Lynn vs. Bertolt, or What on Earth Do We Do With This War?

Lynn Nottage grew up in Brooklyn, recently won the Pulitzer Prize for her play "Ruined," and is insanely articulate. No, really. Like you wouldn't believe how smart and funny. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since "Intimate Apparel" is one of my top three favorite plays from the semester, but I'm rather blown away.

For instance, here's a link to an interview she did before "Ruined" even had a set title, in which she tells vomit-on-the-bus stories and talks about her experiences in Africa, doing research for the play. (She also talks a bit about how she started writing "Intimate Apparel," and the impetus for that play makes me look at it in an entirely new light.)

http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/Oct05/nottage.cfm

I want to take her out for a cup of coffee, get her talking, and turn on a tape recorder and soak up the intelligence.

There's this too, from the current production's website:

http://www.mtc-nyc.org/current-season/ruined/video1.htm

For the first half, her voice runs over video from the play, which is marvelous to see - I just wish I could hear some of the dialogue! The second half is my favorite part, though - it's a more straightforward interview with her. And one of the things she talks about hearkens right back to the beginning concept of "Ruined" as a version of "Mother Courage." But what Nottage says is that in fact, distance is exactly what we DON'T need for this subject, that we have to confront it, that we can't allow ourselves the luxury of stepping back.

She goes into more depth here in this video, which also features the actress who plays Mama Nadi:



It's just fascinating to listen to her talk. I have a feeling I could sit and listen for a long time.

How to Keep Secrets and Alienate People

The website for "August: Osage County" on Broadway has done me a tremendous favor. It has two clips from sections of the play posted in the "scrapbook" link over on the lefthand side of the page:

http://www.augustonbroadway.com/home.php

The "scrapbook" link is wonderful in general - the photos are marvelous. The photos of Estelle Parsons as Violet remind me of Judi Dench, in a very strange and fantastic way. And I especially like the photo, near the end of the photo chain, of Karen, Steve, and Jean, where Karen has bright red hair and couldn't look more tragically desperate and willfully clueless if she tried. But the clips are my favorite part.

Especially the third and last, the scene where Violet and Mattie Fae are arguing over whether or not older women are sexy. And Violet says, "Wouldn't we be better off, all of us, if we stopped lying about these things and told the truth?" Of course she's talking at that moment about her stance that older women aren't sexy. But of course, the line also means that there are secrets hidden within the family that no one's bringing up. I'm not sure if she's right, if revealing those secrets would make everything better (after all, Karen still stays with Steve even after she finds out what kind of person he really is). But certainly keeping the secrets for as long as they all have has led the Westons to the place they're at now.

Another great thing is that the way the set is designed, the play can preserve those secrets from the family while at the same time showing them to the audience. Like this one, for instance:



Everyone's onstage, all these different levels. And everyone's got something shielding them from everyone else. Ivy's hiding behind the table; Mattie Fae and Charlie have the couch between them; Karen and Steve have retreated to the alcove where it's harder to see them from the living room. And Violet and Barbara, of course, are upstairs, where only the audience can see. That really is a secret - that's not going to come out until they raise the issue.

And because they've all got these secrets, because they're all hiding behind something, there's a real distance to that photo that I think mirrors perfectly the distance in every relationship in that family. The secrets are the real barriers - the table and couch and second floor are just stand-ins for what's really creating the distance. And at this point in the family's life, it's too late to change things. The barriers can't be breached - even when they tell the truth, it only creates more distance and more hate and (think of Ivy and Little Charles) more secrets to be kept, or to reveal and destroy something in the revealing.

How I Learned What Not to Film

I was all set to write about something strange and interesting. I love "How I Learned to Drive" - I think it's one of my favorite plays from the whole semester. And I think that's why I got so angry when I poked around on YouTube and found this.



It is not the only one of its ilk, either. Lots of college students apparently love using this play for their projects. Which is understandable - it's a great play. But it's also very clearly a PLAY. As in, it comes equipped with a neon sign that flashes, "DO NOT TAKE THIS OUT OF A THEATER!" How are you going to do that last scene with Peck and Li'l Bit and the Teenage Greek Chorus in a filmed project? How are you going to handle the monologues? How do you do the timeline jumps and maintain our connection to Li'l Bit as narrator?

The answer, of course, is that you don't. You do scenes, clips, invariably ones that don't have monologues or require the actress playing Li'l Bit to do any of the calisthenics that that role demands. And when you do a filmed version, you decide that the Greek Choruses don't work, so you cast age-appropriate people. Which in fact does not work as well as the Choruses. Take a look at this. It's a promo for a production, and I think it makes Uncle Peck unappealing, but the scene in the middle with Li'l Bit and the Female Choruses proves beyond a doubt that that trick works wonders.



What, exactly, is accomplished by making the Choruses into characters? Well, for one thing, you lose a lot of the play's theatricality and whimsy, which is crucial to maintaining the dark humor of the play. The filmed scene also moves a lot more slowly than the stage scenes. You can almost hear the director saying, "More intense, more emotional, more serious." I think going overboard on that is a betrayal of the play's very theatrical ethic. If you're going to film the play, FILM THE PLAY. Use the Choruses, use the same actress as Li'l Bit all the way through, and find a way to make it work.

Because teenage Li'l Bit, as played by a teenager, is unsympathetic and obnoxious as all hell. At least in that clip, there's no build, nowhere for her to go. She starts angry and angsty, and she ends angry and angsty with a brief overdose of uberangst in the last scene with Uncle Peck (who I rather like in that filmed section). If we had an adult actress, we'd have the same distance as with the Choruses, that allows us to get the humor in a grown woman playing a furious teenager. A college student playing a furious teenager is kind of annoying (especially since she's so close to Li'l Bit's age at that moment in time, but doesn't seem to have much sympathy for her herself).

Again: this is a play for a reason. Make use of those reasons - make them work for you, or recognize that it's hard to translate something so theatrical into film and leave it alone. But don't treat it like a realistic drama. "A Doll's House" would work fantastically as a movie. Even something as wild as "Six Characters in Search of an Author" might be fun onscreen. But when you're dealing with the kind of conscious theatre that defines "How I Learned to Drive" - that in fact makes it possible for that play to move us and make us laugh at the same time - it might even be untranslatable to film. Unquestionably its biggest impact is onstage.

Not "Very Steven Spielberg"?!

OMG! This is not cool! Something must be done to fix this!

The HBO "Angels in America" cut out Prior's last line - "Very Steven Spielberg." And I am not happy. Here's the clip, which I actually do like a lot, which is a great entrance, which is tragically missing one of the quirkiest lines in the play.



Cool, huh? Prior's defiance before the Angel starts to show up is great, and the havoc they wreak with the room is hilarious and terrifying, and the Angel is wild, and the effects are fun, and...

Well, it's very Steven Spielberg. Except NOT, because that LINE is missing.

As are the strings, the mechanics, which Kushner specifically states that he wants shown. I love the Angel floating in midair, but why exactly couldn't they show the cables keeping her there? The CGI lights are really neat, but isn't Emma Thompson imposing enough on her own?

And WHAT (seriously) is with the music? That's actually what irks me the most. I don't want a rousing hallelujah when the Angel appears. I want to be thrilled and freaked out and completely at a loss as to what this means. Prior's terrified, and if we're not with him, then we're not getting something. And I would argue that the music in fact takes us away from him. It comforts us, it lets us know that there's a reason, a plan, no need to be afraid.

But we SHOULD be afraid! We should be trembling, we should be fascinated, we should be curious and scared out of our skins. I'm not. I'm very impressed with the effects and the angles and the two actors, but I'm not THERE, and I'm not scared.

How about this, instead?



Now that freaks me out. In a truly awesome, truly stage-y way. Prior's backing up into us - physically, he's oriented to be in an audience's world. The Angel is there all right, but you can't see her clearly through the fog, so she's this inexplicable being dominating the whole stage without letting us see her or "get" her. There are the lights, there's the wire. Even Prior's bed looks like some interestingly-painted acting blocks. This is a play. No effects, all mechanics. I like this a lot better.

And what am I getting at exactly with this purist "show the strings" insistence? Well, here's Harper's Antarctica monologue. It looks to me like an actress and her friend got together and filmed this. Except she's very good, and because I'm assuming there was no budget to speak of, they can't help but show the strings. And it works really, really well.



The T-shirt, the bare feet, the empty walls, the light socket in the corner, the tiny clicking sounds as the camera shifts position - those are the strings here. You can't hide them, and they very wisely didn't even try. Instead they let the play speak for itself. They concentrated on the words, on the acting, on what was being said and felt. No effects. Just the play. And I think it comes off well. I think this play is one that really rewards time spent on the play proper. There's so much going on, and if it can come across so well in six and a half minutes of well-prepped home video...why do we need the effects?

Honestly, I don't think we do.