Last June, six playwrights and I gathered to discuss the possibility of creating a new play inspired by Jacques' "seven ages of man" speech from Shakespeare's As You Like It for the Great Lakes Theater 2014 free outreach tour.
I laid down a few ground rules, deciding which characters would be available to them, and in what time period it was to be set. These four characters would use each other to tell tales inspired by (but not restricted to) one of each of these ages: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon and advanced old age.
Assigning each age was no big deal, everyone negotiated and came to an agreement. Area critic, playwright, poet and performer Christine Howey chose "second childhood and mere oblivion" or senescence, as the Bard describes, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Exact Change
Christine is having a good year, and it's not even February. Last weekend she wrapped up a three-week, sold out run of her new solo performance Exact Change at Cleveland Public Theatre. She was recently announced as a 2014 Creative Workforce Fellow, provided by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture and funded by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. And of course, she's a playwright for Seven Ages.
Interestingly, we could have booked Exact Change and repackaged that as Seven Ages and had our tour already in the bag. Chronicling as it does the playwright's own experiences from childhood to these later years using verse, video and startling costume changes to evoke a modern Tiresias.
Christine's tale opens our septameron -- beginning where we all conclude -- pitting old Portelaine, a man nearing the end of his days against those who would "cheer him up" or "put a smile on his face". It is a role and responsibility which has struck home to me on numerous recent occasions (including past outreach tours which have visited certain assisted care and nursing facilities) and one which I am still coming to terms with for this piece.
An early draft of what became the second act of These Are The Times included many scenes taken directly from transcripts from the House Committee on Un-American Activities. One such scene featured Peter "Pete" Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) who sat before the committee, gladly exposed his interrogators as fools, and stood tall as he always did against Fascism.
Joyce Brabner produced a staged reading of what was then called This Is The Times at the Unitarian Universalist Church on December 12, 2008. Seeger was performed in that reading by Dan McElhaney and he really got the smile right.
This scene is my edited version of the historical transcript.
Pete Seeger’s testimony before the House Unamerican Activities Committee on August 18, 1955
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Please identify yourself, sir, by name and occupation.
SEEGER
My name is Pete Seeger. I was born in New York in 1919.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
What is your profession or occupation?
SEEGER
It is hard to call it a profession. I kind of drifted into it and I never intended to be a musician, and I am glad I am one now, and it is a very honorable profession, but when I started out actually I wanted to be a newspaperman, and when I left school --
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Will you answer the question, please?
SEEGER
I have to explain that it really wasn't my profession, I picked up a little change in it.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
The Committee has obtained information indicating that, over a period of time you took part in numerous entertainment features. I have before me a photostatic copy of the June 20, 1947, issue of the Daily Worker. (reads) "Tonight-Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton Section housewarming." May I ask you whether or not the Allerton Section was a section of the Communist Party?
SEEGER
Sir, I refuse to answer that question whether it was a quote from the New York Times or the Vegetarian Journal.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
I don't believe there is any more authoritative document in regard to the Communist Party than its official organ, the Daily Worker. I direct you to answer.
SEEGER
I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious or political beliefs, or any of these private affairs. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
I have before me a photostatic copy of the April 30, 1948, issue of the Daily Worker. (reads) "May Day Rally: For Peace, Security and Democracy. Are you in a fighting mood? Then attend the May Day rally." And then follows a statement, "Entertainment by Pete Seeger." Did you lend your talent to the Essex County Communist Party on this occasion?
SEEGER
I believe I have already answered this question.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
What is your answer?
SEEGER
I resent very deeply the implication that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Why don't you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?
SEEGER
I feel that my whole life is a contribution. That is why I would like to tell you about it.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
I don't want to hear about it. I direct you to answer that question.
SEEGER
I have already given you my answer, sir. However, if you want to question me about any songs, I would be glad to tell you, sir.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Did you participate in a program at Wingdale Lodge in the State of New York, on the weekend of July Fourth of this year?
SEEGER
I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business. But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Did you sing the song "Now Is the Time," at Wingdale Lodge on the weekend of July Fourth?
SEEGER
I don't know any song by that name. I know a song called "Wasn't That a Time." Is that the song?
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Did you sing that song?
SEEGER
I can sing it. I don't know how well I can do it without my banjo.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
I said, did you sing it on that occasion?
SEEGER
I have sung that song. I have sung it many places.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Did you sing it on this particular occasion?
SEEGER
Again my answer is the same.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
You said that you would tell us about it.
SEEGER
I will tell you about the songs, I am not going to go into where I have sung them.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
I direct you to answer the question. Did you sing this particular song on the Fourth of July at Wingdale Lodge in New York?
SEEGER
I am sorry you are not interested in the song. It is a good song.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
I want to know whether or not you were entertaining for the benefit of Communist fronts at these features.
SEEGER
I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody. That is the only answer I can give along that line.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Did you sing at functions of the Communist Party, at Communist Party requests?
SEEGER
I believe, sir, that a good twenty minutes ago, I gave my answer to this whole line of questioning.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Have you been a member of the Communist Party since 1947?
SEEGER
It is like Jesus Christ when asked by Pontius Pilate, "Are you king of the Jews?"
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Stop that.
SEEGER
I would be curious to know what you think of a song like this very great Negro spiritual, "I'm Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield, Down by the Riverside."
Fourth day of rehearsal was like Christmas, with scenic designer Terry Martin playing the role of Santa, leaving us not only lovely presents, but a fire to place them near.
The action of Seven Ages transpires within the truck of a thousand year-old oak tree in the forest of Arden. Terry's set was inspired by the stained glass window of the the seven ages of man from the Folger Library in Washington D.C., and also the work of Maxfield Parrish. Each of seven frames depict a tree at a different stage of growth, during a different season of the year.
We also discovered a box full of fabulous props, and worked through several scenes last night utilizing them, and arranging and re-arranging the various "mossy and water-damaged" blocks and cases.
Late last night I discovered that Daniel had posted something on Facebook, a picture from four years earlier when we began rehearsing On The Dark Side of Twilightin a much smaller office in the Bulkey Building.
At rehearsal last week, Bobby noted that the small notebook I was using reminded him of when we taught summer arts camp together back in 2008.
We were part of Smart In The City, a Cleveland-wide camp at several locations, ours on the West Side in the former St. Mel School space. Bobby was our music instructor, and I was the creative writing instructor.
I felt that each student should have a notebook that they might want to actually keep. At the art supply store I was introduced to Moleskine, they do make such neat little books.
Some kids did keep theirs, others had no interest in writing and were unimpressed by the books and there were several left over.
Bobby was correct, the notebook I have been using in rehearsal for Seven Ages is, in fact, the exact same book I used during Smart camp, participating in the same writing exercises I was assigning to the campers.
That was six years ago, so obviously I have not used it a lot, usually as a travel notebook, when I remember to bring it with me. A quick inventory reveals:
Exercises from Smart In The City
To Do Lists
Ideas for various plays
The formative idea for the play I am writing right now
Rumination on a workshop from Kirk Wood Bromley
Notes taken in the Performing Arts Library, NYC
Notes taken in the Cleveland Public Library
Titles of books I have since read
Code keys
Directions to the Highline
Ideas for plays I hope to eventually write
Notes from a symposium at Cleveland Public Theatre
Three weeks of rehearsal provide little time to waste time. After two nights of table reading, the tables have been pushed back and we are already on our feet.
This is not to the first time I have been engaged in a project that involves several playwrights writing on a common theme, and then striving through rehearsal to find their unifying threads. The Gulf certainly comes to mind.
Once we had written our tale, and decided upon their order (they are not chronological) each Seven Ages playwright was tasked with writing interstitial material, leading one story into the next. In this way, the in-between stuff is more interesting than if I had provided each of the segues.
However, it was inevitable that certain transitions appear too stark or abrupt. In each of these cases, the pleasing lubrication of music will help us slide from one fable to another. Our Touchstone, Bobby, has plenty of experience with the tunes from As You Like It, having played Amiens for the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival -- twice.
I am looking forward to how we three, Annie, Emily and myself, may compliment his compositions ... if compliment is the right word.
Rehearsals for Great Lakes Theater’s 2014 free outreach tour, Seven Ages have begun. Inspired by Jacques rumination on the seven ages of man in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, seven northeast Ohio playwrights were tasked to write a story or fable about one of seven phases of human life.
We gathered in the Hanna Building rehearsal hall, four actors, director Lisa, stage manager Diana and as a special surprise, our amazing costume designer Esther!
The company includes Emily and Annie, two fresh faces familiar to those who followed Double Heart last year (oh, and my face, also) and a welcome new addition in Bobby Williams, for who this is his first outreach tour with us, which I find incredible as he has worked with virtually everyone, everywhere.
This guy.
Esther began by sharing her designs, which for a change are Elizabethan. Four characters from As You Like It gather for shelter and safety in a thousand year-old tree, and pass the time telling stories. As it is Shakespeare’s tale, Esther chose Shakespeare’s time.
Last year the costume changes were a pretty big deal, especially for me. For this production, as we are all playing characters intentionally going in and out of characters for each others' tales, there promises to be more piling on interesting certain pieces -- or as Esther put it, "Anything can be a hat!"
It’s going to be a playful piece of work, the show is about the telling of tales, and while the flavor of each differs, most are humorous. The darkest piece, without any surprise to anyone, is the one I have written.
Senior year in high school, Mr. Knapp assigned E.M. Forster's short story The Machine Stops. What seemed charmingly prescient in 1986 has become alarmingly so in the almost thirty years that have passed.
In brief. two hundred years into the future (the year 2109, according to Forster, best known for novels like Howard's End, A Room With a View and Passage to India) humanity will have destroyed the surface of the planet, and created a self-exiled under the surface of the planet where every individual human lives their existence in single room where all necessities are provided by The Machine.
No one desires to come into direct contact with anyone else, all communication is conducted through The Machine. They spend all leisure time (which is to say, all non-resting or feeding time) staring into the screen, through which they communicate and receive thoughts, messages and "ideas".
To my teenage mind, this was a remarkable turn-of-the-century concept of television. I had no idea of how computers and what we would later call the Internet would occupy our potential for expression or communication, and the similarity between Forster's world and this is much more accurate than that of Wells or even Bradbury.
However, let us return to 1986. Mr. Knapp asked what contemporary event came to mind when reading this story. A recent (two weeks ago) return to my alma mater reminded me of how reticent my contemporaries are to volunteering responses. So I do not believe my memory is too inaccurate when I suggest that a fat second or two went by, no one answered, and I finally put my hand up to suggest, "Chernobyl?"
Yes, that is exactly what he was suggesting. The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 26. (Side note, at Prom that year we were served Chicken Kiev, which made for a number of tasteless jokes.) Since that time, the threat of and benign disinterest in global climate change suggests that it will not take any specific "accident" to drive us underground.
Also, too ... in reference to our capacity for viewing as a solitary intellectual endeavor, our English teacher inquired about any or all solitary activities, and whether they were not in and of themselves, selfish activities, even if they were arguably healthful. He was and is a marathon runner. Hours and hours on the road, away from his growing children, wasn't that inherently self-involved, even if it didn't render him on of Forster's pale, formless blobs of humanity?
This was an element I made reference to in my solo performance And Then You Die (How I Ran A Marathon in 26.2 Years). Since that time I have questioned my pursuit of running and how much time it takes from my family. I have since reconciled that fact that every minute I spent exercising gives back two that may be lost to a sedentary lifestyle.
In any event, this was one of the formative works of my youth. In my 30s, I thought occasionally of adapting a play from this material. Fortunately for me, Eric Coble did it first.
Commissioned by the Hiram College Center for Literature, Medicine and the Biomedical Humanities, Eric wrote a one-act stage play, which was presented at a symposium at Hiram and later at the Ingenuity Festival in Cleveland in 2005. I missed those productions, but asked Eric if I could read it. Centering as it does on two protagonists, Vashti and her son Kuno, with a dozen or more voices coming through The Machine, I felt it would make an excellent radio drama.
Following the success of our radio version of I Hate This in late 2005, WCPN producer Dave DeOreo asked, and now, what next? I suggested The Machine Stops. Then I asked Eric.
Creating this show was a particular delight, involving as it did some of my favorite voice talents (Jazmin Corona, Tim Keo, Nick Koesters, RaSheryl McCreary, Dawn Youngs) and giving Dennis Yurich the chance to create some truly delicious themes and sound effects. In particular, the subtle, throbbing humming of The Machine was unsettling in the extreme.
Also, we employed a number of Foley effects, executed by Kelly Elliott, inspired by the works of Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and Terry Gilliam (Brazil), among others.
Be sure to listen to the Q&A with playwright Eric Coble at the end of the broadcast. The reference to MySpace may startle you.
