Dramaturgy Analyses, Part 1

 

[When I was a grad student in New York University’s Department of Performance Studies, I took two courses in dramaturgy, plus a Supervised Research in the field.  I took one of the classes twice: Production Dramaturgy (Spring 1984 and Spring 1985); it was taught by Cynthia Jenner, who also oversaw my Supervised Research in the summer of 1984.

[Cynthia (b. 1939) went by C. Lee Jenner professionally; she’d written for the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the Christian Science Monitor, the Villager, the London Guardian, Theatre Crafts, Stages, Other Stages, Performing Arts Journal, and New York Theatre Review.

[Cynthia’d been a literary manager or dramaturg for New York City’s American Place Theatre (1981-84) and the Interart Theatre of the Women’s Interart Center before teaching at DPS in 1984-85.  She also taught at Brooklyn College, City College of the City University of New York, and Brown University.

[The Spring ’84 dramaturgy class included an internship at a theater company and Cynthia placed me with the small Off-Off-Broadway showcase troupe StageArts Theater Company.  That semester-long internship (18 February-2 May 1984) converted into the Supervised Research of the following summer.  In both assignments, I was required to keep a journal; at the end of the gigs, I also wrote up a summary of my work and my conclusions about the experience.

[Since I started this extended series on dramaturgy and literary management with my two-part “History of Dramaturgy” (31 December 2022 and 3 January 2023), I’ve decided to continue the effort by posting the concluding documents of the StageArts placements.

[(I followed “A History of Dramaturgy” with a four-part series, “Leonardo Shapiro’s Strangers: A Dramaturg's View” [8, 11, 14, and 17 January].  Before the current extended dramaturgy series, I posted “Dramaturgy: The Conscience of the Theater” on 30 December 2009.)

[StageArts was founded in 1977 by co-artistic directors Nell Robinson, a director, and Ruth Ann Norris, an actress.  (I was a few years shy of 40 in 1984, and I’d say Robinson and Norris were at least a half decade older than I was.)

[Created originally with the goal of producing plays that portray human nature in a positive, glowing manner, the company had presented such classics as Blithe Spirit (Noël Coward, 1941) in 1977, The Winslow Boy (Terence Rattigan, 1946) in 1978, Cap & Bells (Luigi Pirandello, 1916) in 1984, and Ira Levin’s first play, Interlock (1958).

[After 1982, StageArts began concentrating on the development of new plays and had premièred such works as Thirteen by Lynda Myles (1983), Zoology (a trilogy of plays) by Martin Jones (1983), Pigeons on the Walk by Andrew Johns (1984), Sullivan & Gilbert by Ken Ludwig (1984), and Jones’s Snow Leopards (1985).  (The company ceased producing at the end of 1987.)

[My responsibilities at StageArts included, among other things, establishing a script-soliciting, -reading, and ‑evaluating process, creating a reporting format, and advising and assisting the artistic directors in matters of script selection. 

[The company had reached a certain level of success in its seven years of producing, but it wasn’t attracting the kind of attention the artistic directors wanted—and needed if the company was going to advance in the competitive and crowded field of professional theater in New York. 

[The artistic directors wanted my help to find the kinds of scripts that would attract critical and funding interest.  One way to accomplish this, they observed from the theaters like theirs in the city, was to present new plays.  Towards this end, they wanted me to help them start a program for finding and evaluating new scripts.

[At the end of the internship, I handed in to Cynthia an “Internship Report,” concluding with a “Profile of Artistic Policy” for StageArts and an “Analysis of Literary Department and Recommendations for Improvement.”  Below are the last two documents, dated 15 May 1984.]

PROFILE OF ARTISTIC POLICY
StageArts Theater Company
New York City
15 May 1984

The StageArts Theater Company is an Off-Off-Broadway producer primarily of Showcases and Tiered Non-Profit Theatre Code productions, using a show-to-show rented space at The Actors’ Outlet, 120 W. 28th Street [in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan].  As described by co-artistic directors Nell Robinson and Ruth Ann Norris, the artistic policy of the company is to produce plays that deal with problems of the individual.  StageArts’ own statement of their “artistic goal” specifies their interest in

The production of beautifully crafted plays that speak to the best in us.  We believe that the qualities most absent on plays of the last few decades are a positive view of human beings and a respect for dramatic structure.  We want to give a chance to plays that strive for integration of plot, characterization, ideas, language and spectacle into that unique artistic whole which makes unforgettable drama or comedy.

The stress, according to Robinson and Norris, is on “beautifully crafted,” by which they mean the “well-made play.”  This translates into Realistic plays on a narrow scope and small scale, treating problems in a family or limited group.  Norris and Robinson offer as prime examples of this type of play, Terrence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy and William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker [1959], both primarily Realistic, optimistic melodramas.

[According to a New York Times article on the topic, “Showcases are nonprofit productions meant to display the talents of actors to agents, casting directors and producers in the hope that they will be chosen for roles in other shows or that the play will be picked up by a producer.  The actors receive no weekly salaries.” 

[Participants who are Actors’ Equity Association members are supposed to be compensated for transportation costs and expenses, however.  The union also restricts the size of the audience, number of performances, length of run, hours of rehearsal, and admission charge.

[“Showcases also present works by new playwrights and directors,” wrote Andrew L. Yarrow in the Times (“Showcase Theater, Outlet for Inspired Nobodies,” 25 November 1988).  “Many producers use showcases to win potential backers, but others consider them the only affordable way to stage experimental theater in New York.”

[Since showcase productions don’t operate under an Equity contract, shows that want to cast union actors or employ a union stage manager must abide by certain rules set down by Equity in the Showcase Code.  These are known as “Equity showcases” and casting notices usually say so to attract union actors to the auditions.  There are also many non-union showcases, in which Equity members are not supposed to perform.  StageArts, of course, produced union showcases.

[The Showcase Code governed one-time productions, not theaters that produced regular seasons.  The Tiered Non-Profit Theatre Code was a set of rules governing showcase productions at theaters presenting annual multiple-play seasons and operating under larger budgets, like the Public Theater or the Roundabout Theatre Company.  It was “tiered” because the obligations increased incrementally for theaters with increasingly larger budgets.

[A well-made play is a dramatic form that arose in France in the late 19th century (la pièce bien faite) involving a tight plot, a largely standardized structure, and a climax close to the end.  The story usually depends on a key piece of information kept from some characters, but not the audience, and moves forward in a chain of actions that use minor reversals of fortune to create suspense.

[The genre was common at the turn of the 20th century, but modern writers like Alan Ayckbourn (b. 1939) and Noël Coward (1899-1973) continued to use it.  Even greats like Shaw and Ibsen applied the form to their work.]

The only production StageArts presented during my internship was Pigeons on the Walk by Andrew Johns and directed by Nell Robinson [March 1984].  The play was a “Grand Hotel” set-up of a number of people who meet in a Manhattan OTB parlor during the course of nine races on one day.  Some are regulars and know one another well, thus making this a somewhat closed group, like an extended family.  There was no unifying crisis, but several small, separate ones, most of which were, indeed, family-oriented. 

[Off-Track Betting, with parlors all over the city, was legalized in New York City in 1970 and closed in 2010 due to lack of profitability.]

Pigeons seems an excellent sample of StageArts’ artistic interest.  Other plays produced in past seasons include Blithe Spirit, The Winslow Boy, The Hasty Heart [John Patrick, 1945], and The Heiress [Ruth and Augustus Goetz, 1947], all clear examples of this kind of material.

[In the margin of my typed profile, Cynthia wrote where I observed that the plays were examples of StageArts preferred style: “But so regularly done in community and/or stock [productions] that they wouldn’t interest reviewers.  Useful only in all-star revivals or to showcase actors.”  The company had stopped presenting standards like these, 30-35 years old and more, in the early ’80s in favor of new scripts.]

Clearly, StageArts is neither experimental nor particularly socially concerned, though their shows are well-produced in all respects.  In the past, they produced a mix of old and new material fitting their taste.  This season, however, they switched to a policy of producing solely new works with an eye to attracting critical attention which they need to get funding.  So far, this policy has not produced results, and Robinson and Norris and I have discussed looking at some older, but less frequently produced plays.  Robinson has expressed an interest in Edmond Rostand [French. 1868-1918].

[Again, Cynthia commented, regarding the lack of critical response: “Need aggressive press agent,” a conclusion to which I also came.  After I raised the name of Rostand, my teacher merely wrote: “Oy.”]

I have begun to suggest some plays a little afield of StageArts’ usual material.  Robinson has become interested in a new play I recommended that has a broader scope and deals with a topical problem.  She has also become intrigued with the works of Yevgenii Shvarts [Russian, 1896-1958], certainly no Realistic playwright.  In the future, StageArts may produce a mixture not only of old and new plays, but of Realistic and non-Realistic (however slightly) ones.  It is unlikely they will become truly experimental, but some variety may be in the offing.

[I posted my StageArts script reports on three of Shvarts’s plays on Rick On Theater in “Yevgenii Shvarts: Three Script Evaluations,” 9 March 2020.  Three Rostand play evaluations are also posted in “More Script Reports IV: Classics,” 14 December 2021.

[The “new play” in which Nell Robinson was interested was one I gave her, written by a neighbor, Ken Greenberg, whose earlier play, Comes the Happy Hour!, I had directed in an independent showcase in 1982.  The play in question here was Little Boy, Fat Man, set in the years just before, during, and just after World War II and is an exploration of the moral and psychological implications of working on the atom bomb.  All the men—two Americans, a Viennese Jew, and a Japanese—met while studying nuclear physics in Germany.]

*  *  *  *
ANALYSIS OF LITERARY DEPARTMENT
AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT
StageArts Theater Company
New York City
15 May 1984 

It is difficult—if not impossible—to analyze a department that virtually does not exist.  Although StageArts lists Holly Hill as Literary Manager, she does not function full time, and does not seem to have any regular, specific responsibilities.  In fact, I have had no contact with her, and when I suggested I talk with her about the program, neither Robinson nor Norris thought there was any need.  If there is a dramaturgical program extant, I do not know what it is.

[Holly Hill was a reviewer for the short-lived New York Theatre Review (1977-79), the Gannett Westchester (New York) papers, Other Stages, and the London Times.  She taught at John Jay College of the City University of New York and was considered an authority on British dramatist Terence Rattigan (1911-77).  When I noted in my internship journal that Norris and Robinson seemed to hold Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy up as “their ideal play,” Cynthia, who knew Hill, remarked, “Holly Hill’s influence.  Dissertation on Rattigan.”]

When I first interviewed with Robinson and Norris, it was clear they had no specific idea how to use me.  (They had two specific tasks for me to perform, but no general plan for me.)  My estimation is that there is no program, and that it will be my responsibility to create one, with the advice and consent of Robinson and Norris.

[When I made the comment in my journal that the artistic directors “don’t really know what to do with me,” Cynthia wrote, “That’s the wrong perspective.  Don’t worry if they know what to do with you.  Do you know what to do with or for them?” 

[My response to Cynthia would have been that: a) I do worry about their not knowing how to make use of me because this was an internship, not a job.  I could—and did—do many things for StageArts on my own initiative.  Sometimes I checked with the artistic directors beforehand and other times I informed them after the fact, but I had only limited autonomy since I wasn’t a true member of the theater’s staff.  I could only be a self-starter to a limited degree.

[Cynthia, of course, had been the lit manager at APT for three years and had established a working relationship with artistic director Wynn Handman (1922-2020).  She’d been hired for an existing post that was a valued member of the theater’s staff.  She knew what her boundaries were and where she could push the envelop some.  As an intern in a post that hadn’t existed in practice till then (Holly Hill was lit manager in name only, really), I wasn’t in that position.

[And b): if Robinson and Norris didn’t know how they could use me/my skills, they couldn’t ask for help or suggestions where I might be effective but didn’t know they needed support.  “Intern” and “dramaturg” aren’t synonyms for “mindreader,” after all.]

Based on the two responsibilities laid out at the start of my internship [that would be 1) organizing the multistep script-finding process and 2) researching a play-reading series], I plan to work up a format for reporting the evaluation of plays, and a workshop program of readings of works under consideration to nurture them into—and possibly through—production. 

[There really were two different reading programs.  One, the developmental or “evaluative” (as Cynthia called them) readings, didn’t exist at all yet.  These were strictly for the playwright and the theater, to test the script for viability as it made its way to production.  I called these “script-readings” because it concerned the working text, not a form of performance of a finished play.

[The other was the play-reading series, which StageArts already had, but it was ad hoc, randomly scheduled, and only minimally promoted.  These were staged readings with actors who’d rehearsed and an audience made up largely of StageArts subscribers and other theatergoers (i.e., the public).  It’s a public relations and audience-building exercise that could present both old and new plays.]

For the present—and immediately foreseeable future—StageArts should restrict its program to testing viable scripts and doing only minor rewriting to smooth out small problems.  Perhaps in a few seasons, with a strong production/dramaturgic background established, they can embark on a program of developing material from an earlier stage. 

[In my journal for the Summer ’84 Supervised Research, I reported that Norris and Robinson wanted to work with developing playwrights, Cynthia wrote: “But they are incompetent to do this task.”  I, myself, concluded, “I’m not sure R[uth] A[nn] & Nell are equipped to work with someone w[ith] so much to learn,” to which my teacher merely added, “Yes.”]

Specific projects I plan to start on include a systematized evaluation process, so organized that a new dramaturgical intern can inherit the system without a glitch, and readers can be recruited and, with a standardized format, be able to produce evaluation reports all containing the same useful information.  At present, there is no format, and practically no guidelines. 

(Robinson and Norris specified only a plot synopsis and a statement of the theme; I had to fill in the rest on my own.  They are satisfied, but I am not.)

[Cynthia gave me some feedback on this—she’d devised several reporting forms for theaters and other evaluation programs like the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for American Playwrights Program—and I incorporated them in later reports.]

From the reading series Robinson and Norris wanted me to research, I plan to build a workshop program through which to take scripts selected from the evaluation process.  I would like to see a private, unrehearsed reading, leading to a semi-rehearsed private reading, and finally one (at least) staged reading before an invited audience.

In between, the literary manager will work with the playwright on changes and adjustments, with input from the director and the artistic directorship.

[Cynthia’s sole comment here was: “This game plan seems sound to use.”  A “private reading” would be before the artistic directors, the production director (if one is already hired), the lit manager, and the playwright.  The “invited audience” would include those people, plus a few specially selected knowledgeable friends and supporters—i.e., actors and directors, other theater artists, friends of the author but not subscribers or the public.

[An “unrehearsed reading” is one for which the cast would meet with the director (if no director has been assigned, the literary manager usually performs this task) and writer about two hours before the reading and read through the script to familiarize themselves with the words.  There’s no movement by the actors; someone reads the stage directions as necessary.  At a “semi-rehearsed reading,” the cast meets with the director and the playwright one time a day or so before the reading to put a little context (i.e., acting) into the reading.  There’s still no moving about the stage.

[In a “semi-staged reading,” the actors get up from their seats, scripts in hand, and face each other as they speak, perform some simple, sometimes mimed, movements, but there are no props or costumes and moving about the performing area is minimal and suggested. 

[The idea for all these readings is to put the emphasis on the words, not spotlight the actors’ skills.  The point is to reveal to the writer what works and what doesn’t and where potential problems might develop when the play goes into actual rehearsals.  It is a diagnostic tool, not a performance.]

Subsequent to these two developments, StageArts will eventually need someone to assume responsibility for production assistance in terms of program notes, subscriber information, and incidental projects such as lobby displays and intermission features.  Currently, Robinson and Norris do all this themselves, taking time away from directing and producing. 

[Nell Robinson directed most of StageArts’ productions. 

[Cynthia had what she labeled a “credo”: “I believe the experience of a play starts in the lobby.”  She also admonished me, “Research can help [a] dramaturg [with] support services designed to enrich the experience for theatergoers.”]

With an expanded and more complex program, the subsidiary duties will become far too time- and thought-consuming to be accomplished in stolen time.  When StageArts reaches that point, say after a season or two, I would like a system to have been worked out so a new literary manager can move in and the program will be self-perpetuating.

Until I have gone over all the particulars with Robinson and Norris, and begun to work out the steps, I cannot accurately predict the specifics of any of this; it would be premature to do so now.  Tentative plans have been made to begin the discussion stage shortly.  Based on the outcome of that, I will start making plans and working out details for the first trials.

[The “tentative plans” I spoke of above was, of course, the Supervised Research which continued the internship with StageArts through the summer of 1984,  There was a summing-up at the end of that stint as well, and I will post it next.  Come back to Rick On Theater on 25 January to see what I had to say at the conclusion of my gig as lit manager of the StageArts Theater Company.]

More Script Reports VIII: Known 20th-Century Writers

 

[I haven’t posted any of my old script reports on Rick On Theater since last April.  It’s a good time to put up a few more. 

[This selection are all scripts by writers from the last century who are well known in the business.  If you don’t recognize their names, you probably know one or two of their plays.  Most have had Broadway successes in the middle of the century, some have also had work seen in the movies or on television.

[These reports were all prepared for StageArts, which is a theater where I interned as a literary advisor in the 1980s when I was a grad student taking classes in dramaturgy.  (I’ve described StageArts in past posts, and I direct readers especially to my introductions to “Yevgenii Shvarts: Biography & Literary Criticism,” 6 March 2020, and “More Script Reports IV: Classics,” 14 December 2021.)

[The plays below are all in the vein of works by established writers that would add variety and a little surprise to a StageArts season as a change from their usual fare of new scripts.

[The first is by Paddy Chayefsky (1923-81), whose best-known stage work is probably The Tenth Man (1959).  For the movies, he composed the scripts for The Americanization of Emily (1964) and Network (1976), and for television, Chayefsky wrote the teleplay Marty in 1953 (remade as a film in 1955).  The play evaluated below, The Bachelor Party, is also a teleplay from 1953 (remade into a film in 1957).]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION 

Date:  6/26/84
Evaluator:  [Rick]

The Bachelor Party by Paddy Chayefsky

            Plot Synopsis:  Charlie and Helen have been married for 3 years, and  they are having trouble getting ahead.  Before the play opens, Helen told Charlie she is pregnant—something they hadn’t planned on. 

Charlie  is very taken aback.  This puts all his plans—a car, a belated honeymoon—in jeopardy.  On his way to work on the PATH train [Port Authority Trans Hudson, a commuter rail system between lower Manhattan, New York City, and points in northern New Jersey], he sees a young man pick up a girl, and he begins to feel the strictures of married life and impending fatherhood. 

At home, Helen worries that she may be losing Charlie.  One of his coworkers is getting married, and Charlie attends the office bachelor party.  He gets very drunk and when the groom-to-be corners him with his second thoughts, Charlie ducks him and takes off with the office bachelor, whom everyone envies for his freedom and success with women. 

On the bar-hopping binge, Charlie sees the loneliness and emptiness of the bachelor’s real life, and he goes home to Helen with renewed love and commitment.

            Theme:  There is nothing ulterior in Chayefsky’s meaning here; he is simply saying that love and commitment, even when they bring hardships, are far better than a freedom that has no purpose.  It is unabashedly soap-opera and simplistic.

            Genre/Style:  Romantic naturalism; crisis drama

            Structure:  3-act cinematic.  It is, in fact, a TV play.

            Setting:  1950s NY and NJ; many locations—kitchen, office, bars, PATH trains, etc.—requiring quick changes and cinematic dissolves.  Suggested settings in a unit set rather than fully realized realism is necessary.

            Language:  Basically naturalistic dialogue, but slightly stilted in ’50s colloquialisms.  This is an “Actor’s Studio” type of script with long pauses and silences and uneven pacing.

            Characters:  5 women: 4 are 20’s, 1 is 40’s; 7 men: 5 are 20’s, 1 is 30’s, 1 is any age.

            Evaluation:  This is a heart-warmingly charming play with good roles for actors.  (It is frequently used in scene-study classes.)  It has little depth, but there is dramatic impact in the relationship of Helen and Charlie and a number of scenes are so good they sound, even after 30 years, like overheard reality. 

The main problem (aside from securing rights to stage it) is the transfer of the teleplay to the stage.  Careful and clever staging should accomplish this, and the result should prove well worth the effort.  The period language (indeed, the whole play) may be up-dated for easier handling, but I’m not convinced it would serve us to do so.

A stage version of this play will undoubtedly please a StageArts audience, and may also attract some critical attention.  I don’t believe it has ever been done outside of acting classes.

            Recommendation:  Possible production

            Source:  [Rick]

*  *  *  *

[Philip Barry (1896-1949) is probably best known for his play The Philadelphia Story (1939), which starred Katherine Hepburn and was turned into a wonderful film in 1940 with Hepburn and Cary Grant.  (It was later remade as a movie musical called High Society (1956) starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Celeste Holm.  High Society was adapted for the Broadway stage in 1998—and I included it in my report on “The 2006 Shaw Festival (Part 1),” 8 December 2015.

[Barry’s other well-known play is Holiday (1928), also later filmed with Hepburn and Grant.  The play evaluated below is Second Threshold (1951), which Barry left unfinished at his death in 1949 from a heart attack at the age of 53.  Finished by Barry’s friend, playwright Robert E. Sherwood, it ran only 126 performances on Broadway.] 

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

Date:  7/16/84
Evaluator:  [Rick]

Second Threshold by Philip Barry

            Plot Synopsis:  Miranda Brook, who just got her BA is psychology, is convinced that her father, Josiah, is so depressed by recent events that he is trying to commit suicide.  She has some reason to think this: he opposed her imminent marriage to a man older than he; his son has just flunked out of law school; his wife has just divorced him; and his brother has just been killed in a fight over a woman—and he has had 2 unexplained accidents and now plans a solitary hunting trip in the West.

Josiah has been a famous international lawyer often called on by the government to act as a diplomat-at-large; now he seems to have little interest in anything.  Miranda calls everyone close to Josiah together and explains her fears.  They plan to reengage him in life by bringing their problems to him.

Miranda’s plan is for Josiah to talk brother Jock into returning to law school and mother Susan to return to him.  Things backfire, however, and Jock gets Josiah to agree to let him go into show business as a song-and-dance man, and Susan gets him to bless her marriage to Russell Evans, Josiah’s friend and business advisor.

When he discovers the plot, Josiah throws a few monkey wrenches into the works, and in the end Miranda finds she is in love with childhood friend, Dr. Toby Wells, Susan realized she doesn’t want to be married to anybody, and Josiah goes off to California with the woman over whom his brother fought to free the man who shot him.

(Just as Miranda’s assumption seems to be entirely fallacious, Toby points out that the two accidents were unlikely and Josiah admits privately that there was something to his family’s fears.)

            Theme:  Barry was exploring an idea he had had for a long time—a father saved from loneliness and death by a daughter’s love.  On a broader scope, he says that over a lifetime, one may achieve success, renown, and respect, but no one can bear the cost of the achievement alone.  This is done with humor and comedy, but the gist is serious.

            Genre/Style:  Realistic comedy-drama in the high style of the ’30s and ’40s.

            Structure:  Standard 2 acts, 5 scenes; strong action line.

            Setting:  The study of Josiah Brook’s townhouse on W. 10th St., NYC; realistic.

            Language:  Basically realistic dialogue, but period and class idiom is used, making some of the phrases slightly awkward to a modern ear.  (It should not really be changed—unless the entire play is up-dated—but the actors will have to become comfortable with the idiom.)

            Characters:  3 women: 1 48, 1 24, 1 20; 5 men: 1 65, 2 50’s, 2 mid-20’s.  Jock should be a good dancer and be able to sing.

            Evaluation:  There are two versions of Second Threshold, the original version as Barry left it when he died, and a revision done by Barry’s friend Robert E. Sherwood from Barry’s notes.  I read the former; the latter was performed on Broadway in 1951 (2 years after Barry’s death).

There are some confusing moments in this play—it is not as smooth as Barry’s famous plays—but it is an unusual blend of the serious and the comic, and there is truth in it.  The characters are all charming and appealing and provide excellent roles for actors.  (There is one brief passage that is sexist by today’s standards and can be easily cut with little adverse effect.)

Some of the reversals are truly surprising, and the final revelation that Josiah was, indeed, trying to kill himself, is startling, and raises the play above a matter of comic misunderstanding with a pleasant end to a serious play handled in a unique manner.  (The revisions in Act II may smooth this out—it would be worth checking.)

Philip Barry is famous for Holiday and The Philadelphia Story (recently revived on Broadway [1980]), but his other plays are seldom performed.  This is a good area to mine, and Second Threshold could make an excellent choice for revival.

            Recommendation:  Possible production

            Source:  [Rick]/E[rnie]. Schier [1918-99, former theater reviewer for the Philadelphia Bulletin and Director of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center]

--------------------

Supplemental Report on Second Threshold by P. Barry, revised by Robert E. Sherwood – 8/23/84

            Plot:  Basically the same as the original version, but certain extraneous action lines have been eliminated.  The characters of Josiah’s wife (he is now Josiah Bolton, not Brook) is only referred to, and Russell Evans no longer exists at all.  Josiah’s brother and the whole story of his death is expunged, and Jock is already a working actor, rehearsing summer stock on Long Island.  What is left is leaner and more direct, and a good deal smoother.

            Structure:  1 less scene: 2 in each act

            Evaluation:  As I said, this version is smoother and more direct than the original, but it seems less interesting and quirky.  There is far less humor in it and the plot Miranda cooks up to snap her father out of his dumps is less convoluted.  The reviews of the original production in ’51 were lukewarm, and I imagine part of the reason might have been the missing eccentricity.  I missed the convolutions and the remaining characters all seemed so much tamer they were almost lackluster. 

On the other hand, the loss of some of the extra complications (e.g.: the brother incident) make the story more believable, and less contrived, which was a problem.  Some of the heavy-handed exposition and explication has been removed to the benefit of the piece.

            Recommendation:  Make a composite script of the two versions for a Workshop Reading.

            Rights:  Robert A. Friedman holds the professional rights; DPS holds the amateur rights and has a m/s of the revised version, which is out of print.

*  *  *  *

[Sidney Michaels (1927-2011) was best known for the early and mid-1960s works Tchin-Tchin (1963), Dylan (1964), and Ben Franklin in Paris (1964).  He also wrote for television, scripting episodes of several series, and film, most notably The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968).

[I found no record that The Guy with the Flashlight was ever produced, and the date of its composition isn’t recorded anywhere that I’ve found.  I suspect, however, that it was probably a recent script of Michaels’s (i.e., ca. 1984).]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

Date: 8/4/84
Evaluator: [Rick] 

The Guy with the Flashlight by Sidney Michaels

            Plot:  Susan Frost, owner of a struggling publishing house, and Elias Katz, a lawyer and friend, have called upon Boardman (Boardy) Daugherty, the “Equalizer of Inequities,” for help.  It seems Max Gould died in Susan’s bedroom.  He had come to negotiate a loan to Susan’s company and died on his way to the bathroom, but Susan is afraid of the scandal and wants Max to have died somewhere else.

In a series of outrageously conceived attempts to dispose of Max, Boardy gets Susan and Elias into a number of absurd situations, but Max always ends up back in the apartment.  Finally, Boardy deduces Max had been poisoned by his wife, who is having an affair with the druggist.

They try to call the police, but while Elias is on “hold,” Max, who has only been unconscious, walks in on them.  They tell him the plot, turn him over to Elias for legal help, sell his story to Susan for publication, negotiate the loan—everyone gets something out of the adventure, and Susan rides off with Boardy on his motorcycle (which was parked in her living room!).

            Theme:  I’m not sure there is one—it’s a farce.

            Genre/Style:  Farce—a little on the absurd side.

            Structure:  2 acts in 5 scenes with 5 “interludes” and a prologue.  The “interludes” are the attempts to get rid of Max somewhere far-fetched; the scenes are all in Susan’s apartment as they plan their next move.

            Setting:  A penthouse apartment with terrace overlooking Central Park West [8th Ave. on the West Side of Manhattan where it runs along the western edge of Central Park from 59th to 110th St.; apartment rents rival those of 5th Ave. on the Upper East Side] with a scrim or screen “in one” for “interlude” projected scenery.  [“In one” designates the area of a stage downstage between the frontmost pieces of scenery, i.e., at the front edge of the stage.]  This latter may be a problem in a small house and another way of accomplishing this scene shift may have to be found.

            Language:  Basically realistic dialogue, though Boardy has his own idiom.  Michaels’s writing is very interesting and unusual.  This man is a pro with an impressive background.

            Characters:  Susan is 35; Boardy is 50, Elias is 39; Max is 40-60, a shaving-lotion tycoon.  Susan and Elias are basically ordinary people in a crazy situation, but Boardy is a unique creation: part hippie, part Groucho Marx, with a touch of larceny in his heart.  The actor who plays this role will have to have the charisma to make the most absurd suggestions seem reasonable and overcome each failure with complete aplomb.  Max has no dialogue until the last scene, and must be carried and buffeted about as a “corpse” with a will of its own for most of the play.  This may be the hardest role to cast.

            Evaluation:  This may not be StageArts’ cup of tea, but I feel it will play well and be a great success with an audience and critics.  Nothing quite like it will have been seen anywhere around, I’m sure, and it’s crazy enough to be a real laugh riot.

Michaels is a significant writer, author of Dylan; Tricks of the Trade; Tchin-Tchin; The Night They Raided Minsky’s; and Goodtime Charlie, as well as TV and film scripts.  If this play isn’t for us, perhaps he’s got something else that is.

A friend of mine worked with him for a while (and knows this play).  She tells me Michaels has not been doing well lately and would be delighted to have anything of his produced right now.  He is not unknown, but has been “lying fallow” recently.  He does have a number of other plays available.

            Recommendation:  Second reading; if it appeals, a reading with actors would be a good idea.  (This play should not be considered for the same season as The Unvarnished Truth [1978, Royce Ryton]; they are too much alike.)

            Source:  Mitch Douglas [1942-2020, literary agent] (ICM [International Creative Management])

*  *  *  *

[Patrick Hamilton (1904-62), a British playwright and novelist, is most familiar as the author of Rope (1929), the source of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film of the same name.  It ran on Broadway in 1929 under the title, Rope’s End.  He also wrote Angel Street (1938), which after the film versions, Gaslight (1940, UK; 1944. US), was retitled to match the popular movies.

[Rope as a stage play had fascinated me for many years.  I’ve never seen it on stage, and it was never revived on Broadway after its New York début.  (Two Off-Broadway productions were staged in 1962 and 2005, but I didn’t seen them.)  As I mention below, I’ve tried to find a theater interested in producing it, but never succeeded.  StageArts didn’t step up, either.]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

Date: 8/21/84
Evaluator: [Rick]

Rope by Patrick Hamilton 

            Plot:  Based on a 19th-century thrill-killing case, but recalling more the famous 1924 Chicago case of Leopold and Loeb, this is the story of a murder for the sheer art of the act.  Wyndham Brandon persuades his weak-minded friend, Charles Granillo (Granno), to help him murder a fellow Oxford undergraduate named Ronald Kentley.  They place the body in a wooden chest, and invite a few friends, including the dead boy’s father, to a party at which the chest holding the body serves as the buffet server.

Only poet Rupert Cadell suspects, and after all the guests have left, Brandon and Granillo break down and confess their guilt, supposing that Cadell would appreciate their act.  He doesn’t and after an intense scene of great intellectual and philosophical content, he calls the police.

            Theme:  Even the greatest intellects and artists are not above the common law.  Mostly, this is a superb psychological study and suspenseful thriller.

            Genre/Style:  Realistic mystery drama

            Structure:  Well-made play; very strong, with crescendo-like suspense build-up.  3 acts.

            Setting:  Realistic interior of the study/drawing room of the Mayfair (England) house of Brandon and Granillo.  Time is 1929, but could be up-dated and even transferred to NY with some small changes in the text.  Leaving it alone might be more fun, though.

            Language:  Realistic dialogue; upper-class British—very literate.

            Characters:  2 women: 1 50’s-60’s, 1 20’s; 6 men: 1 50’s-60’s, 4 20’s, 1 any age (French butler).  All are extremely well drawn, wonderful character roles for talented actors; Brandon, Granillo, and Cadell require superb performers able to handle subtleties and intellectual language and concepts in what amounts to a dialectic justifying their philosophy.

            Evaluation:  In case you don’t recognize this, it is the play on which Alfred Hitchcock based his 1948 movie of the same title, starring Jimmy Stewart (recently rereleased [1984] to excellent reviews).  He up-dated the story and moved it to NY and made Cadell (Stewart) older and a former professor of the young murderers whose philosophy inadvertently led them to their act.

This is a wonderful thriller—taut, intelligent, suspenseful, and literate.  If it hasn’t already been grabbed by someone for a major revival, S/A could stage a coup by doing it—it’s very movable.  I’ve been trying to get a hold of a copy for some time, but it is currently out-of-print at French’s, who own the rights—others may have had the same idea I did.

As I stated earlier, this can be (and had been) relocated and up-dated.  I think it would be better to do it as a period piece and leave it set in England.  That way the similarities with the Hitchcock movie will not seem so obvious.  Besides, the ’20s are such fun to do, and the characters are so wonderfully English, it would be a shame to deprive the actors of the pleasure.

            Recommendation:  Produce.  This strikes me as a perfect S/A play.

            Source:  [Rick]

            Rights:  SF [Samuel French, play publisher] (currently available in m/s only @ $10 ea., plus $25 deposit.  NYPL/LC [New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center] copy would be ca. $6-9 to copy.)

*  *  *  *

[The Lady’s Not for Burning (1948) by Christopher Fry (1907 -2005) became one of my favorite plays when I saw a television production of it on PBS in 1974.  I used a speech from it as an audition piece for a language play (in lieu of a classic) for several years.

[So when I read The Firstborn (1946), I had to see if it was something I could pass along to the artistic directors of StageArts.  I questioned both whether it was something they’d like and whether it was within the capabilities of the small theater company S/A was, but I gave them my report anyway. 

[Other plays by Fry include A Phoenix Too Frequent (1946), Venus Observed (1950), and The Dark is Light Enough (1954).  He also wrote for the movies and TV, in the latter instances, often adapting his own plays for the small screen.]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

Date: 8/31/84
Evaluator: [Rick]

The Firstborn by Christopher Fry 

            Plot:  This is the story of Moses’ struggle with the Pharoah Seti before the Exodus.  Seti’s sister, Anath, cannot forget Moses who had been her adopted son until he discovered his Hebrew background and left Egypt. 

Egypt is under attack from Libya, and Seti needs Moses’s prowess as a general.  Upon his return, however, Moses refuses to help the Pharoah repel the Libyan invasion. 

Ramases, Seti’s son, looks upon Moses as an uncle and offers to help him.  Although fond of Ramases, Moses reminds him that they must go separate ways in life.

Except for his brother, Aaron, Moses’ family considers him a source of trouble.  His sister, Miriam, and her son, Shendi, just want to be left alone to get along as well as they can for themselves, 

In an effort to appeal to Moses and do him honor, Ramases suggests to Seti that Shendi be made an Egyptian officer.  Moses asks Shendi to refuse the commission, but they boy accepts, and he and his mother move into the officers’ barracks and luxury. 

Moses sues Seti to let the Hebrews leave Egypt, but the Pharoah keeps none of his promises to Moses, and darkness comes over the land.  The biblical plagues strike Egypt, and finally, when the plague of the Death of the Firstborn comes, Moses summons his people. 

Shendi refuses to stay within the protection of Miriam’s tent, marked with the blood sign of the Passover, and runs out into the city, obscured by “sand.”

Moses now realizes that since all Egyptian firstborn must die, Ramases will be included.  He attempts to save the boy by warning the court of the impending doom, but Ramases crumples before him.  Anath, sending Moses out to find liberty for his people, bids him farewell. 

          Theme:  A study of liberty opposed by sadistic despotism.  Much of the play is taken up with convincing not only Seti to free the Hebrews, but the Hebrews, themselves, to see what they must do—and what Moses must do. 

Moses had been happy and successful as an Egyptian prince and general, and Shendi sees himself following the same path.  Miriam and Shendi see Moses’ attempts to oppose the Pharoah as personal attempts to prevent them from having what he had and lost.

            Genre/Style:  Verse drama

            Structure:  3 acts, 7 scenes: classical structure

            Setting:  Non-realistic unit set that can represent a terrace and a room in the Pharoah’s palace, and the interior of Miriam’s tent; minimal props.

            Language:  Free verse dialogue; will require very experienced actors with a gift for using language in the classical vein.  The language is contemporary, but very literate and sophisticated.  The poetry here is not as lofty and soaring as Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning, but it is impressive nonetheless.

            Characters:  3 women: 1 50, 1 30, 1 15; 10 men: 1 50-55, 2 30-40, 2 18-20, 5 extras (any ages; easily done by 2 actors).  These are all fascinating portraits, particularly Moses, Ramases, Shendi, and Anath.  In the hands of talented, exceptional actors, these would all be wonderful showcase roles with challenges to any serious actor.

            Evaluation:  This play is not as scintillating as The Lady’s Not for Burning, but it is certainly an interesting work by a well-known writer that should be seen again.  In these days of world-wide tyranny and struggles of national liberation, the ideas of The Firstborn are certainly topical and powerful.  The treatment is unusual—I can’t think of another play using an old-testament story this way—and might be a unique offering around the Easter-Passover holiday season,

            Recommendation:  Possible production

            Source:  [Rick]

            Rights/Scripts:  DPS [Dramatists Play Service]

More Script Reports VII: Adaptations (Continued)

 

[In the fall of 1986, as a member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America (now “. . . of the Americas”), I was part of a team of script readers for the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for American Playwrights Program, 1987 Competition.  The project is now defunct, but it was a program for regional theaters to apply for grants to subsidize a residency for a mid-career playwright of their choosing. 

[The Rockefeller Foundation had contacted LMDA, whose president at the time was Cynthia Jenner, who’d been a teacher of mine in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University.  Cynthia put together a team of LMDA members to serve as the first level of screening for the grant competition. 

[We read the scripts submitted by the theaters in support of their nominees for the residency and passed on our evaluations to the distinguished panel, the members of which weren’t known to us, who’d make the final selections of the grant awards.

[Each of us readers read scripts passed to us randomly, each of us reading a dozen or more.  We might be reading a typescript or even a published text, and we might be the first reader or a second or third reader.  We had to write up an evaluation using a form for the RF competition—I think Cynthia devised the form—so that we all responded to the same areas of interest. 

[This first group of script evals below are all for playwrights whose names are known in theater circles.  That was more likely in the RF competition than in other reading stints I did because the grant was for mid-career writers, so they already had track records.  Other collections will include many writers whose work is not familiar to ROTters.

[Two words of warning: first, because these reports were communications from one theater pro to another, we felt free to use jargon and shorthand and not to identify names and titles or define terms we reasonably expected our readers to know.  I’ll endeavor to add explanations and commentary as necessary for ROT readers.

[Second, these reports were never intended for public consumption; these were in-house documents.  In order to be as brief and succinct as possible, some of what we said, as you’ll notice below, might sound harsh and even insulting.  I’m afraid that’s how this end of the business works.]

ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIPS FOR AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS PROGRAM

1987 COMPETITION

PRE-SCREENING SCRIPT EVALUATION                                                                                            

READER: [Rick]
DATE: 9/28/86

AUTHOR/(TRANS.): Robert Gordon

TITLE/DATE: Seven Gables, 1986

GENRE/STYLE: romantic (even Gothic) melodrama

STRUCTURE: 2 acts, 9 scenes

SETTING: essentially realistic parlor, ca. 1840, New England

LANGUAGE: realistic dialogue of a Victorian style

MUSIC/LYRICS: not a musical play, but one character sings several sea chanties, and there is off-stage harpsichord music that is a leitmotif (music composed by Gordon, but not included)

NO. CHARACTERS/SPECIFIC NEEDS: 4 men, 3 women

CHARACTER STRUCTURE/TREATMENT: standard romantic/gothic characters, exc. that 1 man and 1 woman are invisible specters

CONCEPTION: This is essentially a gothic mystery tale, adapted from [Nathaniel] Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables [1851], dealing with “the sins of the father” and bearing family honor/curses until they can be atoned by a good deed

CHIEF THEATRICAL INTEREST: the 2 specters, perhaps, and the dramatization of Hawthorne’s popular story

BRIEF SYNOPSIS:

_________________________________________________________

The plot is essentially Hawthorne’s, though the ending has been changed “based on an aesthetic logic which Hawthorne didn’t follow for self-acknowledged commercial reasons.”  (Sounds somewhat presumptuous to me, and a little like [Thomas] Bowdler’s fiddling with Shakespeare.)

Phoebe Pyncheon has come to live with her cousin Hepzibah in Salem [Mass.] just at the time Hepzibah’s brother Clifford returns from 25 years in prison for the murder of their uncle and guardian.  There is a strange young man boarding in the house, Charles Holgrave, who is a peripatetic fellow, now a daguerreotypist and mesmerizer (literally).  The family is haunted by its prominent ancestors and the mystery of the real circumstances of the uncle’s death.  In this version, everything works out for the best, with Phoebe marrying Charles and Clifford learning the truth of the uncle’s death.  The impoverished Pyncheons even inherit the wealth of the nasty cousin who actually caused the uncle’s death.

DISCUSSION/EVALUATION: Because this is an adaptation, I have some problem judging Gordon’s writing.  I find the language a little pretentious, and not quite Hawthorne-like, almost a parody of his Victorian prose.  The play itself is short on action and long on talk, which works much better in a novel with the prose evocations of the environment and characters as well as their thoughts and motivations.  Here, it all just gets wordy.

The characters are stock and predictable for the most part.  There are no surprises and little development, as all the characters start out essentially the way they end up.  The little change that occurs is contrived and cataclysmic, rather than developed.  The adapter ties up all the loose ends nicely, but with little drama.  There are lots of dei ex machina.

The 2 extra “figures” are a mystery to me.  I know what they’re supposed to represent (the pasts and consciences of the main characters), but dramatically, I find them more an annoyance than a help.  I see no useful reasons for adding them to Hawthorne’s story.

I rather wish the American Conservatory Theatre had submitted an original script on which to judge Gordon’s work.  Basing an evaluation on this adaptation is like kissing through a napkin: I get little of the flavor of the real thing and none of the satisfaction.

RECOMMENDATION: 

Reject                                                     _____XXX____

Reject, but express interest in writer       ____________  

Second reading                                       ____________

Other                                                      ____________

*  *  *  *

[I read briefly for the Off-Broadway theater MCC, formerly known as the Manhattan Class Company, founded in 1986.

[William Shakespeare is a perennial candidate for adaptation (there’s another one coming up next), and theater for children is also a field that often makes use of adaptation, including Shakespeare.  (I posted a piece by Kirk Woodward, Rick On Theater’s most generous contributor, on “Directing Twelfth Night for Children,” 16 and 19 December 2010, and Kirk, who’s also a playwright as well as a director, has written several Shakespearean adaptations for children.)

[Sean Deming’s Little Shakespeare takes characters and situations from several Shakespeare plays (Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, and Henry V), a sort of pastiche, to create a new children’s script set in a 20th-century situation.

[Little Shakespeare has been produced several times, but I haven’t been able to pin down the theaters or dates.  The text is published by S&L Books as Little Shakespeare: A Play in One Act (1992).  Deming, an editor during the late 1980s, is co-author of several adaptations or editions of other works, including The Hobbit: An Illustrated Edition of the Fantasy Classic (Ballantine Books, 2001).]

MCC READER’S EVALUATION FORM

AUTHOR'S NAME:  Sean DEMING

TITLE OF WORK:  Little Shakespeare

TYPE OF PLAY:  ONE-ACT (children’s play)

READER'S NAME:  [Rick]

DATE RETURNED:  9/10/93

OVERALL REACTION TO SCRIPT (CHOOSE ONE)

1    2   3  4    5    6    7    8    9   10

           least favorable                                 most favorable

BRIEFLY SUMMARIZE THE PLOT:  Some of Shakespeare’s famous characters as kids in a little league competition.  (Romeo and Juliet are leaders of rival teams: the Montagues and the Capulets.)

STRENGTHS:  Mildly amusing; some little fun in trying to spot the altered famous speeches from Shakespeare’s plays patched together here (a sort of pièce à clef); might be a painless way to introduce kids to verse theater.

WEAKNESSES:  Not particularly interesting; pretty silly idea; doesn’t have much beef; I really question that 10-year-olds (age range indicated by author) would follow Elizabethan verse, and adults would find little of interest in story or characters; large cast for a one-act (14 m, 3 w, 8 extras)

RECOMMENDATION:  Rejection

*  *  *  *

[Another of the theaters for whom I read was The Gypsy Road Company which conducted an annual playwriting contest, the 21st Century Playwrights Festival.  Gypsy Road required us to write a letter to the playwright with our evaluation—presumably in softer terms than we might have used with the theater’s personnel.  Mine is included below with the eval report.

[Jeffrey M. Chausse (b. 1976) isn’t a professional writer.  In a profile, he called himself “a Computer Science major college student with extensive studies in drama and playwriting.”  He works with game developers on creating storylines, dialogue, and so on, for computer games.]

THE GYPSY ROAD COMPANY
21st CENTURY PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL 

9 April 1996                                                                 
[Rick]

RUDE MECHANICALS
by Jeffrey M. Chausse 

Summary:  As the title suggests, this is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  A bunch of present-day construction workers attempt to put on the Shakespeare play for the President and the First Lady.  The treatment is sort of a one-act, non-musical rip-off of Kiss Me, Kate vis-à-vis The Taming of the Shrew.

Critique:  There’s not much to say in favor of Chausse’s effort.  It has the quality of a junior high school spoof in both its humor and dramaturgy.  Even if there were a good reason to do an update of Midsummer, this is closer to embarrassing than funny.  It isn’t anywhere near silly or absurd enough to be a true send-up, its farcical elements are juvenile, and the characters are just dumb rather than clown-like or outrageous.  There aren’t even any surprises to speak of, since the plot of Rude Mechanicals follows that of Midsummer almost exactly. 

Some of the characterizations are downright insulting, to boot.  (The Francis Flute character [he’s a bellows-mender and plays the female role of Thisbe in Pyramus and Thisbe, a play-within-the-play] is “effeminate” while Shakespeare’s was just very young; a theatrical director is “an arrogant thespian,” effete and haughty.)  Finding something positive to say to Chausse will be very, very hard.

Recommendation:  Pass

Suitability for public reading series:  No

Comments:  I see no reason to expose an audience to this script, and I doubt a reading would reveal anything worthwhile to the playwright. 

THE GYPSY ROAD COMPANY
21st CENTURY PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL 

RUDE MECHANICALS
by Jeffrey M. Chausse 

Shakespeare is, of course, universal, and adaptations of his plays have often proved to be the most successful or interesting pieces in modern theater, from The Boys from Syracuse and Kiss Me, Kate through West Side Story to Your Own Thing and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  When you work with the best, you often end up with the best.  You picked good source material, and the Rude Mechanicals are doubtlessly some of theater’s most wonderful clowns.

The appeal of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, though, comes as much from the romance and magic in the love stories as from the low humor of Bottom and his pals.  A true update, allowing only for the realities of the 1990s without the fantasies of the 1590s, is less appealing unless you can find a way to return these elements.  You should first ask yourself, however, why you want to update this particular play at all.  Is there something you can say to a modern audience that can’t be said by a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream?  It must work pretty well as is for modern audiences since it is Shakespeare’s most-produced play of all 36.

If, on the other hand, you just want to create a farce—a vehicle for outrageous acting—then you need to go much further.  Rude Mechanicals has to be far wackier, less anchored to reality.  Think Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis—or, better yet, Steve Martin and Robin Williams.  Remember, Shakespeare’s characters weren’t realistic even in his day; why should yours have to be?  Don’t feel bound by logic or, for that matter, Shakespeare’s text.

[The Rude Mechanicals are an ever-popular subject for comic performances, including for children.  As you’ve read, I had some issues with Jeffrey Chausse’s adaptation, but in 1978, I directed a production of Pyramus and Thisbe with middle-school students.  This wasn’t an adaptation really; it was simply an extraction of the Rude Mechanicals scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed as a one-act play.  I won’t describe my production, but I will say that it was quite successful (if I do say so myself!).

[Sidebar: I remember one girl in particular who learned something wonderful from the experience.  The cast was all 7th- and 8th-grade girls and I cast an enthusiastic 8th-grader as Snug,  the joiner, who did the lion’s part in Pyramus and Thisbe.   (Her name, which I’ll never forget, was Ariadne Valsamis.  Isn’t that a wonderful name for the theater?  It’s practically musical!)  She objected because the lion has no lines.

[I explained to her that she shouldn’t necessarily count lines as the measure of a role and that I guaranteed her that the lion would be an audience favorite.  When my prediction proved right—the spectators just howled at her antics—Ariadne came to me, beaming from ear to ear, and admitted she’d had a lot of fun doing that role.  As a teacher I, as I said, counted that production a great success, not least because of what Ariadne said.]

*  *  *  *

[I’ve saved one reader’s report for last, out of chronological order, because it’s not strictly speaking an adaptation.  Jules Tasca’s Romeo and Juliet Are Lovers is really a sequel.  That’s not unheard-of, of course, even outside the world of fan fiction.  My friend Kirk Woodward, has Hamlet Act VI (Classics (spiceplays.com)), which posits that “Hamlet and Laertes do not exchange rapiers, [so] Hamlet does not die,” and proceeds from there.

[The Tamer Tamed (first published in 1647, but written perhaps between 1609 and 1622) by John Fletcher (1579-1625), is a sequel to Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.  The joke of the plot is that the women are all denying the men sex.  (Think  Shrew meets Lysistrata.  See my mini-report posted in “Some Classics from the Archives” on 19 February 2019.)  

[On 22 July 2017, I posted a blog report on Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2, a sequel to the Ibsen classic that takes place 15 years after the 1879 original ended.  It ran on Broadway for 172 regular performances, was nominated for the 2017 Best Play Tony, and won the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play award for Laurie Metcalf as the returning Nora Helmer.

[I first encountered Romeo and Juliet Are Lovers in 1979 when I participated in an invitational reading for the benefit of a composer who was considering musicalizing the play.  He wanted to hear it read by actors, but ultimately decided not to do the musical.  As far as I know, our reading was the only “performance” of Tasca’s play. 

[The text was published by Aran Press in 1984, but I can’t confirm that the publisher is still operating.  Tasca (b. 1938) has had a number of his plays published, but his best-known title is The Mind With a Dirty Man (Samuel French, 1975), popular in regional and community theaters.  The play, about a small-town movie review board that has problems when the son of one of its members takes over the local moviehouse and wants to show porn, toured the country for years with well-known movie and TV comedian Don Knotts and his daughter Karen.]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

Date:  8/22/84
Evaluator:  [Rick]

Romeo and Juliet Are Lovers by Jules Tasca

Plot:  What if Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had lived?  Tasca has supposed this and given us a domesticated, middle-aged Romeo and Juliet with a young son of their own.  Romeo’s old friend Benvolio, now a “fat, balding man with a tooth missing,” pops in to tell Romeo on the sly that Rosaline (Romeo’s first love before he meets Juliet) is in town.  The rest of the play is a slapstick farce that details Romeo’s meeting with Rosaline, Young Romeo’s own romantic efforts, and various other hilarious complications too complex to list easily.  In the end, Romeo sees the virtues of domestic bliss with Juliet, and leaves the adventurous romance to youth.

Theme:  If there has to be one, it’s that each generation must learn the lessons of love and human nature for itself, and once having learned them, move on.  However, it’s best not to discuss this too openly—the play’s too light-spirited to [be] belabor[ed by] a message.

Genre/Style:  Romantic farce.

Structure:  2 acts, divided into many scenes (à la Shakespeare) with 2 prologues (1 to each act) and an “Epithalamium” [Tasca’s label: a song or poem celebrating a marriage].  Episodic, but fast-paced.

Setting:  Renaissance Mantua; non-realistic area staging with levels and risers.

Language:  Phony Shakespearean; it doesn’t really read well, but it plays hilariously.

Characters:  5 women: 1 50’s-60’s, 3 “middle-aged,” 1 teens-20’s; 6 men: 5 “middle-aged,” 1 teens-20’s.  Most are cartoons, and very “commedia”; while none are really rounded characters, that is not a fault here.  These roles, well-played in the proper style, will be comic masterpieces for actors.  This really has to be heard to see; reading them on the page is unlikely to show this.

Evaluation:  You may recall I mentioned I did a reading of this play in 1979 (apparently the first “performance” according to the front of the script) and I never expected the results.  During the rehearsal, the cast was constantly breaking up—practically on the floor.  At the reading, the audience followed suit, and we still had a hard time not going with them.  [See below for my account of the reading.]  Believe me, this play will work like gangbusters.  If S/A [StageArts] wants a comedy, this could be the answer.  You want middle-aged characters—men and women—here are 8 of all types and descriptions.  Easy staging, complete freedom on costuming—what more could you demand?

As far as I know now, this has never really been produced in NY—perhaps not anywhere yet.  [Still true.]  It may not be a serious contender for an Obie (but, then, who knows?), and it’s certainly not Pulitzer material, but it will slay any audience, and probably get good notices.  Tasca is not unknown (his Mind With a Dirty Man has been paying his bills from summer-stock productions with the likes of Don Knotts for years) and may attract some critics’ attention.

At the risk of being a pest, let me remind you that you may find this less interesting on a page—and I did when I first read it—unless you can imagine the production.  A reading for us might be worthwhile.

Recommendation:  Produce.

Source:  [Rick]

Rights/Scripts:  Aran Press

[When my friend Josephine, who put the reading of Romeo and Juliet Are Lovers together, asked me to take a part in the one-night event, of course, I agreed.  We always supported each other’s work, but besides wanting to help her out, a reading for a playwright, a composer, and their agents might mean other pros would attend, too, and it was a chance to be seen by people who influenced casting and hiring.  Enlightened self-interest, as it were.

[I picked up a copy of the script and decided to take a long weekend at my parents’ vacation home on Cape Cod with just me and my dog in the early spring off-season.  (The reading was on Monday, 26 March 1979; I was probably on the Cape during the weekend before.)  I hung around the house, sat on the deck wrapped in a blanket like old scenes aboard ocean liners, and walked along the empty beach with the dog.  And read the play.  

[Tasca’s play is about Romeo and Juliet’s life as Romeo experiences his mid-life crisis and the two see their 15-year-old son fall into the pattern of young love that had so dramatically affected their lives as teenagers.  I read through the play several times, and the faux-Elizabethan speech and the silly situations and jokes just didn’t seem funny to me.  I was sure the whole thing would lay an egg at the reading; I couldn’t see why the composer (I never learned his name) would want to musicalize it.

[I’d made a commitment to my friend, though, and it was only for one evening.  We were supposed to get together at the Vandam Theatre in SoHo for an hour or so before the reading and run through the script, get any necessary pointers from Josephine, director Jim Kramer, and Tasca—not really a rehearsal, just a familiarization.

[Well, we met as scheduled, and started to read the play.  It was absolutely hilarious.  We were almost literally rolling on the floor!  We couldn’t get through more than a sentence or two without breaking up and interrupting the dialogue.  The parody of Shakespearean language was so outrageous when spoken that it transcended the silliness I thought I’d seen when I read the text to myself.

[Of course, we calmed down by the time we had to read the play in front of the invited audience.  (They did the laughing then.)  Unfortunately, the composer decided not to do the musicalization and the collaboration never happened.  But I learned a powerful lesson that evening.  Plays, especially comedies, can often play far better with live actors than they read on the page.  After this reading, I never forgot that.]