Tag: Shakespeare

It’s “Mine”

On May 23, 2009

I’ve been thinking a lot about communication lately -the ways we use it (or don’t use it) and the importance it has to some of us, particularly those in the arts. Communication is what every artist attempts through a chosen medium. Whether it’s dance, film, music, writing or acting, every creative act is an attempt to communicate something to someone else. Within that chosen form of communication is a myriad of ideas and influences, not all of them original -some are sifted through the rough grains of hard-won experience, others are left unfiltered for consideration and conversation. When it comes to presenting a work of art, who can really say what is wholly original?

The question becomes all the more cloudy in the world of words, where research and source material often become intimately intertwined with the writer’s own opinions, approach, and sometimes, life work. History is fraught with examples of works that, while considered utter genius, are suspect in their originality at least, and acts of plagiarism at worst. Think of playwrights like Shakespeare, whose works were frequently based on other (popular) tales floating around, or the Bible, a collection of tales written and re-written through the centuries to suit the age and ruling classes.

Anton Piatigorsky tackles the huge questions swirling around authorship, originality, voice and its relationship to identity, and what makes art … well, art, in his play Eternal Hydra, now on in Toronto at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. This Crow’s Theatre production brings together the same acting/directing team from last spring, when the work was workshopped before an audience for a week. Originally starting out life as a one-act play at Stratford’s Studio Theatre, the work has been greatly expanded and explores larger notions of historical detail, authenticity, and what it means to really “create.” He uses the image of the mythical hydra -the scary monster Hercules fought with the multiple heads -as a metaphor for the writing process itself. Just when characters -and audience, in fact -think they’ve figured out what links writer Gordias Carbuncle’s work to past sources, another connection presents itself that renders theories incomplete. Throw in notions around race, gender, and religion, and you have one hell of a heady night of theatre.

That doesn’t mean Eternal Hydra is cold, however. It’s heady, but it’s also full of heart. Cast members Karen Robinson, Liisa Repo-Martell, Sam Malkin, and David Ferry, as the self-hating maybe-genius Gordias, all give fully-fleshed out performances that make you feel something beyond intellectual wonder. Piatigorsky’s piece is Stoppard-esque, no question, but it’s also fascinating for its mix of the epic and the intimate; the scenes between Robinson, as impoverished black writer Selma Thomas, or Repo-Martell, as the smitten researcher Vivian Ezra, and Ferry’s Carbuncle, are moving, enlightening, disturbing and challenging. Throw in some evocative lighting, where characters frequently move in and out of shadow, as well as multiple plotlines, where characters fall through time, and frequently blur lines between eras and realities, and Piatigorsky’s work is suddenly about a whole lot more than historical appropriation. It’s about life, art, and yes, communication -how we do it, and more importantly, why we do it.

Artists get communication: we’re just not sure if what we’ve produced is actually ours at the end of the day, or simply another screaming head. I mean really, there’s so many of those around already, competing for our attention, demanding time, energy resources, or sometimes, just perhaps, whispering something incredible.

Daughters, Not Victims

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 26, 2009

In opera

Last week I had the distinct and awesome privilege of seeing Simon Boccanegra onstage at the beautiful Four Seasons Centre. The last few years, I’ve developed a wholly new appreciation for an artform that I wasn’t entirely sure I liked, even though it was thoroughly entrenched in my upbringing from childhood. Hmm, maybe it’s a sign of maturity, or the fact I cover arts and culture for a living, or the fact that I’ve worked in theatre, and know how much time, effort, and skill goes into a production. And maybe it also has to do with the fact that I simply adore the work of the COC. Classy, musical, and deeply thought-full -just some of the ways I’d describe past performances (make that experiences) -and Verdi’s Simon is no exception.

In a nutshell, the story can be reduced to a very simple equation: politics = family, and family is always political. Duh. Seems like that’s the case with much of Italian opera. I’m still on the fence about it all, really; the entirely-gorgeous, crazily-romantic music has a way of drawing me in its spell, even if librettos are frequently ridiculous and maudlin. I mean, come on, throwing babies into fires? Magical love potions? Bitchy Ital-oriental women? That’s not the composers’ fault -obviously -and I realize grand opera, like romantic fiction, was the escapism of its day (and it’s not like Wagner ever attempted realism -or social commentary -either). I tend, like many I suppose, to sit back and enjoy the marriage of music and mise-en-scene, and let the rest go.

But Rigoletto, easily one of the most famous operas ever written (as well as being my own mother’s personal favourite) has always, always grated on me. Yes, the music is breathtaking. But the story… leaves me cold. The idea of Gilda, the title character’s naive, shuttered daughter, being so naive, weak, and idiotic, and so willingly controlled by men… ugh. I know, sign of its time, victim-mindset, etcetcetc. Whenever it comes to shut-in daughters -and indeed, whenever I see or hear Rigoletto on radio or television -I always think of Shylock’s Jessica, who, like Gilda, escapes her father’s stern rules to go out and play.

But unlike Gilda, Jessica knowingly defies her father -for love, but also, we suspect, out of revenge. Shakespeare has it right: young women, especially those who feel their their freedom has been denied (or has, in fact, had it denied) by family or authority figures, are going to go out and find it themselves, in the most rebellious, dangerous, and irresponsible of fashions. So it makes sense that Gilda would take off with her nocturnal madrigal; the fact she’d be actually surprised -and then protest -at her kidnapping, however, is hilarious. The fact she’d be all good-girl over it, and protest his advances -when she probably had the hots for him all along -is beyond the pale. And then later telling daddy all about being … uh, raped? N-O.

Maybe it’s my modern sensibility. But even as a kid, never, for a second, did I ever buy it. The fact she’s pining for the miscreant Duke later on, while perhaps characteristic of a woman who’s been abused by her partner, remains, to my mind, woeful -and sexist. The Duke was never her partner -he was just that guy in the street she sadly trusted. The fact remains that neither she, nor her seemingly-heroic-meets-inept father see the truth of the sickly-karmic world they’ve created; Cordelia she is not. And why does that Duke wind up getting the best tunes, if he’s such a dickhead?

Simon Boccanegra presents another kind of daughter: one who, though committed to her father, nonetheless stands up for her own choices. Okay, so she says she’d die for her man before she’d let her father harm him -*cue eyeroll* -but the fact she’s essentially telling him, “Look, I love this person, and I really don’t care what you think, or whether you like him or not” -is brave, and it was refreshing to see. The fact that, unlike Rigoletto, the daughter in Simon doesn’t actually know her father until she’s an adult does, of course, make a difference in their interaction -it changes the mindset of the character -but unlike Gilda, Amelia never comes off as a victim, despite having been denied knowing her father, and only meeting him later in life.

That sort of reunion holds personal resonance for me. The scene between Amelia and Simon, as they stare at one another for the first time, comprehending everything, was, in the COC production I saw, handled beautifully, with just the right amount of delicacy and drama. Unsure whether to hug, stare, or be with their own thoughts, the pair just gaze in wonder and awe. I know what that feels like. Sometimes opera isn’t so fantastical after all -sometimes, it’s just life, with a beautiful soundtrack.

Staging War

By Catherine Kustanczy

On November 29, 2008

In opera

I came across a fascinating piece on the art of staging warfare yesterday. Written by British freelance journalist and indie theatre director Imogen Russell Williams, the piece explores the whys and wherefores of staging war onstage, noting, quite rightly I think, that most theatre directors revert to some kind of cinematic equivalent in depicting fights. In reading her description of shadow play and slow-motion moves, I couldn’t help but think of the innumerable productions I’ve sat through where both were utilized, along with pyrotechnics. To quote Williams:

Bang! Flash! Up goes a huge pile of money in undulating smoke. We’re supposed to find it impressive that such crashes, bangs and wallops can be achieved even though we’re in a theatre, not a cinema. But it’s probably the uniting factor in bad stage warfare that director and production team are determined to pull off the cinematically spectacular even though they’re making a play, not a film.

This explains (at least partly) why I didn’t like Black Watch, part of Luminato this past summer. Or why so many productions of Shakespeare (and one of Marlowe) in Stratford have been disappointing; lost in the wonder of great acting, design, and staging, I’ve found myself jolted out of the spell by ridiculous, over-the-top fight/warfare scenes.

Note to theatre directors: try talking with some of this city’s awesome puppeteers. Work with them. They’re super-creative. Incorporating puppetry is just what The National Theatre in England has done with War Horse. Williams says this production changed her mind about the depiction of war onstage, and from what I’ve read, the piece seems genuinely moving, and thought-provoking. Puppets aren’t just for kids, and never have been.