Robert Graves Coffeehouse

We might be taking the weekend off from The Oxford Roof Climbers Rebellion performances, but we at Caffeine are still spending the weekend with Robert Graves and his friends! You can find information about our coffeehouse here:

From post-war poetry to comedic interpretations of I, Claudius, Caffeine Theatre and the Oxford Roof Climbers (Benevolent Order Of) invite you to join us for an evening exploring the life and work of Robert Graves. The Robert Graves Coffeehouse will feature short plays by Emma Stanton and Travis Williams and the poetic stylings of Kay Kron and Ian Randall, and Caffeine Associate Artistic Directors Dan Smith and Kristin Idaszak will host. Please drop by Dollop Coffee & Tea for a casual gathering this Saturday night at 6pm for this FREE event.

Dollop Coffee & Tea (4181 N Clarendon Ave), Saturday, April 7 @ 6pm. As always, our Coffeehouses are free of charge.

Participating artists include:

Mr. Philosopher

by Emma Stanton, directed by John Rooney

Featuring:

Graves: Thom Pasculli

Samuel: Nathan Grant

Young Man: Daniel Desmarais

Young Woman: Havalah Grace

Hemispheres

by Travis Williams

Featuring:

Left: Michael Mercier

Right: Ben Muller

Again, special thanks to our friends at Dollop!

Climbing Towards Opening Night

This week has been a frenzy of activity as we moved into technical rehearsals for The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion, putting together transitions with sound, lighting, projections, moving scenery, and costume changes. There have also been several mundane trips: to storage to look for suspenders and shoes, to thrift stores to look for teacups, to the Crafty Beaver on Lawrence to look for a broom with a wooden handle. Things are really coming together, and we are very excited for opening night on Saturday!

Caffeine also produced a staged reading for the AWP Conference in Chicago last weekend. Founding Artistic Director Jennifer Shook came in from Iowa to direct the reading of Things I Didn’t Know I Loved, Zack Rogow’s lovely biographical piece about Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. The reading was introduced by Cornelius Eady (author of Brutal Imagination, which Jason Beck directed for Caffeine last season) and featured a cast composed mainly of Caffeine regulars.

Cornelius Eady (at podium);
Ian Randall, Carey Burton, James Elly, Erik Schnitger, Dana Black (L to R).
Photo by Jennifer Shook.]

A large and appreciative audience heard our interpretation of Rogow’s script, which makes use of several Nazim Hikmet poems to explicate biographical moments. Here is an example from Hikmet’s long prison sentence for political agitation:

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example—
I mean, without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole life.

Things I Didn’t Know I Loved includes a scene set in 1920, when Hikmet and his friend Va-Nu went to join the Turkish army. Every time we got to this scene, I couldn’t help thinking it was happening at the same time as the events of The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion. I was also continually reminded of T.E. Lawrence’s role in defeating the Turkish army during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918. Specifically, I remembered Ned’s self-deprecating comment in the first scene: “I blew up a few Turkish trains.”

At the end of that first scene, Ned and Robert begin their roof-climbing adventures together. (No mean feat in the low-ceilinged Lincoln Square Theatre, by the way. I’m biased, but I think our director, designers, actors, and TD have found an elegant solution). Climbing is a recurring trope in the play, and it turns out the historical Graves and Lawrence were both known for their climbing. Graves was an avid mountain climber, favoring rocky terrain, while Lawrence apparently preferred the challenge of trees and rooftops.

Flora Armitage writes of Lawrence’s precocious climbing ability as follows: "At two, following his father without his knowledge, he climbed up a steep ladder into a loft, never pausing until he had reached the top and safety in the arms of an astonished parent. During the family's sojourn in the New Forest this prodigiousness on Ned's part became even more marked. 'No tree was too high for him to climb,' his mother said, adding that she never knew him to fall." (The Desert and the Stars, p. 17)

Robert Graves summarizes his own attitudes toward climbing in an early chapter of Good-Bye to All That, comparing his climbing talents to his poetic talents and expressing greater pride in the former: “I felt very proud to be on a rope with [rock-climbing expert] Geoffrey Young, and when he told me one day: ‘Robert, you have the finest natural balance that I have ever seen in a climber,’ this compliment pleased me more than if the Poet Laureate had told me that I had the finest sense of rhythm that he had ever met in a young poet.” (64)

Graves also recounts the camaraderie of climbing, recalling an essay he wrote in his youth: “In an essay on climbing written at the time, I said that the sport made all others seem trivial. ‘New climbs, or new variations on old climbs, are not made in a competitive spirit, but only because it is good to stand where nobody else has stood before. It is good, too, to be alone with a specially chosen band of people—people in whom a man can trust completely.’” This notion of choosing a particular group of people is reminiscent of Ned’s selection of Robert as a member of The Oxford Roof Climbers, the Benevolent Order of. Comparing climbing to fox-hunting, which involves factors beyond the hunter’s control, Graves contends that mountain climbers do not have to trust to unpredictable horses: “Climbers trust entirely to their own feet, legs, hands, shoulders, sense of balance, judgment of distance.” Graves’s comments on the independence fostered by climbing reflect his distrust of institutions as depicted in the play.

Robert and Ned relish the danger of climbing; a repeated refrain of the play involves the two characters daring each other: “It’s awfully dangerous….”/ “It’s your favorite kind.” Describing his experience climbing a particularly challenging peak in Wales, Graves offers a fascinating explanation of this danger: “My worst climb was on Lliwedd, the most formidable of the precipices, when, at a point that needed the most concentration, a raven circled round the party in great sweeps. I found this quite unsettling, because one climbs only up or down, or sideways, and the raven seemed to suggest diverse other possible dimensions of movement—tempting us to let go our hold and join him” (GBTAT 66). The raven inspires a desire for flight and a simultaneous fear of falling, emotions that similarly confound the characters in Oxford.

"Oh, do call me Ned if you like. Lawrence of Arabia is so very tedious."

When Robert Graves learns that he is speaking to T.E. Lawrence at the beginning of The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion, Lawrence invites him to be more familiar: “Oh, do call me Ned, if you like. Lawrence of Arabia is so very tedious, don’t you find?” Ned’s response reflects the ambivalence toward fame that was characteristic of the historical T.E. Lawrence, who was apparently frustrated by his celebrity despite participating in the creation of his own mythic identity.

Ned goes on to mention the major event that led to Lawrence’s fame: “Since that show about him has been selling out in the West-End, he’s received letters from as far away as America, Canada, even Japan, requesting the usual things, to be the godfather to their children, to speak at Universities. Marriage.” Ned’s use of the third person here sets up a distinction between his actual self and the persona of Lawrence of Arabia. (This distinction is reminiscent of another Oxonian and Caffeine Theatre stalwart, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who rejected mail addressed to Lewis Carroll.) The West End show in question was a lecture-demonstration by American journalist Lowell Thomas, who combined film and discussion in what we might now call a multimedia event. A wonderful collaboratively produced online exhibit chronicles Lowell Thomas’s performance, “With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia,” and further developments in the legend of Lawrence of Arabia. The exhibit is called “Lowell Thomas and Lawrence of Arabia: Making a Legend, Creating History.”

While much of Lawrence’s involvement in this play is drawn from Robert Graves’s perspective in Good-bye to All That, several events can be corroborated in biographical materials on T.E. Lawrence. The following examples are mainly taken from Jeremy Wilson’s book Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence (New York: Atheneum, 1990).

In Massicotte’s play, Lawrence and Curzon discuss their participation in the Paris Peace conference that resulted in the Treaty of Versailles. Lawrence was in Paris from January 9 to the end of May, 1919. According to Wilson, “Long afterward he would describe these months as ‘the worst I have lived through; and they were worse for Feisal. However he learnt the whole art of politics, from them. Perhaps I did, too!’ ” (598).

Wilson also cites an American account of Lawrence that gives a sense of his larger-than-life character: “He has been described as the most interesting Briton alive, a student of medieval history at Magdalen College, where he used to sleep by day and work by night and take his recreation in the deer park at four in the morning—a Shelley-like person, and yet too virile to be a poet” (605). Yet Lawrence’s prose has poetic qualities, and his encounters with young poets such as Robert Graves and Ezra Pound suggest an interest in poetry.

Lawrence’s move to Oxford is explained as follows: “There was nothing to do in Paris and he returned to Oxford. On June 10th he had been elected to a Research Fellowship of All Souls College. He had been approached about this months before, by Geoffrey Dawson of The Times, and had indicated his willingness to accept if a Fellowship was offered. The conditions had been drawn up by the Warden and D.G. Hogarth in as vague a fashion as possible: during his tenure he was to ‘prosecute his researches into the antiquities and ethnology, and the history (ancient and modern) of the Near East.’ The Fellowship was worth £200 a year, a comfortable income for a single person. It would run for seven years, and carried the right to rooms in college” (616). In The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion, Lawrence feels confined in his rooms in Oxford. He and Robert share a sense of imprisonment, trapped by their post-war guilt. Another biographer, Flora Armitage, describes Lawrence’s time at Oxford after the war: “At All Souls where he went into residence he indulged in outbursts of wild, almost undergraduate exuberance, as when he leaned out of the window…and loudly clanged the iron bell taken as booty in his raid on the Tell Shahm station.” (Armitage, The Desert and the Stars, New York: 1955, 160).

In the play Lord Curzon accuses Lawrence of continuing a correspondence with Emir Feisal, his main contact in Arabia. But Lawrence at least intended to sever ties with Feisal, writing in a letter: “My first sign of grace is that I will obey the F.O. [Foreign Office]…and not see Feisal again” (Wilson 620). During one scene, Lawrence has read about events involving Feisal that have upset him: “the ‘General Syrian Congress’ had proclaimed Feisal King of an ‘independent and integral Syria,’ which was supposed to include not only Lebanon, but also northern Mesopotamia and Palestine. The claim to these latter regions caused as much irritation in Britain as it did in France, and was roundly dismissed in San Remo. Both the Foreign Office and the India Office now viewed Damascus as a hotbed of rabid nationalism which threatened to unsettle the whole region” (631). In Stephen Massicotte’s play, Curzon’s ties to the Foreign Office allow for this diplomatic conflict to be portrayed in dramatic fashion as he and Lawrence clash in Lawrence’s rooms in Oxford.

Wilson also mentions the initial meeting with Robert Graves, and Lawrence’s feedback on Robert’s poems: “After a dinner at All Souls…he met Robert Graves, who had become a member of St. John’s College. He showed great interest in Graves’s poetry, and his comments were evidently of some value…” (627). Flora Armitage adds other incidents described in the play: “At Fullers’ Restaurant for tea with Robert Graves, he caused a momentary flurry amid the teacups by clapping his hands, Eastern fashion to summon the waitress; and once he indulged again in his old sport of roof-climbing in order to hang a crimson Hejazi flag from the pinnacle of All Souls” (Armitage 164).

The myth of Lawrence of Arabia as created by Lowell Thomas (and as we know him from Peter O’Toole’s portrayal in David Lean’s film) competes with his efforts to present himself to the other four characters in The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion. For his servant Jack, Lawrence is initially an eccentric charge, but he eventually comes to represent all that is wrong with the British military. For Curzon, Lawrence is a personal nuisance and a political firebomb. For Nancy, Lawrence represents competition for her husband’s time and affection, until she finally meets him and they reconcile. For Robert, Ned is a friend. When Robert invites Ned to “come out of there and be Lawrence of Arabia,” he sparks a powder keg whose explosion has a tremendous impact on the lives of all of these characters, and repercussions beyond the limits of Oxford.

Poetry Out Loud

Today, Caffeine Theatre staff members Dan Smith and Kristin Idaszak volunteered at the Poetry Out Loud Chicago Suburban Regional competition at the Arts Center of Oak Park. Thanks to Chicagoland Regional Poetry Out Loud director Liz McCabe for inviting us.

Dan served as Master of Ceremonies and started off the festivities by reading "Free Verse," a favorite Robert Graves poem from the 1918 collection Fairies and Fusiliers. To kick off round 2, he read "Careers," a poem about sibling rivalry from the same collection. Also during round 2, Dan recited his favorite anti-Petrarchan Shakespeare sonnet (Sonnet 130: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"). He would like to thank the teachers in the second row who prompted him when he forgot the beginning of the third quatrain (which he forgets every time he tries to recite this poem).

Below, for your delectation, are the two Robert Graves poems Dan recited today:

"Free Verse”

I now delight
In spite
Of the might
And the right
Of classic tradition,
In writing
And reciting
Straight ahead,
Without let or omission,
Just any little rhyme
In any little time
That runs in my head;
Because, I've said,
My rhymes no longer shall stand arrayed
Like Prussian soldiers on parade
That march,
Stiff as starch,
Foot to foot,
Boot to boot,
Blade to blade,
Button to button
Cheeks and chops and chins like mutton.
No! No!
My rhymes must go
Turn 'ee, twist 'ee,
Twinkling, frosty,
Will-o'-the-wisp-like, misty;
Rhymes I will make
Like Keats and Blake
And Christina Rossetti,
With run and ripple and shake.
How pretty
To take
A merry little rhyme
In a jolly little time
And poke it,
And choke it,
Change it, arrange it,
Straight-lace it, deface it,
Pleat it with pleats,
Sheet it with sheets
Of empty conceits,
And chop and chew,
And hack and hew,
And weld it into a uniform stanza,
And evolve a neat,
Complacent, complete,
Academic extravaganza!


“Careers”

Father is quite the greatest poet
That ever lived anywhere.
You say you're going to write great music--
I chose that first: it's unfair.
Besides, now I can't be the greatest painter and
do Christ and angels, or lovely pears
and apples and grapes on a green dish,
or storms at sea, or anything lovely,
Because that's been taken by Claire.

It's stupid to be an engine-driver,
And soldiers are horrible men.
I won't be a tailor, I won't be a sailor,
And gardener's taken by Ben.
It's unfair if you say that you'll write great
music, you horrid, you unkind (I simply
loathe you, though you are my
sister), you beast, cad, coward, cheat,
bully, liar!
Well? Say what's left for me then!

But we won't go to your ugly music.
(Listen!) Ben will garden and dig,
And Claire will finish her wondrous pictures
All flaming and splendid and big.

And I'll be a perfectly marvellous carpenter,
and I'll make cupboards and benches
and tables and ... and baths, and
nice wooden boxes for studs and
money,
And you'll be jealous, you pig!

"Good-Bye to All That" as Source Material

While The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion is based on historical characters and inspired by historical events, the actual scenes of the play result primarily from the imagination of playwright Stephen Massicotte. Robert Graves’s 1929 autobiography Good-Bye to All That provides a fascinating window onto the world of this play. Indeed, the book appears to have been Massicotte’s main source of information about the friendship between Robert Graves and T.E. Lawrence. Much of the play draws on Good-Bye to All That, capturing the spirit of Graves’s own description of Lawrence, if not always following this description to the letter.

The opening scene of the play depicts the initial meeting between Robert and Ned, much as Graves describes it in his autobiography: “The first time I met Colonel T.E. Lawrence, he happened to be wearing full evening dress. That must have been in February or March 1920, and the occasion was a guest night at All Souls’, where he had been awarded a seven-year fellowship.” These details are mentioned in the play; Massicotte also establishes the electric connection between Ned and Robert upon their first meeting as it is described by Graves. “The formality of evening dress concentrates attention on the eyes, and Lawrence’s eyes immediately held me” (Graves 297). Robert and Ned are clearly drawn to each other in the opening scene of the play, and they quickly unite against Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary and Oxford University Chancellor.

Curzon’s role in the play is inspired by Graves’s description of him as Ned’s enemy, a description colored by the context of Lawrence’s penchant for sophomoric pranks: “Lawrence also proposed to present the College with a peacock which, once accepted, would be found to bear the name ‘Nathaniel’—after Lord Curzon, an enemy of Lawrence’s, and Chancellor of the University”(301). The presence of Curzon, described by Ned as “Former viceroy of India. Former member of the War Cabinet. Former drinker or champagne at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919,” raises the political stakes of the pranks in the play.

Graves describes an incident involving the flag of Mecca flying over All Souls' College as an example of Lawrence being silly: “He behaved very much like an undergraduate at times. One day I happened to visit the top of Radcliffe Camera and look down on the roofs of neighbouring colleges. From a pinnacle of All Souls’ hovered a small crimson Hedjaz flag: Lawrence had been a famous roof-climber when up at Jesus College twelve years before this” (300). Massicotte incorporates this incident into the play, but Curzon’s reaction renders it far more serious and offers a moment of conflict that (if we can believe Ned) arises from a miscommunication. Curzon interprets Ned’s Hejaz flag as consorting with the enemy and goes so far as to accuse Ned of treason. Ned claims that he “wanted to suggest that all lands are holy.”

Similarly, Massicotte develops a planned practical joke involving a herd of deer into an anti-colonialist gesture. In Good-Bye to All That, Graves describes the project as follows: “Another scheme, for which he enlisted my help, was to steal the Magdalen College deer. We would drive them one early morning into the small inner quadrangle of All Souls’, having persuaded the College to answer the Magdalen protests with a declaration that it was the All Souls’ herd, pastured there from time immemorial. Great things were expected of this raid, but we needed Lawrence as the stage-manager; so it fell through when he left us” (301). In the imaginative world of the play, the great expectations of this raid are fulfilled. A letter from the deer characterizes their occupation of the All Souls’ quad as striking back against the quasi-colonialism of Oxford. Again, Massicotte’s version imbues the events with greater political significance.

Graves’s description of Lawrence ends with a reference to his “morbid horror of being touched,” another key detail exploited for dramatic effect in the play. In using Robert Graves’s own words about T.E. Lawrence as a source for this play, Massicotte expands and elaborates for both theatrical efficacy and thematic resonance. To paraphrase Graves’s poem “Free Verse,” Massicotte’s technique of adaptation allows for the action of the play to “run and ripple and shake,” creating a vibrant stage world that is more than just an “academic extravaganza.”

[Citations with page numbers are from Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That (New York: Doubleday, 1957)]

Robert Graves Coffeehouse and Poetry Contest Call for Submissions

It's that time again! Caffeine Theatre is seeking submissions for its Robert Graves Coffeehouse and Poetry Contest. Please see both calls for submissions below and help us spread the word!

COFFEEHOUSE

Caffeine Theatre seeks short (15 minutes or less) original performance pieces of all disciplines--music, dance, theatre, spoken word, poetry, etc.--for its Robert Graves Coffeehouse, which will take place on Saturday, April 7. The Coffeehouse is in conjunction with Caffeine’s Chicago premiere of The Oxford Roof Climbers Rebellion by Stephen Massicotte, which chronicles Graves’s friendship with T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia). As such, pieces should explore the work or life of Robert Graves AND/OR Lawrence of Arabia.

Please email a script and/or a 1 page proposal to Associate Artistic Director 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.) Please also include a short bio or resume and use “Robert Graves Coffeehouse—Last Name” in the subject heading.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 4, 2012.

Accepted pieces will be notified by March 11, 2012

POETRY CONTEST

Caffeine Theatre seeks original poetry for our fifth poetry contest: “Fairies, Fusiliers, and Pillars of Wisdom.” Submissions may include any size or style of poem, as long as it is inspired in some way by the life or work of Robert Graves or T.E. Lawrence, or in some way speaks in conversation with the life and/or work of one of the two. Poems exploring war (especially World War I), love, loss, friendship, and/or classical Greek and Roman texts are particularly welcome. Winners will be posted on Caffeine’s blog (http://caffeinetheatre.blogspot.com), and performed at the Robert Graves Coffeehouse in April. 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 Robert Graves or Lawrence of Arabia to Caffeine Theatre Associate Artistic Director Daniel Smith at dan@caffeinetheatre.com with a subject heading that indicates a poetry contest entry. DEADLINE: March 15, 2011.

Merry Aphra, Happy Odyssey, and an Oxford New Year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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

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

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?