Last night, I had the privilege of spending an evening hearing a new work by actor and playwright Stu Richel, photographer/journalist and soldier in the Vietnam War. Richel's play, Vietnam through my lens, runs through November 23 at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre in New York. While his experiences in Vietnam form the core of the play, the scope of his reminiscence is larger, candid, and willing to be puzzled. Complemented by Richel's own photographs of the era, his lens puts a face on the American soldier, while showcasing his skill in character acting. The story is poignant without being self-serving, and I loved how Stu connected directly with the audience--some of whom were comrades from soldiering--and how he offered meta commentary on the experience of doing the show while performing it. Actor Loretta Switt had attended the show the previous evening, drawing full circle the connection he made between himself and MASH character Corporal Max Klinger. Vietnam through my lens is clearly an evolving piece, offered matter-of-factly and in the moment, which complements the emotional truth of the piece. If I had a wish, it would be for more photos--the excellent montages by Michael Lee Stever make this performance both more personal and more epic at the same time, and their cinematic quality is like a musical score in the way it drives emotions and represents Richel's mindscape. Directed with sensitivity by Linda S. Nelson, the play makes excellent use of the black box space, and is dramatically lit by Elaine Wong. It was an honor to spend an evening with Stu and his comrades. Tears, laughter, and the process of making sense. There is closure, but there are questions. So it goes when living an examined life.
Concerned about the diminishing presence of arts in education? So am I. This blog will explore the value of adding art to the three R's. It's more than the money; it's humanity.
The John Lennon Peace Wall | Prague 2010
About Me
- AVE
- United States
- Deborah S. Greenhut, PhD, is a playwright, arts documentarian, and educator who began teaching in a one-room school house in rural New England during 1970. These days you can find me collaborating with urban educators and students, seeking new ways to make education artful. I have consulted on management skills and communication arts in 44 of the United States and 5 provinces in Canada. I believe that people learn more effectively through drama-assisted instruction, and I exploit the Internet to deliver it. The views expressed here are entirely mine and not those of any other institution or organization.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The Open House, by Will Eno
In 2002, during The Last Frontier Theatre Conference in
Valdez, Alaska, I was awed by my first hearing of an early play by Will Eno: The Flu Season. I made a mental note to
myself that went like this: "Ha! To
anyone who believed that "language plays" were dead! These critics were
going to be proved wrong by this exquisite writer." Eno had taken the
pastoral genre and moved its conventions to an asylum in order to explore the
recovery of relationships through language. The master classes that I attended during that
Edward Albee-driven conference hammered the notion that the language made the
play.
Will Eno is a superb craftsman of the word. His new play, The Open House, now previewing at Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center
in New York City, is set in a beige house that seems near extinction as
the play opens. The characters are archetypes of the stifled, decaying
family--Father, recuperating from a stroke; Mother, masking her anxieties with
forgetfulness; the grief-stricken uncle; the Grown Children, now living outside
the house, but trapped in old tropes when they are in it--they know that it
"doesn't have to be like this," but they cannot stop the music while
there. Everyone is powerless to end the parents' arias of disappointment. The
first half of the play descends through valleys of broken language and ennui to
a pit of despair, forming a funeral for the dysfunctional house in poignant
eulogies, a sad symphony of their broken lives. A bubble of hope appears and
disappears, and that keeps the audience from sinking with the family. Just as
the house becomes cloyingly depressing, the children find mundane reasons to go
outside--the lost dog, the missing lunch, the girlfriend, eventually the car
accident empties the house of nearly everyone. The Father, it is discovered,
has made prior contact with a Realtor--a deus
ex machina--who breathes in new life in the guise of an Open House.
Spoiler alert: Eventually the family is replaced by one who speaks a different
language, the language of attachment. At the center of the play, the house
reopens, exposing the happy potential of people who speak well of being there
together.
I loved especially seeing and hearing how Will Eno could teeter
on the brink of emptiness with a group of talented actors before turning the
language back to hope. This is no trite Garden of Eden, however. It is the land
of all of our experiences of moving on. We do that by means of speech and thought. This 80-minute, uni-set play says it
all, with outstanding performances by Carolyn McCormick and Peter Friedman as
the parents, Hannah Bos and Danny McCarthy as the Grown Children, and Michael
Countryman as the Grief-Stricken Uncle.
A glutton for beautiful language, I am so glad I can look forward to
Will Eno's upcoming The Realistic Joneses
premiering on Broadway this March.
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