to create a set concept, let alone preplan my staging. Though what I
thought was a lack of preparation on my part made me very nervous for the rehearsal process, I
found once we began working that I was extremely present and focused on the text and my
actors. The process obviously wasn’t as collaborative as that of Everything that Rises… but we
were able to explore different staging possibilities and I allowed the actors to discover choices
about their characters and actions rather than dictating these interpretations to them. The result
was an amazing production of which the actors could proudly take ownership; they were
motivated to work harder than some professionals with whom I’ve collaborated previously in
order to make the show a stellar success. Directing Legally Blonde “on the fly,” as it were,
proved to me how much I loved directing and that this was a field I wished to pursue for the rest
of my professional career.
Entering my final year of graduate school, I now knew that I wanted to direct and that my
other main passion was classical theatre. My experience performing in Shakespeare’s plays as
well as my graduate coursework and personal dramatic tastes all pointed toward making my
graduate thesis the direction of a classical play. I know that one of the main issues facing
theatres today, especially those more commercially oriented houses that cater to flashy musical
theatre patrons, is how to make productions of classical works more marketable. In other words,
how does a producer sell Cymbeline tickets to a contemporary audience that assumes
Shakespeare is too high-brow or boring for an entertaining night out at the theatre? During my
Forty-Five Hour Review in September of 2012, I researched two of my personal heroes in the
world of theatre production: Joseph Papp and Sir Cameron Mackintosh. I was specifically
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inspired by how both of these icons were able to reinvigorate classical works for their
contemporary audiences. Papp brought the multi-cultural dialects of a vibrant 1970 New York
City to the very actors, text, and music in his Tony-Winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s Two
Gentlement of Verona (Novick). While Papp updated content to adapt the classics, Mackintosh
used innovative production techniques, such as hydraulic tires, crashing chandeliers, and flying
helicopters, to secure the audience’s engagement in his theatrical adaptations of late 19th- and
early 20th-century literary masterpieces. In doing so, Mackintosh not only made classical works
engaging for modern audiences, but he “remade the modern theatrical spectacle and transformed
Broadway” (Weiss). The lesson I learned from these two innovators was to find an adaptation of
a classical work, the content of which contained modern stylization and the format of which
would allow me to employ surprising and engaging theatrical techniques in my production.
For several months, I had my heart set on directing Milan Kundera’s Jacques and His
Master (1978), a charming variation on Diderot’s late 18th-century novel Jacques Le Fataliste. I
had invited my colleagues over to my apartment for an informal reading, located an appropriate
performance venue, even completed a thorough script analysis and begun conceptualizing the
production. But then I saw fellow graduate student Dayna Kristina Miles’ thesis production of
Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s The Open Couple in March of 2013. I was so taken by the relative
simplicity of this production: it only involved two actors; the set, lighting, and costumes were
minimal; and there were no other “bells and whistles” distracting the audience from the core of
Ms. Miles’ project (Fo and Rame). I realized that by simplifying the scope of her show, Ms.
Miles was able to concentrate her research and energies on those subjects of inquiry specifically
targeted in her thesis: directing and producing effective “supper-club” style theatre. While I had
a fantastic production in mind for Jacques and his Master, it would be just that: a fantastic
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production, and not a fantastic thesis. I needed to find a smaller-scale play, preferably a
contemporary adaptation of a classical work or theme, which would allow me to examine the
question of how to make classical theatre more relevant and accessible to a modern audience.
The answer was Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio.
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CHAPTER 1: MEETING MEDEA
Like most 30-year-old Americans, I have never seen a live production of Medea, or any
Greek tragedy for that matter. My knowledge of the story of Medea and Jason originally came
from the illustrated children’s book D’aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths (1962) by Ingri and Edgar
Parin D’aulaire. I remember as a child reading of the scorned wife who took vengeance on her
husband Jason by killing their two sons and then flew away into the sky in a dragon-drawn
chariot, haunted and hunted no matter where she went for the rest of her life (174).
A MUSICAL MEDEA
Other than this rudimentary exposure, I didn’t know or think much about Medea until the
year 2000, my junior year of high school, when I was fortunate enough to see the short-lived
Broadway production of Michael John LaChiusa’s Marie Christine. This sumptuous and
spellbinding production was a musical adaptation of the Medea story, reset in fin-de-siecle New
Orleans and Chicago. Though the time period and locations are extremely different than the
original mythological setting, Marie Christine managed to remain very true to the original in
terms of plot points and cleverly transposed the foreign/barbarian theme of Jason and Medea’s
relationship to the overwhelming racism present throughout America at the turn of the 20th
century. While the direction and staging of this musical was confusing and overwrought (not
one of Graciella Danielle’s finest pieces), the music was hauntingly beautiful. Audra McDonald
deftly wove all the emotion and passion of Medea into LaChiusa’s intricate melodies, leaving me
heartbroken at the end, not just by the tragedy I’d just witnessed onstage, but by the fact that it
was over and there was no more singing in store (LaChiusa, performance).
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I immediately bought the soundtrack and listened to it frequently. Certain songs were
more memorable than others, such as “Way back to Paradise,” “Miracles and Mysteries,” “Prison
in a Prison,” “Paradise is Burning Down,” and “Before the Morning,” but one number stood out
far more than any other: “I Will Give.” The combination of simple but powerful lyrics, a driving
melody, and fiery vocals on the part of McDonald and her three-person Greek Chorus [see IN
THE ROUND] still brings tears to my eyes to this day:
“I will give you my body
I will give you my magic
I will open my body
I will bear you our children
My love
My love
I will steal from my brothers
I will kill if you wish
I will take what you give me
I will live…if you give me
Your love
My love
My love.” (LaChiusa, CD).
This one song sums up the pathos, glory, and catharsis of the Medea tragedy in one overarching
theme: this is a play about love, a love so great that it would make a woman betray her family
and kill her own children. This song proves an important point, echoed in Purgatorio: Medea
was not insane – she was consumed by her love of Jason. Later in the musical, Marie Christine
(Medea) gives a warning to the disdainful Dante (Jason):
“Tell me you’re not frightened of my love
Tell me you’re not frightened of how far it takes me
This ocean runs more dark and deep than you may think you know
…
You don’t know how far I’d go. (LaChiusa, CD).
As the interrogators in Purgatorio prove, Medea’s tragic acts of violence, though perhaps not
entirely premeditated, were certainly imagined as possibilities before she committed them.
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Though I have no idea, and frankly doubt whether or not Dorfman was aware of,
influenced by, or even saw Marie Christine during its 1999-2000 run at the Vivian Beaumont
Theatre in Lincoln Center, it is interesting to note that the Jason character in LaChiusa’s
adaptation is named “Dante;” the entire action of the play takes place as a retelling by Marie
Christine and her fellow inmates in a female prison the night before her execution; and Paradise,
Hell, and oceanic/maritime references are frequent images throughout the musical. All of these
thematic elements are prominent in Purgatorio as well.
MEDEA IN METAMORPHOSES
Several years later, in 2003, I took a Humanities course during my undergraduate
education at Harvard called “Rome of Augustus.” This multi-disciplinary, 650-student lecture
covered the history, literature, architecture, and visual art of ancient Rome from 100 BC – 100
AD. Among other texts, we read Ovid’s Metamorphoses for this class. Having seen Mary
Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses on Broadway twice (see DIRECTORIAL INFLUENCES), I was
very excited to read this epic series of verse describing many of the Greek myths I’d grown up
reading in the D’aillares book. Low and behold, Ovid also wrote of Medea and Jason. Unlike
the plays in which Medea is a character, Ovid’s narrative is just that: a narrative. He is able to
explain not only the actions of the plot, but more importantly, as an omnisciently “objective” 3rdperson narrator, the thoughts and emotions of the characters involved.
What is significant about Ovid’s retelling of the Medea myth, however, is his possible
sources. We are fortunate enough to still have Euripides’ and a few other Greek playwright’s
texts of Medea in our modern libraries, but there are countless others that have been lost to
antiquity (much of which was due to the Roman empire’s censoring, eradicating, and
“reclaiming” Greek texts). Even these playwrights, however, were adapting what they knew of
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the Medea myth for the dramatic purposes of their tragedies, thus concludes theatre scholar
Marianne McDonald, “there is no ‘Medea text’ as such; it has been dissolved in the process of
adaptation” (McDonald 2). Ovid, writing only 500 years after the great Greek dramatists,
probably had access to many of these lost Greek sources, and thus a reading of his richly detailed
story of Medea and Jason may provide more nuance and less alteration than one of Euripides’
version.
DISCOVERING PURGATORIO
Ten years later, while browsing the drama section of “The Book Lady” used bookshop in
Savannah, GA, I happened upon a thin volume entitled Purgatorio by Ariel Dorfman. While I
recognized the playwright, I was unfamiliar with this short play. I opened the cover and saw that
there were only two characters in the play, named “MAN” and “WOMAN,” and that it was
published in 2005. Briefly flipping through the pages, I could see that the play contained many
lengthy passages, from which I might be able to extract a monologue or two, as most two
character plays do. And for the mere price of $1 scribbled in pencil on the inside cover, this was
obviously a play I should purchase and give a quick read that afternoon.
So even before reading the play or knowing anything about the plot, I was already
dramaturgically attracted to Purgatorio, for the following reasons:
1. One-Act/Short play: The play was only 49 pages long, which should typically clock
in at an hour-long performance time. As a director, these “no-intermission” pieces,
such as Art, Time Between Us, etc., appeal to me. There is a lot of creativity and art
that goes into a carefully constructed one-act, which in turn provides interesting
challenges to directors, actors, and audiences alike. Eugene O’Neill, for example,
had four acts to flesh out his characters and tragedy in his masterpiece Long Day’s
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Journey into Night (1941/1956) but was able to accomplish the same depth in his
four-page tragicomedy “Before Breakfast” (1916). While I would never pass up the
opportunity to direct Long Day’s Journey…, it is much more of a creative challenge
to make “Before Breakfast” a reality, with a lot more artistic license, than it would be
to stage the epic later play. The director and actors must utilize more of their
analytical, interpretive, and imaginative talents to transmit all the character, given
circumstances, stakes, and development explicitly written into full-length play scripts
into their productions of shorter one-acts. This is a directorial challenge I relish: to
make a four-page scene as meaningful to an audience as a four-act saga.
2. Two characters: As a director, the chance to work on a piece with a small number of
actors is very appealing. Rather than babysitting, scheduling, and choreographing,
which happens much more often when working with large casts (such as Legally
Blonde or Shrek), the director can work, explore, assist, and discover deeper
meanings with his or her actors when there are only a few of them. A small cast
builds trust and bonds faster than a large one, which in turn helps with the exploration
necessary in the rehearsal process. On a more practical note, it is obviously much
easier to coordinate the schedules of three or four people than ten.
3. Titular Allusions: The very title Purgatorio caught my eye. It is a foreign term
(Latin), which immediately informs me that there is a multi-lingual and/or global
consciousness about this play. While I hold nothing against America or American
playwrights, I am always on the lookout for interesting voices from other schools of
drama. I also recognized the allusion to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Seeing that the play
only contained two characters and was only 49 pages long, it was safe to assume that
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this would not be a retelling of his epic narrative poem, but there was obviously some
correlation.
4. Playwright: I often enjoy finding lesser-known works of famous or previously
published playwrights. For example, though Terrence McNally has written several
Tony-Award winning plays, I am more drawn to several of his less popular works.
The same is true for Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, and Yazmina Reza. I
recognized the name “Ariel Dorfman” from my knowledge of his famous play Death
and the Maiden (1990), and although I had not loved the scenes I’d read from that
gruesome play, I knew he was an accomplished, politically sensitive, and incredibly
insightful playwright.
5. Abstract Setting: Again, only having read the inside cover and frontispiece, I could
see that the two characters were nameless entities. Reading a little further to the
opening stage directions, I discovered the setting was “A white room. Austere. No
decorations” (7). This austerity, in combination with the small, anonymous cast of
characters, suggested that the ensuing play was going to be abstract in nature. As an
adherent of Meyerhold, admirer of Beckett, and devotee of Zimmerman [see
DIRECTORIAL INFLUNECE], I naturally gravitate to stylistically abstract pieces of
theatre, so these clues made me excited to dive into the text.
And so I began to read. It wasn’t until page 16, in the middle of the first scene, that I realized I
was reading about Medea and Jason. This is what I find so brilliant about Dorfman’s treatment
of the Medea myth: the characters’ anonymity in Purgatorio protect them from the audience’s
predisposed attitudes towards the iconic, larger-than-life characters of Greek mythology. These
are two very real people onstage, interrogating, hurting, and healing one another. It is only their
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expository backstories, which are revealed slowly throughout the 49 pages, that establish their
mythical identities. Thus, Dorfman has psychologically reified Medea and Jason into very
accessible characters, removing them from their 2,500-year-old tragic archetypes in which
they’ve been stuck in the collective consciousness of the Western world.
Just as we realize what is going on and who this woman is, Dorfman flips the tables on
us, as “the lights go down” (22). When the lights come back up, the two characters have
switched roles: the Man is now the inmate and the Woman is the interrogator. And again, only
five pages later are we quite sure that the Man is in fact Jason, also suck in Purgatory just like
Medea. As the tension of this second scene builds, Dorfman reveals the basic conceit of the
play: the two characters must help each other, as interrogators, to forgive and seek forgiveness
from one another. I was struck at this point by another allusion, thematically, to Sartre’s No Exit
(1945). Purgatorio seems to be a manifestation of his “Hell is other people” theme, apart from
the fact that Dorfman’s play technically depicts Purgatory and not Hell.
Then Dorfman spins us around again, back to the first scenario, where the Woman is
being interrogated. This third scene seems to pick up just where the first one left off, only now,
we know who the Man is, why he is interrogating her, and how important it is for her to
cooperate with him. The third scene is where Dorfman releases his passionate skill as a
playwright. The dialogue becomes rich with energy, emotion, and imagery. The characters’
previous banter escalates to verbal sparring, fighting, and screaming, until it finally erupts into
physical violence. The climactic moment is one of epiphany (corresponding to the catharsis of
ancient Greek tragedy) and the final note of the play, though somber, is positive, hopeful, and
optimistic. The imagery of this final scene is so powerful that I began weeping halfway through
the scene and did not stop until I finished the play. Specifically, this is the scene where Dorfman
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dives deep into the psychology of Medea, describing the actual killing of her two children, in
graphic detail. The pathos of this woman, and her husband, and what it takes emotionally to be
moved to such tragic action, is gripping, to say the least. Though the first and second scenes
contained some tedious moments (the “cats” and “vase” sections, respectively), the dramatic
fireworks of the third scene made it well worth the wait.
I now knew that I wanted to direct Purgatorio for my graduate thesis. It is an adaptive
re-imagining of a classical work in a modern context, which is a theatrical concept I am very
interested in exploring in all my work. It requires very little set/production elements, making it
relatively easy to produce in a variety of spaces. It only has two actors and it is a beautifully
constructed play. Also, due to its drawing from various source materials (the Medea myth,
Dante’s Purgatorio, and Sartre’s No Exit), I knew that I could perform a large amount of
dramaturgical research to enhance my direction/production, which in turn would assist me in
writing a well-rounded thesis paper.
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CHAPTER 2: DRAMATURGY OF AN “ADAPTATION”
Before I could research the dramaturgy of Purgatorio, I attempted to classify the play in
relation to its sources. Was this an “adaptation” per se? Unlike LaChiusa’s musical adaptation,
Dorfman had not transferred the story of Medea to a different medium: it was still a dramatic
play. Though acclaimed adapter John Caird confirms that “already existing plays have…been
grist to the [adaptive] playwright’s mill” (Caird 35), Purgatorio is not a strict retelling of
Euripides’ Medea. Perhaps Purgatorio can best be considered as an imaginative sequel to the
action of the original play, re-envisioning the characters and themes from Medea in a new,
highly abstract and modernized setting. This conforms to one of the unique functions linguist
and translator J.C. Santoyo attributes to the general concept of adaptation: “Santoyo states that
adaptation may propose to naturalize or domesticate the text in order to achieve an equivalent
impact on the target audience” (Zatlin 79, emphasis added). Whether a strict adaptation, a
variation, a reworking, a re-imagination, a sequel, or a fantasy, Purgatorio extracts the characters
and themes of Medea from their antiquated, stylistically intimidating origin (ancient Greek
drama) and “naturalizes” them through the realistic style of psychological drama “to achieve an
equivalent impact on the target [modern] audience.” As such, the play is inseparable,
dramaturgically speaking, from its source material, just as the successful analysis of any sequel
depends upon a thorough understanding of its prequel.
EURIPIDES’ MEDEA
Realizing that Purgatorio is an imaginative retelling of the Medea myth, I did my best to
accumulate as many Medea sources as possible, of various different media. The most obvious
place to start this “multimedea” investigation was Euripides’ original play, Medea. Even
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Euripides, however, had difficulty retelling the entire story of this tragic love; he was bound by
the Aristotelian Unity of Time, which demanded that all the action of the plot should “confine
itself to a single revolution of the sun,” (Aristotle 290). Thus, like Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and
Electra, the play takes place at the climactic conclusion of the entire tale, forcing characters to
provide cumbersome expository explanations in order to relate their extensive backstories. The
opening paragraph of Medea, for example, makes no reference to the identity of the speaker
(Medea’s Nurse), but rather laments all the events that have occurred since Jason and Medea met
(Euripides, 1). The conflict of the actual play is solely concerned with how Medea will plot her
revenge on Jason in her final day before forced exile from Corinth. She warns the Chorus, she
will “find some means, some scheme to take a just revenge for these evils on my husband and
the man who gave his daughter to him and that daughter whom he married” claiming “when [a
woman] is wronged in her marriage bed, no creature has a mind more murderous” (8). This plan
of action and rewording of the “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” cliché serve as the
guide posts for the rest of the plot, providing both an outline of the ensuing action and a
statement of the moralistic theme.
I made three interesting connections when reading Medea. First, the theme of exile is
extremely prominent, which Dorfman mirrors in Purgatorio. Unlike the Chorus of Corinthian
women, Medea describes herself as “a desolate woman without a city, shamefully injured by my
husband who carried me as plunder from a foreign land” thus having “no haven from this
disaster, no mother no brother no relative at all” (8). She then agrees to wander even further into
unfamiliar territory, promising the Corinthian King Creon, “I shall go into exile” (10). The
loneliness, desolation, and hopelessness of Medea’s state as a “stranger in a strange land” are
made palpable in both Medea and Purgatorio, as demonstrated by the Chorus later in the play:
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“O my fatherland, o my home,
may I never be without my city,
trudging on life’s difficult path
of helplessness—
the most pitiful of sorrows.
Before that may I have done with this light of life
laid low by death, by death.
Of all miseries none is worse
Than to lose one’s native land. (Euripides 18)
The Man and Woman echo this theme of exile and otherness frequently throughout Purgatorio,
as in this exchange from their role-playing sequence during the first scene:
MAN: …she would be thrown out on streets with her boys…
WOMAN: Streets we didn’t recognize.
MAN: Without a language to defend herself and make herself known. (Dorfman 16)
As an undergraduate, much of my research dealt with émigré literature and conceptions of the
foreigner or other in Russian literature. This background gave me keen insight into the theme of
exile and made me realize I would be able to use one of my favorite writers, Vladimir Nabokov,
as a valuable supplemental source for my directorial research [See EXILE].
The second item that struck me when reading Euripides’ play was Medea’s line “Do you
think that this is a small hurt for a woman?” (37). Referencing Jason’s betrayal of her in
marrying another, this line adeptly sums up Medea’s motivation for all of the action of the plot
while neatly recapitulating the “woman scorned” motif from the beginning of the play. The
reason her statement struck me, however, is because LaChiusa’s Marie Christine uses this line,
or a close translation of it, frequently throughout the score. Repeated often by the three most
prominent female characters, Marie, her mother, and her confidante Magdalena, the rhetorical
question “Is love too small a pain for a woman?” forms the lyrical backbone of the musical
(LaChiusa CD). Whereas when I first encountered the lyric watching and listening to Marie
Christine, I was puzzled by its odd syntax and structure, I now see that it links the musical
adaptation to its original source. This line also suggests that the central crime of the Medea myth
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is not prolicide, or the killing of one’s own children, but what we might call amoricide, or the
killing of love, which is what Jason commits against his first wife Medea. The amoricide
argument is useful to me as the director of Purgatorio, as it helps humanize Medea, whom
typically has been vilified throughout history for killing her children. If we alter the lens and
shift the argument to focus on the crimes of love committed, rather than the murders, we create a
more sympathetic and accessible heroine through psychological justification, who in turn is
easier for an audience to watch and listen to for an hour in the intimate space of the theatre.
The last interesting facet of Euripides’ Medea as far as my research for directing
Purgatorio is concerned, is Medea’s exit. Before the climactic argument between the two lovers,
the stage directions explain, “MEDEA appears above the palace in a chariot drawn by dragons”
(35), and when exiting, we are told, “MEDEA flies off in her chariot” (38). At face value, these
stage directions were perplexing as I had never assumed the ancient Greeks would have enough
technology to perform such special effects, but upon further research, I learned that an actorlifting crane called a mechane was an integral production element of many classical Greek
amphitheatres (Damen). The image of this special effect is a powerful one, so much so, that
Medea even refers to its grandiosity, warning Jason, “you shall never lay a hand on me. Such is
the chariot that the Sun, father of my father, has given me to defend against my enemies’ hands”
(36). And as I read this, I recalled from the D’aulaires’ children’s book a grim picture of Medea
escaping from her crimes in a dragon-drawn chariot. Though they delicately elide the details of
the children’s murders, the D’aulaires do write of Medea’s vengeful killing of Jason’s new bride,
which again reaffirms the theme of amoricide being the worst crime committed. They end
Medea’s story similarly to Euripides, writing, “Then Medea disappeared into a dark cloud, riding
in a carriage drawn by two dragons” (D’aullaire and D’aullaire 174). Ovid also describes the
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dragon chariot in his retelling of the Medea myth, concluding, “and once again Medea / Rode in
a whirling cloud of magic darkness / Out of the reach of death” (Ovid 166). LaChiusa infuses
this imagery into Marie Christine as well, having Marie sing the following lullaby to her children
as she kills them offstage:
“I will love you too much and more
I will hold you as close as I can…
…
I’ll come in a chariot of gold-winged speed
And take you on up to the Grandfather Sun
We’ll live forever and ever
I will love you till forever is done.” (LaChiusa CD).
The juxtaposition of the power of golden immortality with the frailty of the blood-soaked
children’s bodies is a potent image with which to end the musical, and is in fact what prompts
Magdalena’s asking of the thematic question “But is love too small a pain for a woman?” in the
resounding finale.
Both Ovid’s and LaChiusa’s references to immortality alert us to an interesting question:
what happened to Medea? In Euripides’ text, Medea prophesies that Jason will
“die a humiliating death, struck on the head by a fragment of the Argo” (Euripides 37), which the
D’aullaires also confirm: “Lonesome and forgotten, [Jason] sat one day in the shade of his once
glorious ship, the Argo, now rotting on the beach of Corinth. Suddenly the sacred piece of oak in
the prow broke off, fell on him, and killed him” (D’aullaires 175). So we know that Jason dies,
but Medea, the witch who killed her own brother and children and committed countless other
crimes for the sake of the man she loved, supposedly disappears, unpunished, into the clouds.
This is an important distinction for my production of Purgatorio. Dorfman alters the myth by
having Jason commit suicide, though we are not told when he did so (e.g., an hour after Medea
killed their children and his new wife, five years later, etc.) In fact, much of the emphasis of the
interrogation of the second scene deals with his suicide and how prepared that action made him
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for atonement in the afterlife. But even Dorfman refuses to describe how Medea ended up in
Purgatory. This conundrum provides an interesting challenge, for both me and the actor
portraying the Woman in Purgatorio, forcing us to make some pivotal dramaturgical choices
regarding her backstory [see DIRECTORIAL STYLE].
DANTE’S PURGATORIO
Having previously read Dante’s Inferno (and directed two staged readings of the poem), I
was excited at the chance to read the middle section of The Divine Comedy, from which Ariel
Dorfman’s play borrows its title, Purgatorio. Picking up where he left off at the end of Inferno,
Dante uses this sequel to describe his journey up the mountain of Purgatory, en route to Paradise.
Whereas Inferno focused more on the deeds and punishments of historical figures in Dante’s
contemporary world, Purgatorio has a more lyrical style, still describing contemporary figures
and political events, but infused with far more poetic imagery and emotive content. It was in this
imagery that I found most of the fascinating connections useful to my production of Dorfman’s
Purgatorio.
To begin with, the first five lines of Dante’s poem Purgatorio are about the
"waters," the "sea," and his narrative being a "boat" (Dante 175), which lend themselves very
easily to comparison with the sailor and sea imagery of the Medea and Jason myth. Then, in
Lines 7-8, Dante explains that the setting of this second poem is “Where souls are purged and so
made fit to take the path to heaven” (175). This is what Purgatory and Dorfman’s Purgatorio are
all about: the purging process. But what is important about this line is that it reminds us that
there is a goal to the purging: it isn't just suffering for the sake of suffering (or in the case of
drama, tragedy for the sake of tragedy). The objective is to take the path to heaven or in the play,
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to return to love, to find peace, and to begin again. Before he can begin his redemptive journey,
however, Dante is "reborn" (179). Indeed, rebirth figures prominently in both the narrative and
the play. Each scene of Dorfman’s play contains moments of rebirth; we can even say that many
of the beat changes are rebirths of an argument, an agenda, a strategy, etc.
In Canto 2, Dante starts meeting the "shades" (ghosts) who dwell in Purgatory (182).
Their figures are hollow and have no substance, which correlates to when the Woman in the
play calls her body, "Just a husk. Nothing more. Not only now that we’re here. The body is no
more than an outer trapping. Clothes to be shed, even down there, even if you go deep into
yourself" (Dorfman 26-27). Similarly, Dante’s description of what happens to these shades,
whose "(sins) must be stripped from [them]. Yes, [they] are here to be made clean" (184),
corresponds to the Man’s sarcastic impersonation of the Woman in the play’s second scene: “My
resident is clean. Cleaned out. Stainless, washed, scrubbed. Repented of every last ultimate
penultimate final sin” (Dorfman 34). This theme of “washing the stains away they carry still /
so they may go, at last made pure and light” (Dante 228) is present throughout both the poem
and the play, illustrating the many different kinds of "purging" that occur in Purgatory. For
example, in Canto 31, Dante is baptized, and in the last five lines of the poem, he is
“remade….through the waters spilled / By that spring” (332, 345), recapitulating the themes of
rebirth, cleansing, purification, and purgation. Accordingly, the Man’s final plea of the play begs
the Woman to “Start all over. You and me. The warm waters of peace. The warm waters of
forgiveness. The warm waters of not being yourself” (Dorfman 48). The pervasiveness of the
cleansing and water imagery in Dante’s poem obviously affected Dorfman’s writing. In order to
transmit the imagery to a contemporary audience most likely unfamiliar with Dante’s poetry, my
set designer and I decided to include water in the set design for our production [see DESIGNING
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THE CELL].
Purgatory, according to Dante, is a mountain the souls must climb. Beneath the mountain
is the Inferno (Hell), which he just traveled through in the first poem of The Divine Comedy. At
the top is Heaven, for which he is aiming and will write about in the third poem. The mountain
is difficult and dangerous, and many times he fears he will fall off the steep cliffs, plunging back
into the Inferno below. This is a crucial image for my actors because it raises the stakes in the
scenes of the play. The man is frequently threatening the woman that she'll fail, start over, be
stuck, etc. The woman does the same, though less vocally (and therefore more frighteningly) to
the man. The last thing anyone wants is to go back to the Hellish beginning. Dante also adds
that while climbing this treacherous mountain, "Time passes and one doesn't know it" (Dante
190). Dorfman, too, abstracts the measurement of time in his play, forcing the actors and
audience to pay close attention in order to attempt to sequence the events in the characters’
backstories [See WILD TIME].
One of the clearest and most interesting images of the poem occurs in Canto 9, when
Dante describes the three physical steps of penitence. The first step, Contrition is made of white
marble, smooth, and full of clarity. The second step, Confession, is dark purple, burnt and rough,
and split lengthwise by a large crack. The third step, True Remorse, is blood red and made of
porphyry (219). This simple imagery provides a lovely framework for the arcs or journeys of the
characters in Dorfman’s Purgatorio. Can we divide the characters' arcs into Contrition,
Confession, and Remorse? Doing so provides the actors with very useful mileposts along their
exploratory journeys of these challenging roles. Similarly, in Cantos 11 through 13, Dante lists
the first three levels of sin being cleansed in Purgatory: Arrogance, Pride, and Envy (229, 239).
These are easily identifiable character traits in Dorfman’s Man and Woman, especially as they
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relive their respective backstories: almost every action of Euripides original Medea seems
motivated by Arrogance, Pride, and/or Envy. Categorizing these traits and organizing them as
stepping stones towards redemption can help both actors and audience members alike shed one
layer at a time from the characters’ built-up emotional shells in order to illuminate the soul at the
core of their selves.
Cantos 17, 25, and 26 all describe the purging efforts of those shades consumed by the
sins of “Erred Love” and “Lust.” Specifically, Dante lists two ways for love to err: loving the
wrong object (misplaced love) and loving the wrong way or too much (misused love) (261).
Especially if the focus of Dorfman’s play is amoricide and the crimes of love committed by both
characters, these two distinctions can be very useful for the actors. During rehearsals, we can
explore when there are instances of misplaced love and when there are those of misused love,
and how those differ from each other for each character. Later, Dante creates an incredibly
evocative image to describe lust: "The poison Venus pours, the wine of pain” (304). This
metaphor proved useful during rehearsal of the third scene of the play, in which the Woman,
after describing her husband’s lustful actions with another woman, bewails, “Oh it still hurts me.
He still hurts me” (Dorfman 44). As it happened, we had staged the Woman to be down on her
knees at that point in the scene, and as she uttered the lines, she doubled over in pain, as she
would have had she swallowed Venus’ poisonous wine. And yet Dante’s prescription for
healing these wounds of love is an act of love in itself: “Love those from whom you’ve suffered
wrong” (239). Obviously this is one of the main tenets of Christianity, but it can also serve as an
important moral theme and superobjective for the play. This form of perfect love is the
antithetical solution to erred love, the antidote to Venus’ poison, and is certainly a moral with
which modern audiences are familiar and can appreciate.
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Dante’s text and Dorfman’s play share some similarities in format as well as content. In
Canto 27, Virgil (the guide) and Dante (the follower) switch places, so that Dante now has to
lead the way and Virgil follows (314). In the play the two characters do the same thing,
switching places from interrogator to interrogatee, and vice versa. It is also interesting to note
that Canto 30, only three cantos away from the ending, contains the first instance in the entire
narrative where Dante refers to himself by name (326). For almost the entire narrative, he is
nameless. Dorfman’s characters, though we clearly know who they are, also never refer to
themselves by name, and even explicitly resist naming each other: the Woman refuses to utter
the name of their son when describing his murder (Dorfman 42). There is a striking difference,
however, between color usage in the two works. White is the most prominent shade in Dante’s
imagery, with frequent use of red, green, and gold as well. There is no black anywhere.
Appropriately, Dorfman sets his play in a white room, but conversely describes his characters as
wearing “penitent black” (Dorfman 49). As a director and dramaturg, I do not agree with this
costume choice, and have exercised some artistic liberty in my costume choices [see
DESIGNING THE CELL].
SARTRE’s NO EXIT
I didn’t have to get very far into Dorfman’s Purgatorio to realize how reminiscent it is in
style and setting to Sartre’s iconic play No Exit. The abstract depictions of the afterlife,
Purgatory in Dorfman’s case and Hell in Sartre’s, bear many similarities to one another, thus
cementing Dorfman’s contextual allusion to the existentialist playwright Sartre. Both plays
begin with minimal stage directions describing similarly claustrophobic sets, albeit they are
stylistically different: Dorfman’s “white room” with “No decorations” is obviously more
“Austere” (Dorfman 7) than Sartre’s “drawing room in Second Empire style” with “a massive
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bronze ornament stand[ing] on the mantelpiece” (Sartre 3), yet the similarity in descriptive tone,
without any explanatory context, is distinct. In No Exit, Garcin asks the Valet about “all the
other rooms” (Sartre 3) insinuating that there are other people stuck in similar situations, just as
the Woman in Purgatorio imagines her husband “in another room with someone else tormenting
him” (Dorfman 14). Accordingly, the Valet responds, “There’s more rooms, more passages”
(Sartre 6) and the Man reminds the Woman that there is “Room after room after room. Like
grains of sand at the bottom of an endless sea” (Dorfman 18). The irony is that both playwrights
juxtapose an individualized torture/interrogation chamber with the obscurity of being one of
many such chambers. Both reinforce this duality by defamiliarizing our concept of the deities in
charge of the afterlife, be they gods, angels, or devils. Though these beings are traditionally
reverentially or abhorrently described with biblical bombast, the Valet simply refers to them as
“management” (Sartre 6) and the Man calls them “an Institution” (Dorfman 10). Moreover,
these bureaucratic entities seem to be concerned with very mundane, rather than sacred matters,
such as the electric bill, or “current” (Sartre, 6) and “committee meetings” (Dorfman 10). This
estrangement, which textually borders on the Brechtian technique of verfremdungseffekt, not
only furthers the abstraction of both plays but also creates an even stronger link between the two.
Yet notwithstanding the similarities and obvious debt Dorfman owes to Sartre, the plays
are sharply different in tone and theme. There is a haunting negativity pervasive throughout No
Exit, a sense that we the audience might be trapped in the room with these horrible creatures as
well, never to escape or find redemption. Conversely, Purgatorio sets a different tone from its
first line: “So you want to escape. Good” (Dorfman 7). We are provided a clear goal for the
characters (“to escape”), with a label connoting positive value (“good”) attached to this
objective. Though the characters in both plays must recount their horrible lives and interact
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violently with one another, Purgatorio seems more a climb up “the mountain” of redemption,
while No Exit is a descent further into the pit of despair. Both plays end in violent climaxes, but
whereas the stabbing sequence in No Exit leads the characters to collapse into peals of demonic
laughter as they realize the eternal bleakness of their pitiable state (Sartre 46), the violent push in
Purgatorio is the key that makes the Woman realize the Man’s identity and allows the two to
reconcile at last and begin the journey of redemption together. They, too, acknowledge “It’s
going to take forever” (Dorfman 49), but they do so with positivity and hope for a new
beginning. Dorfman counters Sartre’s gloomy existentialism with a sense of humanism,
allowing the power of the human spirit to transcend the fatalistic force of the state of the
universe. This faith in humanity mirrors what Marianne McDonald claims is at the heart of
Greek tragedies: “their true essence is not in the projection of authority and dominion, but rather
in their humanitas” (4). Therefore, even the humanist tone of a production of Purgatorio can
help modern audiences grapple with the themes and content of its classical counterpart;
Dorfman’s positivity helps his audience see past the mythic cruelty of Medea and engage with
the wounded woman at the heart of Euripides’ tragedy.
In terms of direction and research for my production, I was able to draw two main ideas
from Sartre’s work. The first was a sense of humor and lightness. Mostly through his sardonic
tone and irreverent treatment of the afterlife, Sartre was able to create a tragicomic absurdist
fantasy, which though haunting, still has the ability to make the audience laugh. His characters
are very real people, with very real backstories, and very real senses of humor, which they never
lose throughout the play, especially indicated by the laughing chorus in the closing moments. In
dealing with the Man and Woman in Purgatorio, it is easy to overlook the subtle comedy
Dorfman weaves into their dialogue while diving into the more meaty monologues and dramatic
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breakdowns. I was reminded when reading No Exit that these characters have to be real humans
as well, rather than mythic figures. They have human tendencies, like teasing, tempting, and
toying with one another, and they have the ability to play with one another. Though their
situation in Purgatory is not a comic one, they do still have senses of humor, and the actors and I
must not lose sight of that.
The other important notion I took from No Exit was an understanding of what the first
day would have been like in the Man and Woman’s cells. Time is very fluid in Dorfman’s play
[see WILD TIME], but it is clear that the scenes we are watching take place many days after the
Man and Woman found themselves in Purgatory. What is not made clear, and only briefly
touched upon in the second scene when the Woman (as Interrogator) describes the Man’s
reactions to her the first and second day of his imprisonment, is how the two characters reacted
to their given circumstances when they were first introduced to them. No Exit shows us
characters entering for the first time a Hell that is very different than what they’d always
imagined or been taught. It is safe to assume that the Man and Woman also did not expect the
afterlife to be an austere white room with no decoration. So analyzing the differences in the
behaviors of Estelle, Inez, and Garcin and the Man and Woman provides an interesting study of
the adaptation of characters to bizarre, or shall we say Hellish, circumstances over a long
duration of time. How did the Woman who was once the proud, fiery, exotic witch Medea
become the resigned, complacent, exhausted penitent we see in the first scene of Purgatorio?
Perhaps she arrived in Purgatory acting more like Inez or Estelle, but after days and days and
years and years of interrogation, she has been warn down to the hallow shell she is now.
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REVISITING OVID
I reread the beginning of Book VII of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which poetically tells “The
Story of Jason and Medea” (Ovid 153). I was surprised to see that almost the entire first section
of the Book (lines 13-74) comprised Medea’s inner monologue in which she attempts to reason
herself out of love with the newly arrived hero Jason. Ovid foreshadows the turbulence of the
final years of their relationship by having Medea’s conscience waver back and forth between her
lustful passion for the stranger and her dutiful obedience to her father. The most prominent
imagery in this section is that of fire; in fact, the first line in which Ovid introduces Medea also
introduces the fire image: “And the king’s daughter burned with sudden passion” (153, emphasis
added). Medea then refers to her love as “This burning fire” and asks herself “Why do you burn
for a stranger, royal maiden?” (153-154). Later, having convinced herself not to elope with
Jason, Medea sees him once more and the fire imagery is reignited, so to speak:
“And the flame rose. Her cheeks grew red, her face
Was burning: as a spark, under the ashes,
Glows at a breath and catches on the tinder,
So now her love, smoldering, almost dying,
You might have thought, blazed into flame again.” (155-156)
This fiery metaphor for Medea’s love seems symbolically extinguished throughout the course of
the rest of the story by the water imagery of Medea and Jason’s sailing over the Sea and air
imagery of Medea’s flying chariot.
Ovid was writing an epic poem dealing with magical transformations, so he naturally
spends a lot of this story detailing Medea’s witchcraft. These descriptions, however, also help
vilify Medea, devoting several pages to narrating her insidious sorcery, and only the one line,
“Jason, by then, had a new bride” (165) to note her husband’s crime. This one-sidedness
demonstrates why it is so necessary for Dorfman to tell Medea’s story, to humanize her. She
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was more than a witch and murderess; she was a wife betrayed by the man she loved. Even Ovid
partially acknowledges Jason’s accountability in their courtship scene:
The stranger, took her hand, asked her to help him
Promised her marriage, and she answered , weeping:
…
“I will help you, save you—only keep your promise!”
He swore he would, by the triple goddess’ altar,
By any power known to the grove; he swore
By Jove, who sees all things, by his own dangers,
His hope of victory, and she believed him” (156).
Interestingly, this exchange is mirrored in LaChiusa’s Marie Christine, in the song “We’re
Gonna Go to Chicago,” where Dante (Jason) keeps trying to impress Marie with the sights
they’ll see when they elope to Chicago, and Marie in turn asks him twice to “Promise me.”
Jason finally agrees, “I promise you,” allowing them to finish the song in joyous harmony as
they dream of their life together once they leave Marie’s native land (LaChiusa CD).
Reading Ovid was extremely useful as I prepared for rehearsals with my actors, since he
provided the clearest descriptions of the backstories of the two characters of all the sources I am
using. We now have a narrative of the events of Jason and Medea’s life together, before the plot
of Purgatorio begins. His use of the fire imagery and description of all the horrible deeds Medea
committed for her husbands’ sake also clarify just how powerful was the love she bore Jason.
This love obviously blinded her to the laws of society, family, and decency, and we can clearly
see that a woman so afflicted with love could indeed be motivated to commit the atrocity for
which Medea is famous. In his own way, Ovid inadvertently humanizes Medea even while
vilifying her, by endowing her with extremely human emotions and weaknesses, which in turn
will help my actors approach the task of bringing both her and Jason to life believably onstage.
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EXILE AND OTHERNESS IN THE MEDEA MYTH
The other important theme Ovid introduces which is extremely prominent in Dorfman’s
retelling is that of exile and Medea’s otherness. Medea worries about these issues of identity
before she elopes, when trying to convince herself not to fall in love:
“Do I sail away, then, leave my sister here,
My father, brother, native gods and country?
My father, though, is a savage, and my land
Is barbarous, and my brother is a baby
…
I shall not leave great things, but go to meet them:
Great things—a savior’s title, and the knowledge
Of better sol than ours, cities whose fame
Thrives even here, civilization, culture” (155).
Even Euripides was conscious of the cultural prejudice of his characters and audience, as Jason
reminds Medea, “I brought you from your home in a barbarian land to a house in Greece,
disaster that you are” (Euripides 36, emphasis added). Mcdonald provides further evidence of
this cultural elitism in another of Euripides’ plays: “Recall how Euripides depicted Helen’s
Phrygian slave in his Orestes: he spoke bad Greek; he was barbaros” (McDonald 3).
This obsession with Medea’s exotic barbarism and status as a “stranger in a strange land”
reminded me of one of my favorite Russian authors from my undergraduate studies: Vladimir
Nabokov. His autobiography, Speak, Memory (1947) vividly portrays his exile from Russia after
the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. He emigrated first to college at Cambridge in England, then
to Berlin and Paris for 20 years, before finally emigrating to America in 1940. Much of
Nabokov’s writing is about exile, nostalgia, and the psychological limbo of emigres. In
rereading sections of this memoir, I found many of the metaphors and much of the imagery very
useful for the character research for both the Woman and the Man in Purgatorio.
Nabokov’s memory of his time spent at Cambidge seems particularly relevant to the
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Woman’s “cats monologue” and the Man’s “vase monologue” in Purgatorio:
“I had the feeling that Cambridge and all its famed features – venerable elms, blazoned
windows, loquacious tower clocks – were of no consequence in themselves but existed
merely to frame and support my rich nostalgia….And I thought of all I had missed in my
country, of the things I would not have omitted to note and treasure, had I suspected
before that my life was to veer in such a violent way.” (Nabokov 261).
Like the features of Cambridge and minute details of his lodgings for Nabokov, the kittens and
crumbs the Woman and Man are describing are not in fact significant in themselves. Rather,
these details are imagistic reminders of a time that no longer is, places they can never return to,
pasts they can never reclaim. The Woman explains that by the time her “man had come…. [She]
couldn’t be bothered with kittens and such,” and significantly adds, “But that’s my regret”
(Dorfman 12-13), just as the Man wishes he could go back and tell his Grandmother he “was
sorry” (33). Nabokov’s analysis of his Cambridge memories made me realize that these
monologues are in fact instances of psychological synecdoche: these kittens and vase were just
small parts of the characters’ pleasant memories of their entire childhoods before meeting each
other. Yet in his own autobiographical memoir, Dorfman, who was a political émigré as well,
reminds us that exiles can never return to the nostalgic Elysium of their remembered homeland:
“Exile is a suitcase that is never put away, always ready to be filled so you can go home…. and
then you realize that, once you have left, you can never really return” (Dorfman Feeding on
Dreams).
As a writer forced to flee Chile in 1973 after the Pinochet coup (Dorfman Interview),
Dorfman is very conscious of the debilitating loss of language for exiles, the effects of which are
very present in Purgatorio. The Woman’s magical powers seem to be directly linked to her use
of her native tongue, as shown when she laments not being able to resurrect her eldest son: “But
now it was too late. I had lost my powers. I had crossed the seas, gone West, no longer used the
language I had been born into” (Dorfman 43). Nabokov, too, understands the danger of this loss
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of identity and writes of his own fears regarding language:
“My fear of losing or corrupting, through alien influence, the only thing I had salvaged
from Russia – her language – became positively morbid and considerably more harassing
than the fear I was to experience two decades later of my never being able to bring my
English prose anywhere close to the level of my Russian.” (265).
This is a universal theme to which many Americans have personal, or at least familial
connections. I recall in my own family the mystical protection of the Yiddish language from the
Old World by my grandparents and great-grandparents. Language is one of the key facets of
identity in a global society, and the Woman’s loss of language humanizes her situation even
more so, completely alone in a foreign land without the ability to communicate effectively.
Emphasizing this theme, so relevant in our increasingly global community, is an important
bridge between audience and actor for this production.
This passage also helped me make an important discovery about the Man. Just as the
Woman was a foreigner in his land, the Man was the stranger when he arrived at her exotic
island; he was the one who had no language with which to communicate. This provides an
important insight into the relationship between the Man and the Woman: the Man needed the
Woman’s help when he was on her island, as Ovid makes clear. His survival, without being able
to speak their language, depended on the Woman’s love. Perhaps this helps explain why the
Man and Woman loved each other so passionately until they returned to a country where the
Man once again spoke the local language. His need for the Woman as savior, protector, and
translator fused with his need for her as a lover. When she no longer served these functions for
him, his ardor quickly faded and her stature in his eyes diminished. This change in perception
for the Man unfortunately occurred just at the moment when the Woman needed him most—to
save, protect, and translate for her in a now foreign land. While this all occurred in the backstory
to Purgatorio, it provides terrific ammunition for both actors in their exploration of the two
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characters’ relationships to each other, both as lovers and tormentors.
In memory, Nabokov reminds us, time has a “yielding diaphanous texture” (269).
Much of Purgatorio consists of the characters’ memories of their lives, of places they lived,
people they loved, crimes they committed, etc. Like Nabokov’s concept of “confused old
nostalgia” (271), sometimes the characters remember accurately, but often they are not quite sure
about the details. For example, the accuracy of the Man’s vase monologue is later contradicted
when the woman claims he had the actors reversed and it was indeed his Grandmother who
broke the vase and he who had assumed the blame, not the other way around. He defends
himself by asking, “What do you want me to answer if that’s how I remember it?” but later
admits, “Maybe I was—I confused the incident with another one…. I may have started to invent
things” (Dorfman 34-35). Similarly, the Woman has several chronological incongruities in her
cats monologue, including the possibility of having killed her brother before she met the Man,
which we know is not the order in which those events happened. She even acknowledges that
her time references may be inaccurate: “Except the next day when I climbed up that hill again—
or maybe it was two days later” (Dorfman 12).
This loose treatment of nostalgic time also mirrors the abstraction of time in the onstage
action of the play’s plot itself [see SCRIPT ANALYSIS]. The more I read the play and began
talking with the actors, I could see this was going to be a very difficult conceptual hurdle for the
production. But thanks to Nabokov and Mac Wellman, we were able to find a happy
“diaphanous texture” for the concept of time, and have developed a working relationship, albeit
not fully explained, with the chronology of Purgatorio [see WILD TIME].
One of the most important theoretical discoveries I made through rereading Nabokov was
the application of Hegel’s Triadic Series to our production. Though familiar with the concept of
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the Hegelian dialectic from my Russian and Film Theory studies, I had never heard of his triadic
series. Even had I been aware of the triadic, however, I doubt I could have made as eloquent and
sensible a comparative image as Nabokov does in Speak, Memory:
“The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, unwound, has
ceased to be vicious; it has been set free.… I also discovered that Hegel’s triadic series
(so popular in old Russia) expressed merely the essential spirality of all things in their
relation to time. Twirl follows twirl, and every synthesis is the thesis of the next series.
If we consider the simplest spiral, three stages may be distinguished in it, corresponding
to those of the triad: We can call “thetic” the small curve or arc that initiates the
convolution centrally; “antithetic” the larger arc that faces the first in the process of
continuing it; and “synthetic” the still ampler arc that continues the second while
following the first along the outer side. And so on.” (Nabokov 275).
What is most astounding about this simple description of an incredibly difficult theory is how
perfectly this image of a triadic spiral fits the structure of Purgatorio. The play is obviously
divided into three scenes, but Nabokov’s description of the thetic and synthetic arcs especially
are almost identical to the format of Dorfman’s play. The interrogation of the Woman in the first
scene creates an argument; the interrogation of the Man in the second scene creates a counterargument, which mirrors the events of the main argument from the opposite perspective; and the
continuation of the main argument in the third scene picks up where the first scene left off but
expands upon it. And like a spiral, there is no ending to the play’s action, as the Man and
Woman both acknowledge the eternity of their redemptive journey:
“WOMAN: It’s going to take forever.
MAN: I have nowhere else to go.” (Dorfman 49).
As a director and conceptual designer, I also find resonance with Nabokov’s first two sentences.
We are performing Purgatorio in a circular stage, closed-off unto itself, representing a prison
cell, which is by nature vicious. Yet the action of the play is a spiral as noted above, which
uncoils, unwinds and spiritualizes that confining circle; it breathes life into the space and
eventually sets the characters free. This spiral image can even be linked to Dante’s climb up the
mountain, freeing himself from the round base and ascending to the pointed apex, which
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connects our imagery for Purgatory full-circle, or full-spiral as the case may be.
On a more practical level, Nabokov vividly depicts exactly how precarious is the state of
a refugee:
“Our utter physical dependence on this or that nation, which had coldly granted us
political refuge, became painfully evident when some trashy “visa,” some diabolical
“identity card” had to be obtained or prolonged….Dokumentï, it has been said, is a
Russian’s placenta…. Its holder was little better than a criminal on parole and had to go
through most hideous ordeals every time he wished to travel from one country to
another” (276).
While in Nabokov’s era, an exile relied upon papers and visas, or Dokumenti, in the time of the
Man and Woman’s backstories, there were no such things. Once away from her island, where
she “had been queen of the harvest,…had made the grains come out of the ground” (Dorfman
16), the Woman was completely dependent upon her husband for safe passage, protection, and
the right to exist. Understanding the depth of her dependence upon him helps us understand why
the Woman reacted so violently to the Man’s abandonment of her. Marrying another and
throwing the Woman “out on streets….with no place to go, no home left” (Dorfman 16) was just
as horrible a crime as killing her would have been, since in effect, the Man would be cutting her
off from her “placenta.” Like Nabokov and his documenti, the Woman was in a state of “utter
physical dependence” on the Man’s protection. Immigration is obviously a very current topic in
our modern world, which makes this struggle for survival in exile yet another way to bring our
audience closer to appreciating Medea and Jason’s given circumstances.
WILD TIME
Time is not only diaphanous in Purgatorio—it is completely nonsensical. In addition to
the nostalgic inconsistencies mentioned above, the chronology of the three scenes is non-linear.
While we can assume that the third scene is a continuation of the first scene, we have no idea if
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the second scene is occurring after, before, or simultaneously with the first and third scenes. To
complicate matters even further, the third scene overlaps chronologically with the first scene,
rather than picking up cleanly where the first left off. The actors and I had a difficult time
wrapping our minds around this obfuscation of time, and I am sure our audience did as well.
This was no mistake on the part of the playwright, as he told an interviewer regarding the
development of the play Purgatorio, “this would also be an exploration of time, that I could play
tricks on the audience just as the characters are trying to play tricks on each other and on me”
(Dorfman Interview).
I realized that just as we had created a “world of the play” with our set, costumes, and
given circumstances, we would have to create new rules for the measurement of time. As
reinventing our awareness of time is an extremely abstract theatrical concept, I turned to one of
the most abstract theatre artists I know for guidance: contemporary playwright Mac Wellman.
Wellman has never been one to be governed by standard conventions, as he opens his aesthetic
manifesto “Speculations” proclaiming, “The STRUCTURE of a play ought not be viewed as a
fixed thing, but as a mutable one. / I mean, the structure of a play conceived of as a moving
point: / Passing over – or through – time” (5). I knew that any artist so committed to shaking up
traditional structure and consistency in play format would have something useful for us to
consider for our reworking of time. Fulfilling my expectation, Wellman establishes a geometric
metaphor later in the essay to describe time: “For time understands these ins and outs, ins and
outs which run in all directions perpendicular to the square of clock-time…. / (Because when I
talk about “time” I am talking about “Wild Time”)” (27). Wild time is non-linear; it extends
vertically, perpendicular to the flat plane of clock-time. This was exactly the image I needed to
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describe time in our second scene; it exists on a completely different plane than it does in the
first and third scenes, though it obviously intersects the two.
Though we now had an image for time, it was still an extremely cerebral concept. How
can we translate wild time onstage? How can the actors use this in their given circumstances and
convey the concept to an audience unfamiliar with the essay “Speculations”? Wellman’s text
provided me guidance with these issues as well. Earlier in the essay, during his discussion of
structure, Wellman argues, “The structure of a play depends upon where you are in it” reminding
us, “We experience theater moment to moment…. / You cannot eat a whole meal in one
mouthful” (21-22). As many of my acting teachers have taught me, it is not the actor’s
responsibility to convey the entire arc or concept of a play to the audience—according to
Wellman, it is in fact impossible to do so. An actor can only live in the moment he or she is
experiencing. If the actor is fully engaged and committed to the moment, the audience is
engaged with him or her and need not worry whether time is wild or tame, vertical or horizontal.
So the answer for my actors was to commit completely to our concept of wild time as if it were
perfectly natural, which, of course, it is in the world of Purgatorio.
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CHAPTER 3: THE PRODUCTION OF PURGATORIO
In order to fulfill the goal of my thesis, it is important for me as director and producer to
use all this rich dramaturgy productively. What good are the connections between Euripides
Dante, Sartre, and Dorfman if I can’t convey them, subtly, to my modern audience? McDonald
claims, “People listen [to classical works] if they are affected” (19). So we must affect our
audience members with these universal themes; we must use innovative production design
concepts and a variety of directorial techniques to make this vast amount of dramaturgical
material relevant for the audience.
IN THE ROUND
There are no indications in the stage directions of Purgatorio requiring a staging in the
round. Even Euripides’ original tragedy Medea would have been performed in an amphitheatre
with a three-quarter semicircle thrust stage, i.e., not in the round. As part of my thesis, however,
I wish to explore how we can make classical content more engaging for modern audiences.
Phrased differently, I might ask, “How can we draw modern audiences into material from which
they might traditionally be distanced?” This “drawing in” became a mission to close the gap
between the viewer and artist, and I realized how important it was to eradicate the traditional
boundaries of theatre, such as the proscenium and fourth wall, which distance the audience from
the action onstage. Having previously performed in two productions with “in the round” staging,
I am very aware of how innovative, exciting, and engaging this style of theatre can be, both for
actors and audiences.
But innovation for innovation’s sake alone cannot justify such a drastic production
concept; I still needed to find a dramaturgical motivation in Dorfman’s text for staging in the
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round. I recalled being impressed by the claustrophobic atmosphere of Purgatorio. While
rereading the opening stage directions, I stopped on the sentence that helps label this atmosphere:
“Reminds us of a room in an insane asylum or a prison where conjugal visits take place between
inmates and their spouses” (Dorfman 7, emphasis added). This was the clue I had been
searching for: Purgatory is compared to a prison cell. Now I was able to draw on my own
experience of serving a thirteen-day prison sentence in the J. Reuben Long Detention Center in
Conway, SC in August, 2012. Living in a large room with sixty-four other prisoners
demonstrates very clearly the extreme loss of privacy one experiences in jail; everything you do
is seen by someone, whether a fellow prisoner or the ever-watchful guards. Eating, sleeping,
going to the bathroom, all of the cherished moments of what was once your private life become
oppressively public and visible. Accordingly, the Woman in Purgatorio complains of the people
who are in charge of Purgatory, “they watch me all the time….I’m tired of them knowing
everything about me” (10). Like my fellow prisoners and I had, the Woman has lost her privacy,
her secrets, and her inner life.
And I realized that this is exactly what happens to the actor performing in the round.
There is no upstage wall or cyclorama to brace yourself against; all the traditional rules of
delivering speech downstage to the audience and not upstaging your fellow actors become
obsolete. You cannot avoid showing your back to the audience because the audience surrounds
you. This is terrifying for most actors, as it our job to be completely in control of what the
audience sees in our bodies, gestures, and facial expressions; we present a sculpted performance.
But if the audience is in control of what angles it sees, and not the actor, the latter loses his or her
control of the presentation. This in turn can lead to exhilarating discoveries for the actor who is
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open to the discomfort of the experience, as he or she can now drop that presentational style of
proscenium staging and act completely naturally, as a person in a room surrounded by peers.
This naturalization of the acting style is just one of the ways performing in the round can
“close the gap” between audience and classical material. By placing the audience all around the
action, I have now made the viewers active participants in the experience of the play: audience
members literally see other audience members across the stage while watching the production.
Activating an audience in such a way forces it, at the very least, to pay attention and stay
engaged, as a sleeping audience member will be very quickly spotted and feel extremely selfconscious. But more importantly, making the audience participate in the experience of the
performance solved another dramaturgical problem for me. So far, Purgatorio worked nicely as
an re-imagining of a classic Greek tragedy, even conforming to the Greek tragedian’s tradition of
only two actors portraying all of the roles in the play: “Euripides chose, moreover, to make a
play which could be played by only two actors” (Hall xv). But Dorfman’s text was missing one
of the cornerstones of Greek tragedy: the chorus. Even LaChiusa’s Marie Christine contained an
iteration of the Greek chorus in the form of Marie’s three fellow prisoners with whom she
interacts during the entire musical. Now, setting the play in the round, with an experientially
participatory audience, I had found my chorus: the audience itself. Like Medea, who addresses
the Chorus throughout Euripides’ original, the Woman also addresses her own “chorus,” or the
people in charge watching her interrogation: “Hey. You there. You people who are filming this
with your stupid cameras. Listen to me, stuff me into your eyes and ears. The woman who says
those words, kneels in front of you and you and you and says those words…” (Dorfman 48). By
making the chorus the audience surrounding the Woman’s cell, I am able to close the
performance gap even further, shattering the fourth wall and removing whatever distance was
41
left between viewer and performer. The audience members have no choice but to engage, as they
are being directly addressed, even yelled at, by the hysterical actor onstage.
DESIGNING THE CELL
Peter Brook affirms my belief that designing a set should never be a goal unto itself.
“What is necessary,” he writes, “is an incomplete design; a design that has clarity without
rigidity” (101). This lack of rigidity, or what I call the malleability of a design is key to the
evolution of a production during a rehearsal process. If the set has already been nailed down, so
to speak, and the designer refuses to budge, how can we as directors and actors ever expect to
make fresh discoveries in the text and natural choices? Without set malleability, we become
trapped by the design or concept long before the show actually opens. This is why I always
welcome my designers to rehearsals, at any and every stage of the process. As Brook elucidates,
“a true theatre designer will think of his designs as being all the time in motion, in action, in
relation to what the actor brings to a scene as it unfolds” (102). This malleable collaboration
between designer, director, and actor is essential to bringing the unified vision of a production to
life onstage, and it is why I greatly admire the work of my production designer, Chris Schenning.
Even before he was aware of my thesis argument, Mr. Schenning wanted to design the
cell of Purgatorio with references to Greek antiquity but through the lens of decay. Reading the
script and watching my actors during our read-thru in May, 2013, Schenning sensed the neverending repetition of wild time in the play—that these characters had relived these scenes day
after day for hundreds if not thousands of years. I loved his design concept, as it would visually
remind the audience (and actors) of the classical origins of this retelling. I had worked with
Schenning previously on multiple productions, including as my set and lighting designer for
Time Between Us in April, 2013, and I knew that he shared my belief about malleability and
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molding the facets of a production’s design to the actors’ needs. As we began staging
Purgatorio, Schenning was thus able to alter his original lighting scheme to illuminate the action
on stage, rather than just brighten the space in general.
Our shared belief in malleability and compromise proved useful in the only major
conflict we experienced with the set design: how to incorporate sand. Schenning and I were
similarly impressed by the preponderance of sea imagery in Dorfman, Euripides’, and even
Dante’s texts. When discussing ways to incorporate water and sand into the set design,
Schenning came up with the innovative idea of covering the stage with a layer of sand. This
would, in effect, create a beach-like playground inside the cell. While I agreed that the sand
would clearly evoke the oceanic images of sailors, ships, and islands, I was worried about the
practicality of such a bold set choice, both for the rental space and for my actors. In the end, I
was able to convince Schenning that my actors, let alone the audience watching them, would be
too distracted by sand getting on their skin and in their costumes and hair to do the moment to
moment work necessary for the dramatic reality of the play. As an alternative, I offered the
suggestion that we place a glass bowl or vessel of some sort onstage, and fill it with sand and
water. This could both visually represent the sea and be used tactually by the actors to symbolize
moments of cleansing, washing, baptism, rebirth, etc. Schenning, whom I have always admired
for his malleability, agreed that the sand pit would not work and thought about how to integrate
my suggestions into a working design. The resulting compromise was beautifully symbolic and
aided my thesis’ goal of narrowing the gap between audience and actor: instead of a solid,
impenetrable wall surrounding the cell, Schenning designed a perimeter of small glass vessels,
each filled with varying amounts of sand and water. The austere prison cell was now
simultaneously Medea’s island, surrounded by sand and water. More importantly, the cell’s
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barrier was now translucent and permeable, inviting the audience, who I had designated as my
Greek chorus, into the stage to engage in the action of the play.
MAGIC OF THE MASK
It is all well and good for me the director to decide, “My audience is my chorus,” but
other than a few direct addresses from the actors and a wall of glass and water, I knew this would
be a subtle concept and one not likely to dawn on many of the audience members while watching
Purgatorio. Still, content with my dramaturgical justifications, I began a secondary round of
research, watching DVDs of previous Medea adaptations to see how they succeeded in retelling
the tragedy in different contexts. The first DVD I watched was a recording of the Orchestra and
Ballet Troupe of the Tbilisi Z. Paliashvili Opera and Ballet State Theatre’s production of an
original one-act ballet, entitled Medea (1977). Though the music had a very modern style (ala
Philip Glass), the piece was still set in ancient Greece, using traditional ballet tunics and leotards.
Like both Euripides’ and Dorfman’s texts, the ballet narrated its story both through onstage
interaction, or dialogue, and flashback sequences, or expository monologue. There was nothing
strikingly original about this production, other than the fact it was a faithful and well-executed
choreographic interpretation of Medea.
I kept noticing, however, that in between the flashbacks and pas de deuxs, dancers
wearing absurdly large and grotesque masks frequently took the stage. I found myself resenting
these interludes, as the jarring ridiculousness of the masks kept removing me from the dramatic
momentum of Medea, Jason, and his new bride. It wasn’t until the maskers joined Medea in one
of her lamentation dances that I suddenly realized the obvious: these masked dancers were an
iteration of the classic Greek chorus. Their interruptions functioned similarly to those of the
chorus in Euripides’ text, evenly spaced throughout the scenes of the play, commenting both on
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the action occurring and also the state of the world and the gods in general. This epiphany also
made me realize that even though I am an avid proponent of what the iconic Russian director
Vsevelod Meyerhold called “the magical power of the mask” in theatre (Meyerhold 131), I had
entirely neglected to consider the presence or absence of masks in my production of an
imaginative continuation of a Greek tragedy.
I did not think, however, that masks would be appropriate for the Man and Woman in
Purgatorio. Masks would obscure the actors’ faces, and thus obliterate the incredibly
psychological expressiveness of the play. They would also counteract Dorfman and my attempt
to remove Medea and Jason from their mythic, archetypal stature and humanize them. Wearing
a mask would dehumanize the Woman and the Man, catapulting their personae all the way back
to their legendary, mythic status. But I did want to involve masks in my production if at all
possible. The answer, of course, was staring at me from my TV screen through dozens of garish
eye slits: I would mask the chorus, just as they did in the Medea ballet. This was the label I
needed, the last piece of the puzzle that would identify my audience as the important members of
the production they were. If audience members, or at least those sitting in the front row directly
surrounding the stage, were to be given masks to wear, this would draw them even further into
the action of the play. By putting on a mask, the audience member literally sheds his or her own
identity and takes on the role of “the watcher.” Yes, they will see each other across the stage
while the performance is occurring, which could be distracting, but they won’t be seeing Joe and
Suzy on the opposite side—they will see other chorus members attentively engaged in the action
onstage, reminding them that they should be as well, lest they embarrass themselves for standing
out from the crowd. Just as staging in the round is an estranging shock to an audience’s
expectations, being handed a “costume” and asked to participate so actively in a play is also
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unexpected for most theatergoers. I do not anticipate everyone will love this concept, but I can
promise that they will be more engaged than were they passively sitting while witnessing a
traditional production of Medea.
ACTING STYLES
I also watched Lars Von Trier’s 1987 film, Medea. Like the ballet, this was a very
faithful retelling of Euripides’ play, except that Von Trier chose to set the adaptation in the fens
of his native Denmark. This adapted setting lent the story a bleak and chilling atmosphere, and
proved a useful example of how setting and scenery can affect the tone of a play. Even Medea
herself is neither fiery nor exotic, as her ancient Greek prototype was characterized, but reserved,
stoic, and cold as ice. Von Trier further estranges Medea by costuming his leading actress
Kirsten Olesen in a tight-fitting cap for the entire piece, masking her voluminous, shocking red
hair until the final moment of the film when she has escaped and can relax her stony resolve,
symbolized by the removal of her hat and shaking out of her long tresses. Dorfman, too,
understands the symbolic power of a woman “letting her hair down.” In the first and third scenes
of Purgatorio, the Woman “has long hair, almost to her waist” (Dorfman 7), but in the second
scene, when she is the interrogator, “Her formerly long hair is now tied up neatly in a bun”
(Dorfman 22). Both Von Trier and Dorfman create proportional relationships between their
protagonists’ hair length and their relative power or strength of will in the plot: in the film, when
Medea is at the mercy of others (low power), Olesen’s hair is bound, but once free (high power),
her hair is long. The opposite relationship is present in Purgatorio: when the Woman is at the
mercy of the Man’s tormenting interrogation (low power), her hair is long, but when she is the
interrogator (high power), her hair is bound. I did not realize how important a symbol this was
until we were in dress rehearsals for Purgatorio and the actor portraying the Woman began
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incorporating her long hair into her character’s physicality in the first and third scenes. The
startling effect when the actor tied her hair up in a bun during the second scene was electrifying
and greatly assisted in defining this complex character.
The most important insight I gleaned from watching both Lars Von Trier’s film and the
Georgian Ballet was an awareness of how wide a range of acting styles could be used to portray
these tragic figures. This became especially apparent in the killing of the two sons scene. Ballet,
which must narrate a story through movement, gesture, and pantomime, is naturally more overt
in its expression of action and emotion. Though the ballerina portraying Medea seems hysterical
with her wild turns, flailing, and demonstrative pointing during the killing scene, the audience
forgives this indicating acting style because it fits with the traditional norms of the medium.
Olesen, on the other hand, is very calm and rigid during the killing scene, lending an eerie
stillness to the sequence that makes it all the more haunting. The subtle flinches and eye
movements caught by Von Trier’s close-ups convey all the pain and conflict the mother is
experiencing just as convincingly as the ballerina’s histrionics. Though this internalized style is
an extremely different way of telling the story, it works for the medium of film and Von Trier’s
vision.
What these extremes taught me is that for my production of Purgatorio, the acting style
must fall somewhere in the middle. Because we were in such an intimate space, with audience
members surrounding the actors, we could not rely on traditional gestures or heightened
theatricality to indicate Medea and Jason’s grief, as they most likely did in ancient Greece. As
close as the audience members were, however, we were not creating a film and these were not
close-up shots, meaning my actors had to be able to expand their objectives past the purely
internal, or what Stanislavski called “the first circle of attention” (Parke 17). Purgatorio is an
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odd hybrid of theatrical genre, most easily classified as a “psychological drama.” Interestingly,
Peter Brook feels very strongly about the power of the real world model of this genre: “A true
image of necessary theatre-going I know is a psychodrama session in an asylum” (133). This is
exactly what we recreated onstage in this production of Purgatorio:
“There is a small community…. They all sit in a circle. At the start, they are often
suspicious, hostile, withdrawn…. Conversation develops painfully around [proposed]
subjects and the doctor will at once pass to dramatizing them…. A conflict will develop:
this is true drama….They all share a wish to be helped to emerge from their anguish,
even if they don’t know what this help may be or what form it could take.” (Brook, 133).
Taken out of context, Brook could easily be describing our production. But maintaining
audience focus in such a dense piece of psychological cleansing is no easy task and required a
keen sense of balance and commitment from my actors and myself. While “Method” and even
“Substitution” techniques seemed impractical if not inappropriate for working with such young
actors, I used mostly physicality and imaging exercises to get my actors to a believable position
in this spectrum. We experimented with variations of Michael Chekhov’s “Psychological
Gesture,” Meyerhold’s “Stringing the Bow,” and Meisner’s repetition exercises among others,
through which, we discovered some personal truths behind these complex characters and their
tragic actions.
DIRECTORIAL INFLUENCE
One of my main areas of study as an undergraduate Russian major was the Silver Age of
Russian Poetry (roughly 1890 to 1925). I found the Russian Symbolists, and especially
Alexander Blok, exemplified many of my developing aesthetic tastes and principles. The
Symbolists wrote many lyric dramas, reuniting the arts of poetry and theatre, and so it wasn’t
long before I discovered the work of the theatre artist who would most influence my artistic
philosophy and directorial style: Vsevolod Meyerhold. The abstraction, stylization, mysticism,
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fantasy, and physicality that his work reintroduced to the world of theatre in the first decades of
the 20th century are the magical elements of theatricality about which I am most passionate as a
theatre artist. I purposefully use the term reintroduced, as it is important to remember that
Meyerhold was not inventing these spectacular notions, nor was he the first to incorporate them
onstage. He frequently cites the inclusion of these techniques in ancient Greek tragedy, the
Medieval mystery plays, Shakespeare, Commedia dell’Arte, and even Moliere. It was thanks to
the “Naturalistic Theatre,” of Stanislavsky, Chekhov, and Ibsen, which strove for “the exact
representation of life,” Meyerhold argued, that we had forgotten the place of spectacle and
imagination in theatre (Meyerhold 23). Conversely, rather than aiming at the “photographic
reproduction of life,” Meyerhold believed “The theatre is art and everything in it should be
determined by the laws of art. Art and life are governed by different laws” (Meyerhold 147). I
could not agree more, and have strived to include in every production I have directed at least one
abstract or artistic element that differentiates the action on stage from a replica of real life.
I also began noticing that the Broadway and touring productions I was most inspired by
in terms of directorial vision were Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses (2002), Tina Landau’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream (2006), and Matthew Warchus and Kathleen Marshall’s Follies
(2001). Though all very different stylistically, they shared a certain amount of theatrical selfawareness, or hyper-theatricality. They were also playful and imaginative in tone. Most
impressively, they used simple design concepts and minimal set pieces to convey setting and
location, leaving the rest up to the audience’s imagination. I realized that what was attracting me
to these directors was their similarities to Meyerhold, who wrote, “In the theatre the spectator’s
imagination is able to supply that which is left unsaid. It is this mystery and the desire to solve it
which draw so many people to theatre” (Meyerhold 25). I now saw that Meyerhold’s teachings
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could still work today in the postmodern era. Stories could be told with sincerity and
believability onstage, and yet still be infused with the magic of theatrical spectacle. Those were
the kinds of stories I wished to tell as a director. Even today, more than a decade after being
splashed with water from the pool at the center of the stage while watching Metaphorphoses on
Broadway, I can see that engaging the audience’s imagination in this magical fashion is yet
another way to make theatre more relevant an experience to modern audiences.
DIRECTORIAL STYLE
I am grateful to Meyerhold for putting into words so much of the aesthetic sentiment I
shared and yet did not know how to express, though I certainly do not think he is the end all and
be all of directors and/or theatrical mentors. That being said, I have found we do share many
similarities in our approaches to stylization in theatre; the relationship between audience, actor,
and director; and ways to achieve desired goals when working with actors. Like myself,
Meyerhold was an actor before he became a director, and we both agree that “Above all, drama
is the art of the actor” (Meyerhold 53). When working with actors, I am always conscious of the
need for an actor to discover an objective, tactic, or choice for him or herself. I may have a
brilliant interpretation of a certain line of text in mind, but if the actor does not feel that same
choice organically, if he or she did not have the chance to discover it, it will inevitably read flat,
artificial, and lifeless in performance. Peter Brook, one of my more recent directorial models,
warns, “No director injects a performance” (Brook 109). I therefore liken my role as director to
that of a coach or tutor, encouraging, guiding, assisting an actor to get through a certain obstacle
by suggesting exercises, metaphors and other comparisons, or asking the right questions to jump
start his or her imagination. I am also a very pleasant director, always making sure to maintain a
positive atmosphere for my actors and keep them excited and optimistic about the production.
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After all, how can I hope to engage an audience if my actors themselves are disengaged from the
material? The iconic 20th-century Japanese theatre artist Tadashi Suzuki aptly observed, “When a
play itself lacks interest, a forlorn atmosphere carries right on out into the audience” (Suzuki
119).
Nevertheless, Meyerhold is also very careful to demonstrate the importance of the
spectator in theatre, without whom, there is no need for an actor. He and I share this audience
awareness with Aristotle, who wrote, “the pleasures of art are not for the artist but for those who
enjoy what he creates” (Aristotle 207). 20th-century American philosopher John Dewey
rephrased this sentiment yet again, illuminating the need for balance between the creator and
viewer of art: “To be truly artistic, a work must also be esthetic—that is, framed for enjoyed
receptive perception” (Dewey 48). And so an awareness of audience reception, and perception,
has always been one of my utmost concerns when directing actors. Meyerhold provides a terrific
description of the role of director in this process:
“The director erects a bridge between actor and spectator. He depicts friends, enemies or
lovers in accordance with the author’s instructions, yet by means of movement and poses
he must present a picture which enables the spectator not only to hear the spoken
dialogue but to penetrate through to the inner dialogue.” (Meyerhold 56).
It is not enough for the spectator to receive passively the spoken dialogue of a play—he or she
must actively “penetrate through to the inner dialogue,” or sub-text of a scene in order for a
theatrical experience to be truly artistic. Thus, even Meyerhold assists me in my goal of
engaging audience members, turning them from passive witnesses to active imaginers.
Meyerhold’s emphasis on “movement and poses” formed the basis for his most famous
codified contribution to the world of theatre, “Biomechanics.” But even before he created this
extremely physical set of acting exercises, Meyerhold extolled the importance of movement in
theatre:
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“Movement is the most powerful means of theatrical expression. The role of movement
is more important than that of any other theatrical element. Deprived of dialogue,
costume, footlights, wings and an auditorium, and left only with the actor and his mastery
of movement, the theatre remains the theatre.” (147).
While Meyerhold’s hypothetically minimalist situation is obviously an extreme, I agree with the
theory behind it, and am always conscious when directing if an actor has stopped moving. There
is a difference, however, between “stillness” and “lacking movement.” Stillness contains a large
amount of power in its potential energy; an actor can stand perfectly still and yet convey pages of
inner dialogue. It is when an actor lacks movement, literally when his or her motion has stopped,
internally and externally, that the energy of a scene dies. I am reminded of a lecture in 2004 by
my Italian film criticism professor, Guiliana Bruno, where she orated with gusto about the latin
verbs movere (to move) and emovere (to move out, move through) and how adding the same
prefix to the English descendent motion gives us emotion. Both Meyerhold and Bruno clearly
argue that there is no Emotion without Motion (or movement), just as there is no Acting without
Action. When an actor lacks movement, the scene lacks momentum, and the audience
accordingly lacks interest.
This argument for the kinesthetic basis of theatricality also provides a link between
Meyerhold and contemporary directors Tina Landau and Anne Bogart, whose “Viewpoints”
method is a philosophical theatre technique used for, among other things, “creating movement
for the stage” (Bogart and Landau 7). I like to use several of the Viewpoints exercises when
directing, especially those concerning space, architecture, and spatial relationship. I want my
actors to feel comfortable in their bodies as they work, but I also want them to feel comfortable
in relation to the space we are in, whether it is just a rehearsal room or the actual performance
space. I want this to be a sacred space, which Suzuki designates as “a space…connected to the
actor’s body” (Suzuki 91). This is a space where the actors can create Art with one another; a
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space that Meyerhold would say is ruled by different laws than those that govern our ordinary
lives. Viewpoints “grid-work” and exploration exercises help the actors to free themselves from
those ordinary, outside-of-the-space lives and ready themselves for artistic work.
I find the whole-hearted Viewpoints methodology more useful for specific types of
theatre than others, and therefore only use bits and pieces of Viewpoints when I am directing.
That being said, Bogart and Landau’s insights into the problems facing contemporary actors and
directors and creative solutions to these obstacles can be extremely helpful, regardless of the
piece I am working on. For example, they outline five different forms of “Relationships” for
actors onstage throughout the history of Western drama: Actor-to-Gods (ancient Greek and
Roman), Actor-to-Royalty (Renaissance and French court theatre), Actor-to-Audience
(Melodrama and Vaudeville), Actor-to-Actor (Realism), and Actor-to-Nothingness (Beckett and
Absurdists) (Bogart and Landau 93). Contemporary actors and directors can feel limited by the
pre-determined style of whatever piece they are working on in terms of these seemingly
prescribed relationships. Viewpoints, however, liberates us from these constraints:
“In the spirit of postmodernism, we consider ourselves free to pick and choose whatever
relationship we deem useful from the full history of the theater. The theater of the
twenty-first century ranges freely, and often within one piece, among these various types
of relationships.” (Bogart and Landau 93).
As a postmodern artist, I have a wealth of sources to draw upon for inspiration and reference,
and Bogart and Landau encourage me to do so. They free me to follow the needs of the text, the
demands of the beat, the instincts of the moment, as opposed to being constrained by the archaic
rules of genre and appropriate style. In Purgatorio, for example, we have utilized all five of
these different relationships at different times throughout the piece. This shifting of
communication standard helps keep the audience actively engaged in what the actors are saying,
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as the frequent changes of addressee often come as pleasant surprises, like twists and turns in an
engrossing mystery novel.
Tadashi Suzuki was Anne Bogart’s original mentor and collaborator and unsurprisingly
shares this sensibility of borrowing and adapting from the past in our creation of contemporary
theatre. Working in the context of ancient Japanese theatre traditions less familiar to the Western
world, Suzuki wishes to save these genres by drawing from them and incorporating them into
modern works:
“I hope thereby not only to somehow modernize the traditions of no and kabuki, but to
study the essential beauties of these forms so as to reintroduce some of their concepts into
the contemporary theatre. My ultimate goal is to restore vitality to the theatre in a
process similar to that of remodeling an old piece of architecture to order to bring it back
to a new and useful life.” (76).
Similarly, with my production of Purgatorio, I want to isolate elements from the ancient Greek
tragedy genre, such as theme, characters, number of actors, mask, etc., and incorporate them into
a clearly modern genre, i.e. the psychological drama. This production is neither a
deconstructionist’s restaging of Medea nor is it a cartoonish summary, and hopefully, by
retaining and illuminating elements of the original, I, like Suzuki, can “[promote] the ‘rebirth’ of
a tradition” (76).
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CONCLUSION
“This is how I understand a necessary theatre; one in which there is only a practical difference
between actor and audience, not a fundamental one.”
-Peter Brook, The Empty Space, (134)
“For me, the theatre is a collective form of artistic expression. In its essence, it involves the
establishment of a community of place and time, encompassing both performers and spectators,
so that a dialogue may pass between them.”
-Tadashi Suzuki, “The Toga Festival.” (77)
It is commendable to theorize about the engagement of modern audiences through
dissolving the boundaries between them and the performers onstage, but how well does this
actually work in practice? Can innovative production techniques and directorial concepts make
classical works, characters, and themes more accessible to today’s theatergoers? As evidenced
by the successful reception of my production of Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio on Thursday and
Friday, October 3rd and 4th, 2013, the answer is, “Yes, they can.” Several factors contributed to
the proving of my thesis, including large attendance, the novelty of the production style, and the
strength of my actors’ connection to the text/characters.
ATTENDANCE
Over one hundred people saw this production, which far exceeded my expectations based
on similar two-character thesis productions from last year. The first performance had an
audience of forty-five, which was terrific considering it was a Thursday night. I had rented
seventy-five chairs for the audience, so Thursday’s audience filled just over half the house. The
audience members spread themselves out around the circular stage, which was helpful for the
actors, and were not afraid to sit in the front row and wear the masks of the Greek chorus
(sixteen of the available twenty-four masks were used). The second performance (Friday
evening), there were a total of seventy-one audience members, essentially filling the house,
including twenty-two “maskers.” Both houses contained audience members of various ages,
55
ranging from college students to seventy-year-olds, and about a quarter of the total audience was
unaffiliated with Savannah College of Art and Design, which I consider a major success in terms
of the reach and appeal of the production.
I had used a three-pronged strategy in publicizing the show, and from the size of the
audience, it seemed to work very well. My first goal was to secure the support of the Performing
Arts department (and specifically fellow graduate students), as several of the thesis productions I
was involved with last year had failed to do this. I reached out to Professor Kathryn Walat over
the summer with the suggestion that she might wish to include Purgatorio on her Contemporary
Drama II syllabus. I recalled that when I took this course, we read Naomi Iizuka’s play Anon, a
modern adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, and were able to see a live performance as part of
SCAD’s maingstage season. I figured this would be a similar reading/viewing exercise and
would fit nicely into the “Adapting from Classical Sources” Course Unit. Not only did Professor
Walat take the suggestion, but she added Purgatorio to the syllabi of all of her dramatic writing
courses as well, which greatly increased the number of students exposed to Dorfman’s text and
also encouraged more of them to come see the play live in performance.
My second target was the community of Arts patrons and enthusiasts in Savannah. I
remember being shocked while performing in the local theatre company Collective Face’s
production of Pride and Prejudice last May to see so many paying guests in the audience each
night supporting a moderately expensive and extremely mediocre production of live theatre.
This was an eager demographic I wished to tap into for my audience for Purgatorio. I created a
professional press release and emailed it to Connect Savannah Arts editor Bill DeYoung, who
had happened to perform in Pride and Prejudice with me as well. He was gracious enough to
schedule an interview with me, and two weeks before Purgatorio opened, he wrote a lengthy,
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detailed, and incredibly informative feature article about my production in Connect Savannah
(the weekly arts and events listing magazine for Savannah) (DeYoung 28-29). This article,
accompanied by a half-page close-up photo of my actors, helped raise the awareness and pique
the interest of the Savannah community outside Savannah College of Art and Design. Especially
helpful was the fact that my production would be taking place at the off-campus location of the
bar The Sparetime. Removing the production from the exclusive-seeming walls of the
Performing Arts department’s Crites Hall helped me market the show to community members,
many of whom are patrons of The Sparetime and enjoy the kinds of events that are scheduled
there. Thus, even the location of the performances proved helpful in attracting and engaging a
diverse audience.
Lastly, I used word of mouth and social networking to promote the production to friends
and colleagues. My actors and I made weekly and often biweekly posts on Facebook to
publicize the performances as we neared the end of September. I also enlisted the assistance of
SCAD production manager Colleen Mond to send out an email blast to the entire Performing
Arts department with information about the production as well as a link to the Connect Savannah
article online. Even though I printed posters, I did not rely heavily on these nor spend much time
distributing them to downtown establishments. I have found that with the myriad of arts
organizations papering shop windows and bulletin boards with their publicity materials, posters
for obscure events have become rather obsolete in terms of recruiting new audiences. I did place
posters in certain strategic locations in Crites Hall and at The Sparetime, but that was all. Had I
been producing a more recognizable show, or cast local celebrities, posters would have made a
much bigger difference. I knew, however, that a passerby seeing the title Purgatorio with a
picture of a knife would have learned little about this event and not be as motivated to put it in
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his or her calendar as when he or she read two pages describing this relatively unknown play in
the weekly Arts and Events magazine.
“MASKING” IN THE ROUND
Getting the audience inside the theatre, however, is only half the battle—we now had to
engage them. Part of this was accomplished by the very layout of the chairs in the space. Upon
entering the “theatre,” audience members were presented with several important decisions: (1)
where to sit (which quadrant), (2) how to get there, and (3) whether or not to don a mask. This is
a much more active introduction to a theatrical space than handing a ticket to an usher, being led
to your seat, and told to “enjoy the show.” Already, the audience members are actively engaged
in the production, having made conscious choices about their viewing angles, access paths, and
participation level. I watched as audience members attempted to guess which section seemed to
have the best vantage point, unaware of where in the circular stage most of the action would take
place. Most audience members sat next to their friends or people they knew, which helped make
the quadrant decision easier (“So and so is sitting over there, let’s go join him” or “There are six
seats in a row in that section, let’s grab them”).
After deciding which section to sit in, audience members faced the difficult choice of
which way to access their desired seats. The most direct path would be to cross the circular
stage, but most audience members feared to do so. It was clear that they imagined the
performance space a sacred one, only traversable by the actors. Squeezing through the tight
rows of chairs, however, was not a very convenient option. I noticed that as audience members
saw my actors, whom I had directed to wait in the audience in costume and socialize with guests
before the show began, crossing the circular stage to greet guests around the room, they began to
venture into the “sacred space” as well. The first few times, audience members would
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tremulously step over the vases into the circle and hurriedly scurry across, clearly displaying
their collective wish not to disrespect the boundary between audience and stage. As this became
a more common practice, guests became more comfortable with crossing the circle, still careful
not to knock over any vases, but less embarrassed about “crossing the border.” After the
performance, almost everyone felt free to cross the circle directly in order to exit the room or
congratulate the actors and me. This gradual lowering of inhibitions demonstrates that the
estranging directorial concept of integrating my actors with the audience before the performance
and innovative production technique of a permeable, porous border for the performance area
helped destroy the traditional barriers between actors and audience, thus further engaging the
latter in the material being performed.
I should note that this pre-show actor/audience integration was inspired by Michael
Mendelson’s production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew this summer in Portland,
OR. Before the performance, while we audience members were milling about in the lobby, a
homeless-looking vagrant stumbled through the main doors carrying a tuba. He proceeded to
play said tuba, accompanied by slurred speech and the occasional drunken outburst. It was very
disruptive to the pre-show buzz in the lobby, and a woman from management approached the
man and forced him to leave. He returned five minutes later, however, and we did our best to
ignore him politely, no matter how poorly he played the tuba or excitedly he would shout at the
woman from management. Imagine our shock, therefore, when once seated in the actual
blackbox theatre, we saw this same man walk onstage with his tuba. Rather than an actual
vagrant, he turned out to be the actor portraying Christopher Sly in The Taming of the Shrew
(Mendelson). This innovative, improvisational technique had completely fooled the audience,
myself included, and we were now that much more entertained and willing to engage with
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anything this actor, or his colleagues, provided onstage for the evening. The actor had “warmed
us up,” like an opening act for a headliner in a concert or comedy club, and I saw that this was an
excellent way to engage a modern audience in theatre even before the curtain goes up.
Lastly, once they had crossed the “wicked stage,” audience members had to make the
crucial decision of how close to sit. Each section had at least three rows, the first of which had a
white mask placed on each seat, implying those audience members sitting in front would be
asked to wear a white mask for some unknown reason. While the most common choice,
expectedly, was to sit in the second row (“safe” from direct involvement/masking but still
relatively close to the action), I was pleasantly surprised to see a significant number of brave
audience members volunteering with only a minimal amount of coercion to take the front seats
and wear the requisite masks. I expected most of these beneficent maskers to be students,
friends, and colleagues of the actors or myself, but was shocked and touched to see an extremely
elderly couple sit in the front row the second night and wear the masks for the entire duration of
the performance. As I learned afterwards when talking with some of the guests about their
experience, the masks were an intriguing and unique concept for many of the audience members,
mostly because they were unexplained. “I had never been asked to wear a mask before when
seeing a show, and I was curious and excited to see how it would affect me,” explained one
audience member after Thursday night’s performance (Stine). Another pointed out how much
more enjoyable the masks made the evening: “The masks sort of removed me from myself, you
know? At first it was weird thinking I was being seen by the actors and rest of the audience, but
then I remembered I had a mask on, and was anonymous. It helped me really get into the show”
(Lancaster). This anonymity was especially important to me, as it solved one of the major issues
Professor Vivian Majkowski had warned me about when staging in the round in a bar setting: the
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audience will always be distracted by the other audience members sitting, sipping, shifting, etc.,
across the circle (Majkowski). As I had hoped, audience members like Ms. Lancaster were not
distracted by one another, but were further engaged in and indeed a part of the onstage action,
thanks in part to the anonymous masks they wore.
THE ACTORS’ CONNECTION
This production obviously would not have been possible without the two actors Ms.
Amaya Murphy and Mr. Daniel Thrasher. But more specifically, the engagement of the
audience we achieved would not have been possible without the intense connection these actors
formed to the text, their characters, and each other. Any director can ask his or her actors to
address the audience directly, breaking the theatrical “fourth wall.” But if the actors do not have
a firm grasp of their characters and the imagery of the text, if they are not confident enough to
“own” their words, such Brechtian moments of hyper-theatricality fall flat or miss the mark.
When Ms. Murphy violently admonished different members of the audience with the Woman’s
“Hey. You there. You people who are filming this with your stupid cameras” speech from the
third scene (Dorfman 47-48), she was so committed to the moment that even those audience
members not being directly pointed to felt she was speaking to them personally. Similary, Mr.
Thrasher was so invested in the relaxed control of the interrogator in the first scene, that when he
indicated the audience members’ lack of interest in watching the Woman due to their “committee
meetings” (Dorfman 10), his delivery garnered a well-deserved chuckle from the audience.
The feedback I received from several audience members after the shows helped confirm
how “engaging” these actors’ performances were. Performing Arts student Megan Mulgrew
claimed, “I’d never seen anything ‘in the round’ before. It was so interesting how the intensity
for the actors seemed to increase since we were surrounding them. I felt so connected to what
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they were going through throughout the whole show cause I felt like they were performing just
for me” (Mulgrew). Former graduate student Theresa Lehn (MFA, Savannah College of Art and
Design, 2013) added that the dynamism with which both actors, especially Ms. Murphy, tackled
the character alterations from scene to scene, both vocally and physically, made the entire
production that much more compelling (Lehn). Another undergraduate, Ryan Ortega, came
away with a similar experience: “Your show was really great, I had no idea what Purgatorio was
but I ended up really loving the text. Amaya and Daniel killed it the other night” (Ortega). This
slangily laudatory expression helps prove my thesis: with the help of Ms. Murphy and Mr.
Thrasher’s acting, I engaged a thoroughly modern audience in a previously unfamiliar
classically-themed work through innovative staging. Similarly, I heard from two different
audience members “I now want to [re]read Medea” (Martin, Fishel), which exemplifies my
thesis argument’s success.
But by far the most informative response and proof of the success of my thesis came from
three unknown audience members, who arrived ten minutes after the start of the performance on
Thursday evening. Not wishing to cause a distraction, I beckoned these three latecomers to
come sit next to where I was standing, in the back row of the Northeast section. I had never seen
these people before and they looked somewhat bewildered as they sat down, making me think
they had entered mistakenly or thought they were somewhere else with some other event going
on. One of them attempted to ask me something, but I silenced him and motioned him to watch
what was going on onstage (again, to avoid distracting the rest of the audience). I fully expected
these three guests to leave within ten minutes, but they stayed put and watched the entire show.
They were listening carefully, laughing at the appropriate times and attempting to piece together
whatever information they had missed in arriving late. Then, when the third scene began and the
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audience learns the interrogators are in fact the Man and Woman themselves, the man who had
tried to ask me a question earlier reacted almost violently in his seat as he realized this
significant plot twist. “Oh S#%@,” he exclaimed under his breath, as he tapped his friends’
backs and legs excitedly with his program, “That’s her! That’s the same woman! They’re stuck
together!” His companions’ guffaws and exclamatory phrases demonstrated they were similarly
impressed by the revelation. I could not have been more pleased: this was proof positive of a
modern audience’s engagement in classical material. My actors, designers, and I had made
Purgatorio, and by extension, Medea, just as exciting as a suspense film or video game for these
non-traditional theatergoers. We had reached beyond the safety of the footlights to grab the
attention span of today’s easily distracted audience and reinvigorate its interest in live,
classically-themed theatre.
ADAPTATION VS. INNOVATION
It is important to distinguish, however, that this production also sparked interest in the
original classical work Medea, rather than simply proving a clever abstract retelling. In contrast,
I performed in an entertaining but less-than-engaging production of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate
(a Tony-award winning musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew) this past
Summer in Oregon City, OR. While the audience members responded enthusiastically to the big
song-and-dance numbers, I watched from stage as their body language signified their “checking
out” during any of the tediously dragging and under-rehearsed Shakespearean scenes (Kiss Me,
Kate). Because many of the actors had not taken the time or did not know how to do the
appropriate textual analysis and image structuring with Shakespeare’s language, these scenes
were lacking in tension, comedy, stakes, and interest. As a result of their negligence, this
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production of an extremely well-written adaptation had the opposite effect on the audience than
did my production of Purgatorio: the unbalanced production of Kiss Me, Kate confirmed its
audience members’ collective, albeit erroneous belief that classical works (in this case,
Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew) were boring and not as entertaining or worth their
support as were more contemporary theatrical works (such as Cole Porter musicals).
In conclusion, the lesson to be learned is that while commendable for their intentions to
re-expose modern audiences to classical material, it is not enough for theatre artists to produce
classical adaptations and leave it at that. We must bring all our imaginative and creative skills as
producers, directors, writers, and actors to these productions, aiming to highlight the classical
themes at the heart of the adaptive works without detracting from the plays themselves. We can
begin to achieve this symbiotic balance by applying innovative production techniques and
diverse directorial concepts to our productions, as I proved with the classically-reinvigorating,
audience-engaging production of Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio at The Sparetime in Savannah, GA
on October 3rd and 4th, 2013.
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Parke, Lawrence. Acting Truths and Fictions. Hollywood, CA: Acting World Books, 1995.
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Print.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit and Three Other Plays. Vintage International ed.
Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York, NY: Vintage International, 1989. Print.
Stine, Kristin. Interview with Alexander Nathan Kanter. at The Sparetime, Savannah, GA.
3 Oct. 2013. In-Person.
Suzuki, Tadashi. The Way of Acting: The Theatre Writings of Tadashi Suzuki.
Trans. J. Thomas Rimer. New York, NY: Theatre Communications Group, 1986. Print.
Von Trier, Lars, dir. Medea. Perf. Kirsten Olesen and Udo Kier. Danish Broadcasting, 1988.
DVD.
Weiss, Phillip. “To the Barricades Once More.” The New York Times Online.
November 5, 2006. Web. 16 January 2013.
Wellman, Mac. “Speculations.” Draft Six, 2010. Web. 4 September, 2013.
<http://www.theriotgroup.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/05/speculations14.pdf>.
Zatlin, Phyllis. Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation: A Practitioner’s View.
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2005. Print.
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WORKS CONSULTED
Follies. Dir. Matthew Warchus, Chor. Kathleen Marshall, Mus and Lyr. by Stephen Sondheim,
Book by James Goldman. Roundabout Theatre Company. New York, NY:
Belasco Theatre, 13 June 2001. Performance.
Kanter, Alexander. “Art and Society.” MFA Forty-Five Hour Review.
Savannah College of Art and Design, 2013. Digital Format.
Landau, Tina, dir. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. by William Shakespeare. Millburn, NJ:
Paper Mill Playhouse, 8 May 2006. Performance.
Lieberman, Becky.
“Five Women Wearing the Same Dress: Directing Conventions and Compromises.”
MFA Thesis. Savannah College of Art and Design, 2013. Web. 23 Sept. 2013.
Miles, Dayna Kristine. “Art and Commerce: Friend or Foe? A Supper Club Experiment with
The Open Couple by Dario Fo and Franca Rame.” MFA Thesis.
Savannah College of Art and Design, 2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2013.
Prinz, Tyler. “Mental Furniture: An Examination of Solo Performance.” MFA Thesis.
Savannah College of Art and Design, 2013. Web. 15 Sept. 2013.
“The Theatre of Dionysus.” Didaskalia. Randolph College, 2012. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.
<http://www.didaskalia.net/studyarea/visual_resources/dionysus3d.html>
Zimmerman, Mary. Metamorphoses. New York, NY: Circle in the Square Theatre,
10 July 2002. Performance.
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APPENDIX A: SCRIPT ANALYSIS (FORMALIST STYLE)
1 TITLE AND AUTHOR: Purgatorio by Ariel Dorfman
I. Exposition/Given Circumstances/Background Story
A. Time
-Composition: First produced October 29th, 2005 at the Bagley Wright Theatre in
Seattle, Washington
-Action: Timeless. Presumably sometime after the action of Euripides’ Medea,
though the characters in the play reveal that time is fluid, and the events we are
watching could be happening before, concurrently, or after the tragedy. The
Woman reveals to the Man, “here you were, in this room…for infinity and a day,”
but when he asks if his wife has been waiting in a similar room for him “all these
years, she explains “For her, no time has passed. That’s how things are here…as
far as she’s concerned, she died yesterday, the day before yesterday” (Purgatorio,
35-37).
-Dramatic: ~ 70 minutes (real-time)
B. Place
-A “white room” in Purgatory.
C. Mood and Atmosphere
-According to the stage directions, the room is “Austere. No
decorations…Reminds us of a room in an insane asylum or prison where conjugal
visits take place between inmates and their spouses.” There is sterility and
tranquility pervading this white space, meant to purify its inhabitants. But before
absolution, the sinner must be purged, lest we forget the root of the word
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Purgatory. So behind the stainless purity of the room, we can sense the searing
bleach used to burn away the inhabitants’ sins.
The sterility and coldness of the room also builds the tension of the piece. The
Man and Woman are stuck here, in Purgatory, and the claustrophobic cell is an
ever-present reminder of their situation. Much like Dante climbing the
treacherous mountain towards heaven, always worried that he might fall and
return to the Inferno, these characters exist in constant fear and tension, worried
about what lies behind, or in front of, their cell’s door, let alone whether or not
they will ever see the other side to learn.
D. Preliminary situation
The Man, as a doctor, is interrogating the Woman, the current inhabitant of the
cell. We learn that prior to the start of the play, both the Woman and the Man
have been in their respective cells in Purgatory, undergoing these interrogations,
for a considerable, though indeterminate amount of time. We don’t know how the
Woman died, but we know the Man committed suicide. Though never referenced
by name, we can glean from the stories they tell of their lives that these two
characters are Medea and Jason. Thus, through both their narration and crossreference with Euripides’ Medea, we are able to piece together the extended
backstory for this play. See “SOURCE MATERIAL” section for detailed
analysis of Euripides’ Medea. What follows is the backstory as filtered through
Dorfman’s text:
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-As a child, the Man covered up for his Grandmother’s clumsiness by
claiming he broke a vase which she had in fact shattered (34)
-The Woman lived on an island (11).
-The Woman fed and cared for the feral cats on the island, preparing her
for motherhood (11)
-The Man arrived at the island and they were swept up in love with each
other (12).
-The Woman murdered tricked her father and murdered her brother to
save the Man (15)
-The Man took the Woman away “across the sea” (12)
-The Man told the Woman he was going to marry another younger
woman (12)
-The Woman killed the Man’s new fiancé with a poison-soaked cloak that
burned her skin (43)
-The Woman murdered their two children (20)
-The Man killed himself (24)
-The Man has been cooperating with the Woman (interrogator) since day 2
of his stay in Purgatory (35)
E. Society
-Purgatorio never refers to the societal status of the Woman on her island (other
than that she was a witch with a father and brother), nor of the Man’s social rank,
though we know from Euripides that Medea was a princess and Jason’s new
fiancée was the daughter of the King of Corinth (see “SOURCE MATERIAL”).
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Though social status is thus never explicitly depicted in the play, there is much
discussion of the notion of being foreign, or an “exile” in a new strange land “who
never fully learned the language”(45-46).
This status as the “other” has plenty of social significance in the power dynamic
of the Man and Woman. On the island, the Man was the foreigner and relied
upon the Woman’s help in deceiving her father and killing her brother for his
survival. Later, in her husband’s land, the Woman was the refugee, and her
“barbarian” status motivated her husband to seek a new fiancée, “with skin light
like [his]. Who spoke [his] own language. Not a foreigner like [the
Woman]….Not a savage like [the Woman….A better woman than [the Woman]
will ever be” (44-45, emphasis added).
There is a negativity and guilt complex attached to the status of foreigner, exile,
refugee, émigré, etc, reminiscent of Vladimir Nabokov’s writing on the subject
(see “CHARACTER RESEARCH”), which obviously plagues both the Woman
and the Man during their time in Purgatory. Significantly, the first and last lines
of the play deal with this theme:
MAN: So you want to escape. Good…
…
MAN: I have nowhere else to go.
(7, 49).
For their entire lives, and even the majority of their time in Purgatory, the Man
and Woman have been running from something, on the move, trying to escape
from the past that haunts them. But at the play’s conclusion, when they are
finally able to admit their love for one another and start the purifying process of
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purgation, the Man aptly acknowledges that they need not run anymore. It is time
to return to the beginning, to erase the past, to start afresh, no longer exiles, but
explorers. Pioneers have a very different social status than to refugees.
F. Economics
-Money and economics are never mentioned explicitly in the play. The Woman
does reference that she would have had to beg her own boys for “a crust of bread”
once the Man threw her out on the street in favor of his new fiancée, which
alludes to the economic plight of a scorned woman (45).
G. Politics and Law
-Surprisingly, the Law is conspicuously absent from this play. There are plenty of
rules and procedures in Purgatory, and indeed, the cell is meant to be reminiscent
of a prison, but no one discusses the legal consequences of the multiple murders
that took place in the backstory. This suggests that the Man and Woman’s guilt
and tortured consciences are punishment enough for their crimes; they are literally
their own jail-wardens/executioners.
H. Learning and the Arts
-The Man bitterly compares his new fiancée to the Woman, praising the fact that
the other girl “know how to read, how to write, how to play music,” suggesting
that her “cultured” education elevates her above the “savage” Woman (45).
Rather than being skilled in the Arts, in the classical sense, the Woman was
skilled in the arts of Homeopathy and folk magic (12, 16). Dorfman creates a
sharp contrast between the elevated, educated Princess and the exotic, earthy
Enchantress.
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I. Spirituality
-The title and its literary allusion would suggest a massive presence of Spirituality
in the play (see “SOURCE MATERIAL”). Dorfman immediately shatters this
expectation by dryly identifying “the people in charge” not as an omnipotent
awesome deity, but as a cold, business-like corporation, “an Institution. The
oldest one around” occupied with “committee meetings. Things like that” (8, 10).
There is no mention of a Judeo-Christian God (who traditionally would be
associated with Purgatory), though the Woman does bemoan the fact that her past
left her “abandoned by the Gods” (presumably the Hellenic gods worshipped
during the time of Medea and Jason’s story). Dorfman has thus successfully
translated what should be a Spiritual purification into a Clinical or Psychological
purgation. Hell, or Purgatory in this case, is not a raging inferno or a perilous
mountain as described in biblical literature, but is truly “other people,” as Sartre
suggested in his iconic play No Exit (see “SOURCE MATERIAL”).
J. The World of the Play
-Dorfman has essentially created a psychological Petri-dish in which to conduct
dramatic experiments. The stark, bare-bones setting gives the characters few
things to concentrate on other than each other. The claustrophobia of the cell
inherently raises the characters’ stakes, as each becomes more and more desperate
to escape from this room. But by far the most interesting and confounding feature
of this world is the fluidity of time. The characters (and audience) have no idea if
what they are experiencing in the play is the past, present, or future. How long
have they been in Purgatory? Has this conversation already happened? What
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information has or has not been revealed in previous interrogations? Time may
not even be, and most likely isn’t linear in this world. These scenes could be
occurring simultaneously, concordantly, in a 3-dimensional timescape (see “MAC
WELLMAN”).
All of this abstraction of traditional given circumstances focuses the characters’
attention on the moment. All they can trust is that they are saying what they are
saying to one another at that particular moment. This may not have been their
reality yesterday and won’t be tomorrow, but for right now, all that is important is
“that journey into the swamp of myself,” a brilliant metaphor for both psychoanalysis and psychological drama (36).
II.
Plot (Following the given circumstances)
A. Initial Incident
--The Man presents the Woman with a knife (temptation to escape).
B. Rising Action (List complications and major events.)
1. Woman revels in her memories
2. Man role-plays as her husband’s interrogator
3. Man begins final test of Woman
Switch
4. Woman interrogates Man with follow-up questions from impressive video
5. Man expresses True Remorse (last step of penitence)
Switch
6. Women confesses (2nd step of penitence) she still loves her husband.
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C. Crisis (Moment of no return)
-Woman furiously pushes Man “toward the door” (47).
D. Climax (Moment of change)
-Man “forces her back to the bed and pins her down” (47)
E. Falling Action (List major events)
1. Woman realizes that Man’s progress depends on her progress.
2. Man offers her peace and forgiveness (rebirth).
3. Woman realizes Man is her husband.
F. Conclusion (final outcomes for all major characters)
-Man and Woman await the eternal duration of the next stage of their mutual journey.
III.
Characters
A. Protagonist
-The Woman was a sorceress on an island who fell in love with the adventurous visiting
sailor (Man) and “open[ed] the kingdom to him” (12), betraying her father and brother.
Upon being replaced years later by a younger woman of her husband’s own race, the
Woman avenged herself by killing her two children. She is now stuck in Purgatory until
she can forgive herself and her husband, confess her love for the Man, and repent for her
crime. Her pivotal moment of change (which makes her the Protagonist) occurs in the
climactic scene when she rebels against the penitential exercise and refuses to ask
forgiveness for killing the new fiancée. This affirmation of her proud humanity, her
character and womanhood, is a break from her reserved contrition and humble apathy of
the previous scenes. Only now that she has “been stripped of [her] last illusion about
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[herself]” (37) and honestly confessed what lies in the deepest recesses of her human
heart is she able to begin the journey of repentance.
B. Antagonist
-The Man was an ambitious sailor who fell in love with the exotic island enchantress
(Woman) and eloped with her. Upon returning to his own kingdom, however, he tired of
his wife and realized it would be more politically advantageous, for his and his two
children’s futures, to marry a woman of his own race with cultured/political connections.
After his wife murdered their sons, he committed suicide. In Purgatory, he has anxiously
cooperated with the interrogators in the hopes of getting out quickly and returning to the
world in a different body. Once the Man confesses his contrition was a strategy aimed at
getting out of Purgatory, he is given the task of getting the Woman to repent (without
explaining who he is). Though he is clearly an opposing force to the Woman, he is
arguably unchanged from beginning to end, as he is still focused on getting out of
Purgatory, and even his final peace offerings echo the tender sentiments towards his wife
he expressed when the Woman first interrogated him (hence Antagonist).
C. Supporting (describe in two to four sentences)
-The Greek Chorus is conspicuously absent from this adaptation of an ancient Greek
Drama. The Woman and the Man frequently refer, however, to the video-cameras “on
the fourth wall” (8), which are recording/transmitting everything that occurs in this cell
to be watched/reviewed by the “Institution” (10). These cameras/witnesses, then, take
the place of the Greek Chorus, as much of the chorus’ function in ancient Greek Drama
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was to listen as a captive audience to the main characters’ orations. The Woman
activates this passive Chorus in her final climactic outburst when she directly addresses
the “people who are filming this with [their] stupid cameras” (48), as Medea frequently
does to her Chorus in Eurpides’ play.
D. Minor (describe in a few words)
-The Two Boys and The New Young Fiancee are never seen and only mentioned
during the interrogations, but obviously haunt the two characters and play large roles in
their backstories (these three are arguably the reason why the Man and Woman are in
Purgatory).
IV. Theme (Stated in one sentence)
-You must “journey into the swamp of [your]self” and be “stripped of your last illusion
about yourself” before you can start afresh in the “warm waters of peace” and
“forgiveness” (36-37, 48).
V. Tempo, Rhythm, and Mood
A. Tempo
-Purgatorio is a 49-page one-act, densely packed with thematic and expositional
material, which retards the tempo of the piece. Neatly divided into three scenes,
the play maintains an evenly paced slow tempo for the first two scenes, which are
one-sided interrogations of each character, and thus necessarily focused on backstory and psycho-analysis. The third scene involves more active interaction
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between the two characters, thus speeding up the tempo as the play builds to the
climax. The density of the first two scenes requires close attention from the
audience, and is filled with descriptive imagery, which further slows the tempo.
The third scene allows the characters to react emotionally to one another, losing
control of their carefully structured rhetoric of the first two scenes. Thus, as the
tempo and stakes increase, the imagery proportionately decreases.
B. Rhythm
-Both characters are partial to speaking in lengthy monologues, especially
throughout the first two scenes. The style of their interaction demands this as a
combination of psycho-analysis (in which the patient narrates or describes at
length his or her feelings, emotions, or actions) and cross-interrogation (in which
the interrogator paints a detailed picture of an accused action or motivation to be
confirmed or denied by the suspect). The prevalence of these long narratives
makes the occurrence of short quip-filled dialogue or heated arguments
throughout the play especially conspicuous rhythmic changes.
Similar to the tempo change mentioned above, as the characters begin to lose their
“masks” and their rehearsed rhetoric breaks down, their individual character
rhythms begin to speed up as well. Dialogue becomes impassioned, images
become raw, and even their breathing increases, culminating in the violent
physical content of the climax. Their rhythm has literally become too fast for
words; they can only achieve their objectives by physically forcing themselves
against one another.
C. Mood and Atmosphere
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-The sterility and purity of the set are immediately contrasted by the implicit
violence and defilement inherent in the first action of the play, where the Man
pulls out a knife and hands it to the Woman. The atmosphere is immediately
tense, as the threat of violence is now visibly present. Unlike the Chekhovian
“gun on the wall,” however, this weapon is never used in the action of the play (it
is only referred to as the knife used to kill the Woman’s children). This is only
the beginning of Dorfman’s expert use of anticipation throughout the play. He
constantly sets up expectations for the audience, only to disappoint, twist, or
surprise them with what actually happens. As a result, the mood is one of
discovery. The audience, like the characters, must actually listen to find out what
is going to happen. They cannot rely upon their knowledge of the past
(mythology) to predict the future (climax). Tension and alertness thus fill the air.
There is also a sharp contrast between the vast openness and freedom of the
landscape imagery described by both characters (the Sea, the Mountain, the Land)
and the claustrophobia of the cell in which they now reside. The literal
atmosphere of the play is being confined, and like all gasses in tight spaces, when
the pressure builds (as the tempo increases), the contents of the cell must
eventually explode.
VI. Personal Reaction
(A paragraph honestly stating your opinion of the play.)
Requirement: examples from the script to support your opinions.)
This is an incredibly powerful and moving play, though it takes a little while to become
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invested in it, i.e., understand what is going on. By the time the action takes off in the third
scene and the Woman relives killing her two children, it is very difficult not to get overcome
emotionally. Specifically, I find her description of the younger son, who had just watched the
murder of his older brother, incredibly overwhelming:
“I had turned to my baby. He came to me. He didn’t run away. He came up to me and
took the free hand. It was covered with blood, but he took it anyway, in both his hands.
He looked down at his brother, then up at me. And then he spoke….Mother. Please,
mother. Like this. In a whisper. Only that. Mother. Please, mother.” (42-43)
Dorfman has dramatically brought us into the chamber to witness a mother murdering her
children, a feat even Euripides refused to do (Medea murders her children offstage in the Greek
tragedy).
Yet the power of this passage contrasts with seemingly random narratives earlier in the
play, which are difficult to correlate with the action/momentum of the characters. Specifically,
the Woman’s cat story (11-12) and the Man’s vase story (32-34) seem tangentially distracting at
first glance, but they are too lengthy to be dismissed dramaturgically. Upon several reads of the
play, I realize that the cat story has to do with the Woman’s maternal instinct. At first glance, the
Woman’s tender care of the feral cats humanizes this traditionally monstrous character (a mother
who killed her own children is not thought to have much of a maternal instinct). But she then
describes how she abandoned the kittens once she fell in love with the Man, which in turn
foreshadows her inability to put anything before her crazed love for the Man, including that very
tender maternal instinct. None of this is explained in the text, however, and so I worry about
how much of this information an audience in performance, without the benefit of close analysis
and multiple re-reads, will be able to glean.
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The vase story, on the other hand, is fully explained in the text. The narrative leads to the
breaking down of the Man’s “mask” and removal of his final “illusion about himself,” preparing
him for the next stage of his Purgation. Unfortunately, it is a clunky section of writing and reads
more like a comic “surprise witness” segment in a courtroom drama than a truly cathartic or
symbolic journey for the character. To complicate matters, Dorfman even calls for the physical
destruction of the actual vase onstage, which is not only a hazard-filled, stage manager’s
nightmare, but also interrupts the tempo, momentum, and rhythm of the second scene with its
sudden violence. Then, instead of mining the symbolic value of the broken vase (a potent
religious allusion) or the subsequent “picking up the pieces,” Dorfman rapidly closes the scene
with a few wistful lines from each character and moves on to the third scene. The Vase sequence
thus reads like a clumsy attempt to end a scene in which the playwright had gotten himself stuck,
or could find no exit.
VII. Quotations
(At least four lines, passages, or phrases which clearly illustrate the author’s
style or express ideas you wish to remember or believe to be paramount.
Be certain to include Page numbers from the text.)
1. MAN: Have you ever been in love?.... At times you have to break the other person open,
dislodge them from who they used to be, let them shatter you as well. That’s what we
did: undress each other to the last bone. (27)
2. MAN: There’s just one thing I need to know. Does the circle ever close?
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WOMAN: If you can heal her, yes. (39)
3. WOMAN: I owed it to him, my second-born, my baby. The one who looked most like
his father. That he should see my eyes and be less scared while I—I’m so sorry. I’m
so…. I want him… I want hm to forgive me. (43)
4. WOMAN: I gave them life…. I split myself open to give them life. I carried them. My
sex. And my body. And my breasts. Mine. My milk. Oh my babies, my babies. (46).
5. MAN: You. I come back because of you. Because of that look in your son’s eyes as he
watched. We can erase it. Forget it. Together. Never have to remember it ever again.
Start all over. You and me. The warm waters of peace. The warm waters of forgiveness.
The warm waters of not being yourself. (48).
OTHER ANALYSIS QUESTIONS:
1. What are the special demands of this play because of period or historical
considerations?
-Because of the purposeful ambiguity of time in the setting of the play, there are no
special period or historical demands for the production or performance. The dramaturgy
of the play, however, requires an understanding of Greek Mythology, Greek Tragedy (or
at least Euripides’ Medea), and a rudimentary understanding of Christian doctrine
regarding the Afterlife.
2. What are the special demands because of the level of society presented?
-There is a large amount of emphasis placed on the foreign, barbaric status of the Woman
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compared to the Man. While the temptation may be to cast an actor of color in the role of
the Woman or give her a foreign sounding dialect, this is not in fact, required as the text
reinforces that the forms in which we see these two characters are transient and not
necessarily how they appeared in life:
MAN: [My body’s] all an illusion anyway. What do they care what I do with my
illusion? (23).
WOMAN: Just a husk. Nothing more. Not only now that we’re here. The body
is no more than an outer trapping…. even if you go deep into yourself. How
she’ll look, how you’ll look, what sex, how old, what strands of hair and color of
skin and softness of lip—none of it matters, none of it will help you one tiny little
bit to know who anybody really is. How would you possibly recognize her? (27).
The Woman could easily be giving instructions to the director or casting director about
how unnecessary color-sensitive casting would be for this production. That being said,
the foreign theme is much more prevalent than that of the non-importance of physical
appearance, so it is likely that an audience would require some indication on the part of
the actors’ appearances or mannerisms that would convey the exotic status of the
Woman.
3. What type of play is this? (Comedy, tragedy, farce, drama, etc.)? Support your choice
-Purgatorio is a Psychological Drama. Though adapted from a classical Greek Tragedy
(Euripedes’ Medea), Purgatorio significantly ends on an optimistic, positive note. All
the killing, death, and devastation associated with tragedy has already occurred in the
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backstory. Also significant is that Dorfman chooses to set this piece in Purgatory and not
Hell, or the Inferno. These characters are not damned for eternity for their crimes against
one another, but are being given the chance to repent and purify themselves through
forgiveness of one another. While the sense of time is abstract and the characters discuss
being stuck in the cell for eternity, Purgatorio displays more positive humanism than the
empty existentialism of plays like No Exit and Waiting for Godot. By the end of the play,
we truly believe that these characters have a chance to start afresh, in “the warm waters
of peace” and “forgiveness.”
4 What is the conflict within the play? Is the conflict internal or external? Explain booth
choices.
-The external conflict of the play is the need to escape from the confines of the cell: to get
out of Purgatory. In order to do this, the two characters face the internal conflict of
forgiving both him/herself and each other for seemingly irreparable crimes of love. On a
secondary level, there is a deeper internal conflict on the part of each character when he
or she plays the part of the interrogator. Even though they need to help the other
character reach the deepest level of repentance, they are not allowed to reveal their
identity as the ones who can grant them forgiveness. The Man ends up losing this
conflict in the third scene, when he reveals through his actions, and later admits verbally,
that he is in fact the Woman’s husband, and that they depend upon each other to achieve
redemption. Perhaps it is this climactic moment of finally giving in to the truth lying at
the bottom of his soul, just as the Woman did when she violently refused to apologize for
the young fiancee’s murder, that really demonstrates the Man being “stripped of [his] last
86
illusion about [himself].” Playing by the rules meant putting on a mask of appeasement,
which both the Man and the Woman were guilty of in the first two scenes. The solution
to the conflicts then, both external and internal, is not to give “the institution” what you
think it wants, but to admit to yourself and others what it is you truly want.
5. What are the special requirements for Set, costumes, make-up, sound and lighting?
-The stage directions call for a “white room” with “no decorations.” The only furniture
required is a “small bed,” “table,” “two chairs,” and a “door with a window.” This sparse
and sparsely described set leaves a lot of room for creativity in terms of style, period,
size, etc. Lighting and sound are simple, with only three scenes and no specific effects
mentioned, other than light coming through the door’s window. Costumes are a little
tricky because both characters outfits, in “penitent colors,” have to work underneath “a
doctor’s gown” as well as on their own.
6.What famous film actors can you see playing these characters if this were turned into a
movie?
-Woman: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Zoe Saldana, Angelina Jolie, Thandie
Newton
-Man: Jake Gylenhall, James McElvoy, Haydn Christiansen,
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APPENDIX B: BUDGET SPREADSHEET
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APPENDIX C: KICKSTARTER INFORMATION
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Link to Kickstarter webpage with video:
< http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22653045/dorfmans-purgatorio-a-scad-graduate-thesisproduct>
Video Credits
Director: by Alexander Nathan Kanter
Director of Photography: Daniel Thrasher
Editor: Daniel Thrasher
Original Music: Alexander Nathan Kanter
Costumes: Alexander Nathan Kanter
Shot on location at Tybee Island, GA.
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APPENDIX D: REHEARSAL/PRODUCTION SCHEDULE
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APPENDIX E: DIRECTOR’S JOURNAL
Sat, Apr. 27, 2013
This evening at work, I talked with my boss Clara Fishel, owner of The Sparetime, about
the actual logistics of renting the second floor event space for my thesis production either the last
week of September or first week of October. She has agreed to give me a significant discount
since I have worked for the establishment since we opened last year and have trained most of our
servers.
Sun, Apr. 28, 2013
I went full-throttle on Amazon.com and Half.com today, purchasing primary sources for
my dramaturgical research. Obviously, my two main sources are Eurpides’ Medea and Dante’s
Divine Comedy. Additionally, I purchased a DVD of an obscure Georgian ballet version of
Medea and Lars Von Trier’s film Medea.
Mon, May 6, 2013
Today, I have my three invited actors scheduled to read for the part of “The Man” (Jason)
opposite Amaya Murphy. First, I am meeting with Ms. Murphy to discuss the two sides, her
character, and what we’ll be looking for in the ensuing readings. My colleague Tyler Prinz has
also graciously agreed to video the auditions so we can refer back to them. My stage manager
Blythe Beard-Kitowski will also be present in the room.
EXCERPT FROM CONVERSATION WITH MS. MURPHY
ANK: What is most significant about this woman?
AM: I think it’s the question of whether she’s a victim or a hero? History has portrayed her as
crazy. In this play, we get to question that.
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ANK: I’m going to take a load off you right now. In general, during this process, the two
thousand years of dramaturgy will be my job, all you guys have to do is act the action of the play
and be in the moment..
4:00 PM: Matt O’Boyle: Good connection and intensity. Believable, but lack of diction and
character. Stooped shoulders. Took direction well, but not a lot of presence or spark.
4:15 PM: Daniel Thrasher: 1st Side: Tried to lower voice to gain authority.
2nd Side: Took direction to free voice
NAILED IT! Chemistry was electric! Believable, real character. Clear objectives,
presence, and humor “Have you ever been in Love” monologue was raw and natural.
Saw the images. Unforced.
4:30 PM: Mario Matthews: Lots of vocal placement difficulty. Took direction well (to the
other extreme) to change characterization. Lack of realism and connection with the
images. Good diction and textual delivery, but some breathing/punctuation problems.
Looks and owns the character.
Ms. Murphy, Ms. Beard-Kitowski, and Mr. Prinz and I discussed the auditions afterwards. We
all agreed that Mr. Matthews was so internally focused that he missed the mark and failed to
connect with the other character onstage. Mr. O’Boyle was fine and would do fine, but had some
usual habits (stooped shoulders, diction, anger, etc.). Mr. Thrasher, on the other, was terrific and
really wowed us. Ms. Murphy especially responded to him, saying his energy was so fresh and
alive it brought her a new level of awareness, which I could see watching them.
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The issue is Thrasher looks much younger than the other two actors. But I pointed out
he’ll make Murphy look “Foreign,” which is important for the character, whereas O’Boyle and
Matthews both look like they’re from the same country as Murphy. I pointed out Daniel could
try growing a goatee to age his face a little, and the costuming may help. Also, the script makes
clear that the bodies we see these characters in onstage are not the same bodies they had as
Medea and Jason. They are just illusions. So I am ok with Thrasher looking younger and less
“Olympic” than our perception of Jason the Conqueror.
We decided Mr. Thrasher is our Man, as I’m still haunted by his reading of the “Have
you ever been in love?” monologue. I called him at 11:10 pm to offer him the role. He was
thrilled and explained that for a previous role (Stanley Kowalksi), he’d actually had to bulk up
from 120 to 150 lbs, so he would get to work over the summer for this show, to look more the
part of Jason. I told him to take a day to think about it and get back to me on Wednesday if he
wanted to accept.
Tues., May 7, 2013
I watched the rest of the Georgian Medea ballet today. I was taken with several parts: the
death/agony/flame dance of Creusa, the hauntingly dissonant music of Medea’s grief, and the
violence/ferocity of Jason’s agony. Creusa’s death scene was almost it’s own pas de deux,
where her partner was the red shawl/cape that Medea had bewitched. The skill and beauty
involved in twisting and writhing with the shawl imbued it with life and was breathtaking. It
made me wonder if and how I can incorporate fabric into my play. Maybe as a bed sheet or
tablecloth that the Woman can make use of?
The music following Medea’s killing of her two children was chilling. It just involved
two high-pitched, muted trumpets, playing close dissonant notes which modulated slowly around
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each other. This quiet, haunting echo, reminiscent of what might have been the children’s cries,
was incredibly jarring, both to the audience and to Medea, who was visibly affected. I want to
record this audio sequence and use it in rehearsal one day. When we decide to use it, I want to
play the music anytime Ms. Murphy begins describing her children and the murder. It should
have an intense, Pavlovian effect on both her and Mr. Thrasher.
Lastly, the vicious ferocity with which the male dancer expressed Jason’s anguish was
incredibly moving. Especially effective were the successive convulsions he went through, which
originated at his sternum caving in, and racked his entire body, almost inducing sobs. This
would make a great physical warm-up for Thrasher, before rehearsing or the run of the show, to
internalize and kinesthetically experience Jason’s grief before and during the action of the play.
Wed, May 8, 2013
Mr. Thrasher accepted the role today. We’re very excited.
Thurs., May 9, 2013
I watched Lars Von Trier’s Medea this morning. Bleak is the best adjective I can use to
describe this incredibly powerful film. There is minimal dialogue, but such visual emphasis on
the landscape, firmly grounding this tale in the Earth around it. The woman playing Medea was
so powerful, her body was a force to be reckoned with (reminded me of an Olympic swimmer)
and her black, scaly costume was both enticing and foreshadowing of her grief.
Two incredibly powerful scenes:
1) Jason and Medea begin making love in the marsh much to Medea’s delight.
Suddenly, Jason smacks her across the face, hard. As she falls defeated in a pool of
muddy water, it becomes very clear that this is the moment of no return for Medea.
She will have her revenge on this man who has taken everything from her and
abandoned her.
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2) And then there’s the murder of the sons. Von Trier changes this from stabbing the
sons to hanging them. This was almost unwatchable. The love and understanding
between the two boys and Medea was unfathomably moving. I was weeping and
hugging my dog for comfort.
We will obviously watch these scenes before we go into rehearsals. Also important was the
emphasis placed on Medea being a foreigner – “stranger in a strange land.” We will be focusing
a lot of our attention exile, foreignness, etc. in our show, and I plan on using some Nabokov
sources on exile and nostalgia for my thesis.
Bought two possible dresses today for Ms. Murphy for the Kickstarter video. They’re
very pretty, and “Greco-esque” styled. I hope they fit.
Fri., May 17, 2013
PRODUCTION MEETING with Chris Schenning and Blythe Beard-Kitowski.
We discussed the columns present on the second floor of Sparetime. Mr. Schenning has
provided me two options for our design
1st option: White walls, modern, metal, separate the audience from this cold interior
2nd option: Greek columns (wrap the existing columns with Grecian fluting and
add capitals). The characters have been living this forever, we’ve been in this cell since
she killed her kids. But the cell has evolved over time, the columns are in ruins and there
are modern furniture fixtures in the cell. (Post-Modern aesthetic).
We all agreed the second option is the way to go.
READ-THRU
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Before the read-thru, Ms. Murphy asked, “Do the characters forget each day? (ala
Groundhog Day). In other words, how are we dealing with time?” I said we’ll spend a lot of
time working on this issue in our tablework at the beginning of rehearsals.
NOTES FROM READ-THRU
-Thrasher needs to release his “manly voice” tension. Using a lot of glottal fry to import
authority.
-pp 11-12, Cats monologue will need a lot of attention
-pp. 15-17: build in tension rhythm, pace of conversation energy is building
-p. 17: hacked brother into pieces, reference back to Cats monologue.
-p. 17: first “purged” mention
-We need to find the humor in the text
-p. 19: To refrain from imitation is the best revenge? (repeated line)
-p.30: Woman foreshadows with “Stab at life” warning, but Man, as usual, isn’t listening
and goes right on with baby monologue.
-Do we need cuts pp. 34-37? Lots of complicated imagery.
-p. 38: You’re entertainment, their entertainment, you people seeking revenge=audience
-p. 47: You people filming=audience
-CUT Breaking the Vase
-Careful not to stress the negatives and the pronouns.
Mon., May 20, 2013
Filmed the Kickstarter video today down on Tybee Island. It went very well, and I’m
excited to see the finished product. Mr. Thrasher has agreed to edit it, which is very generous of
him.
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Fri., Jul. 19, 2013
Saw Portland Shakespeare Project’s Taming of the Shrew tonight, directed by Michael
Mendelson. Excellent production of a difficult play within a play. Some thoughts:
-The tuba playing vagrant in the lobby turned out to be Christopher Sly – which helped
make the audience as annoyed or intrigued by him as the host/hostess players were. Also
added yet another layer to “show within a show.” Brilliant directorial trick.
-The actual host/hostess redressing of drunken Sly before “show” starts was three times
longer than I remember. Later learned that the director combined the Quarto and Folio
versions of this to bolster the scene up.
-Also not sure about Bartholomew being in very believable drag. Spoke a lot of modern
ad-libs (ala Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) and while entertaining, was incredibly
distracting.
-Staged in a blackbox theatre with three-quarter thrust / riser seating. Very effective
staging playing to all corners of house except there were only audience members sitting
in the center section, which made the House Right and House Left sections empty (and
focused even more of our divided attention on the distracting drag queen, host, hostess,
and Sly sitting front row, House Right with no audience to blend into). This made much
of the actors’ multi-directional blocking seem misplaced, since there was no audience
with which to communicate other than the traditional front and center section.
-Great use of curtains / drapes – playing with, separating scenes, making transitions, etc.
-Rolling wagons seemed over-used. Too much attention paid to fronts and backs and
levels, sticking heads in and out of doors / windows, closing / opening…all to simulate
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the Laugh-in 60s theme. The theme worked great for the sexy comedy, but the farcical
“business” was too much and distracting from the action of the play.
-Difficult subject matter (YAY Misogyny!) was tackled effectively by Katherine’s
humongous, scene-stopping wink after “I am ashamed that women are so simple” and the
touching ending whre the Hostess tenderly offers to walk Sly home and patiently hear his
story. She demonstrates just how strong, intelligent, caring, and in charge women truly
are.
THE PLAYERS
-Christopher Sly: Terrific! As a drunken hobo, who gets more and more invested in the
story, completely engrossing, realistic character study, without distracting from the action
of the play. n.b.: he was the embodiment of an uncaring, modern audience that we have
to captivate with classical theatre. Watching his childlike glee as the story unfolds and
gets to take part was therefore even more exhilarating for us in the audience.
-Katherine: Extremely talented. I did not agree with the choice in her first few scenes
that “Shrewish”=Screaming. I thought that some of the subtlety of her wit (and sympathy
for her character) was lost in all her shouting at the men. But her transformation and
grasp of text, comedy, and technique were exquisite. By her final monologue, we were
hanging on her every syllable.
-Petruchio: Weakest member of the cast. What he may have thought read as subtlety,
coolness, and bravado read as lack of enthusiasm, understanding, and technique. Even
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before the three times he raised his voice above a pot-induced chant, the vocal strain in
his neck and forehead, let alone the clomping of his boots, completely disengaged me
from anything he said. Only able to land jokes in shared lines with Katherine, and looked
awkward and unnatural onstage.
-Bianca: Very complete (though admittedly, her Goldie Hawn characterization was one
of the least difficult to convey).
-Lucentio: Very clear use of language and technique. I found myself wishing he’d been
given more to do in the production.
-Tranio: Very gifted comic chops, though occasionally too formal and technical (in that
small space, I could see the work going into every word). But helped carry the pacing
and action of the show
-Hortensio: a distractingly chaotic whirlwind who had a lot of difficulty communicating
anything. There were too many choices going on at once, which made his accents
unintelligible, his character unsympathetic, and his action hard to follow. His Mercutiolike antics bled into Gremio’s dialogue as well, making it difficult to understand him too.
-Grumio: This young actor loves physical clowning, but needs to remember his
objectives / motivation. While his antics were funny, they had nothing to do with the
action or his character.
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-Brabantio: I completely believed his ninkumpoop character. However, his rate was so
slow and elocution so emphatic that I honestly wondered if English were his first
language. This young actor needed a little more text and speech work, but was truly
delightful to watch onstage.
-In general, everyone could have used a vocal coach and more textual analysis. In such
an intimate space, the vocal tension in people’s necks and foreheads was extremely
evident. Tranio, Katherine, Bianca, Lucentio, Sly, Bartholomew, and Antonio were the
only actors not straining.
-Mendelson is obviously a very physically and visually oriented director, which made the
show very dynamic and entertaining. However, lack of textual comprehension, metrical
analysis, and image structuring for many of the actors made much of the witty banter
obsolete compared to the hilarious physical antics of the characters.
Fri., Jul. 26, 2013
Notes from close reading of script:
-p. 16: exile “no home”
-p. 35: Infiniti and a day (eternal time)
-p. 36: journey into the swamp of myself
-p. 37: Breath in and out of her body
New life-like a beach that nobody has ever stepped on
1st day of Creation – Eden- (Dante)
For her, No time has passed (wild time)
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Tues., Aug. 6, 2013
-Emailed my notes on Dante to the cast and crew.
-Found white/gold dress for Ms. Murphy
Wed., Aug 7, 2013
Today I had a very informative, comforting, and important phone conversation with
Professor Majkowski. She helped me focus my energies and allayed several of my concerns
regarding the thesis, possible future contracts, performing in general, etc.
Fri., Aug. 23, 2013
PHONE CONVERSATION WITH MS. MURPHY
-Murphy is feeling good about the production. Had an epiphany over the summer at New
Jersey Shakespeare that rehearsal, and even the performance, is a process, a journey. She has
traditionally been struck in strong female characters and is looking forward to playing with
vulnerability. She now has the freedom not to be perfect or “right” from the start, to go forward
without frustration, liberated to explore. We plan ons starting rehearsals half way through the
first week of September. I am going to wait to send the actors my script analysis until they’ve
had a chance to do their own character analyses.
Thurs., Sept. 5, 2013
MEETING WITH Ms. MURPHY
We discussed “Time” in the script. I brought up Mac Wellman and the concept of
perpendicular planes of time, rather than linear. Like the repetitiveness of Groundhog Day, the
stakes are high each day, as this might be the day she can break the chain.
ANK: What does she want? (Superobjective)
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AM: She wants to escape, be free.
We discussed Dante’s Mountain image for Purgatory. Her climb up the mountain is a climb
towards escape, towards freedom. We also wondered what it is she discovers in the last moment
of the play. We talked about Medea’s backstory, what is the moment before the play begins? I
made it clear that I want all the storytelling in this play to be “action, not distraction.”
We talked about the difficulty of the “Cats monologue,” keeping it active rather than expository.
The monologue has to take her and the audience back. I asked if she’d ever had any pets, and
she described for me her neighbor’s dog. I explained this would be a good exercise for her,
aiming at reliving the experience with the dog rather than just conveying it.
Discussing the character:
15 or 16 when Jason arrived
Early to mid 20s when the murders occur.
Headstrong, strongwilled, passionate, not very mature.
As the interrogator, gains maturity to be in control
Murphy latched onto the witchcraft imagery and compared it to Aryuvedic and holistic medicine.
She also loves the “hands” imagery for the Woman. She is very tactile and constantly refers to
her hands.
We discussed exile, losing one’s identity, as well as Dante’s “Three steps of Repentance” image.
Sat., Sept. 7, 2013
FIRST REHEARSAL/TABLEWORK AT MY APARTMENT
Mr. Thrasher originally decided the Man wants justice / revenge, which I cautioned might
be too dark to take him through the entire play as a Superobjective. So we reached the
conclusion that the Man’s superobjective is to get a clean slate, to start over. I also introduced
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the actors to Mac Wellman’s “Speculations,” reading some of his more pertinent and entertaining
quips to help us deal with the concepts of “Wild Time” and only experiencing moment to
moment, rather than trying to swallow the entire play at once.
NOTES
AM-Love the “Yes” response to dabble in yeses. Want you to drop the “performance”
habit. You don’t have to try to be “interesting.”
DT-Great relaxed energy. Very natural
-Tried 1st Date exercise: discovered chemistry between the two characters
-AM- make him work to amuse you
-Violence of knife moment
MEETING WITH MR. THRASHER
We discussed his curiosity about the knife and his worry of memorizing so much text.
Thrasher has realized that as Jason, he was so smart and charming, he didn’t have to study or
work to succeed. Things happened for him. He thus never had to care much or invest
emotionally in what he was doing or the people he interacted with. Obviously things are
different here in Purgatory which is the struggle for him. Maybe the Vase monologue is
deflecting, trying to find a scapegoat so as not to confront his own guilt/emotions regarding
Grandma.
Sun., Sept. 8, 2013
REHEARSAL AT MY APARTMENT
Repetition exercise with Superobjectives before launching into first scene.
AM-“You said no one was going to get hurt.”
Maybe it’s you, Woman, that’s getting hurt.
DT-In the snoring beat, Woman asks you a question. She’s shifting the power balance by
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interrogating the interrogator. Defend yourself.
AM- Grabbed knife at some point, great instinct.
AM- “I’m tired.” Exactly. Defeated
Mon., Sept. 9, 2013
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
Viewpoints walking exercise: Welcome to the Space.
AM is using and exploring all of the space of the circle.
DT-Great “You know what you have to do”
Tues., Sept. 10, 2013
I confirmed the chair rental today with Sheree from “In any Event” party rental. She’s
giving me a great price (only charging one night instead of two) since I’m a student. Also
reached out to Bill DeYoung of Savannah Connect to try to get a feature or at least a listing for
the show in October. He was in Pride and Prejudice with me so I hope he’ll do me the favor for
publicity.
Rehearsals are going extremely well! Over the weekend, we met twice at my apartment
to begin reading through and working the first scene. We found that while Murphy needs to
relax and stop “performing” or being so “big” (like myself), Thrasher has the opposite issue,
where nothing seems to get a rise out of his character, bordering on dullness or disinterest.
Interestingly, feeding off of each other’s energies while reading began to balance this, bringing
their performance levels closer to a happy medium.
Thrasher has memorized a lot of his first scene already, which is both good and bad.
While I’m thrilled at his preparation, he is not as experience with image structuring and
punctuation, so a lot of the emphases and inflections he memorized have become habitual. We
are slowly breaking these habits together, and the discoveries he is making during rehearsals are
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beautiful to watch. Murphy, I can tell, gets frustrated with herself when the text escapes her.
She will get to a very natural, un-performanc-y state in a beat, really sink into the character and
the moment, then suddenly, a flubbed line or missed cue shocks her back to her nervous habit of
overplaying or indicating. I keep reminding her to relax, see the images, and stop trying to
impress Daniel and me, which helps a lot.
We have clearly established each character’s superobjective (Woman: to escape, Man: to
start over), and throughout rehearsals, I will frequently pause the scene, ask each actor to repeat
his or her superobjective several times, then continue. It is getting them refocused in the middle
of the scenes and helps bring them back to the task at hand. We tried the Miesner/Wainstein
repetition exercise (repeating their objectives to each other before launching into the scene).
We’ve also experimented with different role-playing / altering circumstances exercises,
which I find very useful as an actor and director. These have included meeting for a first date,
preachers at a prayer revival, buyer and seller at a used-car dealership, and children’s entertainers
at a birthday party. These are all aimed at getting the actors to loosen up their interpretations of
and make new discoveries in the text. I also find that occasionally interjecting directions /
coaching during their scenes, like a silent film director, works really well in getting the actors out
of their heads.
Monday we rehearsed in the actual space. The energy was electric. I used a wire to
simulate the boundary of the performance area and the actors came alive as soon as they “entered
the ring.” They were in touch with their characters, the text, and each other. It was magical to
watch. I also introduced my “poles of power” exercise, which uses pushing and pulling on a
wooden dowel connecting two actors to physicalize the power struggle between them. The actors
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loved this exercise and made some great discoveries. We then staged the first half of the first
scene. It looks terrific and the rehearsal made me incredibly excited for the rest of the process.
Tues., Sept. 10, 2013
REHEARSAL WITH MS. MURPHY AT SPARETIME
It was a good but difficult rehearsal tonight. Murphy and I worked on her “Cats
monologue” for the first hour, and though it was tiresome, we made some great progress. I first
asked her to tell me about her day. I then had her distill what she had just told me into only five
distinct images. Now, I had her retell her day through these images. The narrative was
obviously much clearer and focused this time. Now we were ready to attack the Cats
monologue.
We went through, line by line, and answered which of the Five W and One H questions
was being responded to (who, what, where, when, why, how). Once we did that, Murphy was
able to recreate the monologue as a sequence of answers to W and H questions, rather than just a
chunky paragraph of text. She loved how this helped her tackle the meaning of the monologue,
and indeed, it helped her clarify the images and storytelling. I also asked her to identify actual
herbs, flowers, and berries for each of the “what can heal, what can kill…” images. She could
now refer to actual images rather than abstract concepts.
We then had some difficulty working on the “Mumbo Jumbo Magic Spells” monologue.
I’ve been trying to find a way to get her worked into the hysteria necessary to stop thinking so
much and delivering the monologue as a clever argument, which it is not. It needs to be an
emotional eruption, an outpouring of the built-up pain her husband has inflicted on her. So we
started with an Improv, where I was a judge or magistrate deciding on her fate in Heaven,
Purgatory, or Hell, purposefully harsh and uncaring. She had to defend herself and prove it was
not her fault she did what she did. After working her up into a fairly emotional and vulnerable
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state, we launched into the monologue. It was powerful, but still slower and more methodical
than I’d hoped.
I then placed the artificial construct that she could only breathe twice during the
monologue, trying to erase all the pauses and thinking going on. This was ineffective, as
Murphy is a well-trained vocalist, and breathes with her text. So I tried the opposite, instructing
her to gasp a full breath before each sentence, trying to introduce a state of hysteria artificially
through breathing. This also failed, and only simulated hyperventilation. We then sat down and
really concentrated on internalizing the images she was describing and just how horrible they
were. She made some discoveries here, but I could see she was getting tired and frustrated, so
we took a break and I decided to leave this piece for a while.
We then moved to the darkest, most intense monologue of the play: the killing of the
children. Surprisingly, this turned out to be the easiest monologue of all. We both agreed that
not only is it the best written of the show, but also it really gets to the heart of her character and
is the simplest (though most gruesome) imagery to visualize. The only thing I added, when we
did it again, was handing her the knife. All of the imagery dealing with the children I asked her
to deliver to the knife, while every image of the husband had to be delivered to the exit door. We
both discovered through this exercise what an interruption the husband was on this most intimate
maternal moment between the woman and her children.
Wed., Sept. 11, 2013
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
This evening was a fantastic rehearsal. We ran thru the staged half of the first scene and
then picked up where we left off with the staging: at the Cats monologue. Even from yesterday,
there was significantly more connection with the imagery, which Murphy agreed was largely due
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to moving around the space and visualizing the cats around her. We kept going and had to put a
lot of work into the role-playing beat. I really wanted to choreograph the blocking here, as I
explained to the actors, “If we were in Musical Theatre, this section would be a song.” We
finally reached a good point with it where everyone was feeling good.
We then plowed through to the end of the of the scene. Murphy actually made a very
powerful choice to stay seated at the table for the retelling of killing her children, which I’d
originally imagined differently. I loved it though, and allowed Thrasher to decide when his
character was repulsed enough by her imagery to get up and walk away from the table. It was a
magical moment, when the actors were completely on each other’s wavelengths and invested in
one another. Meisner would be proud. After a quick break, we moved onto the second scene.
Thrasher was very excited to play his “character,” having hit upon his wily, weaseling nature (I’d
use the Yiddish term Nebbish, but weasel works fine for him). Murphy decided to make the
interrogator almost robotic, which we discovered created a terrific awkwardness and edginess for
the Man.
I am so impressed with my actors and how well they are handling this incredibly dark
subject matter. The space seems really to be inspiring them too.
Thurs., Sept. 12, 2013 (three weeks till open)
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
We started tonight with some basic Viewpoints work. Ms. Beard-Kitowski and I
participated to increase the ensemble number to four. We started by walking around the entire
space of the room, exploring the architecture, levels, colors, and sounds of the space. We then
shrank to the circular space of the stage. We walked around the circle, aware of the space
between each person (attempting soft focus) and the shapes of our own bodies as we walked. I
introduced the option to walk to the center or jump, stipulating if we sensed someone doing
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either, everyone had to do so simultaneously. We didn’t spend too long on these exercises, as we
discovered Viewpoints is difficult with only four participants.
We then picked up with staging the second scene, which went very smoothly. We
discovered some really profound parallels through the staging between Scenes One and Two.
Fri., Sept. 13, 2013
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
The parallels we discovered last night reminded me to bring up Nabokov’s description of
the Hegelian Triad and the spiral/circle image with the actors. We all agreed that we’d
discovered the relationship between the Thetic and Antithetic this week, and were about to dive
into the Synthetic this evening.
We proceeded to stage the final scene. Not only did we all feel wonderful for finishing
the show, but more importantly, the moments of Scene Three are incredibly powerful. I’m so
grateful for these actors who’ve made this such an organic process. In other news, I ordered the
white masks for the “Chorus” today from Party City.
Mon., Sept. 16, 2013
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
Mr. Thrasher came in this evening and said he keeps coming back to the Mac Wellman
quote I gave the actors two weeks ago about not sampling an entire meal in one bite and how
much it is helping him. I was thrilled. I then had the actors do an exercise to discover and
isolate their characters’ walks. This helped both actors get more grounded physically. We then
worked through the first scene. Thrasher especially has done a great job of getting off-book.
Both he and Murphy gave a good sense of the objectives in this scene, I just have to attempt to
keep Thrasher from downward inflecting, taking too many pauses, and dropping energy.
Murphy and I made an amazing discovery about the Sun section of the Cats monologue,
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regarding “giving” and “gifts.” It illuminated so much of the subtext behind this monologue for
both of us.
In other news, I printed the show posters today and began distributing them.
Wed., Sept. 18, 2013
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
Today we started off with Michael Chekhov’s “Psychological Gesture” exercise.
Murphy, who had done this work in previous shows, really went for it and explored different
shapes. Thrasher had to become more familiar with the exercise but made an excellent discovery
about the “not-so-straightforwardness” of his Superobjective through his psychological gesture.
We then worked through the second scene, and Murphy and I discovered that “Good Cop
Bad Cop” might be a better analogy for her for this scene than the awkward “Fem-bot” she’d
created last week. Again, I’m trying to keep Thrasher focused on his Superobjective and the
constantly high stakes of the given circumstances in order to keep his energy and the scene’s
momentum up.
Thurs., Sept. 19, 2013 (two weeks to open)
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
I had an interview with Bill DeYoung of Savannah Connect this afternoon. We had a
great conversation and he’s putting a feature about Purgatorio in next week’s issue, so the first
thing we did tonight was take a few publicity/promo shots in costume for the paper.
I then had the actors do the hardest, most intense exercise we’ve done so far. I explained
Meyerhold’s BioMechanics and the “Stringing the Bow” exercise. Then I asked the actors to
physically act out the pivotal scene of the characters’ backstory: the murdering of the two
children. Woman explains it took five minutes to kill her eldest son, while her husband was
locked out of the room banging on the door. So I had Murphy sit on the stage, put Thrasher in a
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bathroom behind a closed door, and then Ms. Beard-Kitowski and I left the space, leaving the
two actors to reenact the physical (and emotional) process of the murder for five minutes. When
we came back, Murphy was in tears and Thrasher was extremely quiet. We took a while to
decompress and talk about what they’d discovered and both actors agreed it was one of the most
powerful and useful exercises they’d ever done.
We then began working through Scene Three and both actors were having difficult
getting into the moment. Things finally picked up a little, but I could tell something was wrong.
Thrasher explained he was completely drained from the exercise and didn’t want to do anything,
which I could certainly understand (though it wasn’t the outcome I’d anticipated). I could also
tell the actors were getting frustrated at not being off-book yet. So we finished the scene and I
ended rehearsal early. I wanted everyone to get some rest and personal time since we’d done
great work this week. I also cancelled tomorrow night’s rehearsal. I’d rather the actors spend
the time learning their lines and feeling confident in themselves than trying to run the show with
scripts in hand.
Mon., Sept. 23, 2013
REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
I began this evening by explaining my (and Suzuki’s) notion of this being a “sacred
space”—How the actors could trust each other, themselves, and me in this space—How we could
leave our everyday lives outside this room and create Art.
Meanwhile, Schenning set up our glass vases around the perimeter of the circle. They
look incredible; I am so impressed.
We then began our first full run-thru (stumble-thru). It went surprisingly well. They got
through it, which most impressed me. Thrasher was completely off-book and Murphy needed
her script for the second half of the second and third scenes. IT was great for the actors to feel
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the continuity of the complete arcs of their characters. I gave a copious amount of notes after the
run, but was very pleased. I am still having issues getting Thrasher’s stakes, urgency, and
intensity up, but I think this will come with time.
Wed., Sept. 25, 2013
ADVISOR REHEARSAL AT SPARETIME
My three advisors came today to see our second run-thru. I was incredibly proud of my
actors, knowing how nerve-wracking it is to have your professors in the audience. Both made it
through the run completely off-book. Though I could tell they were nervous, I was very happy
with how well they did. I had several repeat notes for Thrasher, who’s energy was still very low,
and Murphy lost a lot of her nuance due to nerves. But we got the run-time down to 75 minutes,
so I was thrilled with the pacing.
Chatting with the advisors afterwards was extremely eye-opening. They all had plenty of
notes, and were, in general, not very moved by what they had just seen. But their comments
were all extremely constructive and helpful. I boiled the sum of their guidance into three main
issues:
1) We were missing the characters of Medea and Jason
2) Objectives and tactical palettes were very foggy/mushy due to a lack of beat work.
3) There was a lack of stakes—the actors don’t seem to care what’s going on, so why
should we (the audience)
I completely understand where these critiques/observations were coming from, and we agreed
that I am where I should be right now, but need to push myself and take risks as a director. What
I’ve done so far is successfully create a very safe (i.e., boring) show. Now I need to push and
grow, and get down and dirty. We also agreed we should do no more run-thrus till Tech Week.
We need to do the beat/moment-to-moment work now.
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Thurs., Sept. 26, 2013 (one week till opening)
REHEARSAL AT CRITES
Today we met in Crites Hall instead of the Sparetime. I want to liberate the actors for the
next three days from all notions of “getting the staging right.” I just want us to focus on the text,
imagery, objectives, and character.
I began rehearsal by having the actors read aloud the climactic final confrontation in
Euripides’ Medea. From this heated fight, the last moment Jason and Medea encountered one
another in life, we launched into working the first scene. I stopped the actors frequently, almost
at each beat change, asking them to identify specific objectives and tactics. This was especially
difficult for Thrasher, who was not as experienced with objective beat work. But the results
were transformational. Just by solidifying the beat work, as my advisor Professor Wainstein had
suggested, the stakes were rising. I also encouraged Murphy, in this first scene, to take the risk
of playing a more fiery Medea rather than the exhausted Woman we had been working on.
Additionally, I motivated the Man (Thrasher) to find more vengeful and vindictive objectives,
rather than impartial, passive ones.
Suddenly, we began seeing Medea and Jason, and I could tell the power of the text and
objectives was building.
At one point during the role-playing beat, I stepped in and we did a breathing exercise
with Thrasher. I held my hands on his diaphragm and lower back and instructed him to breathe
at every punctuation mark. Once he adjusted to the oddness of the exercise, he took off like a
racehorse out of the gate. It was incredible. Afterwards, he said his skin was tingling from the
experience. I explained we had literally lit a fire inside him and the breathing was feeding
oxygen to the flame. We all left the rehearsal feeling extremely optimistic and positive.
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Fri., Sept. 27, 2013
REHEARSAL AT CRITES
Today we started with the psychological gesture exercise to warm our bodies up. We
then launched into working the second scene. Again, I did a lot of starting and stopping, asking
about objectives. We spent a lot of time exploring tactical palette and punctuation with
Thrasher. And for Murphy, as the Interrogator, we explored the “pleasant lady” not having to
push, just floating through the text. A Stepford Wife and Queen Elizabeth II proved useful
images for her.
It was a tiring and exhausting process, but we all agreed it was a very worthwhile,
discovery-laden rehearsal. We’re all getting down and dirty and loving the results. Specifically,
I realized that Thrasher’s “Jumping” monologue is his strongest moment, consistently, of
character, stakes, and objective. So I suggested that might be a good warm-up for him in the
future.
Sun., Sept. 29, 2013
REHEARSAL AT CRITES
Today was our last rehearsal before Tech Week. I wanted to start by going through the
second scene that we’d worked Friday night before tackling the final scene. We first did a
Meisner repetition exercise of the strongest character lines from the second scene. Then we
started going through the scene.
It was difficult for the actors to get into the scene. Murphy seemed forced and Thrasher
lacked energy. As they warmed into it, things got better, as usual. Then, as Thrasher was going
through the Vase monologue, I suddenly realized the true subtext behind this difficult
monologue, which we had up until that point mistakenly assumed was similar to the Woman’s
emotional synecdoche in the Cats monologue. I realized that the entire monologue is a sappy
and contrived performance to demonstrate how “contrite” the Man has become—how much he
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has supposedly changed. The important part of the monologue is not the vase section in the
beginning, but the “pity” section where he visits his dying grandmother at the end. The vase
portion is just the “set-up,” showing what a rotten kid he used to be, for the “punchline,” where
he dramatically realizes the error of his ways and wants to say how sorry he was for his actions.
It’s all a performance to fool/impress the Interrogator, and so the tactics used should reflect as
much. We experimented with pushing the Man’s tactics over-the-top on this section (I used the
phrase daytime-Emmy-worthy soap opera acting at one point) and it finally clicked. We had
finally figured out how to fit this odd made-up story into the context of the Man’s psychological
arc, and Thrasher was thrilled to be able to have more “fun” with it.
In the third scene, we took a lot of time to allow Murphy to visualize the murdering of the
children and re-experience it each time she referred to the scene. This was emotionally difficult,
but an important allowance. As a result, even Thrasher was moved to tears and vocal instability
when he attempted to order the Woman to “kneel” after she breaks down (“I’m so sorry. I’m
so…”). This was the down and dirty work, the risk-taking that Professor Majkowski had
prescribed for us, and it was obviously necessary.
Mon., Sept. 30, 2013
TECH WEEK: LOAD IN AND FIRST RUN
Tonight was the first night of “Tech,” and our first rehearsal back in the space since the
advisor run last Wednesday. Schenning, Beard-Kitowski, and I spent the first hour loading in
our set while the actors did an “Italian” speed-thru to make sure they felt comfortable about the
lines. I then welcomed the actors back to the “Sacred Space” and encouraged them to think of
tonight not as a run-thru but a rediscovery of our space—a chance to integrate the incredibly
difficult moment-to-moment beat work we’d explored for the last three days into the staging of
the play.
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And they did just that. The tech run went very smoothly, but I was glad to see the actors
being malleable and allowing themselves the luxury of re-discovering each moment and their
personal relationships to the space.
I’ve always said, “I’m a firm believer in the magic of Tech Week.” And true to form,
with Schenning’s lights and my costumes, the actors felt transformed—the show was becoming
real and tangible for them, which even further connected them with the characters and text.
Tues., Oct. 1, 2013
TECH WEEK: INVITED DRESS REHEARSAL
Tonight was our first invited audience, consisting of five peers who wouldn’t be able to
see the performances Thursday or Friday night. I strategically placed them in chairs spread
around the room so that each person saw the run-thru from a different angle. I also explained to
them in my pre-show speech that they were only witnessing “half” of the production, since
seeing the audience on the other side of the circle is an important aspect of theatre in the round.
The actors were terrific, especially considering all the noisy distractions facing them
(there was a very loud party in the bar downstairs and motorcycles sputtering up and down
Congress St.). Thrasher especially seemed to have a fire ignited in him, perhaps due to having
an audience. Murphy fed beautifully off this energy and the two of them were quite the dynamic
duo by the end of the show. One thing that may have influenced this was that our colleague
Stephen Glen Diehl, a fellow student, spent the entire invited preview texting on his cell phone,
sitting in full view of the actors and other guests. It was infuriating for me to watch, and as I
learned afterward, enraged the actors as well. I gave them full permission in subsequent shows
to pause the show and address an audience member directly if he or she is similarly disrespectful.
Wed., Oct. 2, 2013
TECH WEEK: FINAL DRESS/INVITED PREVIEW
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Tonight was the Final Dress Rehearsal. Like last night, we had several invited guests
watch the run tonight. The show went very smoothly, though admittedly the first scene was
lagging in energy, focus, and objectives. The Cats monologue especially was all over the place,
and Thrasher’s pregnant pauses were killing momentum. But the second scene picked up
tremendously and by the time the third scene rolled around, the actors were truly in stride. For
Murphy, something clicked and she became a force of fury to be reckoned with. She was “on
fire” (ironically when talking about burning the “whore who stole her man.”) Afterwards,
Murphy admitted she felt as if she’d been tremoring for the last thirty minutes. Our invited
audience members were extremely receptive, especially April Hayes and Rebecca Gomberg.
Ms. Hayes even said to me after the run that she still had chills from what she saw and now
wanted to read the original Medea (which obviously helps prove my thesis).
Thurs., Oct. 3, 2013
OPENING NIGHT
The chair rental arrived at 2:30 PM today. As I unfolded and arranged the chairs around
the performance space, I was dismayed to see they were cheaper-looking than the ones pictured
online (which I’d thought I was ordering). I didn’t mind in terms of the chairs for the audience,
but I was disappointed because Schenning and I had opted to make the two chairs at the
interrogation table the same rental chairs, and these cheap plastic chairs did not live up to the
aesthetic of the rest of the set.
When the actors arrived, I let them do their own physical and vocal warm-ups. Then I
had them run through their respective “character building” monologues (“Cats” and “Jumping”)
but simultaneously, so they had to tune each other (distractions) out and really focus on
internalizing the text. Afterwards, we gathered together in a tight circle. I had the actors turn
out, facing the chairs, and mentally expand our “Sacred Space” to include the rows of chairs and
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all the new audience members who would be joining us these two nights. I gave them a pleasant
farewell speech, handing the show over to them, and then sang my original inspiration for doing
this show, “I Will Give” from LaChiusa’s Marie Christine.
We had forty-five audience members tonight. The actors did great. They were
committed, energized, and grounded. The audience responded much better than I predicted,
following the text and action and hanging on the actors’ words. I was especially and pleasantly
surprised by three complete strangers who arrived late and sat next to me. They looked like they
had mistakenly come (this didn’t seem to be what they were expecting), but they watched the
whole show, laughed at the jokes, and reacted violently (as when the surprise ending occurs in a
horror or suspense film) when the third scene started and they realized the Man and Woman were
the same characters throughout the play and stuck with each other forever. Like Ms. Hayes,
these three “made a wrong turn at Albuquerque” strangers are very helpful in proving that this
production was able to engage modern audiences in classical adaptation. I was very proud of the
entire evening.
Fri., Oct. 4, 2013
CLOSING NIGHT
The actors were much less nervous tonight, understandably. Unfortunately, especially for
Thrasher, this took some of the stakes, drive, and energy out of the performance. I think he felt a
little too comfortable. By the third scene, both of the actors were fired up again, but even the
large house (seventy-one people) couldn’t motivate them to the energy of the opening night. It
was still a clean show, however, and the audience was very responsive again.
Overall, I was very pleased with the entire production. We took some production shots
after the show and agreed that Schenning and I would strike the set the next day after the rental
company came to pick up the chairs.
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APPENDIX F: DIRECTOR’S PRODUCTION SCRIPT EXCERPT
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APPENDIX G: SET RENDERING AND LAYOUT
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APPENDIX H: PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release:
Purgatorio
by Ariel Dorfman
Directed and Produced by Alexander Nathan
Starring Amaya Murphy and Daniel Thrasher
Oct 3-4, 2013 at 7:30 pm
The Sparetime (2nd Floor)
36 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd
Savannah, GA 31401
Free admission
Duration: 60 min.
If "Hell is other people," as Sartre said, who would your tormentor be? This is one of the
questions acclaimed Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman asks us in his scorching drama,
Purgatorio. Set in the afterlife, this two-person tour-de-force places two former lovers, vaguely
reminiscent of Medea and Jason from ancient Greek mythology, within the confines of a cell in
Purgatory. Through day after day and year after of searing interrogation, they both realize that
their only hope of redemption, escape, and rebirth is through remorse, understanding, and
forgiveness.
Though written in 2005, Purgatorio draws from three main classical sources: Euripides' Medea,
Dante's The Divine Comedy, and Sartre's No Exit. "Even though it's extremely modern in style,"
says award-winning director Alexander Nathan, who is producing "Purgatorio" as his Graduate
Thesis Production in partial completion of his MFA in Performing Arts from SCAD, "this
adaptation has such a rich dramaturgy and lots of room for creativity." In fact, the main
production concept he and set designer Chris Schenning have created is that the play will be
performed completely "in the round," with audience members surrounding the actors' playing
space. "Working in the round is a terrifying experience," Nathan admits, "but it is also
exhilarating, for both actor and audience, and electrifies the energy of the play."
Savannah audiences should be familiar with the work of the talented stars of the play as well.
Ms. Amaya Murphy, last seen in Agnes of God and The Three Musketeers and Mr. Daniel
Thrasher, who was featured in last Spring's She Kills Monsters, both bring incredible experience
and enthusiasm to the production. Both agree the power of Dorfman's script attracted them to
this project. For Murphy especially, who had worked with Nathan previously both as a director
and fellow actor, the chance to sink her teeth into the meaty role of Medea in such an intimate
staging was not to be missed.
Purgatorio runs only two nights, Thursday, Oct 3 and Friday, Oct 4, at 7:30 pm. The
performances will take place in the second floor event space at the bar The Sparetime, on the
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corner of MLK and Congress St. (36 MLK Blvd, Savannah, GA 31401). Admission is free to
the public, but seating will be limited. The performances should run about 60 minutes. For more
information, please visit: scadpurgatorio.blogspot.com.
Purgatorio by Ariel Dorfman is presented through special arrangement with Samuel French,
Inc.
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APPENDIX I: CONNECT SAVANNAH ARTICLE
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APPENDIX J: PROMOTIONAL/REHEARSAL PHOTOS
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APPENDIX K: POSTER
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APPENDIX L: PERFORMANCE PROGRAM
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APPENDIX M: PRODUCTION PHOTOS
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APPENDIX N: PERFORMANCE VIDEO
The Friday, October 4th performance was recorded for archival purposes.
A DVD hardcopy of the recording has been submitted to Savannah College of Art and Design’s
Office of Graduate Studies as a supplement to this thesis.