A recommendation

I had heard good things about the Adobe Theatre here on the north end of Albuquerque but never yet attended a production. Last night Bill and I saw their performance of George Bernard Shaw's Candida. It was definitely worth a night on the town with a toothache (thanks be for analgesics).

We were spoiled by the intimate venues of the Aurora Theatre and Shotgun Players in the East Bay and by the quality of productions by those companies plus the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the California Shakespeare Company. The intimate nature of the Vortex Theatre has always made me feel at home. So does the Adobe Theatre which is both intimate and has comfortable seating.

But the play's the thing. Aurora put on one play by Shaw every season so we had grown accustomed to his wordy but always fascinating dramas. I looked forward to this and was not disappointed.

The set was very appropriate and well done and the staging seemed to flow seamlessly. The acting was first-rate with a nice sense of ensemble performance. As with true classics, the issues seemed relevant to our own day. It was an absolute treat. Bill feels motivated to get his hands on the text and read it so he can savor what we heard last night.

This is not a true review and I pray y'all's indulgence for that but it is a hearty recommendation.

So, if you are in the Albuquerque area, consider heading over to the Adobe Theatre. Candida will be playing Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays through October 10. More information at their main site.

--the BB

This is not a theatre review

This is really more about me.

I went with friends to see Anton Checkov's The Three Sisters at the Vortex Theatre this evening.

The set and costumes were good. The blocking was good, the directing and acting quite good. The many characters were well delineated. I did not have that conscious awareness that I was watching actors performing that one experiences when the acting is not so good. In other words, I think it was a top notch production.

And I left at intermission.

That is not a judgment on the production.

A primary criterion in my response to plays and movies is whether I care about the characters and what happens to them. Love them, hate them, be amused by them, feel compassion, feel anger... no matter; do I care? Do I want to see what happens?

And tonight I did not. About two-thirds of the way through the first act I was ready to go home but I waited until intermission after the second act. In a telling parallel, I also left years ago during the intermission of Waiting for Godot at The Berkeley Rep. Excellent production then as well but (1) in that case I had read the play when studying 20th century French drama in college and (2) I had more than enough. I knew nothing would happen in the second half. In the instance of tonight's play, I did not care what happens in the second half.

As I said, this is really more about me and what engages me or does not. Give me Greek tragedy or Shakespeare, thanks.

I believe it is also a testament to Checkov's success in expressing the claustrophobic frustration of people trapped in unfulfilling lives. The characters are bored, struggling, and making no progress toward a happier life. I felt incredibly claustrophobic. Physically there was a set with many characters crowded into it and I was not sitting in the front row where I usually sit and can stretch my legs. But it is the emotional claustrophobia of the characters in their situation the connected solidly. They were not getting out of their situation. I had a choice, and I exercised it.

So this is being written while the third and fourth acts are being performed. I congratulate the actors, the director, and the Vortex for doing a good job. And I want to share some of the director's notes.

Denise Schultz writes:

As a pompous undergraduate student in the late 1960's, I hated Anton Checkov's plays. When asked to read these scripts, I groaned... they were boring, pretentious and were irreverent [irrelevant?] to the world I existed in.

She goes on to describe a transformative experience of The Three Sisters and concludes:

I became and still am a lover of Checkov's musical language, breathing characters, and his dynamic ability to tell a remarkable story. Either Checkov or I grew up. I am assuming it was me.

Though I prefer the slower pacing of European cinema to the rushed pace of Hollywood, I guess I have not yet matured with respect to Checkov.

I am much happier at home right now and, blessedly, much happier with my life than the poor folks in the play.

Sorry, Mimi, I know you loves you some Checkov.

For Checkov lovers in New Mexico, there is a good production at the Vortex through May 30.

--the BB

Μήδεια

I cannot imagine a greater heartache than burying one’s own child. I have known friends and parishioners faced with this horror. The grief is overpowering. Words fail. We all recoil at the thought of something that seems to violate the order of nature. We are supposed to bury our parents, not the other way around.

The myth of Medea takes us beyond that horror to a greater one: the tale of a woman who kills her own children. Everything about this is just not right.

One must approach with caution. Medea's nurse warns us, wishing things were not as they are.

If only they had never gone! If the Argo’s hull
Never had winged out through the grey-blue jaws of rock
And on towards Colchis! If that pine on Pelion’s slopes
Had never felt the axe, and fallen, to put oars
Into those heroes’ hands, who went at Pelias’ bidding
To fetch the golden fleece!

The ancient Greeks did not spare themselves tales of such horror and we, in the postmodern era, turn to classical Greek tragedy to plumb the psychological depths of human pride and folly, betrayal and revenge, terror and madness. It is difficult to beat the purge of a well-performed classic. We watch people in extreme situations, victims of their own character and the whims of the gods, marching inexorably toward destruction... and see ourselves.

Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides - these amazing dramatists spin out mythic tales and catch us up in timeless human drama. It is not unusual to feel wrung out like a dishrag at the end of one of their plays.

Readers of this blog know I love Greek drama and catch it at every opportunity.

Euripides' Medea is currently playing at the Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque. Some friends and I caught it last Friday evening. The ancient Greeks and the modern actors and director spun the timeless magic. Wow.

The immediately noticeable thing is that they played it straight. I had pulled off the shelf my copy of the Penguin Classics containing this play, a copy printed in 1983, with yellowing pages, some of which fell loose as I opened the book and read. I managed to read most of the play over the course of lunch and while waiting for my friends before dinner. It is the Philip Vellacott translation. The program notes say this production was based on a new translation by Robin Robertson, 2008. You could have fooled me as it sounded exactly as I had read it earlier that day.

Even as the Nurse began her opening lines I realized this production was faithful to the original. Over the course of the performance I could also tell they had not mucked around with the text. The play was not transposed to modern times. Costumes evoked ancient Greece. Lines that jar modern sensibilities were left intact. This was not a modern adaptation, a clever resetting of the tale in some other place and time, or Robinson Jeffers' retelling; it was pure Euripides and we were back in 431 BCE when it was first performed in Athens.

We were also, of course, in a nightmare landscape of our own souls where things like this take place, or might take place, which the gods forbid.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The cast did a splendid job and one must single out Angela Littleton in the title role. She has the physical and emotional presence to dominate the play. She also managed the challenging task of moving from grief to rage to calculated cunning to madness. Those of us familiar with classical mythology know where this tale is headed yet we wait with anticipation to see how it will unfold, hoping we can get caught up in it. We are not disappointed.

I will not recount the plot. You may read it at Wikipedia. What I should like to do is ponder factors that struck me.

One is the clash of cultures. Medea is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a Georgian state on the eastern side of the Black Sea. Aeëtes was the son of Helios, the sun god, and a nymph. Medea is thus daughter of a king, granddaughter of a god, and a privileged person in a wealthy kingdom. To the Greeks, however, she was simply a barbarian, the term applied to all non-Greeks. She was considered uncivilized and inferior by definition.

Jason, whose ass she had repeatedly saved while enabling him to steal the Golden Fleece and escape back to Greece, repeatedly informs her how fortunate she is to be in civilized Hellas (Greece). She does not seem impressed by this arrogant assumption of cultural superiority. As a result of the violent wreckage she has left everywhere, all accomplished for love of Jason, they are pretty much exiles living at the mercy of whoever will take them in. This is, to put it bluntly, quite a few steps down the old social ladder for a princess who once lived in luxury.

The Greek hero and his exotic foreign wife exist not only on the border between two cultures but also, it is claimed, on the border between two eras. "Jason, Perseus, Theseus, and above all Heracles, are all "liminal" figures, poised on the threshold between the old world of shamans, chthonic earth deities, and the new Bronze Age Greek ways." [Wikipedia]

Medea, especially, represents an older culture. She is skilled in herbs, perhaps what we might now consider a curandera. Seen through a Greek lens, she is a powerful sorceress. She may use trickery and illusion in some instances, but she also knows which potions to use to accomplish her ends. She is cunning and not to be trusted. One might venture to say she is the patriarchy's worst nightmare, a magical mix of power, intelligence, sexuality, and ability to act without deference to a male social structure. Every fear, and slander, that a Greek male (or a modern Western one) might project on to an independent woman is found in perceptions of Medea.

All the men in this drama are powerless in relation to Medea.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

All this is found in a play that has what, to modern ears, are gratingly misogynistic lines. Thus is is said that "Medea is widely read as a proto-feminist text to the extent that it sympathetically explores the disadvantages of being a woman in a patriarchal society, although it has also been read as an expression of misogynist attitudes." [Wikipedia]

In the opening speech the Nurse says:

...to Jason she is all
Obedience - and in marriage that's the saving thing,
When a wife obediently accepts her husband's will.

Euripides has already set us up since the last thing we will see as the play unfolds is Medea obediently accepting her husband's will, except in deceit as she manipulates him to achieve her ends. The nurse also warns:

She is
A frightening woman; no one who makes an enemy
Of her will carry off an easy victory.

Again and again we will hear obsequious remarks, and deferential ones, suggesting or outright asserting that women are weak, helpless, or meant to stay in their place and be ruled by men. Even Medea uses such words to deceive King Creon or Jason, her husband.

But here is the thing that emerged as I thought about the play in the days following last Friday's performance. Medea may say the acceptable things in her social setting but she will have none of it.

Medea will not let herself be defined, determined, or controlled by the perceptions of anyone else, most especially men in power. She will act as she will act. Further, she will most especially act in a manner to revenge herself on the men who have despised and injured her. There is destruction in her wake from the time she and Jason first meet. She does not care. She will slay, dismember, deceive, poison, and sacrifice to get what she wants. For all this power and self-determination she is left without home, family, husband, or children - because at the end of this play all she wants is revenge on Jason and the cost of that will be destroying the children of her own womb.

Perhaps Euripides only won third prize (of three contestants) that year because the Athenians were not ready for a Medea. What is more, she "gets away with it." She prepares a refuge in Athens through the solemn oaths of its ruler and when Jason's new bride and royal father-in-law have perished horribly and Medea's little boys are dead, she climbs into a chariot drawn by dragons to make good her escape. (Being the Sun's granddaughter has its privileges. This production does not depict the dragon chariot, however.)

Perhaps I am just rambling but I feel Medea's power in our consciousness lies in her larger-than-life aspects that we cannot tidily put into a little box mingled with the very sympathetic reality of her being a woman wronged. She betrayed her own family and abandoned everything for love of Jason and was then cast aside for a trophy wife. No one can witness this tale or know this myth and find Jason to be sympathetic. [Which raises the question why there are so many men these days named Jason.] Then, mixed in with all this, is the infanticide that renders her a monster.

What are we to make of such a formidable, complex, fascinating and terrifying character?

(And the nuns wondered what to do with a problem called Maria.)



The concluding lines, spoken by the Chorus, certainly capture a great life truth.

Many are the Fates which Zeus in Olympus dispenses;
Many matters the gods bring to surprising ends.
The things we thought would happen do not happen;
The unexpected God makes possible;
And such is the conclusion of this story.

Heedful of this, we might be less presumptuous in our plans, allowing that things will not work out as we assume.

How might things turn out if we allow people outside our categories and accept them whether they fit our models or not? How might they turn out if we keep faith with one another? What if we honor the human heart more than we honor power, position, and riches? What if we had not sacrificed everything for a golden fleece?

Kudos to Shepard Sobel for bringing this play to the stage and welcome to Albuquerque! New York's loss is certainly our gain.

Go to the Vortex website to learn more or make reservations. By the time I publish this it will be almost midnight, so I will say tonight (Friday) through Sunday are the last three performances.

--the BB

The nature of feelings

Oedipus and the Sphinx by Ingres
Image via Wikipedia

You call me unfeeling. If you could only see
the nature of your own feelings...
--Teiresias in Oedipus Rex (Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald trans.)

One should encourage the production of Greek tragedies in our day.

I write this as a great lover of the classic Greek tragedies. If one is being performed locally, you are guaranteed my attention and interest. I have witnessed astoundingly moving productions, some elaborate and some done on a shoestring, and astonishingly bad productions. But I am always glad they are being done. There are reasons the classics are classics. They touch primal themes and timeless truths and are never out of date.

At the performances of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Vortex Theatre I spotted a notice that Oedipus was going to be performed at the Auxiliary Dog Theatre. I immediately planned to attend and got my reservations in early.

The tale of Oedipus is a fascinating one - and I speak in pre-Freudian terms here. Oedipus is a man who tries to run from his fate and ends up running headlong toward it. There are constant juxtapositions of opposites, most notably themes of truth, lies, and ambiguity; light and darkness; sight and blindness; order and chaos; salvation and destruction.

The play turns my thoughts to Ατη (Atē), "the spirit (daimona) of delusion, infatuation, blind folly, rash action and reckless impulse who led men down the path to ruin" and to Apollo, the god of truth, knowledge, and light - a ruthless deity, to be sure, as the myths demonstrate.

Oedipus is a great hero to the people of Thebes for he delivered them from the ravages of the Sphinx who prevented travelers from access to the city, devouring them if they could not solve her riddle. Oedipus solved the riddle and the dreaded creature offed herself. This feat wins him the throne of Thebes and its widowed queen. No one is aware at the time that this queen is his mother and she is a widow because he has slain his own father. All this was foretold in prophecies that he and his parents both sought to preclude in vain.

At the beginning of the play, Thebes is suffering once more. Apollo has sent a plague upon the city-state.

A rust consumes the buds and fruits of the earth;
The herds are sick; children die unborn,
And labor is vain. The god of plague and pyre
Raids like detestable lightning through the city,
And all the house of Kadmos is laid waste,
All emptied, and all darkened Death alone
Battens upon the misery of Thebes.

This is divine judgment for harboring the murderer of the former ruler. Oedipus swears to find who it is and render judgment, unaware that he is the parricide, the incestuous one, the polluter of the land.

The starting point is one of misery and desperation from which the viewer hopes to find some relief, though the salvation of Thebes will come at a high price.

One great challenge in watching a play or any artistic performance is measuring it against a truly good past experience. I saw a performance of Oedipus back in 2003 by Shotgun Players in Berkeley. We sat on bleachers and the production was done with a very minimal budget. The lead (Clive Worsley) had injured his ankle the day before and had to play with a swollen foot, necessitating last minute changes in blocking, which the director explained before the play began. I was the one person who laughed, not at the injury but at the pointed mention of "swollen foot" since that is what the name Oedipus means. It was a riveting performance nonetheless and the opening scene of the suppliants was the finest liturgical act I have ever experienced in my life. The seriousness, the desperation, the sacredness of very sound and motion were palpable. My stomach was in knots within the first five minutes. The staging was simply phenomenal.

Let us then take pity on AuxDog when I bring memories like that with me to the performance.

It was good to see the story enacted once more. Sophocles is powerful.

One must single out two of the actors, both playing the roles of older men who do not want to share what they know. Alan Hudson played Tiresias, the blind seer, who could see more than those around him with sight. Hudson captured a sense of a prophet who knows his own power, dignity, and worth and also wants to avoid being dragged into what he knows must unfold. Ominous utterances combine with wordplay as he spars with the king, hoping to say as little as necessary while being bound to the truth that Apollo gives him. The old Theban shepherd is played by Arthur Alpert who seemed truly to inhabit his part, not reciting lines but being the shepherd who had long since fled the terrible secrets and dark fate of the court to live away from the palace in peace. I sank into his skilled performance as one might collapse into a beanbag chair, grateful and luxuriating in comfort. Wynn Rowell's Creon carried dignity and seriousness that fitted the tale as well.

Unfortunately, what I experienced from the beginning and through much of the performance was a sense that the desperate, tragic reality of the story was undercut, which is why I chose the citation at the beginning: "If you could only see the nature of your own feelings."

The performance seemed to lack gravitas, to use an old Latin term for a sober weight and dignity. I heard the lines but I did not feel the emotion that matched the reality of the dramatic situation. The direction and adaptation portrayed Oedipus at the beginning as a sleazy, self-satisfied politician - and there is an element of that in Sophocles' text - but to my mind this seemed to trivialize the whole tale. This shifted from tragedy to a possibly weightier version of tabloid tale and made me uneasy.

"If you could only see the nature of your own feelings."

Many lines that evening felt read, recited, not internalized and embodied. The players knew their lines and did not miss cues, but I sometimes felt as though the horrors of the story were narrated by people who had themselves never suffered or witnessed the truly unspeakable and tragic in their lives. What I am describing is not about the anguished narration overheatedly delivered by the Second Messenger who describes the death of Jocasta and the self-blinding of Oedipus but the whole texture of the piece. I cannot help wondering what might have emerged if cast and director had spend more time pausing to consider WTF is happening here? What is being said?

I suppose that what I yearned for was to truly hear, in the actors' recitation, the emotions that matched the words, and it did not happen with sufficient frequency and consistency.

That, I hope, is a constructive criticism as my desire is for more ventures into the Greek classics, to the enrichment of actors, audiences, and the community as we ponder timeless dilemmas and our human responses to them. I could watch this part of the story knowing that Oedipus finally finds redemption and peace, though n0t in this play.

Thank you, AuxDog, for giving it a go.

--the BB

If you are in New Mexico....

Go see Vortex Theatre's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Seriously.

It's only playing weekends through October 4.

I just came home from seeing it tonight.

If you don't live in New Mexico you may not know that New Mexicans tend to give standing ovations for damn near everything. A perfectly respectable but in no way stunning performance of a symphony, opera, play, or recital brings them to their feet. I live here and am a citizen of New Mexico and happy to be one, but I will always be a Californian, OK? I don't get it. This is one of those things that reminds me I am not from here.

So I resist this behavior. I will happily applaud to show my appreciation of a performance but if I am going to stand they bloody well better earn it. I need to be thrilled, moved, exalted... something out of the ordinary to want to rise and show special recognition.

Tonight I could hardly wait to leap to my feet when the play was over. I gushed to some of the Vortex staff and tried not to hold up the director too long to say how fine it was.

So, if you like theatre, if you like Albee, if you like good acting... go see this production.

I am hardly a casual observer. The movie was a scandal when it came out in 1966 and my mother was horrified that I took a nice girl to see it. (We were halfway through college at the time.) You need to have a feel for the bland "niceness" of the 50's to appreciate how much buzz there was over this film with its occasional vulgar language and adult topics- unbelievably tame by today's standards. So it was part of the liberating challenge the 60's gave to my parent's generation. It was powerful, passionate, horrifying, gut-wrenching, and finally tender when one did not expect it.

Though no details remain in my mind there is little doubt that I scoured the bookstores immediately, obtained a copy of the play, and read it. And re-read it. Lines from the play are burned into my memory like phrases from Shakespeare. When George or Martha began a number of lines tonight I could finish them in my mind. ("I am the Earth Mother and you're all flops.") After 43 years, mind you. I may have watched the movie a second time, though I am quite unsure. I have never seen a live performance of the play.

My water-damaged copy of the play (Pocket Books, 75¢) is foxed at the bottom, has portions of the covers ripped off, and has not yellowed but browned, brittle pages. There are underlinings in what was then called peacock blue ink. I read most of the first act before going tonight.

When a play has been made not only into a movie but a notorious, famous, well-received movie - with Taylor and Burton, no less - it is a challenge to actors, directors, and audiences to produce and experience the play outside the framework of the image and memory in everyone's head. It is a mistake to reproduce the film on stage but how does one give it independent life?

I am delighted to say the actors in this production inhabited the play in their own manner, so that one heard Albee's George and Martha and Peter Shea Kierst's George and Debi Kierst's Martha but not reproductions of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I now have fresh images of Martha and George to carry in my head, not to mention the joy of having watched them perform just feet away from me.

They were just amazing: forces of nature, two people engaged in a deadly earnest dance/game of mutual assault with incomprehensible ties under it all. I say "incomprehensible" unless one can appreciate the complexities of life and of human character and interaction. I was impressed as a callow youth but this is really a play for people who have been through the wringer more than once.

Debi and Peter could shift, convincingly, from raw vulnerability to all-out attack. Their Martha and George are people one is not easily inclined to like but one cannot turn away from. The viewer is horrified, entranced, caught up, curious (no matter how well one knows the work).

The program notes that Shakespeare is the first love of Lori Stewart, the director. There was much about this that resembled an excellent Shakespearean production. You know the story, you vaguely remember many of the lines, the characters are old friends (old enemies? old acquaintances?) yet one still wants to see what happens and how it happens. The tale has many layers, the language is rich, and the experience is rewarding time and time again.

Eli Browning as the physical, ambitious Nick and Clara Boling as Honey, Nick's mouse, I mean, spouse, carried out their roles very well also. Eli captures the large (yes, people defer to tall persons in this world), good-looking (ditto) type hoping for preferment and willing to play games to get it. Externally he has it all, but we realize over the course of the evening how trapped and desperate he has let himself become. Clara expresses the perpetually childish, whiny, timid type that annoys the hell out of all the rest of us and reveals her own terrors to become, at last, someone we begin to understand and feel compassion for - even if the role of Honey is one I suspect everyone wants to slap at some point.

Four tragically broken characters, caught in games - in roles - they don't know how to break out of, driven to carry out το παναρχαιο δραμα (the ancient primal drama, to borrow a phrase from Greek poet George Seferis). It is like a Greek tragedy in which, driven by their particular fate, each performs the sacrificial rites that necessity demands while we watch on in horror, all the way to the exorcism, the final sacrifice, and some catharsis that allows us to leave the theatre and go on living with ourselves.

I have one cavil. It is an extremely minor yet integral part of the play. George reads from the Latin Office of the Dead. It was painful to hear, the Latin Consultant notwithstanding. I would assume George, an academic in the history department, would read Latin out loud, particularly Church Latin, in one of three modes: whatever passes for classical Latin, wine country Church Latin, or beer country Church Latin. I have sung in choirs where we sang Latin texts with music by Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven the way Germans pronounce Church Latin and music composed by Verdi, Vivaldi, of Josquin the way Italians pronounce Church Latin. The difference shows in how "c" or "g" sounds when followed by e, i, or ae. Germans use "ts" for such a "c" and a hard "g." Italians use "ch" (as in church) for such a "c" and soft g (as in George) for such a "g." Both pronounce "ae" to rhyme with "day." When I was taking Latin in high school we always used a hard k and hard g sound for c and g and "ae" rhymed with "high." When George was reading I heard a combination of sounds that just seemed weird. And, as I said, painful. I suggest someone who sings Church Latin all the time or an Italian professor help soften this out. THAT is my only gripe, but I'm putting it out there because I was a language major and my companions both saw me wince tonight.

Another bit of praise I must heap on this ensemble: I was so caught up that most of the time I unconsciously set aside awareness that I was observing a performance and felt that I was watching not this actor or that but THIS Martha and THIS George, THIS Honey and THIS Nick.

So.

Awesome.

Go see it.

Vortex tickets are dirt cheap (especially if one is used to buying season tickets in the San Francisco Bay Area with the annual bribe, I mean donation). This is not just a bargain but a helluva experience. Treat yourself.

The Vortex Theatre
2004½ Central Avenue SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-247-8600

--the BB

"I am, George. I am."

Some friends and I are going to catch "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at the Vortex tomorrow evening. Woohoo!

I saw the 1966 movie of it and fell in love with the play. I immediately bought a paperback copy and read and reread it. Tonight I dug out the copy, one of the many books of plays that were damaged when there was flooding in the storage locker where many of my books resided before moving here. The bottom is foxed but I can turn the yellowed pages and reread it. Which is what I am just about to do.

This should be fascinating. What will this slice of 1960s academia liberally sprinkled with fear and loathing feel like now? Will this be visiting an old friend? A fresh revelation? A new disappointment? Who knows.

I love live, local, intimate theatre.

--the BB

An afternoon with the Atrides

If you are in northern New Mexico and you have in interest in (or, in my case, passion for) Greek mythology, Greek tragedies, or simply live theatre, I commend Iphigenia and Other Daughters by Ellen McLaughlin to you. There are two more performances: Friday, August 21, at 8 pm and Saturday, August 22, at 3 pm. It is playing at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, 555 Camino de la Familia, near the rail station. You may order tickets at Umbrella Hat Productions.

Penny Lynn White and Natasha Warner
(Clytemnestra and Iphigenia)
Courtesy of Umbrella Hat Productions website

Why am I recommending it? Well....

Greek mythology is personal for me.

As a child I devoured books on mythology. This was probably around the 4th through 6th grade, possibly sooner. Then I took four years of Latin in high school. I wept when translating scenes from the Aeneid. Decades later I translated one of those scenes from Latin to Spanish to share with a Spanish tutor, and I cried again. The whole matter of Troy, and the story of the house of Atreus, and the adventures of Aeneas somehow touch me deeply. I let the cathartic nature of classical tragedy intermingle with whatever in my own life moves me. One afternoon in Berkeley I watched the Shotgun Players' production of Troilus and Cressida and bawled like a baby. One summer I read all the extant Greek tragedies. Recently I caught the production of Antigone at the Vortex in Albuquerque. I have watched several movies of these classic tales, caught the Oresteia at Berkeley Rep the year they initiated their new theatre, and every other production I could find. On some level I know these people and I feel strongly about them.

So today Bill and I drove up to Santa Fe to see Iphigenia and Other Daughters, having been lured into this adventure by the young actor who played Iphigenia and is also Umbrella Hat's director of outreach. She and her colleague (Ashlynn?) were touting the play at the Plaza in Santa Fe last Saturday and at the mention of Greek tragedy my ears perked up. I would not miss an opportunity for this and Yes, it was possible.

It was fun picking up our tickets and saying, "See, we told you we'd come see it!" And see it we did.

It was a simple set with few props. At the center was a large sandbox used effectively in a variety of interactions between the characters and the earth. A chorus of maidens sang, provided movement, and finally spoke in one of the later scenes. Costumes, props, and language played with time, linking Ancient Greece with nearer periods, resonating with our own day.

The play speaks to human vulnerability and the evils of which we are capable. Orestes, the only male figure, enters late in the story. This is a tale of society's treatment and mistreatment of women, though Orestes is eloquent on the brutalizing of men as well. Of course, in the House of Atreus, there are complex interactions in family roles so we see the ways we are defined, damaged, and restricted by the spots we occupy in our family histories. Humor and horror mingle in the dialogue between the insane Electra, haunted by her father's murder and driven to bear witness to it, and her sister Chrysothemis, the classic "middle child" who is invisible, dutiful, sensible, and ordinary.

There is so much pain in the tale with even more painful consequences. Everyone here is "damaged goods," seriously damaged goods. The cycle seems endless as we are watching the actions of the great-great-grandchildren of Tantalus who started it all. Serving one's children as dishes to the gods takes many forms. Consider how many ways we sacrifice new generations to war and greed in our own day. The "drug" of war comes through in multiple ways and I think of Chris Hedges' book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. Scott Thomas, the actor who plays Orestes, mentioned the drug of war when we chatted with him after the play.

Killing one's relatives truly "ran in the family." After generations of violence the characters and the audience alike yearn for resolution and peace. Orestes is finally delivered from the Furies and the way McLaughlin brings story elements together is moving and beautiful, with siblings offering each other deliverance and healing.

It was a joy to be able to meet and talk with Warner, Lynn White, Thomas, and Anna O'Donoghue (who played Chrysothemis) after the play and also Ethan Heard who directed. The energy of the people connected with this play was a shot in the arm and reminded my why I love live drama so much.

We learned that McLaughlin, the playwright, came out and worked with them. The program also informed us that she created the role of the Angel in Tony Kushner's Angels in America. I have ordered a copy of this and other dramas in McLaughlin's book The Greek Plays so I can savor the language (and get to know her work better).

For more background on Umbrella Hat Productions and their debut in Santa Fe for the 2009 Santa Fe Theatre Festival, check out Jeffrey Laing's article at SantaFe.com.

Detail of a wall painting:
Iphigenia. 1st century A. D.,
Carnuntum. Klagenfurt Landesmuseum.
(Image: Haines Brown, "Images from History," 6.viii.00

A tip of the hat to the entire cast and crew for the pleasure of this production. I'm already wondering if I can squeeze in another drive to Santa Fe. I'd love to see it a second time. I was saddened that the theatre was not full, so I hope this encourages some folks to fill those seats and enjoy!

--the BB

Party weekend comes to a close

Nothing birthday-related today. I took the vicar's role as MC at Mass this morning as she was feeling under the weather.

This evening Bill and his cousin Chris and I went to the theatre to see:

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
Directed by Hal Simons
by Moises Kaufman

Directed by Hal Simons and featuring Peter Diseth as Wilde, the play uses actual trial transcripts, editorials from the press, and commentary from eminent Victorians of the day, as it deals with Oscar Wilde's three trials regarding his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas.

In 1895 and at the pinnacle of his career, Oscar Wilde faced three trials for gay sexual activity, known as "gross indecency" in British legal terms of the time. The first trial was a libel suit brought against the Marquess of Queensbury by Wilde himself. The second and third were on charges against Wilde, with the second reaching no verdict and the third resulting in a conviction and two year sentence to hard labor. Friday and Saturday at 8, Sunday at 6 - Reservations at www.vortexabq.org or 505-247-8600.
--from the Vortex e-mail

It continues through July 12 and if you are in the Albuquerque area this is certainly an unpaid recommendation of the Vortex Theatre.

Well done and chillingly apt for Stonewall weekend, this play is a reminder of how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.

We then retired to Il Vicino for pizza and libations.


And so the weekend of carousing has drawn to a close and I am trying to wind down for bed.

--the BB

A shout out to the Dance Party crew

The ladies catching their internet debut. [Yes, Tandaina, it is a MacBookPro.]

It seems the gentlemen heading the Dance Party troupe have issued some kind of challenge to my daughters here. (See the comment thread here.) Mlle Belle, being a southern belle, was rather taken aback at the thought of a challenge. Competition seems quite beneath her and just a trifle vulgar. I assured her it was just a friendly thing from a couple of very nice but macho Latin males (well Mr Red Peanut Bank may be simply Latin-influenced, but it has to rub off on him sooner or later). I was not quite sure how to interpret the steel-magnolia-ensconced-in-plush look I got at that point and let the matter drop. Maggie has always been in charge of picnics and suggested a lovely midday fiesta.

They have, however, taken the issue of pictorial adventures in the South under advisement and send warm regards to Mr Red Peanut Bank, Gallito Mescalito, and the entire dance party crewe (here it would be krewe), most especially Miss Egyptian Hippo of Love (from one river horse to another).

There was a loudly whispered comment (preceded by a snort) about daddies who work, work, work and don't spend enough time playing with their kids. Maybe on the weekend....

(Lord, daughters can work the guilt trips on their old dads!)

--the BB