Caffeine Theatre

Merry Aphra, Happy Odyssey, and an Oxford New Year

2011-12-21T19:49:00.003-06:00

It’s been a busy December for Caffeine Theatre. On Sunday, December 4 we closed our well-received production of Liz Duffy Adams’ play Or, directed by Catherine Weidner and featuring three virtuosic performances by Megan Kohl, Kay Kron, and Eddy Karch. Or, has been named one of Kerry Reid’s picks for the top shows of 2011 in the Chicago Tribune’s “Best of the Fringe” Column. Congratulations to everyone involved in the production, and thanks to all those who worked hard to make it happen.

We also curated an “Explore the World of Penelope” event in collaboration with Steppenwolf. The Penelope Coffeehouse Cabaret, as we called it, took place on December 15 and included feminist performance art, a clown piece, an opera excerpt, poetry by Artistic Associates Don Gecewicz and Ian Randall, and three short plays. Caffeine Theatre Associate Artistic Director Kristin Idaszak did most of the heavy lifting in terms of producing this event, which was a fun way to riff on themes of Enda Walsh’s play Penelope through multidisciplinary performing arts.

Preparations are under way for our spring production of Stephen Massicotte’s play The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion, which focuses on the relationship between Robert Graves and T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) in Oxford after World War I. Graves was a prolific poet, and his poem “Ulysses” includes Penelope as a character:

Robert Graves, “Ulysses”

To the much-tossed Ulysses, never done
With women whether gowned as wife or whore,
Penelope and Circe seemed as one:
She like a whore made his lewd fancies run,
And wifely she a hero to him bore.

Their counter-changings terrified his way:
They were the clashing rocks, Symplegades,
Scylla and Charybdis too were they;
Now they were storms frosting the sea with spray
And now the lotus island’s drunken ease.

They multiplied into the Siren’s throng,
Forewarned by fear of whom he stood bound fast
Hand and foot helpless to the vessel’s mast,
Yet would not stop his ears: daring their song
He groaned and sweated till that shore was past.

One, two and many: flesh had made him blind,
Flesh had one pleasure only in the act,
Flesh set one purpose only in the mind---
Triumph of flesh and afterwards to find
Still those same terrors wherewith flesh was racked.

His wiles were witty and his fame far known,
Every king’s daughter sought him for her own,
Yet he was nothing to be won or lost.
All hands to him with Ithaca: love-tossed
He loathed the fraud, yet would not bed alone.

As in Walsh’s play, the theme of competition is apparent here. Unlike Penelope, however, Ulysses “was nothing to be lost or won.” Graves depicts Ulysses as torn between Penelope and Circe (leaving out Calypso and Nausicaa, though he would later write a novel called Homer’s Daughter with a title character named Nausicaa). Much of the conflict in Massicotte’s play comes from a similar bifurcation of affection: Graves is torn between his wife Nancy Nicholson and his friend Ned Lawrence.

The world of Oxford is very different from the freewheeling, sexually emancipated English Restoration presented in Or, and Robert Graves’s bisexuality is far more problematic than Aphra Behn’s. While at boarding school, Graves developed a romantic attachment to a younger boy named Peter Johnstone. Though Graves continued to write amorous letters to Johnstone, he would represent the relationship as having no sexual component and was horrified by Johnstone’s eventual arrest for soliciting. Graves was also part of a circle of homosexual aesthetes, including poetic patron Edward Marsh and fellow war-poet Siegfried Sassoon. Indeed, when Graves became engaged to Nancy Nicholson, he wrote a letter apologizing to Sassoon. It is tempting to view Graves’s marriage as a kind of “ex-gay therapy,” and several biographers have suggested as much.

Nancy Nicholson, a socialist, feminist painter, apparently was not thrilled with the idea of getting married and spent much of the wedding night alone with a bottle of champagne. Nancy and Robert opened a shop together in Oxfordshire, on a hill five miles outside of Oxford proper. The shop, which is the setting for several scenes in Massicotte’s play, never prospered and eventually failed. The Graves-Nicholsons always had trouble with money, and T.E. Lawrence was one of many friends who gave Robert items to sell when he was in need.

The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion takes place in 1920, before the Graves-Nicholsons brought American poet Laura Riding with them to Cairo, where Nancy was to be recovering from illness. They lived together in a ménage à trois until 1929, at which point the addition of Irish poet Geoffrey Taylor exacerbated the problems in the group. Laura Riding attempted to commit suicide by jumping out a fourth-story window. (Robert apparently jumped after her from the third-story window.) The foursome split up into two couples: Robert Graves and Laura Riding moved to Mallorca together; Nancy Nicholson and Geoffrey Taylor were together in England. Nicholson and Graves would not divorce until 1949, ten years after Graves and Riding had split. Graves later described his love life as a quest for the White Goddess of poetic inspiration in the persona of young, nubile Muses.

All this to say that we are about to embark on a journey into the lives of several fascinating people with lots of baggage. We hope you’ll join us in March and April at Lincoln Square Theatre for The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion.

Explore the World of Penelope with Caffeine Theatre

2011-12-08T15:36:00.005-06:00

Caffeine Theatre is getting ready to mix it up with Steppenwolf and the Q-Brothers next Thursday, December 15 in the Steppenwolf Garage. Join us from 5-7pm for a cabaret of poetry, drama, puppets and opera in response to The Odyssey and Penelope.

More information can be found at the Steppenwolf website, on Facebook, or you can call Steppenwolf's Audience Services at 312-335-1650 to reserve your spot today. Also, Use code 9429 for 2-for-1 tickets to that evening’s 7:30 performance of Penelope.

So slip into your speedo and EXPLORE the World of Penelope with:

Performance poetry by Milta Ortiz

"Air Piracy" by Martin Kettling, performed by Martin Kettling and Travis Boswell in conjunction with The Ruckus Theater

"Epigraphs for Penelope" a poetry cycle by Don Gecewicz, performed by Meghan Beals McCarthy, Ruth Anne Swanson, and Dana Black

"Bluebark" written and performed by Ian Randall

"Ok Eros? Ok Thanatos" by the Harlotry & Necromancy Appreciation Society

"Balcony of Two" by Ruth Margraff, directed by Christopher Marino

"Zombie Heart Salad Sandwich" by Greg Romero, directed by Jenn BeVard and featuring Olivia Dustman and Nat Swift

"Teenage Odysseus Sings to His Siren" written and performed by Annie Calhoun

"The Dubious Arts of Knitting and Self-Pleasure" by Kristin Idaszak, directed by Meghan Beals McCarthy and featuring Randy Steinmeyer and Michelle Courvais

Penelope & The Odyssey Coffeehouse Call For Submissions

2011-11-17T16:46:00.002-06:00

Caffeine Theatre seeks short original performance pieces of all disciplines--music, dance, theatre, spoken word, poetry, etc.--for its Penelope Coffeehouse Cabaret, produced in collaboration with Steppenwolf Theatre company in support of Steppenwolf’s production of Enda Walsh’s play Penelope. The Penelope Coffeehouse Cabaret will take place at the Steppenwolf Garage Theatre on December 15 from 5:00 PM-7:00 PM. The event celebrates Enda Walsh’s play, a contemporary adaptation of The Odyssey set in a swimming pool.

Pieces should explore the themes of the play (including competition, fighting for love, and intergenerational conflict) and/or should relate in some way to The Odyssey. Please email a script, poem, and/or a 1 page proposal to Associate Artistic Directors Dan Smith (dan@caffeinetheatre.com) and Kristin Idaszak (kristin@caffeinetheatre.com) including a description of your proposed piece, how many people you expect to be involved, estimated length, and any required resources. (We will accept proposals for scripts that do not yet exist or pieces that do not have a traditional script, but please include that information in your proposal.) Pieces should run less than 15 minutes, and preference will be given to pieces with minimal setup and technical requirements. Please use “Penelope Coffeehouse submission” in the subject heading.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: November 28, 2011.

Accepted pieces will be notified by December 1, 2011

Compose Yourselves For Pleasure: The Aphra Behn Coffeehouse

2011-11-04T15:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who made opening night of OR, so titillating! Johnny Downes, our script prompter, forgot his camera for the opening night reception but we assure you it was a scintillating evening. Week two is looking to be just as thrilling, with not only another weekend of performances but the Aphra Behn Coffeehouse both Saturday and Sunday! Curated and hosted by Caffeine's Associate Artistic Director and Resident Dramaturg Dan Smith, the Coffeehouse will feature some of Aphra's own provocative poetry, the winning poem from "Golden-Pointed Darts, Or, A Contest in Poesy to Honour the Incomparable Astraea and other Adventuresses, Spies, Poets, and Thespians" (previously published on this blog) and the following pieces:

Excerpt from Aphra Where Have You Behn?

by Heather Jeanne Violanti

Savage Umbrella Theatre presents “Failing”

by Laura Leffler-McCabe and Blake Bolan, directed by Gina Di Salvo

"Code Name: Astrea"

by Jacob Juntunen

"The Nun and Lila"

by Priscilla Page

Clown Piece Conceived and Performed

by Deanna Myers and Lea Pascal

As Liz Duffy Adams writes in the prologue of OR: "We hope [Aphra] would forgive our trespasses./While you we hope to solace and seduce/With our most alluring strategems./Compose yourselves for pleasure, if you will./Cue the lights, let never time stand still."

The Coffeehouses will be performed at the Newberry Library at 1pm on Saturday and at Collaboraction immediately following the performance of OR on Sunday (curtain is at 3pm and the Coffeehouse will begin at approximately 4:30pm). Our Coffeehouse events are always free, and we can't wait to see you there, dear readers!

Interview with Coffeehouse Playwrights Jacob Juntunen and Heather Jeanne Violanti

2011-11-02T16:36:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday evening, we rehearsed short pieces by Jacob Juntunen (Code Name--Astrea) and Heather Jeanne Violanti (Aphra, Where Have You Behn?) for this weekend’s Aphra Behn Coffeehouse, and we found some intriguing connections among their work. Dan Smith caught up with these two playwrights via email to ask them a few questions. Both will be in attendance on Saturday at 1:00 at the Newberry Library.

Q: Both of you chose to write about Aphra Behn's life (and/or afterlife). Heather's play suggests a possible love connection between Aphra Behn and John Dryden, while Jacob's includes an affair with an unnamed young woman. "Or," is also invested in Aphra's romantic affiliations. Why is Behn's biography, in particular her love life, so interesting?

Heather Jeanne Violanti: I'm fascinated by Behn's biography because so much of it remains conjecture--some facts are known, but a lot of the time, the best we can do is guess. There's a strong erotic element to her writing--both passionate and playful, expressing love for both men and women--and I think this naturally leads to speculation that she had a passionate and playful "love life."

I honestly don't think the real Aphra was in love with John Dryden, but this relationship just emerged one day in writing the play. I began work on this play while in college--it was my first full-length play--and I was struggling with John's character. By coincidence, he was onstage with Aphra a lot. I remember sitting in the Gibbons Hall basement lounge discussing this with my friend Stephanie, an actor, and she made the suggestion "What if Aphra is in love with John?" And I tried that out--and it added a new dimension to the play

Jacob Juntunen: When making drama about artists, I think including their personal lives helps humanize them. I think of Shakespeare in Love, Sunday in the Park with George, or Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, and how the personal details in each help audiences relate to the artists involved. Spectators may not have completed a great work of art, but most of us have been in love. As far as Behn, specifically, though, Restoration drama is so full of sexual intrigue that it's almost impossible not to include it in a play about her. Her biography, to me, also suggested a James Bond-type spy thriller which, of course, has to include sex for information and double-crossing lovers.

Q: Both of your plays, like "Or," include rather farcical portrayals of Charles II. Jacob's play presents him as a kind of espionage pimp, and Heather focuses on his attachment to dogs, implying that he treated his mistress Nell Gwynn as a puppy. What made you choose to exploit Charles II for comic effect?

JJ: Another aspect of Behn's biography that's so appealing, at least to me, is that she's often referred to as the first professional writer who was a woman. Given that women playwrights are still at such a disadvantage--and even women protagonists--I was interested in casting at least one character of male power who clearly did not deserve the honors offered him. Since no one outranks a king, Charles II seemed like the obvious choice to set against an intelligent, powerful, Aphra Behn. So I suppose for me the farcical portrayal of Charles II is to contrast Behn's strengths.

HV: For me, Charles II just looks so silly in his Coronation portrait--that big curly wig, all those red robes--he looks like a regal Captain Hook. He did suffer from bouts of depression throughout his life--having endured the execution of his father and many years of exile--and I do try to address this later in the play--but for the most part, he come across as a clown. That's how I always thought of him--until I saw a production of Howard Barker's VICTORY recently--the King Charles in that is not only clownish, he's also terrifying--a Shakespearean villain obsessed with holding on to his tenuous power.

As for the obsession with dogs, Charles really loved spaniels--there's a breed of mini-spaniels named after him, the Cavalier King Charles. He's even holding a little spaniel in his lap in his baby portrait in London's National Gallery. And I love dogs, too--so I thought--what a fun idea to put some invisible dogs in the play! (Charles is always fussing over the dogs, but we never see them).

Q: Why is critical reception of Aphra Behn intriguing for both of you? One character in Heather's play is Virginia Woolf, perhaps Aphra's greatest champion. Jacob, on the other hand, depicts Harold Bloom, one of Aphra's greatest detractors.

HV: Throughout history, Aphra seems to have divided the critics--they either love her or hate her. And until recently, so many of them dismissed her simply because she was a woman, or she was a woman writing about things that weren't considered "proper" for a woman to write about (like sex and politics). On the other hand, her supporters deified her, like Virginia Woolf, perhaps glossing over how at times, Aphra bowed to the convention of her time (the "happy" marriages tacked on to the comedies, for instance, though of course, this is what comedic structure demands).

JJ: I've been teaching theatre history for colleges in one form or another since 2001, and in one of my earliest syllabi I hit upon the notion of teaching the idea of the canon alongside theatre history. Instead of simply presenting plays chronologically, I reasoned, I would assign readings from a "classic canon"--which, unsurprisingly was mainly white men--and then go back and present a more "modern canon" post-1990s that includes more women and minorities. So for at least ten years I've been interested in what we read in school and why; I've wondered, how are canons of literature formed, maintained, and changed? Aphra Behn falls into the latter category, a playwright who proably wouldn't be in anthologies from the 1950s, and I wanted to present the power of the critic and professor alongside the power of the writer in my play. In fact, I would say in the end who we read, who we remember, and how writers' stories are told is more in the hands of scholars than writers. So, while Behn succeeded in her time as a professional writer, I wanted to explore whether that success translates into the modern era. Dealing with Bloom's take on her seemed like the most natural way to do so.

Q: Your plays similarly employ direct address to the audience. What made you choose this device? Is this related to the convention of asides in Restoration comedy? Or did you just want Aphra to speak directly to us?

HV: I love the theatricality of the Restoration plays--particularly the direct address as used in asides,the Prologue, and Epilogue. I knew when I began writing my play that to stay true to this form, Aphra had to address the audience. And there would be a Prologue and Epilogue.

JJ: I wish I'd been clever enough to use direct address to make a sly formal comment on Restoration comedy, and if you want to give me credit for that, I'll happily take it. But the real reason I used direct address is that, as I mentioned, Behn's biography struck me as James Bond-like. This led me to the idea of a summer blockbuster film about her--which, in all honesty, I'd love to see and write if there are any film producers out there. From there, it was a simple step to a trailer about this movie, and that evolved into a review of the movie. But I like the idea that it's related to Restoration comedy's asides, so let's say it was about that instead.

Q: Any current projects you want to share?

HV: I'm working on expanding a one act play, AN APPLE A DAY, into a full-length. I wrote it for the Women's Work Lab at New Perspectives here in NYC. It juxtaposes the experiences of a modern day schizophrenic woman with a woman diagnosed with hysteria in the 1890s. I have a one-night only performance of another play, LANDSCAPE WITH HOUSE AND DOG, coming up at Coffee Black Productions, also in NYC, in March, and I'm working on revising that too. I'd like to revisit APHRA WHERE HAVE YOU BEHN?, though since I began it 10 years ago, I worry that, as a whole piece, it might be out of date, or past its viable moment. I am so happy and grateful, though, to see it onstage at the Aphra Behn Coffeehouse!

JJ: My next full length play, Joan's Laughter, will be produced by Chicago's side project theatre in May and June. It's the untold story of Joan of Arc's last minutes of life, based on a newfound 1431 document claiming at the last Joan recanted. In my play, she must decide whether to listen to a priest who says she can save her soul by repudiating her Voices, or to continue asserting her Voices were from God despite their silence. From its historical inspiration, Joan’s Laughter explores the abandonment we all feel in our darkest moments. More about it and my other plays can be found at www.jacobjuntunen.com, and once a week I post a new short play at www.ripostetotheworld.blogspot.com.

"Golden-Pointed Darts" Contest Winner

2011-10-29T17:18:00.001-05:00

Caffeine Theatre is pleased to announce the winner of “Golden-Pointed Darts, Or, a Contest in Poesy to Honour the Incomparable Astraea and other Adventuresses, Spies, Writers, and Thespians.” Congratulations to Amanda Williams, who submitted the following three poems exemplifying the themes of theatricality, adventure, and eroticism which are hallmarks of Aphra Behn’s work.

Sometimes I Acted Backstage Too
In that cramped store room
amid a circus of props and costumes,
in the weak glow that creeps from the low-watt bulb
that we leave on during performances
you press me hard against a teetering shelf
and kiss whatever skin my glittering costume does not cover
(the tips of my fingers, my heaving breasts and neck)
between scene 3 and 4 of the first act.

I hear my cue approaching
and pry Nathan’s hands from Adelaide’s waist;
I brush off the stray blonde fibers
from my platinum wig
that cling to the lapel of your suit jacket,
and staunchly pull my garters back up
for the top of the next scene.

I reapply my lipstick, smooth my rumpled crinoline
as I wind my way through the darkness;
this is the third night you’ve almost made me late.
My heart thuds along with the snickering audience.

Beside the stage left curtain,
I catch a glimpse of your silhouette
in the prop room’s doorframe,
dust floating around you in the dim light
of that bulb, flickering.

“Bavaria boasts miles of unspoilt natural countryside and picturesque landscapes ideal for walking, relaxing, and enjoying the the proverbially laid-back Bavarian attitude to life...“

The smells of pig farm and wood smoke leak through the crack in my visor
and root me to a spot on a map of Southern Germany; we race
along a spiraling road between fields and petite villages, the leather of his jacket
sticky against my bare arms wrapped around his waist. Its 7pm, the heat from midday
is settling down into a summer evening. A low sun spills through the cracks
in the clouds. Another smell - the syrupy aroma rising
from the leafy, tangled strawberry fields. I am Marilyn Monroe
as my white cotton skirt billows up around my waist, pink lacy underwear
on the leather seat as we take the corners a little too sharp. When we pass through a village,
the old women shake crooked fingers at us, clearly mortified. I fog my visor
with exhilarated breaths, and set my fingers in the spaces between his ribs
for balance; when he leans into a turn, I lean, our bodies revving
and synching together. I feel the immense weight of the wind pressing on my head
as I turn to look out; the horizon is dotted with delicate church spires,
one distinct point or cross high above the tiles of terracotta – two white onion domes, Haindling.
Feeling less that pious, I grip him even tighter as I feel him shift his weight
backward, into me, and the adrenaline makes my thighs contract, my stomach
twist like a pretzel. As we near home, the setting sun is now the deep gold color
of Erl-Brau beer; I stare into it, feeling half drunk already. I’m sure when I take off
this heavy helmet, my hair will be a disheveled mess, like I just made love to Bavaria.

Yee-Haw

I have the urge to fawr-ni-cate. I want
to run to the barn, rich humidity
of August filling my skin so I swell
like a creek in Spring, the hot flush of desire
melting all my Christian values into oily streams
of sweat running down between my breasts.
I want the hay to stick to our naked bodies, pricking
just enough to confuse pleasure and pain. Lord,
lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil – I am thrown over these bales,
this altar of love, where you worship me
like a passionate heathen, with ragged exultations
and groaning praises. I want an unholy storm
to kick up, to pound the tin roof with hammering drops,
to drown the sounds we make. Oh, pray for us sinners!
After that clap of perfect thunder, when the tongues of flame
have burst from our sweaty heads we’ll run bare-assed
to the creek to bathe in the dark water, but not to wash
the sin away; no backwoods baptism can cleanse us but,

Hallelujah,

as we look into each other’s sweaty, dirt-streaked faces,
we are born again.

Dramaturgical Reflections: Images from the English Restoration

2011-10-22T11:18:00.033-05:00

Portraiture from the late seventeenth century makes an important contribution to the historical record of the period. At first glance, these images seem to give us a sense of how people looked and dressed. But they also reveal how painters and sitters used visual symbols in their construction of an individual self, an image that could be circulated far beyond the walls of the room where the portrait was hanging. Engravings after portraits appeared as part of the growing print industry in the late seventeenth century. According to Professor Joseph Roach, the "public intimacy" created in part through visual circulation signals the emergence of the modern concept of celebrity during this period.

These portraits, however, also reveal how we think of these individuals today. When and how we choose to display these images reflects our changing understanding of their historical importance and their relationship to our own lives. Roach analyzed the 2001 exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, "Painted Ladies: Women at the Court of Charles II." That exhibit, he argued, "restaged the impious relationship of public intimacy and mimetic desire in room after room, paramour after paramour" as it juxtaposed the idea of the Merry Monarch with images of his well-known mistresses ("Celebrity Erotics" 216). Yesterday, a new exhibit opened at the National Portrait Gallery in London: "The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons." Instead of displaying images of the first actresses alongside their known lovers or romantic rivals, this exhibit positions them alongside each other, drawing a professional timeline from Nell Gwyn in the seventeenth century to Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter today. Neither of the historical narratives presented by these exhibits is more or less "true" ... but we might consider why we tell the stories we do at certain points in history.

I invite you to explore some of these images, those currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and those appearing on stage in Chicago next weekend.

http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/the-first-actresses/first_actresses_exhibition.php

The Actors Escape from the Theatre (From the Rehearsal Notebooks of Johnny Downes)

2011-10-20T23:20:00.003-05:00

Hello! Johnny here again. Sorry it's been a few days but I've had my hands full wrangling the actors (there's only three of them, but I swear it feels like there are at least twice that many...) and the time does fly when you're in rehearsal. We have been busy running the play and fine tuning it for tech, which starts in a dizzingly short four days.

My boss, the lovely Lady Davenant, who runs the Duke's Company, always says:

"You mustn't keep actors waiting around without the play they'll start to drink then it's quarrels and misbehaving behind the scenery and asking to go home early - utter utter chaos darling, never leave actors with nothing to do, remember that..."

But we gave the whole company Monday night off and invited all our friends to the bar to make all sorts of mischief before we had to buckle down for the last week leading up to tech, and the result was not quite utter chaos, but it was rather poetic and at moments racuous. Our gracious trustee Meghan Beals McCarthy serenaded us with a dramatic interpretation of the bedtime story "Go the *&#% to Sleep," and Caffeine Theatre's esteemed associate artistic director Dan Smith performed a rousing prose poem about the history of dramatic literature, and from there things really took off. Words don't do it justice, but I have a few etchings from the evening that show a bit of its flavor:

Dramaturgical Reflections: The English Restoration

2011-10-14T19:18:00.006-05:00

What was the English Restoration?

The year 1660 marked the end of the English Commonwealth and the restoration of the English monarchy. Following the close of the English Civil War (1642-1648), Parliament tried and executed Charles I for treason (1649). His son and heir to the English throne, the eighteen-year-old Charles Stuart, was forced to flee England and spent more than a decade wandering among the courts of Europe. His attempts to reclaim the English throne were unsuccessful until the death of Oliver Cromwell (1658), then Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. Disillusioned by the failed democratic experiment and desirous of greater social and political stability, royalist supporters of Charles II maneuvered his return to England in 1660 and his coronation in 1661. The Restoration was viewed by many as a time of hope, renewal, and reconciliation. It remained as yet unknown whether or not it would live up to its expectations.

Why is the Restoration an important point in English theatre history?

The English theatres had been closed in 1642 due to the turbulence of the burgeoning civil war. The performance of plays was banned during the Interregnum (the time between the execution of Charles I and the ascension of Charles II): a stark contrast to the active theatrical scene of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, with their thriving public theatres and elaborate court masques. When Charles II returned to England in 1660, he issued theatrical patents to two men, Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, who founded the King’s Company and the Duke’s Company (respectively). The existing corpus of plays was divided between them, and so began a theatrical patent system that would shape English theatre for more than a century.

The Restoration also marked several important changes to English theatrical practice, many of which continue to attract the research of historians and the creative imaginings of playwrights. The introduction of the professional English actress to the London stage occurred in the early years of the Restoration, followed shortly by the emergence of the first professional female playwright. Aphra Behn, though not the first woman to have a play published or produced in England, was the first woman to earn her living as a writer of plays, poems, and other prose.

Behn. Aphra Behn.

2011-10-11T22:01:00.004-05:00

Who is Aphra Behn?

Variously she was known known as a libertine, a wit, and a female playwright, poet and novelist shocking and delighting audiences of Restoration England.

Once she might have been known as Aphra Johnson, or Amis, or Cooper. Little is known for certain about her life before she started publishing as a writer, and after that, she is largely remembered for titillating and scandalizing her peers with her frank treatments of sexuality and gender.

In between those times, she was also known as Astrea or Agent 160 in Surinam--the New World--and subsequently in Antwerp, Belgium where she was working as a spy for Charles II. In Antwerp she ran out of funds (as she possibly had in Surinam, prompting the theory that she married a Dutch merchant named Behn to bring her back to Europe), and she had a brief stint in debtors prison upon her return to England. She might have been known as Aphra Ben or Beane, but her widowed name and nom de plume was Mrs. Behn.

Although her espionage skills are suspect, her verbal acuity catapulted her to literary success, despite the reservations of those who didn't believe that a woman possessed the reason and rationality to write verse or write for the stage. She became apostrophized as "The Incomparable Astrea" and indeed she was: Virginia Woolf recognized her as the first middle class woman writer, who succeeded solely by her wit without the comfort of a country estate to retreat to in case her literary endeavors landed her in hot water--and Behn courted controversial topics like political events and homosexual love between women. Not for naught then was she known as Sappho.

About Behn's poetry, Arlene Stiebel writes on the Poetry Foundation's website:

Behn's distinctive poetic voice is characterized by her audacity in writing about contemporary events, frequently with topical references that, despite their allegorical maskings, were immediately recognizable to her sophisticated audience...Behn's poetry, therefore, was less public than her plays or her prose fiction, as it depended, in some cases, on the enlightened audience's recognition of her topics for full comprehension of both the expression and implications of her verse. Such poetic technique involved a skill and craft that earned her the compliments of her cohorts as one who, despite her female form, had a male intelligence and masculine powers of reason.

Behn, Aphra Behn: poetess, spy, lover, possible homosexual (or bisexual), and maker of martyrs:

A thousand martyrs I have made,

All sacrificed to my desire;

A thousand beauties have betrayed,

That languish in resistless fire.

The untamed heart to hand I brought,

And fixed the wild and wandering thought.

I never vowed nor sighed in vain

But both, though false, were well received.

The fair are pleased to give us pain,

And what they wish is soon believed.

And though I talked of wounds and smart,

Love’s pleasures only touched my heart.

Alone the glory and the spoil

I always laughing bore away;

The triumphs, without pain or toil,

Without the hell, the heav’n of joy.

And while I thus at random rove

Despise the fools that whine for love.

From the Rehearsal Notebooks of Johnny Downes, Script Prompter, 10/1/11

2011-10-03T15:08:00.006-05:00

John Downes was the script prompter for the Duke's Company, where Aphra Behn's plays were originally produced. In addition to cueing the actors when they forgot their lines, his "historical review of the stage", Roscius Anglicanus is a seminal firsthand account of Restoration theatre. These are his recently discovered ruminations from a slightly later production of a pretty, witty play called OR, penned by the poetess Liz Duffy Adams in homage to the incomparable Astrea, as channelled and interpreted by Louise Edwards (dramaturg) and Kristin Idaszak (assistant director).

First Rehearsal Liz Duffy Adams's OR, directed by Catherine Weidner

In the first scene of OR, a disguised Charles II visits the former spy and aspiring playwright Aphra Behn (Agent Code Name Astrea) in debtors prison. Once his identity is revealed the two realize they have a lot in common, namely their exiles from London. And yet, Charles says, "I hardly knew how to be glad once I was here, longing itself became such a habit of mind."

That's how I feel about first rehearsals--each play is a very foreign country that I am privileged to enter into for a few weeks or months, to explore its shores and cities. But that exploration of this new world begins weeks before rehearsals themselves start, with design and production meetings, dramaturgical research and script meetings, so that by the time first rehearsal arrives, the longing itself has become such a habit of mind, indeed.

This rehearsal brimmed with excitement. OR, is a three-hander sex farce featuring Aphra Behn, Nell Gwyn, Charles II and a few inopportune visitors, and the script evokes the 1660s, the 1960s and today: "this our time of mingled hope and fear." Our scenic designer Stephen Carmody is manifesting that concept by creating a theatre within a theatre--the world of the play takes place in 1660, the actors are in the 1960s, rocking out to records of Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Kinks in their "backstage", and the audience traverses all three time periods.

The play is all about the "seeming opposites" we all embody, and how we variously mask and reveal our multifarious identities. Aphra observes that "it's a nasty little world of lies, subterfuge, backstabbing and betrayal," to which Nell replies, "Are you talking about spying or the theatre?"

We have just begun to ricochet between the many ors our playwright and her characters have set before us. Expect many more updates from the rehearsal room, dramaturgical teasers, and inside looks at the incomparable Astrea--or should we say Aphra--and her friends.

Johnny Downes, October 1, 2011

Aphra Behn Coffeehouse Call for Proposals and Poems

2011-09-06T15:30:00.001-05:00

Caffeine Theatre seeks short original performance pieces of all disciplines--music, dance, theatre, spoken word, poetry, etc.--for its Aphra Behn Coffeehouse, which will take place at the Newberry Library on Saturday, November 5, 2011 and at Collaboraction on Sunday, November 6. The Coffeehouse celebrates the work of British poet, playwright, and adventuress Aphra Behn. Any and all pieces inspired by Behn’s life, work, or themes are welcome. Please email a script and/or a 1 page proposal to Associate Artistic Director Dan Smith at dan@caffeinetheatre.com including a description of your proposed piece, how many people you expect to be involved, estimated length, and any required resources. (We will accept proposals for scripts that do not yet exist or pieces that do not have a traditional script, but please include that information in your proposal.) Pieces should run less than 15 minutes, and preference will be given to pieces with minimal setup and technical requirements. Please use “Aphra Behn Coffeehouse submission” in the subject heading.

Casting assistance is available as required and appropriate. Artists outside of Chicago are encouraged to send a script or music or poem to be performed by in-town artists.The Aphra Behn Coffeehouse is produced in conjunction with Caffeine’s production of Liz Duffy Adams' “Or,” a sexy farce about the intertwining lives of Aphra Behn, Nell Gwynne and Charles II. "Or," will be running at the Flatiron Arts Building Suite 336 October 30-December 4.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: October 1, 2011.

Accepted pieces will be notified by October 10, 2011.

Caffeine Theatre also seeks original poetry for our fourth poetry contest: “Golden-Pointed Darts, Or, a Contest in Poesy to Honour the Incomparable Astraea and other Adventuresses, Spies, Writers, and Thespians.” Submissions may include any size or style of poem, as long as it is inspired in some way by the life or work of Aphra Behn, or in some way speaks in conversation with that life or work. Poems exploring sexuality, first-person speakers, spying, and the English Restoration are particularly welcome. Winners will be posted on Caffeine’s website (http://www.caffeinetheatre.com), and performed at the Aphra Behn Coffeehouse in November. Any new or previously written poem may be submitted (provided it can be republished and performed).

TO SUBMIT: Email poem(s) and a brief description of relation to Aphra Behn to Caffeine Theatre Associate Artistic Director Daniel Smith at dan@caffeinetheatre.com with “Incomparable Astraea” in the subject heading. DEADLINE: October 10, 2011.

Summer Reading

2011-08-05T16:22:00.004-05:00

As the summer winds down, I wanted to recommend two books I’ve read this year that should be of interest to poetry enthusiasts. First, Blueprints: Bringing Poetry Into Communities (ed. Katharine Coles), which offers great suggestions for poetry outreach by spotlighting twelve successful programs. The second book is a murder mystery by Matthew Pearl called The Dante Club.

In June, the Poetry Foundation held an open house at their beautiful new building. Jen Shook and I attended. The event featured readings, book-signings, and books for sale. One great thing about the building was that the sound from the microphones in the Reading Room was projected into the courtyard, so anyone walking by could hear poetry being read. We each went home with a lovely Poetry Foundation tote bag emblazoned with a quote from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and a copy of Blueprints: Bringing Poetry into Communities, a new book edited by Katharine Coles. I particularly enjoyed Patricia Smith’s piece on Poetry Slam, Elizabeth Alexander’s meditations on Cave Canem, Luis Rodriguez’s powerful description of Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore, and Dana Gioia’s discussion of Poetry Out Loud. (I judged the Regional Finals for the Chicago Suburbs and the City of Chicago in February, and was very impressed by the students’ passion for poetry and excellent recitations.) Blueprints is published by the University of Utah Press and is quite inexpensive (list price: $8.95). There’s also a great “Toolkit for Poetry Programmers” that includes many ideas that are relevant to arts programming in other disciplines (i.e., theatre).

If you like gruesome murder mysteries infused with poetry, history, and translation (who doesn’t?), you’ll love The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. Published in 2003, The Dante Club finds Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell on the trail of a diabolical murderer who is staging crime scenes that mimic the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. Longfellow and friends are working on the first American translation of Dante, and the pattern of murders uncannily follows the Cantos they are revising each week. The murders are really grisly, especially the first one. There’s also a healthy dose of Harvard politics and post-Civil War anxiety. Great travel reading! I mostly read it on the CTA. Come to think of it, I mostly read Blueprints on the CTA, too.

What are you reading this summer?

Postmodern Minstrelsy: Confronting Race Onstage

2011-04-11T09:15:00.004-05:00

The first truly American theatrical form was the minstrel show. In 1828, Thomas "Daddy" Rice, performed "Jump Jim Crow" in blackface Louisville, Kentucky to great acclaim, and from there the minstrel show evolved into an intricately structured three-act variety show replete with stock characters and jokes, as well as singing, dancing and skits. Minstrel shows were performed exclusively by white men originally, and drew from stereotypes of lazy slaves, sly tricksters and docile, infantilized men. These caricatures were popular both throughout the north and the south, and black minstrel troupes started to tour after the Civil War, taking up the stereotypes created and perpetrated by white performers.

"The minstrel show’s message was that black people belonged only on Southern plantations and had no place at all in the North. “Dis being free,” complained one minstrel character who had run away from the plantation, “is worser dem being a slave.” Songs like Dan Emmett’s “Dixie,” a Northern minstrel song which was introduced in New York City in 1859 by Bryant’s Minstrels, underscored these messages by having Northern blacks wish they were in the land of cotton" ("Minstrel Men and Minstrel Myths, Robert C. Toll).

By the turn of the century, minstrel shows had lost much of their traction as vaudeville and musical theatre gained popularity. But Al Jolson can still be seen in blackface in the first talky, The Jazz Singer, and minstrel and blackface performances continued to be seen on television as part of variety acts through the 1950s.

It is easy to say that minstrel shows are an ignominious but closed chapter of American entertainment, but Cornelius Eady's poetry confronts the contemporary ramifications of this form in Brutal Imagination. By dramatizing all the composite caricatures that Susan--and the American people, as the nine-day manhunt intensified--impose on this cipher of a black man, he makes it impossible to ignore continued presence of racial profiling and stereotyping in America in the present day. Dramaturgically, Eady pauses Susan's narrative as Mr. Zero forces her to confront her own sublimated prejudices. She doesn't believe her lie is racially motivated (her statement "I knew I'd get further with it if I said a black man did it" is merely factual, not racist in her mind) until she is compelled to watch these stereotypes deployed.

As we got deeper into the rehearsal process it became clear that the only way to approach the presence of these stereotypes in the script was to tackle them head on. Watching youtube videos of blackface performers and minstrel skits in rehearsal was itself a profoundly uncomfortable experience. We looked particularly at the physical attributes of Uncle Tom, Aunt Jemima, Buckwheat, Steppinfetchit and Stagolee. Minstrelsy manifests itself in our production in the dehumanized dance each caricature performs for Susan.

In these performances it becomes impossible to ignore or neatly dismiss not only her complicity but her active contribution to perpetrating these stereotypes by falsely accusing a black man of committing her crime. Hopefully this postmodern minstrel narrative allows the audience to call into question its own assumptions about race and representation as Susan's story continues to unfold.

Coffeehouse Event April 16

2011-04-09T00:34:00.003-05:00

Caffeine Theatre announces “Murder, Medea, and the Media,” its spring Coffeehouse event, to be held April 16, 2011 at Stage 773 (1225 W. Belmont). The Coffeehouse will begin after the 4:00 performance of Brutal Imagination (approximately 5:15 PM). Featuring poetry readings, performance, and discussion, the Coffeehouse engages with the questions of murder, media narrative, poetic adaptation, and connections to Medea raised by our current rotating repertory productions of Brutal Imagination and Wreckage. Participants include playwrights Keith Byron Kirk (Northwestern University) and Kristin Idaszak (Caffeine Theatre; Collaboraction), poet Joanne Diaz (Illinois Wesleyan University), and theatre scholar Stefka Mihaylova (University of Illinois at Chicago). The event will be moderated by Caffeine Theatre's Associate Artistic Director Daniel Smith. Our Coffeehouse programming is always offered free of charge; reservations encouraged at rsvp@caffeinetheatre.com.

If you want to make it a full day of poetry, theatre, and conversation, come for Brutal Imagination at 4:00 and stay for Wreckage at 7:30! Ticket information available at http://www.caffeinetheatre.com/

Staging Poetry: Adaptation, Persona, Innocence, Experience

2011-03-30T20:47:00.009-05:00

Caffeine Theatre's mission is "to mine the poetic tradition to explore social questions." Our current rotating repertory consists of two plays that approach contemporary poetry in different ways. Caridad Svich has written a poetic play that draws on a long history of poetry, using Euripides and William Blake as source material. Cornelius Eady's play began as a book of poetry; he adapted his own poems for the stage in collaboration with director Diane Paulus.

D'wayne Taylor (Mr. Zero) and Samantha Gleisten (Susan Smith); Photo by Jason Beck

Brutal Imagination is a script adapted from Cornelius Eady's poem cycle of the same title. In the published volume, the speaker of the poems is Mr. Zero, the imaginary black man blamed by Susan Smith for the disappearance of her children. In the play, Mr. Zero recites several of the poems as monologues ("How I Got Born"; "The Unsigned Confession of Mr. Zero"), and takes on the personae of several stereotypical black caricatures ("Uncle Tom in Heaven"; "Aunt Jemima's Do-Rag"; "Buckwheat's Lament"). The book of poems includes some contextual information: a brief note about the 1989 case of Charles Stuart, who also blamed a black man for his own crime, prefaces the poem "Charles Stuart in the Hospital." This kind of context is expanded in the play, as news reports come through on the radio or are recited by Susan; Susan and Mr. Zero recount witness testimony; and Mr. Zero confronts Susan with documentary evidence that suggests the motive for her crime.

Susan's voice also joins Mr. Zero's in several of the poems as they dance a dangerous tango together (figuratively and literally, at one point in our production). Perhaps the most interesting mingling of these two voices is the juxtaposition of the poems "What Is Known About the Abductor" and "What Isn't Known About the Abductor." Susan recites lines from "What Is Known," addressing them directly to Mr. Zero. Mr. Zero counters with shorter lines from "What Isn't Known." The combination of these two poems underscores that most of "What Is Known About the Abductor" is negative information, a list of things "the Abductor" has NOT done. "What Is Known" and "What Is Not Known" are, in effect, the same category. Though their physical tango ends, Susan and Mr. Zero remain linked together as they undergo a polygraph test, until finally Susan confesses and Mr. Zero is pried away from her.

Sean Thomas (Nurse) and Ian Daniel McLaren (Second Son) in rehearsal; photo by Dan Smith

In addition to its fascinating relationship to Euripides' Medea, Wreckage incorporates two poems by William Blake. Nurse quotes Blake's poetry when he meets each of the two sons in the play. The poem "Infant Joy" gives a name to Second Son:

"I have no name;
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet joy I call thee...

"Infant Joy" is from Songs of Innocence. It has a corresponding poem in Songs of Experience: "Infant Sorrow." In some ways, "Infant Sorrow" is quite relevant to First Son's journey of striving and struggling with a Mother figure and a Father figure. "Bound and weary I thought best/ To sulk upon my mother's breast." Woman accuses First Son of "sulking" and "brooding," much like "Infant Sorrow" in Blake's poem.

When Nurse encounters First Son near the end of the play, he begins to recite "Little Boy Found," another poem from Songs of Innocence:

The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wandering light,
Began to cry,
but God, ever nigh,
Appeared like his father, in white.
He kissed the child,
and by the hand led,
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale,
through the lonely dale,
Her little boy weeping sought.

Nurse's recitation is interrupted by First Son after the second line of this poem. Perhaps this interruption precludes a happy reunion with the mother; or perhaps the mother figure seeking her boy with tears in her eyes is a more threatening presence. Songs of Innocence also includes "The Little Boy Lost," a poem about a boy seeking his father. But there is another poem, "A Little Boy Lost" from Songs of Experience that seems more germane to Second Son's situation. "A Little Boy Lost" begins: "'Nought loves another as itself, / Nor venerates another so.." This opening mirrors Second Son's reflections on love when he first meets Nurse. ("I know true love doesn't exist.") As the poem continues, the boy is handled roughly by a priest for daring to question authority. This "little boy lost" is ultimately bound in chains and burned on an altar as his parents look on, powerless. Second Son's final monologue, in which he claims an identity as a sacrificial body, links him to Blake's "Little Boy Lost" from Songs of Experience. Indeed, the journey from Innocence to Experience is addressed in the closing scene of the play. First Son says to Second Son, "You're older," but Second Son insists that they are the same. Nonetheless, Second Son goes on to speak a poetic parable about murderous animals that might serve as a rewriting of scripture.

These are only some of the poetic engagements of Brutal Imagination and Wreckage, two rich texts that offer fascinating interplay with questions of adaptation and appropriation.

Design for a Rotating Repertory: Creating Aesthetic Connections

2011-03-17T14:12:00.005-05:00

Wreckage: Photo by Joanie Schultz

Brutal Imagination: Photo by Jason Beck

There are several thematic connections between the two plays in our rotating repertory; the design team has also developed a number of aesthetic connections. Subtly leading these aesthetic connections are the projection design and the sound design. Projection and video designer Rasean Davonte Johnson ties the plays together by having each begin with a title and author slide. While Wreckage includes live-feed video and Brutal Imagination contains more pre-recorded video, Johnson uses projections of images throughout both plays to create textures on the set. Images of waves and sunsets evoke the darkly beautiful world of Wreckage. Brutal Imagination includes projections of a police composite sketch to illustrate Mr. Zero’s birth and of gauzy red fabric for the tango danced by Susan and Mr. Zero. Sound designer Thomas Dixon employs sounds of waves, radio static and voice-over in both plays. Much of Brutal Imagination takes place in a remembered Union, South Carolina, whereas Wreckage is geographically indeterminate. But the otherworldly quality of both plays is augmented by the sound design: these two dream worlds share a radio station.

One major challenge of doing two productions in rotating repertory is creating a scenic design that is flexible enough to accommodate both shows while allowing each show to have some specificity. Ideally this would avoid an onerous changeover for our stage management team. (This is a lesson we learned during The Changeling and Tallgrass Gothic; getting rid of all the hay in Tallgrass to have a hay-free set for Changeling proved a Sisyphean task. So when sand entered the discussion for these current scenic designs, we knew it needed to be in both shows or neither.) Stephen Carmody’s set design includes a guardrail, a sandpile, a wooden fence, a curved wooden structure reminiscent of a broken-down rollercoaster, and the corrugated metal reverse side of a billboard (which serves as the main surface for projections). The set dressing for Brutal Imagination turns the guardrail area into a roadside shrine for Susan Smith’s children and uses strategically placed blocks and seating to suggest a car and a police interrogation room. Wreckage adds a claw-foot bathtub, an ornate door frame, and a chandelier to suggest the elegant lifestyle of the destructive central couple. A video camera and a movable window enhance the theme of voyeurism.

Casey Diers’s lighting design primarily evokes mood and locations. A harsh, sharply focused light snaps on to create an interrogation room for Susan Smith and the Sheriff; Woman opens a door, casting warm light onto First Son’s sleeping body. Alarie Hammock’s costumes make intricate use of accessories, from Aunt Jemima’s ‘Do-Rag to First Son’s fur stole, underscoring the questions about race and gender raised by these playwrights. The use of eyeglasses leads to an intriguing connection between the female characters in both plays. When Samantha Gleisten is speaking as Susan Smith, she wears a pair of glasses evocative of those worn by Smith at her trial and in other news photos. As Woman, Dana Black wears dark glasses at the beginning and end of Wreckage. Susan’s and Woman’s glasses present two very different versions of femininity, separated by a wide gulf of social class.

Through many hours of thoughtful discussion (and even more hours of technical rehearsals), our design team explored each of these plays individually and considered the resonances of the two pieces together. As you observe the visual and aural cues they have created, we hope you will think about how design enhances the theatrical experience of storytelling.

Wreckage and Medea, or Caridad Svich and Euripides

2011-03-08T17:24:00.004-06:00

In a recent article for Theatre Journal, Caridad Svich explains that she was in graduate school before she came across the work of experimental women playwrights such as Adrienne Kennedy, Maria Irene Fornes, Adele Edling Schank, and Gertrude Stein. She writes, “In these dramatists’ works, there was theatrical ‘misbehavior’ of all kinds, including an unusual attention to poetic language, the examination of women’s roles in the public and domestic sphere, and a formal fearlessness I had not quite encountered before, except perhaps in the radical plays of Euripides!” Svich has referred to Wreckage as her “distaff Medea.” Her admiration for Euripides is evident in some of her other works, notably Iphigenia crash lands falls on the neon shell that was once her heart (a rave fable), currently running at the Greenhouse in a Halcyon Theatre production. Svich’s admiration for Euripides also provides a useful frame for understanding Wreckage as an adaptation of Medea. In Wreckage, we can hear Euripides as a distant, haunting memory.

The characters in Wreckage are marked by Medea. In some ways, Wreckage is a play about adolescent boys discovering their sexuality: two boys wake up after they have been killed and take different paths. One pursues an older woman and becomes a pawn in her sexual gamesmanship with her husband. The other meets an older queer character and embarks on a career as a sex worker. But these boys have memories of Euripides’ text, and so we can also read them as Medea’s children. The children in Euripides’ Medea are hapless victims who do everything their mother tells them to do. They do not speak until the very end of the play, when they are inside the house and Medea is preparing to kill them. There is no evidence that they attempt to escape. In Wreckage, Svich gives First Son and Second Son some opportunities to make choices, but their deaths remain seemingly inevitable. And yet, as the cycle begins again at the end of the play, Second Son makes a new effort to control the boys’ destiny, informed by what he has learned from Nurse and figured out on his own. His refusal to “swim in the dark ocean full of tears” represents a break with the past, a denial of history’s dominion over the future.

Svich employs specific lines from Euripides, but changes the context. For her characters, it seems as though Medea is a distant memory, an ancient source text that has palpable, yet inexplicable effects on their lives (or afterlives). In the opening scene, First Son notes that Second Son is “beauteous,” which leads him to recall a line from one of Medea’s final speeches before killing her children: “Beauteous babe, you have a city where far from me and my sad lot you will live.” In the context of Euripides, this line is ironic. On the one hand the city could mean Corinth, where Medea’s children are welcome to live, though she herself has been ordered to go into exile. On the other hand, Medea knows that she is about to kill her children, and the city may refer to the underworld, where they will live without her because she will still be in the world of the living.

First Son goes on to misquote a line from the same speech: “Behold my lover’s laughing eyes.” In Euripides, Medea says “Behold my children’s laughing eyes.” This conflation of child and lover is crucial to the sexual ambiguities of Wreckage. It is not completely possible to know all the filial relationships between the characters. They are named Woman, Husband, First Son, and Second Son. Woman brings First Son into her household, but it is not clear whether First and Second Son are her biological children or whether she constructs a sexualized Mother-Son relationship with First Son. She may murder Second Son because he has taken on the role of Husband’s mistress. The challenging nature of intersubjectivity in this play is reflected in Svich’s appropriation of Euripides’ text.

Woman’s appearance in the play introduces a different connection to Medea. Reading this character as Medea lends a sense of irony to several of her lines. She tells First Son, “You’re nothing without me.” If she is Medea and he is her child, this is true because he would exist only to help tell her story. She also says “I might do something awful,” which is humorous in a way that is reminiscent of Jocasta in Cocteau’s Infernal Machine saying “This scarf will be the death of me.” Woman speaks two additional lines from Medea in her first scene with First Son. When he says “You’re wrong about me,” she replies, “I wish I were. Damned child, son of a doomed mother.” The second sentence of her reply quotes lines 113-114 of Medea (line references are to the Loeb Classical Library edition, edited and translated by David Kovacs). Medea’s speech continues: “may you perish with your father and the whole house collapse in ruin.” The second specific line Woman cites is from near the end of Euripides’ play: “These brief days we forget, and only after do we lament” (l. 1248), a line spoken by Medea.

The character of Nurse takes on aspects of Nurse, Tutor, and Chorus from Euripides’ play. “I’m no one in this world. I keep low, safe,” he says. This speech echoes the philosophy of humility espoused by Medea’s Nurse in Euripides. In his opening and closing monologues, Nurse functions as a Greek Chorus, commenting on what he has witnessed and drawing conclusions about the significance of these events.

While the conflict between Jason and Medea undergirds the action in Euripides’ play, the conflict between Woman and Husband in Wreckage is quite different. What they have in common is a focus on words and games. “Woo him with my words,” says Husband, as he observes Woman’s interaction with First Son. Later, Husband asks, “What game is this?” Euripides’ Jason accuses Medea of starting a “contest of words” (l. 546).

In Euripides (ll. 1025ff), Medea laments the fact that she will not be able to see her sons grow up to get married, and specifically mentions the ritual bath that would take place before the wedding. Later in the same speech, Medea addresses her children as follows: “Truly, many were the hopes that I, poor fool, once had in you, that you would tend me in my old age, and when I died, dress me for burial with your own hands.” The ritual bath haunts Wreckage, as Woman bathes First Son after he comes home with her. First Son later appropriates Medea’s words in his anger at Woman: “Idle hope you should have that I will ever nurse / you in your old age and deck your corpse with loving hands.”

After she kills First Son and Second Son, Woman quotes snippets of speeches by the Chorus in Medea:

“Of one alone, one woman alone
Sent mad by heaven.
O women’s love,
So full of trouble,”
They will say.

As intriguing and complex as Svich’s textual borrowings are, her truly original engagement with Euripides comes through her characters’ riffs on aspects of Medea. Medea’s last tender act before sending the children into the house to await their death is to kiss their hands. As she kisses the boys’ hands, she speaks of their tender skin, their sweet touch, their fragrant breath. While the words “tender,” “sweet,” and “fragrant” recur throughout Wreckage, the image of a woman kissing the boys’ hands has the most power for First Son and Second Son. Second Son’s memory of a woman kissing his hands and the boys’ discussion of the merits of this kind of kiss in the opening scene give way to fear and distrust on First Son’s part when Woman kisses his hands.

Wreckage is emphatically not Medea, but this play does have strong connections to Euripides’ tragedy. To borrow an image from the play, Svich’s process of adaptation is akin to the way a conch shell distills the sound of the ocean. Listening to a conch shell—saved as a souvenir of a trip to the beach—evokes the sound of wind and waves, and memories of time spent in sand and sun. Euripides’ words and ideas resound through Wreckage, but distantly, allowing us to remember a Medea of long ago and far away while we live resolutely in the present.

Designer Run

2011-02-28T14:19:00.005-06:00

Wreckage: Ian McLaren and Tim Martin (foreground),

Dana Black and Jeremy van Meter (background)

Last week we had a designer run of Wreckage and Brutal Imagination. The two plays have a number of thematic connections, beyond their shared focus on questions of women who kill their children. Both plays develop ideas about how media narratives shape the way we understand events. Characters in Wreckage and Brutal Imagination attempt to control both theatrical narratives and media narratives.

Samantha Gleisten and D'wayne Taylor (Brutal Imagination)

In Brutal Imagination, Susan Smith and Mr. Zero struggle for control of the story of the deaths of Susan's two children. As a character conjured into existence by Susan's need for a scapegoat, Mr. Zero draws on a long history of racist stereotypes in American culture to inform Susan about her.

Wreckage includes characters who are marked by the story of Medea, and who attempt to break out of cycles of abuse. News reports about the deaths of two boys and about the trial of a teen princess who killed her child punctuate the action.

Load-in began today, and we head into tech tomorrow. Watch this space for more reports on our progress!

The Medea Question: Why Do Women Kill Their Children

2011-02-24T14:29:00.010-06:00

Yesterday in the New York Times there was an article with the headline "Suburb's Veneer Cracks: Mother is Held in Deaths." The story is about Julie Schenecker, who murdered her two teenage children on January 28, but it could just as easily been about Susan Smith, the woman who drove her children into a lake in Union, SC sixteen years prior.

Smith's case serves as the inspiration for Cornelius Eady's play Brutal Imagination (and National Book Award Finalist book of poetry by the same title). We went into rehearsal the week before Schenecker killed her children, and were already wrestling with the same seemingly unanswerable question the citizens of Tampa Palm would face: how does a mother kill her own children? Trying to get inside the inherently incomprehensible act of filicide has been one of the primary tasks over the past several weeks of rehearsal.

This is an ancient question, the Medea question, and in fact neonaticide (the killing of one's infant child) is believed to have been used as a form of population control in ancient societies including ancient Greece, and therefore socially acceptable in certain circumstances. In modern day, as the New York Times reported in an op-ed about the Schenecker case earlier this month, some 200 mothers in America commit filicide every year. Clearly only a fraction of these cases ever make the news--this is because the vast majority of these crimes are committed by among low-income, often abused women, and the causes of death are mostly ignored pregnancies, neglect, abuse, and assisted/coerced filicide (Mothers Who Kill Their Children, Meyer and Oberman 2001).

However, women like Susan Smith and Julie Schenecker are very different cases--loving mothers from middle- to upper-middle-class backgrounds (Smith came from a more modest economic demographic, but her stepfather was affluent and a prominent figure in Union). These are the stories we struggle to understand, we write news articles and plays about, that have troubled our mythology for two and a half millennia, that both Brutal Imagination and Wreckage attempt to make sense of in fractured, heartbreakingly poetic ways.

from the Emerging Theatre Award finalists

2010-03-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

Caffeine is proud to be one of the five finalists for the "2010 Broadway In Chicago Emerging Theater Award." The award was created in 2007 to encourage, support and promote emerging theatres in Chicago that have demonstrated great ability and promise, artistic excellence and fiscal responsibility in business practices. The winner will be selected by a majority vote of their peers - member companies of the League of Chicago Theatres. Here's a message from the five fantastic finalists...

Hi Chicago!

Our five companies – Caffeine, Dog & Pony, New Leaf, Steep, and Theatre Seven of Chicago – are so collectively thrilled to be considered for this year’s Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theatre Award. It truly is an honor to be nominated, and we’re sending out this message because we are just so pleased – all of us – to be in the company of so many committed, visionary, talented artists within our broad community and within these five companies specifically. We know each other, respect one another’s work, see each other’s shows – and it’s really a thrill to be in this together.

One of the proudest hallmarks of Chicago’s dynamic theatre community is that it’s just that – a community. We’re a huge family of artists who strive towards the same goals of thought-provoking, inventive, exciting theatre that asks our audiences some of life’s most mystifying and important questions. Each company in this town takes a different path to and around and through, and yet we still get to these questions’ (and our audiences’) core in effective, engaging, and innovative ways. This is what makes Chicago the best town in which to make and see theatre.

So, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for this community we’ve made together, and we wanted to come to you as a group and let you know more about all five of us. To us, this is an opportunity to celebrate our collective accomplishments thus far, and look forward to an exciting future.

If you haven’t already joined each of us for a show, we hope you will soon. Here’s what’s we’ve got going on:

Caffeine – Wild Nights with Emily (through April 11)
Dog & Pony – The Twins Would Like to Say (through April 25)
New Leaf – Curse of the Starving Class (April 15 – May 22)
Steep – Harper Reagan (through April 25)
Theatre Seven of Chicago – Mimesophobia (through April 4)

If you’re a representative of a League member theatre company, you can also learn more about our companies and perform your democratic duty here.

If you’re with a theatre company that’s not a member of the League, you can cruise over here to learn more about joining the party.

And if you just want to learn more about what’s up in Chicago theatre, you should head here.

Sincerely,
Caffeine – Dog & Pony – New Leaf – Steep – Theatre Seven of Chicago

Dylan & the Coffeehouse Tradition

2009-09-07T14:41:00.000-05:00

While Under Milk Wood lives inside the Storefront Theater, a whole other world--or rather, series of worlds-- is coming to life in the mezzanine lobby. After sifting through submissions from Chicago, Wales, Ireland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Indiana, Minnesota, and Lithuania--to name just some of the sources, we're putting together The Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret for its one night of glory on Wednesday September 9.

Along with the winners of the Rev. Eli Jenkins' Five & Country Senses poetry competition (named for a Milk Wood poet and a Thomas poem), the Coffeehouse will bring together local and international works inspired by Thomas.

Since our first Coffeehouse in 2005 (The Acorn Forum, companion to the world premiere of Silva and co-funded by the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas), Caffeine has brought together artists from across organizations and disciplines. In 2008 the Antigone Coffeehouse expanded that notion into a mini-performance festival, played to packed houses and made friends around the globe. The Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret continues that tradition.

We're pleased as punch to include new music and dance from locals like The Summer is for Fireflies, Robert Steel, Catherine Glynn, and Chicago Opera Vanguard. We're also thrilled to hear the luminous Nick Rudall read from Dylan's "Prologue." And Pat Hofmann (of past Caffeine shows Sailing to Byzantium and Silva) voice Dylan's wife Caitlin (at an AA meeting, no less!), and Artistic Associate Jeremy van Meter portray the Welsh composer Daniel Jones. Other performers include Artistic Associates Carey Burton and Erik Schnitger, Chuck Filipov and Kaitlin Byrd of Under Milk Wood, and Ian Randall of The Cocktail Party, Many Loves, and The Changeling. The theatre pieces, meanwhile, come to us from Jerome Fellow Monica Raymond, David McCall of County Cork Ireland, Richard Ballon of Amherst, Massachusetts, and many others.

Tickets are free, but eventually we'll run out of chairs, so to take advantage of this one-night event, you'll want to reserve a ticket in advance!

Welsh Heroes

2009-08-28T14:01:00.016-05:00

Welsh Heroes: Original Digital Illustrations by Benjy Davies

Benjy Davies kindly gave us permission to share these images from his Welsh Heroes collection inspired by the results of Culturenet Cymru's "100 Welsh Heroes" online poll. To see the layers used to create the images, and to read more about his process and the heroes themselves, visit the Gallery. For instance, the Dylan Thomas image above includes landscape images and manuscripts, as well as Thomas himself.

Sir Richard Burton, a great admirer of Thomas' work and of course very fine actor, performed Under Milk Wood many times, and brought along Liz Taylor as Rosie Probert.

David Lloyd George served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1916-1922, the only Welshmen to hold the office. He was "widely credited with ending the First World War, and setting up infrastructure and procedures that contributed to winning the Second World War."

Robert Owen, an industrialist and social reformer, fought to improve the “dark, satanic mills”of the Industrial Age, and in his 1816 "A New View of Society," espoused a plan for cooperative villages, which inspired the founding of New Harmony, Indiana, among others.

Phil Campbell has been both guitarist of the heavy metal group Motorhead, and a Minister of Health and Labor Party leader.

For close to twenty years, in the 13th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd "ruled a united Wales, and briefly, it appeared that Wales would achieve an independent national status. As history turned, it did not work out that way."

Rowan Williams, despite his outspokenness "against nuclear proliferation, the Iraq war, the over-dependence of the free market as a governing force, and in favor of the ordination of women," and particularly about homosexuality, became the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.

Sir Anthony Hopkins has directed Under Milk Wood and played First Voice. He once performed in Strindberg's The Dance of Death as Olivier's understudy, and Olivier said “He walked away with the role like a cat with a mouse between its teeth”.

This exhibition was sponsored by the Madog Center for Welsh Studies at the University of Rio Grande in Rio Grande Ohio. http://madog.rio.edu/.

Milk Wood Emerges

2009-08-19T12:35:00.006-05:00

This Dylan Thomas fellow… we know him mostly for a villanelle he wrote exhorting his father “Do not go gentle into that good night.” We know he’s Welsh, if we think about it, because we likely read in school his Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Entering our sixth season, Caffeine finds ourselves with two poets whom even the scholars call by their first names, as if of friends—one famously pounding whiskey at the White Horse Tavern, one infamously garreted away in her quiet Amherst home—Dylan and Emily, two poets more than half in love with death. (And when you add on the work-in-progress Ode to Akhmatova begun at University of Chicago’s Summer, Inc residency, there’s a third singer of mortality in the mix.) So perhaps the most amazing thing about the work of these poets is the great joy they find in life, and the big-hearted humor in these plays.

This week Thomas’ Under Milk Wood takes shape in the Storefront Theater.

When Thomas was writing the play, the world was still reeling from the bombing of Hiroshima. Some believe the poet gave us his little village of Llareggub to reveal the resilie nce of small daily beauty.

Dedicated to beauty and to the play, our cast and design team make a Llareggub in Chicago.

Uplands getting down for Dylan Thomas

2009-08-10T10:00:00.002-05:00

The news from Wales--how often does a Chicago theatre company give you that?

Press Release for Dylan Thomas' 95th birthday in his hometown of Swansea:

"Dylan Down The Ups is the title of a brand new series of events to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas in his home village of Uplands in Swansea on 27th October 2009.

A year ago Anne and Geoff Haden celebrated the opening of the fully restored birthplace of Dylan Thomas at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive with an Edwardian afternoon tea for a hundred people on what would have been the 94th birthday of the most well known man of words of the 20th century.

From that successful event they have moved to team up with residents and traders of the village of Uplands to celebrate his 95th birthday with a series of events planned throughout the day to give the area a party atmosphere despite it being in October.

Says Anne Haden “Swansea is made up of villages and this is Dylan’s – after all it was the place where he lived for over half his life and so much of his work was inspired by the area – this is the least that we can do for him.

“Dylan’s short stories are typically Welsh and full of humour while his poems are deep. The aim is to bring Dylan back to street level through fun, friendliness and accessibility.

“The area still has its Victorian and Edwardian character and what we are aiming to do is make the village the centrepiece of the celebrations with events going on in the street and many of the shops, cafes and the pub.

“People will be able to follow in Dylan’s footsteps and learn about the shops that were in the Uplands in his day when it was a more select shopping area with its own identity

“We want to involve all the community and there will be events for children and adults and because it will be during the October half term should attract a lot of interest from out side Wales.

Geoff Haden says that the plans are in an early stage but confirmed that “There will be a Dylan Look Alike Competition, short story and art competitions and shops will be encouraged to compete in the best dressed window award.

“We are in advanced discussions to premiere in Wales a new play about Dylan – Poem in October – by the writer Robert Forrest written especially for the leading Scottish actor Finlay Welsh.

“The plans have received enthusiastic support from local traders and we hope that this will develop into a week long event by the time that we celebrate the Centenary of Dylan’s birth in 2014.”

Nigel Clatworthy from The Chattery has already given his support to the birthday plans and says “Anne has booked our venue for the poet Peter Thabit Jones and musician Terry Clarke for an evening of Dylan’s work and some new and original material from both performers – it’s something that we are really looking forward to.”

Want to get involved? Telephone 0781 775 3376 or check www.5cwmdonkindrive.com "

Call for poems and performers

2009-07-18T21:13:00.000-05:00

Caffeine Theatre seeks short original performance pieces of all kinds (music, dance, theatre, spoken word, poetry, etc.) for the Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret, September 9, 2009, at 7pm in the Storefront Theater Mezzanine (in the Loop, at 66 E Randolph). The Coffeehouse Cabaret celebrates the work of Welsh poet and playwright Dylan Thomas. Any and all pieces inspired by Thomas’ life, work, or themes are welcome. Out-of-Chicago artists are encouraged to send a script, music, poem, etc. to be performed/directed by in-town artists. Collaborations with Chicago arts organizations are welcome and encouraged.

Please email a 1-2 page proposal (or, if the written piece already exists, send that) to Artistic Director Jennifer Shook at jen(at)caffeinetheatre.com including (with understanding that transformation occurs in process) a description of your proposed piece, how many people you expect to be involved, estimated length, and any required resources. (Consideration will be given to minimal pieces with brief setup and small spatial needs.) Please use “Coffeehouse submission” in the subject heading. If it is not evident how your piece relates to Thomas, please include a brief explanation.

Some rehearsal space will be available on a first-come basis. Casting assistance is also available as required and appropriate.
The Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret is produced in association with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and in conjunction with Caffeine’s production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, running at the Storefront Theater August 21-September 27.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: August 5, 2009.
Accepted pieces will be notified by August 12, 2009.

Caffeine also seeks original poetry for Eli Jenkins’ Five and Country Senses poetry competition. Submissions may include any size or style of poem, as long as it is inspired in some way by Dylan Thomas’ life or work, or in some way speaks in conversation with that life or work. Winners will be posted and podcast on Caffeine’s website, and performed at the Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret on September 9. Any new or previously written poem may be submitted (provided it can be republished/ recorded/performed). If it is not evident how your piece relates to Thomas, please include a brief explanation.

TO SUBMIT: Email poem(s) and 3-5 sentence description of relation to Dylan Thomas to Caffeine Theatre Artistic Director Jennifer Shook at jen(at)caffeinetheatre.com with “Eli Jenkins” in the subject heading. DEADLINE: August 16, 2009.

Happy National Poetry Month

2009-03-29T23:54:00.010-05:00

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month?

In Chicago, we wallow in an embarrassment of poetry riches year-round, and April just revs it up.

Caffeine's mission is to mine the poetic tradition to explore social questions. The word "poetry" can be a little daunting to some (as I wrote about in HereThere magazine in 2008). Yet it carries a long tradition of engaging people both in beauty and in ethical thought.

The origins of spoken drama lie in poetry (Aristotle's Poetics, anybody?). Beckett wrote that he wanted to "bring the poetry back to the drama."

Robert Pinsky says in Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry that poetry is a part of the rhythm of our internal lives, our thoughts and our guts, as well as our external lives, our walking, our speaking, our whimpers and whoops. Octavio Paz says “as long as there are people, there will be poetry.” Ruth Padel succinctly explains why art persists: "Art can be a witness – and, in witnessing, it makes other people see themselves and the world with new eyes."

Last fall we celebrated the 125th birthday of beloved American poet William Carlos Williams with his play Many Loves. Williams puts it well:

"It is difficult to get the news from poems,
Yet men die miserably every day
For lack of what is found there."

We began quoting those particular lines during our first "full-run" production, Sailing to Byzantium, in which W. B. Yeats wondered whether poetry could properly serve a world where young men die for their beliefs. In the play, Ezra Pound answered him with youthful enthusiasm. In real life, Auden wrote this in his own memoriam for Yeats:

"For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth."

Isn't that what, ultimately, theatre does as well? Provide a mouth, and a witness? And a way to step into another world, where we reflect back upon our own lives with new perspective and perhaps new vigor?

The Poetry Foundation (kin to the great Poetry Magazine founded in 1912) issued a call a few years ago for more verse theatre, and Caffeine has answered that call repeatedly--currently with The Changeling. Tallgrass Gothic, then, answers another facet of our mission: to connect that time-honored tradition with the contemporary world.

Poetry has teeth. But it will not bite you. Give it a go this April, and see what poetry can do for you.

- Jennifer Shook, Artistic Director

World Theatre Day approaches

2009-03-23T10:00:00.002-05:00

Five years ago, Caffeine committed to expanding the conversation of poetry and theatre and artistic social engagement. We continue to produce works that juxtapose old and new, legacy and innovation. (Sometimes that leads us far afield, and we're proud to be called "Chicago's most reliable source for oddball gems.") Sometimes that leads us right into the classics, like The Changeling. As we asked with our season of ancient Greek drama, we ask again: what is it about these old plays that compels us to return to them?

This and more questions we bring to the planning for celebration of World Theatre Day, approaching on March 27. On the day, we'll be celebrating with a panel on the enduring legacy of classic English drama (and yes, a performance of The Changeling).

But even now, you can prepare to celebrate by reading the WTD statement by the remarkable Augusto Boal, best known in this country for his book Theatre of the Oppressed.

World Theatre Day - International Message

27th March 2009

Augusto Boal

All human societies are “spectacular” in their daily life and produce “spectacles” at special moments. They are “spectacular” as a form of social organization and produce “spectacles” like the one you have come to see.

Even if one is unaware of it, human relationships are structured in a theatrical way. The use of space, body language, choice of words and voice modulation, the confrontation of ideas and passions, everything that we demonstrate on the stage, we live in our lives. We are theatre!

Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting - all is theatre.

One of the main functions of our art is to make people sensitive to the “spectacles” of daily life in which the actors are their own spectators, performances in which the stage and the stalls coincide. We are all artists. By doing theatre, we learn to see what is obvious but what we usually can’t see because we are only used to looking at it. What is familiar to us becomes unseen: doing theatre throws light on the stage of daily life.

Last September, we were surprised by a theatrical revelation: we, who thought that we were living in a safe world, despite wars, genocide, slaughter and torture which certainly exist, but far from us in remote and wild places. We, who were living in security with our money invested in some respectable bank or in some honest trader’s hands in the stock exchange were told that this money did not exist, that it was virtual, a fictitious invention by some economists who were not fictitious at all and neither reliable nor respectable. Everything was just bad theatre, a dark plot in which a few people won a lot and many people lost all. Some politicians from rich countries held secret meetings in which they found some magic solutions. And we, the victims of their decisions, have remained spectators in the last row of the balcony.

Twenty years ago, I staged Racine’s Phèdre in Rio de Janeiro. The stage setting was poor: cow skins on the ground, bamboos around. Before each presentation, I used to say to my actors: “The fiction we created day by day is over. When you cross those bamboos, none of you will have the right to lie. Theatre is the Hidden Truth”.

When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

-Augusto Boal

You can read more about World Theatre Day as well as the 2008 message from Robert LePage at http://worldtheatreday.org/ and http://wtd09.wordpress.com/

Bloody bloody plays

2009-03-17T11:21:00.010-05:00

One of the things that has stood out in the past two weeks of tech and previews for The Changeling and Tallgrass Gothic is the focus on stage violence. These plays are full of rage, and swords and daggers, and blood.

Leading to such conversations as:
- "Why does the theatre smell like toothpaste?" "Oh, that's the edible blood."
- "Where's the finger box?" "Sorry, I have it out here-I was putting a bloody rag around the finger."
- "Can you cut some grass with your dagger to give her?" "Well, it's not really 'sharp,' see, because if it could cut grass it could cut flesh." "Right."
- "Be careful not to hit your elbows when you fall. Think about how much you need to reach out to tie your shoes."
- "Does it look gross when she gets stabbed?" "It looks sudsy." "I used too much dishsoap."
- "Work on that choke. Go home and pick up jars."
- "His wound is too pink." "I'll try more chocolate syrup."

So, yes-you can make fake blood at home. Should you? Artistic Director Jennifer Shook interviewed Fight Choreographer Jamie Stires to get a little more of the bloody scoop.
Shook: How did you wind up in the business of choreographing violence?

Stires: When I was in college I was Sabina in a production Skin of our Teeth. I had to do a couple of unarmed fights and shoot a gun. It was interesting to see the fight director talk it through like a dance. Years later in grad school I really started training in all the weapon styles and found it to be exhilarating. I love the choreography side because it combines my favorite parts of theatre...directing the scene, the non-verbal dance between two characters...and swords.

Shook: I love that you added an extra "half-punch" to clear up some storytelling when Tin threatens his pal Scotto. Being a director yourself, of course you know some things about telling a story. But tell us a little about your thoughts on physical storytelling?

Stires: I strongly believe that stage violence, good stage violence, must be a part of the story as physical text and not just a moment shoved between verbal text. Shakespeare writes "they fight" in his plays to indicate physical violence. In reality, if this is the first moment the actors have felt moved to violence, we're not telling the right story. Physical movement can be compelling and speak to an audience in a way the verbal may not. It grabs a viewer and allows them to further understand what is happening to a character. The characters could be speaking a foreign language, but their physical dialogue can assist in telling a clear and moving story.

Shook: Fight folks all seem to know each other--what's that community like? Is there a secret handshake? Or headbutt?

Stires: It is one gigantic family. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to work with professionals from all over the country because of stage combat. I feel like I have big brothers, uncles and aunts all over that would have my back should I need them. My dearest friends I met through violence...not sure what that says about me though... As for a handshake...I'll have to suggest that.

Shook: What's the weirdest thing you've had to make happen on stage?

Stires: I choreographed a version of Twelfth Night where the concept was "Wrestle Mania". All the characters were in neon spandex and the fight scene culminated in a cage fight between all on stage. There were sleeper holds, groin kicks, folding chairs to the face, body slams, everything and beyond. Did I mention they were wearing neon spandex...and capes? It was great fun and totally made me laugh every night.

Shook: What's been your greatest challenge in working on the Rep?

Stires: There's a lot of very intimate violence in both of these plays. It becomes a huge challenge to balance where we want to go artistically and maintaining the safety of the actors involved. It's not just about their physical safety either...the mental safety of the actor is just as important, in any moment of violence. There are real emotions rushing through your body and learning to control them and create "non-violent violence" is the key to great stage combat.

Shook: What's been the best part?

Stires: Getting to work with all these fantastic new people. I haven't been in the city for very long, so it's been great to work on both shows together. Meeting twice as many theatre folks at once...I love it.

Shook: What's a project you'd really love to do but haven't yet?

Stires: Oh, so many...where to begin! My thesis project in grad school was directing The Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard. I want to finish his family cycle and direct Buried Child and True West. I have also been looking for the perfect opportunity to direct Lysistrata. I mean, women not giving their men sex to make a profound statement about war...what could be better?!

Shook: We should probably say, "don't try this at home"--but what's the best advice you can give those new to the fight biz on fighting safely and impressively?

Stires: Don't think of stage combat as anything other than an acting discipline. The best stage violence I have seen is when the verbal text moves seamlessly into the physical text and back again. It is a part of the scene and therefore a part of the character. As for getting involved, there are classes throughout the city you can take and numerous workshops around the country where you can get exposed to this very unique art form.

What is tech? Sometimes, fun.

2009-03-09T18:47:00.000-05:00

Amongst those of us who work in theatre, "I'm in tech" is an unquestioned reason to miss birthdays, concerts, fundraisers, etc. Yet perhaps this code bears some explaining for the rest of the world. One of our stage managers came in with a card from her sister that read "Mom says you're in something called tech. I don't know what that means, but she said I shouldn't call you, and I should send presents. Here's a gift card for Dunkin Donuts." Good sister.
"Tech," to begin, stands for "technical rehearsals." It's when the show in process moves from the rehearsal room into the theatre--or for those who rehearse in their theatre, it's when the set shows up--or for those of us who don't have a building at all, it's when we take over our newly rented performance space. When we go from moving from one to another classroom of mats and folding metal chairs to the real thing. That means, of course, that first the real thing has to be moved. And built. And painted. Etc.

As a director said to me once, "tech is like Christmas." You get all the new toys: the lights, the sounds, the clothes, the furniture and painted walls, and floors... in this case, made of dirt. And grass.
Tech can also be a sad time for a director, because you have to spend some time concentrating on the lights and the sounds and the way things move around... and you stop watching the story and the characters. Then suddenly an audience comes in for previews, and if you're lucky you realize that the story was there all along, and that your smart designers have been working with it, not in spite of it.
For a small theatre company, the kind where the artistic director is also the producer and props shopper and all-around gofer, tech is long days of painting and sweeping and (hopefully) reassuring phone calls and drama management and snack-bringing and program proofing and trying very hard to maintain calm.
This past week, teching our two rep shows has been long hours and hard work, but also, amidst it all, rather delightful. It's involved notes like "can we take it again from the belly sniff?" and and "I can't tell that he's holding a finger" "Is the wind scary?" "Is the ghost in his light?" Thanks, Middleton and Marnich. You've given us some twisted plays.

We're all looking forward to sharing them with you out there, in audience-land.

Jennifer Shook,
Caffeine Theatre Artistic Director

Video teaser for the Rep

2009-03-03T15:50:00.004-06:00

Ready for a teaser of the two actors crossing between parallel roles in Caffeine's spring repertory?

You can get a taste of the two plays right now or anytime you like in our preview trailer:

Double Espresso: The Artistic Associates

2009-02-19T12:19:00.021-06:00

Double Espresso:

Artistic associate Jeremy van Meter appears in both of Caffeine’s spring shows, which run in repertory beginning 14 March 2009. Artistic associate Donald Gecewicz interviews, and is interviewed by, van Meter.

The Body of the Actor

Donald Gecewicz: Your first role for Caffeine Theatre was as Philoctetes in The Cure at Troy. You spent much of the play sprawled across the stage, crippled by a snake-bitten foot. I might call your performance “physical.” But does saying that an actor’s performance is “physical” truly mean anything? After all, acting is action done with a physical body.

Jeremy van Meter: Every role that I take on is physical in nature yet there are roles that require more "physicality" than others. As an actor, if I am cutting off or in any way making less important what is taking place in the body then I am doing a huge disservice to my character. The body is the instrument of the actor and the only thing about acting that the audience truly "sees." They are not party to what is going on in my head only so far as that translates into the body. "I just love watching you move on-stage" is one of the greatest compliments I have received as an actor.

DG: Some writers have compared Philoctetes to artists. Philoctetes must learn to turn his wound into power, and artists have wounds that they must learn to rise above. Did creating Philoctetes spur you to think about actors and playwrights and their “wounds”?

Artistic Associate David Dastmalchian, center, was
Neoptolemus to van Meter's Philoctetes. Dastmalchian has
recently been on the big screen in The Dark Knight
and small screen in several Wendy's commercials.

JvM: Philoctetes allowed his wound to feed a deep sense of anger and resentment. Those emotions are incredibly unhealthy, and he clearly was not able to rise above those feelings. I have not allowed every rejection that has come my way over the course of my career to "wound" me. Of course those things are painful, but I have never allowed them to settle into feeding a sense of something that I must rise above. Maybe that is atypical to the norm. In the past, whenever something that I was hoping for fell through, my father would always say "Well, suppose something better is about to come along." More often than not, the man was correct.

The Body of the Playwright

JvM: Speaking of actors and playwrights, recently, a script of yours entitled Chassano was given a staged reading by Caffeine Theatre. Why is it helpful to hear the words that you have written spoken aloud by actors prior to a rewrite?

DG: Well, the play works too perfectly in the playwright’s head. All of those voices have to leave the playwright’s body for the actors’ bodies. Chassano is about the body, too, about what Chassano himself wants to do with his body. What actors do goes beyond reflecting the play to the playwright. It starts the first of the great conversations in the theatre, between playwright and actors. This conversation can eventually lead to the main conversation, between playwright and audience—except that the playwright never speaks directly to the audience. The actors converse for the playwright. The first readings of a play by actors overload the playwright’s circuits. The actors keep the playwright honest. All of the little mistakes suddenly loom large, and the big mistakes overwhelm. And then comes rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

JvM: Thinking about the time before rewrite, how do ideas come to you as a writer?

DG: Plays show themselves. They start as an apparition. Playwrights hear voices. Don’t tell anyone. But ask any writer, particularly poets and playwrights, about what happens in the shower. Yes, the shower. Somehow it lets voices and images loose, and then characters present themselves and start to move in a visualized space. It may be the touch of water against skin, first thing in the morning, or just relaxation in the warmth.

Soda Bread and Murderous Thoughts

DG: Your second role for Caffeine Theatre was as Manus in Translations. Translations is about witnessing the wiping out of an ancient but living culture that has gone from being the majority to being a beleaguered minority. Not exactly the experience of the dominant culture of the United States. How did you prepare for the role?

JvM: I recall trying to locate first-person accounts of the emotions certain people in Ireland encountered as the "colonization" effort was taking place. This was a proud people that were being forced to rename their country and homeland. To translate that into the portrayal of Manus, I did plenty of "acting as if" I were in that position--from the two perspectives of this occurring in my homeland and then someone taking away someone I love quite dearly in the process.

DG: Is there something murderous about Manus, who seems so mild, who worries about his father’s soda bread even as he, Manus, is leaving the village?

JvM: I would not say that there is something murderous about Manus but I will say that he is a man of mystery and that what is taking place in his home is maddening to him. Someone else watching the play may have the opinion that, of course, he is a killer. I enjoy playing men who force the viewers to make their own final impression when they walk out of the theatre. I am satisfied and have done my job properly when an audience is engaged in conversation based on my character and my performance of that character. One person might see him as capable of that murder while another might simply see it as escape from a situation he can no longer tolerate. Manus is, as you say, a mild man who wants his life to turn out in a certain way with the woman he loves. His exit from the village and the action of the play occurs when he realizes that this life is not possible. Given circumstances beyond his control, who knows what the mild-mannered person is capable of.

Bothering the Audience

DG: It has been a characteristic of Caffeine’s productions to play very close to the audience. How does working close to audience members affect your acting (besides having to make sure that you don’t bonk someone on the head)?

JvM: Much of the stage work that I have been involved with in Chicago has been nose to nose with the audience and I must admit that I love it. There is power in the sensation that the audience cannot get away or fade into the darkness. The style of play that Caffeine is famous for sets up perfectly for that mindset. I suppose then the effect this has on my acting is that it forces a deeper honesty and purity. It places the performance on the anvil because the audience is witness to the minutiae that the audience in the larger theatre is not privy to. One can almost play the same way that one would for the camera which, in my opinion, jacks up the intensity on-stage. I am looking forward to living in De Flores (The Changeling) and Filene (Tallgrass Gothic) within those confines.

DG: As a playwright (and audience member), I think of the audience as the gold standard, the final test. How do you read an audience, react to an audience?

JvM: One of my teachers at the University of Iowa held firm to the advice that as an actor you have to disregard the audience. Those are not his exact words in that I am deleting the expletive involved. This was always a point of contention with me because I disagree wholeheartedly. Of course, my main responsibility is telling the story of the play and living honestly as the character along with my cast-mates but the audience is one of the main reasons that my passion lies on stage. The audience is the other living, breathing character in the world of the live theatre, and taking care of them is one of my jobs as well. Reading an audience is never simple and the trap that many actors fall into is that of making assumptions about an audience. A quiet, non-responsive audience is tagged as being bored or a "bad house" when in fact they may be enjoying the hell out of the play and are simply quiet and non-responsive. Each audience is different and made up of people with different sensibilities and the great thing about that realization is that the play changes with that. One audience can react one way that makes the play different from the night before when the audience reacted in a completely different way. Box of chocolates...

The Challenge of Rep

DG: Caffeine will run Tallgrass Gothic and The Changeling in repertory as its offerings this spring. This is a first for Caffeine. You are one of two actors who will appear in both plays. How do the plays relate to each other? How do they harmonize?

JvM: Thankfully, I am far enough along in my career to have had the chance to perform a rep schedule, and thankfully, I do enjoy the challenge. These plays are a bold move for Caffeine and I applaud Jennifer Shook's willingness to take leap of faith with this project. The way the plays relate to one another is in the main story line which, for the sake of our audience, I will not spoil. There is a subplot in The Changeling that is not shared in Gothic. In my opinion, the plays harmonize and play against each other at the same time. A plot line is shared, but character motives do not necessarily match up in both. For instance, what motivates De Flores is not what motivates Filene. The objective is the same for both but the reasons why they are seeking that objective are not. I am also humbled by the challenge and opportunity to create two quite similar yet different characters.

DG: How do you prepare to play two roles in two plays that will be running at the same time? How do you keep their mannerisms and characteristics separate? Do you have to split your mind, in a way?

JvM: The language certainly is of assistance in ensuring that these characters are not carbon copies of one another. The difference in motive between them is another. I am simply attempting to achieve absolute clarity in those differences. In terms of splitting these personalities, that is what is most vital to me as an actor. For example, love as a motivating force to carry something out is much different from lust as the force to do the same thing. As a matter of fact, I am now at the point in my creation of these men that I am looking for mannerisms and characteristics that they might share. They have differences and similarities.

DG: Tallgrass Gothic and The Changeling both have aspects of the grotesque in them. For instance, in both, your character is deformed. Back to “physical” acting, what does the twisted body mean—the grotesque, the deformed, the scarred, those aspects that unnerve us?

Artistic Associate Erik Schnitger (shown here as Xothous in Ion, right)
will play Tin in Tallgrass Gothic.

JvM: In terms of the "deformity" of both men, I am more interested in exploring what that scarring has done to both of them internally. Of course, we are able to see what happened to them or what the scarring is physically, but the juice of that for me as the actor is delving into what the resulting mindset and psyche are because of that scar. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was a grotesque and ridiculed figure yet quite gentle in nature and pure of heart. As I said earlier, one man will rise above the scar and another will be consumed by it. In the creation of the men that I am portraying, I am centered now on what the scar turned them into that they might not have been without it. I think that to be the unnerving part of the deformed. The mind is a part of the deformity.

DG: Both plays also have comic characters and comic scenes. How do you deal with the conjoined comedic and violent sides, and the deliberate shifts from one to the other, all of which are integral to the way that each playwright wants to tell a story?

JvM: All three of these playwrights have succeeded in creating well-rounded characters. Too much of one thing in a character is quite dull. There are layers to each of them, and because of that, the intelligence and wit are in place as well. Speaking from my own character's perspective, there is a confidence and a cockiness in both that add to the sense of humor that both clearly have. I also think that comedy is used to serve as the glass through which some truly horrible things occur.

Artistic Associate Dan Smith, dramaturg for both Rep plays, recently became a 3-time Jeopardy! champion.

But Who’s in Charge There?

DG: Tallgrass Gothic has an overtly religious side that The Changeling does not share. What do you make of playwright Marnich’s evocation of religion?

JvM: In preparing Gothic, Jen had us as a cast watch a brilliant documentary entitled Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Faith and religion in the Deep South made up the thread throughout the film. One of the quotes from one of the true life "characters" in the documentary is that church and religion allows one to "forget what they have done during the week." That is exactly what I make of religion in Gothic. From the character's viewpoint, when I am in church I can pretend that I have chosen heaven rather than hell.

DG: More on choice. In both plays, it sure seems to me that the women run things, and the men sort of bounce off the walls. Am I on the right track? How do you perceive the power relations between men and women in the two plays?

JvM: I would say that the women have the ideas of what needs to happen and the men make those ideas so. The power relationship then is that the women are not in control and the men are. Or in the case of my story-line, the woman is in control of the idea to take action but is in no way in control of how the action is carried out. She loses further control when the idea and the action begin to unravel around her. In that situation, the man again shows up with the action plan.

DG: Would that make De Flores of The Changeling evil, or is he just asked to be evil? Given the opportunity… and a weapon.

JvM: De Flores is not evil, and he is not asked to be evil. That would make him one-sided and acting for the sake of evil's sake alone. The action that he takes and his capacity to carry out evil tasks comes from a place of genuine emotion and adoration for a member of the opposite sex. De Flores is truly in need of something that will prove that love and service. That something happens to turn out to be evil in nature. The act is evil, but the man is honest. He is not evil, much in the same way that Iago of Othello cannot be branded with that name either. Intense love, lust, greed, jealousy and the quest for revenge can make the saintliest person lose grasp.

JvM: Think about it this way: Do you like every character that you have written or not?

DG: I do like them. And my reasons relate to what you just said about De Flores. You can’t think of a character as repulsive. The playwright has to have a basic sympathy, a minimal compassion, for even the most deformed character.

DG: Then is De Flores mad? There are many questions of madness in that play. Who is mad in The Changeling?

JvM: I think the title role of the play refers to Beatrice. I also believe that being a party to what is carried out in the play sends her over the edge in a sense. This woman is not, at the end of the play, the same woman who entered in act 1, scene 1. Other figures in the play may act out madness, but in the final stages there is only one figure who loses grasp on reality.

Turn Off the TV, and Take a Dose of Caffeine

JvM: You see quite a bit of live theatre here in Chicago. What propels you to the theatre?

DG: Theatre is intimate, private but public, accessible. What other artform still engages all of the senses? I agree with Augusto Boal, the Brazilian director, that theatre is life itself, not a mirror. Real emotion, from real people.

Associate Dana Black, left, as Carla
in Like the Moon Behind the Clouds,
a world premiere by Gecewicz.

Playwright-Actor Talk (Don’t Tell the Director)

JvM: Just why are playwrights important?

DG: My Italian friends tell me that we English-speakers are lucky because Shakespeare shaped our language. Dante’s style is much more highly structured, and the Divine Comedy is almost too perfect. Shakespeare breathed life into our language, and we still benefit from his achievement. Also, playwrights have discerned certain problems, and again, Shakespeare guides us. He describes the necessary decline of religious belief, the anxiety of life without various certainties, the horrors of war, the staleness of ambition, the endlessness of desire, and the use of love potions. Poetry is a kind of prophecy, and, for that reason, hard to come to terms with. Novels are observations, always a step removed. Yet the stage is life itself—where we go to have a sentimental education. The stakes are highest when our emotional makeup is being created.

JvM: Your play Like the Moon Behind the Clouds was produced by Caffeine early in 2008. Did you begin writing that play knowing that Caffeine was the venue or was that discovered later in the writing process?

DG: Nothing was certain at first, of course. Jennifer Shook and I had met collaborating on a workshop and staged reading of my play, Chassano. She was interested in scripts that fit Caffeine’s mission to depict the almost-prophetic language of poetry with the urgency of theatre. I was working on the translation of Carla Vasio’s prose memoir of her time in Japan. I started on the prose some ten years ago. I showed Jen excerpts of the prose, and she suggested that we continue. I started on the play about four years ago. I had a table reading early on at Chicago Dramatists. Never discount the influence of Chicago Dramatists on the development of plays here in Chicago. Then Jen led a workshop and staged reading. At a certain point, we agreed that we had something that could move toward production. It was a dance, in a way. It had to be a dance.

Keeping a Theatre Alive and Lively

DG: We are both artistic associates of Caffeine. What does that august title, “artistic associate,” mean?

JvM: It means having an artistic home. It means that if it was my desire not to work on stage anywhere else, I could make that choice and still find fulfillment as an actor. It means creating theatre with a group of people that I truly enjoy being around and who make me a better actor because I am their company. When I first came to Chicago, I always thought that becoming an associate with a company meant that I had arrived. Whether or not that is the case, I am certainly proud to have found a home with Caffeine Theatre.

DG: Yet Caffeine isn’t a repertory theatre or an ensemble, even though the artistic associates are part of the continuing life of the theatre. What does that mean—working on the continuing collaboration that Caffeine Theatre is?

JvM: There is a sense that the work Caffeine Theatre puts out there strengthens theatre in Chicago and in America. Specific to the mission of Caffeine there is also a sense that we are strengthening the poetic community as well. There is value in both and matching the two means that each will continue to play a vital role in both the small and large theatrical/artistic worlds.

JvM: How do you serve the Caffeine Theatre company of artists by being an artistic associate as a playwright rather than as an actor?

DG: At times, I am there as a naïve audience member, someone not as attuned to the creation of a performance. That way, Caffeine can call me in at various points in the process of rehearsals as a different set of eyes, a different mindset. I also read scripts that have been submitted and give advice about their quality. Because part of the mission of Caffeine is to bring highly charged poetic language to the stage, a playwright, who is supposed to know something about highly charged language, can come in handy. I also try to look decorative at fundraisers.

Courtney Knysch, our casting associate and Rep co-producer,

studied travel writing in Morocco, and has been interning
with Chicago Shakespeare Theater. We're happy to share our expertise with them.

Starving Artists in America

DG: Speaking of funding, it is fairly obvious to me that theatres in Chicago are better at planning their work and at managing money than the boys and girls on Wall Street. What have we learned about the economy and the role of theatres in the life of the city from being parts of Caffeine?

JvM: We, all of us, in the artistic community understand about the operation of our talent within a shoestring budget. Greed and a devil-may-care attitude regarding money will not get the job done in the storefront-theatre world. Therein lies the quality and the skill at creation and development. All ideas are valid because, more often than not, there are several ways to go about creation.

JvM: To continue my thought as a question, though, are there truly “new ideas” out there to be written about, or do you feel that the modern playwright is rehashing old ideas?

DG: I think that our society is now thoroughly saturated by melodrama. Melodrama is the norm for emotions. So we see Rod Blagojevich, various scandals among the clergy, Senator Larry Craig in the bathroom, tawdry John Edwards and the baby, the woman with the octuplets, grown men with teddy bears, business executives who can’t make decisions, lots of novels that read like ho-hum screenplays, and poetry that reads like prose with line breaks. Any time a playwright can write lines that liberate through laughter, jolt us into a strong emotion, or shatter conventional wisdom, the playwright has done something new. We want to cut through the fog of melodrama and self-absorption to unleash something not discerned before.

DG: You also recently appeared in a play by The Plagiarists that included a crab marionette. Caffeine artistic director Jennifer Shook and I worked with marionettes last year. Puppets have their own life—and that is how we learn to deal with them. Yet the crab in your show had much attitude. How was it for you to share a production with a marionette from the crustacean world?

JvM: It was pure hell. That crab had a bad attitude, was a huge diva, and smelled of month-old tuna.

JvM: Crab marionettes notwithstanding, what do you consider to be the greatest accomplishment over the course of your career?

DG: That I actually have a career as a writer. So many people get discouraged or are ignored. They lose heart, which is understandable. After Like the Moon Behind the Clouds closed, I was at the Coffee Studio here in Edgewater, adding some rewrites to the script. A woman at the communal table asked me what I was doing. I explained how playwrights rewrite even after the show closes, how I had had a show at the Chicago Cultural Center. She said to me that it must have been a dream come true. Almost immediately, I had a revelation, as if she were a messenger in a folk tale, that of course she was right, that my career has been like a dream come true, and that by committing to do the work, I somehow looked like a success to an outsider observing me in my element, looking at my dyer’s hand, stained by photocopies and ink and experience.

Designing punk tornado

2009-02-11T15:22:00.000-06:00

Our design team has quite a job on their hands. Of the two plays in our spring rep, one is a 17th century Jacobean tragedy, and one is its 20th century American counterpart.

For director Rachel Walshe, The Changeling tells a story of conflict between generations, of control and rebellion. So, quickly, design inspiration turned to the punk movement.

For me, fleshing out the world of Tallgrass Gothic has lead me from its setting in the Great Plains out to Southern Gothic (Flannery O'Connor and Jean Toomer), to rural ghost stories, to Appalachian religion, to fantastic American Roots music, to unusual prairie habits. While none of these explorations may be visible to the audience, they feed our thinking as we create this world together.

Meanwhile, the physical space of the theatre has to speak to and transform into both plays. We began with church-plus-barn:

and then came here:

Something, though, still lingers just beyond reach....

A menagerie of people in one room

2009-01-25T12:15:00.010-06:00

Any "first read" at the start of rehearsals for any play is exhilarating, and often overwhelming. When you have TWO plays beginning at the same time, it's a bit like waltzing with a two-headed monster.

Our decision to simultaneously mount two plays with two directors, one design team, and two casts--with the exception of the two actors who head both casts--is creating a lovely two-headed creature.

Last weekend we heard each cast read their play together out-loud for the first time.

Then, from the designers, a glimpse into the alchemy that makes theatre more than just reading out-loud.

The rotating repertory of The Changeling and Tallgrass Gothic is underway!

Rotating Repertory of The Changeling & Tallgrass Gothic

2009-01-04T21:46:00.005-06:00

Amanda Powell and Caffeine Artistic Associate Jeremy van Meter
head both casts, showcasing two very different takes
on an encounter fraught with dark desire.

The Changeling

by Thomas Middleton & William Rowley

Directed by Rachel Walshe

Tallgrass Gothic

by Melanie Marnich

Directed by Jennifer Shook

March 14-April 12, 2009

(Previews March 12 & 13)

at The West Stage in the Raven Theatre Complex

6157 N Clark (at Granville)