Playwriting As Open-Heart Surgery

Playwriting As Open-Heart Surgery
By Anna Renée Hansen

I wrote a play about Haiti in 2008 because no one was talking about Haiti. A family friend traveled there with a humanitarian aid organization. In spring 2008 she got stuck in the riots over rising food prices under Préval’s (the president at the time) leadership. The protests continued into 2009 and I think the only substantial news coverage I saw about it was on Democracy Now! hosted by Amy Goodman. Now that I’m in Boston I’m aware of the discrepancy of coverage on Haiti; California is not home to a large number of Haitians, but Boston is. Even with this in mind, I still think it took the devastating earthquake of 2010 before people really started thinking about Haiti and how important it is that we help in whatever way we can. I noticed a surge in Haitian plays and literature, pieces set in Haiti or with a Haitian character. In the back of my mind I thought I wanted to revisit my 2008 play.

So, guess what? The New Voices @ New Rep Playwriting Fellows opportunity is providing me a way to do that, and I am deeply grateful. I feel that for this play to work, it will need to come out of a more collaborative process. With New Rep’s program, I not only have the beneficial feedback of my peers to draw from, but also an insightful dramaturg, actors, and other design collaborators when I am at a stage in the process where that would be appropriate.

The first step was re-reading the script (and the subsequent comments I made to myself like, “Wow, that was a terrible play”). I had about 10 storylines and maybe as many characters. I decided to take some elements from a couple of the more coherent and interesting storylines and about 2 characters that I wanted to spend quality time hanging out with, and basically scrapped the rest. For one thing, it was written pre-earthquake, and you can’t talk to a Haitian without hearing the words, “after the earthquake.” That changed everything, even for Haitian Americans who weren’t in Haiti for the quake. I think a way of looking at it is this: The old play died, but it turns out it was an organ donor, so I surgically removed its strongest organs to implant into something new, young, full of life. I was going to use a less brutal image, like a phoenix rising or something, but I settled on the brutal one for a reason that anyone who has ever had to massively edit themselves will understand.

And yet (Elie Wiesel’s favorite words). It was all for the best because I am charged and enthusiastic about the possibilities with this new venture. I found the heart of the play: Redemption, or the hope of it. And I think now that that is in place, it will pump invigorating blood into the play’s more systematic elements: plot, character, structure. How do we outrun the demons of our past that seek to destroy us? What do we owe our country? Our family? How do we not just overcome loss, but transcend it? Is it possible to transmute that pain, that sorrow, into something noble, something beautiful? Or do we only try because we feel guilty? These are the questions I am interrogating myself and my characters with as I write this play, currently entitled The Loas. “Loas” comes from VooDoo tradition, signifying spirits that have influence over the living—some are good, some are warlike. The world of this play is full of dualities – light and dark, home and foreign, good and evil, mysticism and slice of life and everything in between. I am looking forward to developing it further along this process of discovery and revival.

Over 200 Students Attend A CHRISTMAS STORY

This morning, over 200 students from Watertown Middle School and Gateway Arts filed into the Charles Mosesian Theater to attend New Repertory Theatre and arsenalARTS holiday production of A Christmas Story.  For many, it was the very first time they experienced live theatre.


After the show the students' exciting experience continued.  Thanks to Clarks, the students were treated to a delicious holiday lunch-- pizza!

 

  That's a lot of pizza!

 

New Rep staff waiting for the students to arrive for their holiday lunch.

Watertown Middle School students line-up to enjoy their pizza. 

A room filled with happy theatre-goers. 

"A Christmas Story" Provides The Correct Dose of Holiday Cheer

By Jana Pollack, New Rep Reviewer

I must begin this review by admitting that I always approach holiday-themed theater with a pre-determined judgement. As a rule, I am disgruntled and annoyed by the holidays, and I've never liked the idea of devoting plays to their singular theme. And so, I reveal here that I entered the theater on Monday night expecting to not really enjoy the show.

But here is my Christmas truth: by the end of the show, I was feeling warm and sentimental. I was also feeling grateful to New Rep for making a new and inspired choice for this year's holiday show, one that did eventually embrace the shmaltz of the season, but only alongside a healthy dose of sarcasm and good humor. "A Christmas Story" is earnest, true to the world of childhood, and really, at its core, quite sweet. New Rep's version is all of those things, and it is also a very entertaining two hours.

This show was universally well-done. Each actor was really excellent, adults and kids alike. As young Ralphie, Andrew Cekala stood out with exceptional stage presence and pitch-perfect delivery. Owen Doyle also drew many laughs as The Old Man, and Stacy Fischer gave a very smart performance as Mother. In the small but influential role of the teacher, Margaret Ann Brady was hilarious. Each child actor showed talent beyond his or her years, and gave a confident, true performance. Although these are stock characters that could easily be one-dimensional, in this production each one appeared fully rounded and complete, and I found myself invested in these people and their day to day lives.

At the very end of the show, the narrator (Barlow Adamson, doing as much as he could with a frustratingly limiting part) extols on the virtues of love, family, and christmas. This is the moment that I was dreading, and I can't say that it won me over completely. But I'd had so much fun, and was feeling so happy for the family I'd just been a watchful part of, that I didn't mind at all.

"A Christmas Story" is a Delight!

Okay, let me just admit it up front. I was really puzzled as to why anyone would want to meddle with the perfection of A Christmas Story (the movie, that is) by putting it on stage.

The New Rep’s wonderful production put my skepticism to rest. It was a delight, and, by the way, totally appropriate for children. They won’t get all the jokes, but they’ll have fun. I can’t imagine a better way for a family to spend an evening in retreat from the chaos of the holidays than watching a comic take on this family’s chaos.

And it’s all there, from the notorious lamp that appears to have been lifted from a bordello to the bored and cynical department store Santa. All through the play I puzzled about how the neighbor’s obstreperous hounds could do their part. I won’t tell, but it was hilarious.

Philip Grecian’s adaptation of Studs Terkel’s charming script captures the spirit of the original and brings it to life in a completely new way. Of particular note was the appearance of the narrator as a character. Barlow Adamson’s performance was a highlight of the evening without detracting from the story itself. The director knew just when to have him insert himself into the action and when he should stay in the shadows as he tells the story.

The children in the cast, many of whom have impressive acting resumes, were perfectly rehearsed. Of particular note are Andrew Cekala who maintains the far-away dreamy look on Ralphie’s face as he schemes and dreams of his Red Ryder rifle. Owen Doyle is outstanding as The Old Man. His disguised profanity rings across the theatre as he vents his frustration with the furnace, the inadequate electrical wiring and the dogs who bark only at him. And he let us see the kind father underneath, somewhat baffled by his family, but soldiering on. He is, of course, as much an ambitious dreamer as his son.

The sets cleverly rearrange themselves from the perfect 50’s kitchen to the schoolroom to the department store Santa’s throne. And Gerard Slattery does a fine job of the bored, cynical – and clearly weary – Santa, terrifying the little children who he has clearly come to loathe. He and Margaret Ann Brady fill out the cast by assuming multiple roles.

I long to tell you about how the dogs manage to ruin Christmas dinner, but you’ll have to go and see it yourself.

~ Johanna Ettin (with Shauna Shames)

"A Christmas Story": You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

by Jack Craib, New Rep Reviewer

When New Rep announced that its holiday show for the current season would be “A Christmas Story”, based on the popular film, and not yet another revisit to “A Christmas Carol”, this reviewer was relieved indeed (despite a practice of reading the original Dickens every Christmas season for more than four decades). Hopes were high that another holiday treat would join the ranks of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “The Nutcracker Suite”, “Santaland Diaries” and of course Scrooge, under the theatrical tree, garlanded with hefty dollops of originality. Ah, but as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, or as one of the characters in this play version states, “stay within the margins”.

Adapting any work for the stage from another source is always fraught with peril, especially when it’s a film so dependent on visual gags and voiceover narration. Stephen Sondheim once stated in his memorable lyrics, “the choice may have been mistaken, the choosing was not”, but this may have been the initial and fatal mistaken choice by the playwright Philip Grecian. A theatrical production is always the result of directorial and acting choices, all subjective (as is theater criticism, for that matter). Here Director Diego Arciniegas and his cast of twelve (seven of whom are child actors) have also gone astray. From the exhausting performance of Barlow Adamson as the elder Ralph/Narrator (at times in dire need of some Ritalin) to the over-the-top emoting of Ralphie’s parents, Owen Doyle and Stacy Fischer (still relatively sedate when compared to their filmic counterparts, Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon), there is surely a lot of energy on stage. The children are especially enthusiastic, despite their incomprehensibly differing ages and heights (and, in one strange choice, transgender), some occasionally miked, some not, another misguided choice.

Many of those visual highlights from the film get short shrift here because they can’t survive the adaptation. One boy’s rescue (to unstick his tongue from an icy pole) is rendered virtually offstage; the movie’s overhead shot of an overdressed younger brother’s immobility in the snow when he falls over is another casualty of the transition to stage; the climactic turkey theft by the neighborhood canine pack is embarrassingly awkward. So is the fantasy scene wherein a teacher is turned on by a student’s essay, one of only two original playwright touches. Happily, the other bit of originality pays off, when Santa encounters an incontinent urchin, and this happens only once. Grecian’s script and its screenplay source both tend to repeat the same schtick several times in case you didn’t catch it the first time, such as Ralphie’s slow-mo moments, his parents’ dueling struggles with a lamp, and his mother’s dinner of red cabbage and meatloaf. (Bah, hamburg).

As most of the audience will probably know from the film, this is a very slight story about a nine-year-old boy’s wish for an air rifle for Christmas. At least three adults in the work (his mother, his teacher, and ultimately Santa Claus himself, or at least a department store’s version of him) warn our young hero “you’ll shoot your eye out”. By the end of this ninety minute play (which seemed considerably longer than that), you might be forgiven for asking Ralphie to shoot you (well, not literally) and put you out of your misery. Would that the people responsible for this creation had stayed within the margins and left the original film (and its source, a Jean Shepherd tale first published in Playboy, no less) alone. Scrooge, where are you when we need you?

A Family-Friendly Christmas Story

 -- Victoria Petrosino, New Rep Reviewer

New Rep’s version of "A Christmas Story" is a family-friendly glimpse at the weeks leading up to a 1940s Christmas.

The classic Christmas tale tells the story of Ralphie Parker’s mission to convince his parents that all he wants for Christmas is the "Legendary Red Ryder BB Gun with a compass and 'this thing which tells time' built right into the stock!"  The theater version has all the iconic images from the movie: the "Fra-gil-le" box, the leg lamp, the pink bunny pajamas, the irate department store Santa, and the oft quoted "You’ll shoot your eye out!"  Seeing the yearly portrayal of this American family is like hearing a favorite Christmas carol: a beloved reminder that our own Christmas is right around the corner.

The story is told by the adult Ralphie (Barlow Adamson) reminiscing on this pivotal childhood Christmas.  This allows for a satirical glimpse at events acted out by the young ensemble.  Adamson fulfills this role enthusiastically, with a helpful dose of cynicism.  He explains the etiquette of a "triple-dog-dare," the lung-crushing layers of clothing needed to walk to school in an Indiana winter, and the pride of finding the perfect gift for his parents.  The Parker children, the determined Ralphie (Andrew Cekala) and the alternatively silent and shrill Randy (David Farwell), are both excellent, as are the rest of the young ensemble, whether groaning about writing a theme over Christmas break or spoiling Christmas as the Bumpuses' hounds.

The scenery features a profusion of Christmas images; even the walls are printed with blue snowflakes.  Subsequent scenes reveal the warm glow of a Christmas tree  in a room covered in wrapping paper, Santa seated on top of a glittering snow mountain, and Ralphie’s father (Owen Doyle) dickering with the crotchety tree salesman.

There is, of course, the idea of too much of a good thing.  Hearing "you’ll shoot your eye out" is not infinitely humorous, and for the most part, the audience knows which joke is coming as the cast assemble for each scene.  But the production is wonderfully familiar, and the cast's exuberance breathes new life into an old story.

Getting to GOOD

Getting to GOOD

by James McLindon 

New Voices @ New Rep Playwrighting Fellow

Like most of my plays, this one had several separate origins that eventually coalesced into the story that GOOD tries to tell.  (The play is called GOOD this week; it’s had several previous names and may have a few more before I settle on one.) 

I’ve been puzzled by the rash of stories over the last several years of people in the public eye who padded their resumes and got caught: puzzled both by the fact that they thought they could get away with it and the fact that they often did for so long.  I’ve similarly been intrigued by less frequent but persistent stories of people who manage to fake their way into prestigious colleges and grad schools, sometimes by forging transcripts and recommendations letters, but sometimes simply by showing up, attending classes and telling anyone who asks that they were a late admission for whom the paperwork has yet to catch up. Finally, I’ve been astonished to read stories about journalists who make up people about whom they write and for whose stories they even win journalism awards.

At the same time, I live in a college town and have heard from friends of mine on the faculty of various colleges about the various forms of cheating that they encounter, the services that offer term papers to order for sale on-line or in person, and the types of students who use these services: those who have money and are lazy, those who struggle academically, and those for whom English is not their first language. The countermeasures were equally intriguing: software programs that purport to detect plagiarism in the papers that they scan.

All of this got me pondering about how someone who does something like this – resume padding, term paper buying, etc. – justifies this sort of action in her head. I started with the premise that it is the rare person who admits to himself that he is doing wrong; I think people have a remarkable capacity for justifying their actions, or at least their intentions, to themselves. In addition, outside forces make it easier for us today to hold ourselves to less exalted standards. The world in this respect has changed tremendously in the post-Viet Nam/Watergate/Iran-Contra/Monica Lewinsky/Iraq world. The most casual comparison between the world of Mad Men, for example, and our world shows one how much credibility our institutions – the government, the press, and organized religion to name a few– have lost. I don’t think we’re less moral; immorality is just far more visible now than it was, which I think makes it easier for people to justify brief vacations from morality, especially when they believe their goals are good.

This is the moral world of GOOD, as much its world as the college town in which the play is set. I began researching the play last winter, and then completed a draft a few months ago.  Prior to working on it with the New Rep this fall, I let the piece lie fallow for a while so that I could come back to it with fresh eyes.  In October, I got to hear the first act of the play out loud, read by professional actors, which was a tremendous help in and of itself, and then got a lot of very helpful feedback from my fellow Fellows, Bridget and the actors.

Since then, I have rewritten both acts and am looking forward to hearing the second act next week at our December meeting. It’s been a great process so far: the meetings are close enough together to make the sessions feel like a continuing process rather than disjointed, and yet far enough apart to permit unhurried rethinking and rewriting. At the same time, following the progress of the other Fellows’ plays has also been helpful, albeit indirectly, to my writing. I always feel like I learn something useful from watching other writers and their processes, and New Voices has been no exception.

Not one, but TWO Farwells this New Rep Season!

For the last five years, Paul D. Farwell has excited New Rep audiences during the holiday season as the ever-famous Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Now, as New Rep's 2011-2012 Season offers a new approach to the holiday show, we have a new Farwell in our midst.

Paul D. Farwell as Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

This year brings a new work to the Charles Mosesian Theater: A Christmas Story, based on the beloved 1983 movie and featuring Andrew Cekala, Owen Doyle and Stacy Fischer. No Scrooge onstage this holiday season. Instead, Paul will have the opportunity to join the audience as his son, David Farwell, performs as Ralphie's little brother Randy on the big stage.

David Farwell will be playing Randy in
A Christmas Story this December at New Rep.

Though Paul may not be on New Rep's stage this holiday season, he'll be back soon in New Rep's musical, and final production of the season, Little Shop of Horrors as Mr. Mushnik! Don't miss the Farwells in this season's new shows...get your tickets today!

A CHRISTMAS STORY
December 11 - December 24, 2011
adapted/written by Philip Grecian
directed by Diego Arciniegas
BUY TICKETS HERE

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
April 29 – May 20, 2012
book and lyrics by Howard Ashman
music by Alan Menken
directed and choreographed by Russell Garrett
BUY TICKETS HERE