Avant Bard Blog

Seeking Sanctuary in Ancient Colonus and in America Now

February 1, 2017

The shocking relevance to today of a legend about a noble city that welcomed an accursed stranger

By Maegan Clearwood, Resident Dramaturg

Avant Bard is bringing to life an ages-old story of a sanctuary city at a moment in which America’s own sanctuary cities are under attack. The Gospel at Colonus—the transcendent musical by Lee Breuer and Bob Telson—is an adaptation of Sophocles’ ancient play Oedipus at Colonus, using African American musical traditions to underscore the catharsis and joy of the final chapter of Oedipus’ journey.

The result is an astoundingly timeless story of universal themes, as Sophocles questions society’s basic ability to care for the individual, no matter how small or afraid, in times of unrest.

Breuer and Telson follow the same plot as Sophocles: the now-blind Oedipus, exiled from Thebes after fulfilling a tragic prophecy, wanders into Colonus with his daughter, Antigone. Colonus—a sacred grove guarded by the Furies just outside the walls of Athens—is teeming with life, a land that is described in the musical as one “Where leaves and berries throng / and wine-dark ivy climbs the bough.” It is the perfect refuge for the weary and desperate Oedipus and Antigone, but the wanderers are not immediately welcomed with open arms. First, there is the almost knee-jerk skepticism from the chorus (or choir, in Gospel’s case) of residents, who viciously interrogate this poor and ailing stranger:

Who is this man?
What is his name?
Where does he come from?
What is his race?

This instinct—to distrust anything or anyone whose presence seems to threaten the status quo—resonates centuries forward, but it is especially interesting when examined through a historical lens. Athens took pride in its reputation as a sanctuary to refugees, and a popular reading of the play sees it as a celebration of the city’s generosity and compassion. Although there is no evidence that Oedipus at Colonus was based on any specific moment in history, Sophocles wrote the play as the great city of Athens was on the verge of destruction. Colonus was considered a sacred, transitory space, and Athens’ precarious political situation perhaps explains why, in Sophocles’ story, its citizens react to Oedipus in a manner contradictory to their city’s promises of sanctuary: Oedipus’ mere presence in this hallowed space violates their sense of security.

Oedipus tries to elicit sympathy from the choir in the song “A Voice Foretold,” asking merely for a place for his soul to find rest: “Where the pain unending ends for me, where shall I find sanctuary?” It is a simple, desperate plea, but is met with no sympathy from the members of the choir, who have just learned of Oedipus’ accursed past.

Ultimately, it is the leader of this community, Theseus, who has the voice and power to determine the fate of this exiled king. Theseus recalls his own past as a refugee, using empathy as a reason to give this former king sanctuary. As he declares in Gospel:

I feel sorry for him. I too was an exile. Therefore no wanderer shall come to me, as he has done, and be denied.

In Sophocles’ original text, Theseus goes further, telling Oedipus that “I’m also mortal, like you, with no greater assurance than you that I’ll be alive tomorrow…. I’ll settle him in our land with the rights of a citizen.” His appeal for empathy dictates his decision, leading to widespread compassion on the part of his followers.

Today the tension between fear of the unknown and entreaties for empathy is at the forefront of the political climate. As Americans unite in protest against recent anti-refugee policies—hundreds of thousands in our very own backyard—the strange dichotomy of our national ideals are thrust into the spotlight: as long as we have been a country of immigrants and diversity, we have also been one of fear and rejection.

A 2015 Slate article cites this phenomenon as dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, when political upheaval and famine brought the first major wave of immigrants to American shores. The subsequent “Know-Nothing Movement,” which called for “the sending back of all foreign paupers,” eventually fizzled out, but only marked the beginning of a centuries-long pattern that continues to this day: refugees seek American sanctuary; nativist Americans claim that these foreigners are uprooting their country’s ideals (or bringing with them dangerous ideologies or practices); and eventually, this new immigrant population establishes itself as a valuable part of America’s vast and diverse history.

There are few Americans whose history does not trace back to one of these movements, but the pattern continues, winding its way from hate speech and violence against refugee communities all the way to the White House.

He has asked for grace! And offers no small favour in return. As I value this, I shall not refuse this man’s desire.

Theseus’ words about Oedipus are no far cry from chants heard lately in streets and airports across our country:

No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here.

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Maegan Clearwood is in her second season as Resident Dramaturg at Avant Bard, where she is curator of Scripts in Play and has served as production dramaturg for five productions, including the premiere of TAME. She is also a teaching artist for The Highwood Theatre and Signature Theatre. DC dramaturgy credits include: Pinky Swear Productions: Lizzie: The Musical; Rorschach Theatre: A Bid to Save the World; Source Festival: Static; Forum Theatre: World Builders; Olney Theatre Center: I and You, The Piano Lesson, The Tempest, Colossal. She was also the Literary Associate at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Dramaturgy Apprentice at the Olney Theatre Center. BA in Drama and English from Washington College.

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The Gospel at Colonus plays February 23 to March 26, 2017, at Gunston Arts Center Theatre Two, 2700 South Lang Street, Arlington, VA. Tickets are available online or by calling 703-418-4804.

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Shakespeare’s Taming vs. Jonelle Walker’s TAME.

November 11, 2016

By Brett Abelman
Assistant Dramaturg

The Taming of the Shrew is often considered one of the most troubled works in the Shakespearean canon—a misogynistic, painfully outdated “comedy” that is nearly impossible to play straight today. Consider its plot:

Suitors wish to marry the sweet and beautiful Bianca.
Bianca’s father will not allow her to be wed until her “shrew” of an older sister, Katherine, is married.
The suitors convince their friend Petruchio to “tame” and marry Katherine.
Petruchio and Katherine trade insults.
Katherine slaps Petruchio in response to a sexual innuendo, at which point he threatens to “cuff” her if she strikes him again.
(Most productions insert a spanking scene at around this point, although nothing in Shakespeare’s text mentions Petruchio spanking Katherine.)
Petruchio refuses to let Katherine eat, doesn’t let her keep a wonderful dress that is made for her, and generally wears her down.
Petruchio forces Katherine to pretend that the sun is the moon, a man is a woman, etc.
Once Bianca’s hand has been won, Petruchio and the other men getting married have a contest to see whose new wife is more obedient; the formerly independent Katherine is the only one who comes when called.
Katherine scolds the other wives for their disobedience, saying:

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee…
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience…
…place your hands below your husband’s foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

The iconic spanking scene from the film adaptation of Kiss Me Kate, itself a meta-adaptation of Taming. The Cole Porter musical reflected historical interpretations of the play and solidified the spanking of Kate as a standard staging choice. — The iconic spanking scene from the film adaptation of *Kiss Me Kate*, itself a meta-adaptation of *Taming*. The Cole Porter musical reflected historical interpretations of the play and solidified the spanking of Kate as a standard staging choice.

In this light, we should not be surprised that Taming has left a history of alternative interpretations and adaptations in its wake. In order to make sense of the apparently abusive relationship between Petruchio and Katherine, some have staged their courtship as a mutually shared joke. Others have played Katherine’s final submission to Petruchio as a façade. And still others have seen the play as itself critical of the sexism that it portrays. Conall Morrison, who directed the play in 2008 for the Royal Shakespeare Company, had this to say in its defense:

By the time you get to the last scene all of the men—including her father are saying—it’s amazing how you crushed that person. It’s amazing how you lobotomised her. And they’re betting on the women as though they are dogs in a race or horses. It’s reduced to that.… It is so self-evidently repellent that I don’t believe for a second that Shakespeare is espousing this.… It’s very obviously a satire on this male behaviour and a cautionary tale.

Critics and other playwrights began wrestling with Taming almost immediately after the play’s first production circa 1594. Shakespeare’s contemporary, John Fletcher, wrote The Woman’s Prize, or the Tamer Tamed, in which Petruchio gets his comeuppance at the hands of his second wife, mere years after the original’s debut. Jonelle Walker’s TAME. takes this revisionist tradition as its starting point—though to treat this play like a direct adaptation would be a grave mistake.

There are similarities: both plays feature a “Cat” who behaves in a way considered inappropriate in her society (1590s Padua in Taming, and 1960s Texas in TAME.). Both are handed off by their families to men who aim to mend their ways: Petruchio then, Patrick now. Both have a younger, sweeter sister (Bianca and Bea) who is doted upon.

But Shakespeare’s play does not feature a mother for Kate and Bianca, only a father, while Walker’s has both; the older play has a trio of additional characters trying to woo Bianca, while the newer one excises them; and while Petruchio is brought in to tame Katherine as a husband, Patrick is brought in as a Christian savior and a minister-in-training.

And, perhaps most crucially, unlike Walker’s Cat, Shakespeare’s Kate was not a lesbian poet.

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Why TAME. Takes On the Menstrual Taboo

September 28, 2016

enhanced-11637-1431276191-5 — Artwork painted with menstrual blood by Jen Lewis.

Spoiler alert: Cat is on her period in the opening scene of TAME.
For one of human biology’s most everyday phenomena, the mere mention of menstruation in American theatre remains astoundingly rare; some extensive Internet* and library searching revealed only the occasional exception to the rule, from Wendy Wasserstein‘s groundbreaking Uncommon Women and Others and the many seminal works of Eve Ensler to Sarah Treem’s The How and the Why and even a fairly recent riot grrrls Fringe rock show entitled On the Rags to Riches.

Cat’s mother explains it as “the burden of her femininity,” and while girls are no longer being told to “wear a deodorant…pay more attention to your hair and your nails, and plan to wear your prettiest dress” during their unsanitary time of the month, euphemisms remain our standard for broaching the taboo that is menstruation.

As recent as March of this year, a study conducted by Clue with The International Women’s Health Coalition examined 190 different countries about attitudes toward menstruation, identifying more than 5,000 euphemisms for periods in 10 different languages. Some English language favorites include:

– Aunt Flo
– Time of the month (or TOM)
– On the rag
– Red tide/river/sea/moon/light/army/curse/days/dot
– Code Red
– Monthly visitor
– Lady time/Lady friend
– Crimson wave/tide
– Bloody Mary
– The Blob
– Shark Week
– Having the painters in

That’s to say nothing of some particularly clever international idioms, including Germany’s Erdbeerwoche (“Strawberry week”), Denmark’s Der Er Kommunister i Lysthuset (“There are communists in the funhouse”) and France’s Les Anglais ont debarqué (“The English have landed”).

Only last year, America seemed on a vicious period attack. There was Instagram’s brief moment of infamy after it took down artistic photos of a woman on her period for violating its community guidelines; the photos were promptly restored, but the controversy only bolstered the photographer’s artistic statement of making viewers “realize these are just regular, normal processes.” And there’s no forgetting Donald Trump’s 2015 allegation against Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that “there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever,” another instance in a long history of using menstruation to dismiss women’s ability to participate in any number of male-dominated activities, from space travel and military combat to holding political office.

For all its cultural taboos, the period is making something of a pop culture comeback this year—and not just on the Avant Bard stage. Amy Schumer satirized the hormonal politician stereotype in a sketch imagining the first female president getting her period on her first day in office, lambasting the hormone-crazy archetype with such zingers as “I have epic cramps and my mind is like, mush, right now, if I’m being real.” Schumer’s period-openness continued on the red carpet at the Emmys this summer with her response to the increasingly infamous “What are you wearing?” question: ““Vivienne Westwood, Tom Ford shoes, and an O.B. Tampon!”

Perhaps the most barrier-shattering instance of 2016 was thanks to Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui, who unabashedly told the press “I just got my period yesterday, so I’m still a bit weak and really tired. But this isn’t an excuse for not swimming well.” The period taboo is fiercely contested in the athletics world, but even more so in China, where menstruation is virtually never discussed and ads for feminine hygiene products are banned during primetime television hours.

There’s even taboo-shattering hope for board game nerds in the form of The Period Game. It might technically be marketed for adolescent girls, but given the limited understanding so many adult women have about their menstrual cycle, a game that requires playing the period lottery around a pair of plastic ovaries might be just what the world needs.

Perhaps this is the dawn of a new period era, one in which women can speak beyond euphemisms, walk down the aisles of a CVS and proudly buy their supply of tampons and pads. Perhaps this marks a future that no longer includes, as one now-viral mother-daughter text exchange decries, vagina secrecy:

“VAGINAS ARE MYTHS, WHISPERED QUIETLY IN SECRET AMONG THE BRAVEST OF MEN, COURAGEOUS ENOUGH TO EVEN MENTION THE NAME.”

*Special thanks to the brilliant women of the digital DC theatre community for their brainstorm assistance.

Maegan Clearwood is Avant Bard’s Director of Audience Engagement and Resident Dramaturg. She recently completed a year as the Literary Associate at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, where she served as Assistant Dramaturg on Slaughterhouse-Five (music by Jed Feuer, book/lyrics by Adele Ahronheim) and End of Shift (by Jenny Connell-Davis). Favorite credits from her Olney Theater Center Dramaturgy Apprenticeship include I and You, The Piano Lesson, The Tempest, and Colossal. She studied drama and English at Washington College and is a proud Sophie Kerr Prize finalist, Association for Theatre in Higher Education Dramaturgy “Deb,” and Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas member.

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How Does a Shy Playwright Get Her Shocking Play Produced?

August 23, 2016

I am terrible at networking. I am truly shy. Despite that my first full-length play is being professionally produced by Avant Bard to kick off its 27th season.

How did that happen?

I am where I am now because I produced my own work for years with Blind Pug Arts Collective, a path I would recommend to any emerging female playwright. To be more specific, TAME. reached Avant Bard because Resident Dramaturg Maegan Clearwood saw the 2014 Capital Fringe production and it stayed with her. Last winter she reached out to me to submit it to Avant Bard’s inaugural Scripts in Play Festival—and the rest is history.

Season-27-homepage-image_resized — For information about Avant Bard’s full season,
click this pic.

Because of my natural introversion, producing my own work was the only way it was ever going to be seen by anyone, much less producers and directors. That is not true for all female playwrights, but gendered social dynamics do make it more difficult for women—and particularly young women—to “sell themselves.” Women are socialized to be modest, to not be bossy, to be pursued. Though this plays into that gendered dynamic, it has been gratifying for me to see that if you create solid, affecting work, people will notice and people will remember.

Something that has compounded my reluctance to self-promote is the kind of plays that I create. No doubt my aesthetic is not for everyone: I traffic in brutality, twisted humor, violence, the works. I refuse to apologize if my work makes you uncomfortable. I think that that is sometimes surprising for people who meet me, this ostensibly good Southern girl with big blue eyes and dimples.

I think that surprise is gendered. There is certainly a rebellious part of me that delights in being a woman who creates moments of intense violence. I think it still shocks audiences and our culture at large when women have rage. David Mamet can have rage and be a genius. Sarah Kane has rage and she is called “a naughty schoolgirl.”

*TAME.*—Jonelle Walker’s takedown of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew—runs November 3 to December 11, 2016 at Gunston Arts Center in Arlington. Click this pic for more info.

I think women playwrights, like any “minority” playwrights, are more sharply scrutinized for how they do or do not address gender issues. I’m a scholar and a journalist; I’ve fallen into that trap myself! I think we find ourselves looking for a statement on gender in the plays of female playwrights even when they’re writing about ennui or something basically universal. I’m going to get a little academic here: Feminist performance scholar Jill Dolan writes that the female body has implied meaning just by existing on stage. I think that is true for female playwrights, as well. Our very existence, somehow, the audacity of writing, has implied meaning.

So, how can we change our perception of female playwrights and practitioners? I think more professional opportunities would help. The Women’s Voices Theatre Festival was a good start.

I believe the best way to create opportunities for woman-focused work is to integrate women into the artistic leadership of theatre companies. We all would like to believe that we can get beyond our own paradigms, our own perspectives to identify and even create art for audiences unlike ourselves. Unfortunately, we have seen vividly that that is not the case. Particularly because women have historically been disenfranchised at the highest levels of theatre leadership, it’s especially important to consciously promote gender parity. I believe, generally, that when you empower diverse voices, you attract a more diverse audience as well.

Angela Kay Pirko,
director of TAME.

With TAME., Director Angela Kay Pirko and I are working on empowering more female practitioners. It has been our ambition to make sure most of the artistic and production team is female—not simply as some empty gesture in the name of diversity, but because having a female experience gives you a serious advantage in accessing the play’s themes.

Approaching the question of women in theatre from a different angle, I think companies also have to be willing to take more risks. Unfortunately, even today, it is still considered risky to produce female playwrights and to hire female directors.

One of the things that I most admire about Tom Prewitt, Avant Bard’s artistic and executive director, is that he is not only willing, but excited to take risks with traditional theatre. I think the fact that Avant Bard is willing to invest in young artists like myself keeps the company relevant and certainly disrupts the cycle of accomplished men hiring other accomplished men in perpetuity.

Producing the first play of a 25-year-old, no-name female playwright is considered risky. Producing a play in that context that is deeply disturbing and challenges one of the most famous plays of all time? That’s what I would call bold!

Let’s all be a little more bold. Let’s all take a few more risks. It’s not nearly as scary or as difficult as you might fear. And, to quote Cat, my main character: “It’d be a lot more interesting if you had.”

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Jonelle Walker lives and works in DC but will always call Texas home. Her work tends to explore the dark, uncomfortable, and disturbing through comedy and drama. She is the Literary Manager and Artist-in-Residence for Blind Pug Arts Collective. A proud artist-scholar, she is also an MA student in Theatre History and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland with research interests in stage violence and feminism.

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Join us for Scripts in Play 2016/2017!

July 5, 2016

To say our Spring 2016 Scripts in Play Festival was a success is a bit of an understatement (if I do say so myself). It isn’t every new play festival that comes away with a brilliant team of fresh local collaborators, not to mention a new play for its upcoming season. So, naturally, why not do it all over again?

Because we’re still on artistic overload from the incredible crop of plays from this spring, we’ve decided to spread out our Scripts in Play process from a festival into a series, meaning that Avant Bard will be host at least two readings during each of its mainstage productions. Interested in submitting? Read on!

What is Scripts in Play? The Scripts in Play Reading Series is a testing ground for both new and classic works that adhere to Avant Bard’s mission of producing plays that are artistically, thematically, and linguistically challenging and push the boundaries of what constitutes a classic text. The Festival’s mission is twofold: to produce contemporary and classic works that may find their way into a future Avant Bard season; and to provide a forum for emerging DC playwrights, directors, actors, and other theatre artists.

What are we looking for? We’re looking for submissions and proposals from playwrights and directors that fit into one of three categories:

• Classic Plays: Lesser-known works by established writers of the theatrical canon who tend to have the same few works produced again and again; new translations and adaptations of classic texts (e.g., Rebecca Wahls’ adaptation of Dido, Queen of Carthage); works by playwrights who fall outside the category of oft-produced dead-straight-white-men (e.g., Friendship Betrayed, an English translation of a play by a 17th-entury female Spanish playwright). We’re especially interested in works that fall outside of the Western literary canon or speak to underrepresented voices.

• Contemporary Plays: Classically-inspired plays or adaptations by living writers that we are seriously considering for future seasons, not necessarily by local playwrights (e.g., Lauren Gunderson’s Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Tonight or Sarah Ruhl’s Dear Elizabeth).

• New Plays: Works by local playwrights that fit within our basic artistic premise and who would benefit from a workshop experience and an opportunity to have their work seen by other DC artists (e.g., Anna Lathrop and Katherine Clair’s First Citizen and Jonelle Walker’s TAME.)

Bonus Points:

• Diversity: We achieved 50 percent gender parity with playwrights and directors at our 2016 festival, which is awesome. This year, we’ll be working particularly to give voice to writers of color, as well as non-Western/non-English-language plays (while keeping up the gender-equity momentum, of course).

• Comedy: All three of our 2016/2017 plays—TAME., The Gospel at Colonus, and King Lear—are pretty serious, and we’d love some levity to balance out these mainstage shows. So if you’re good at funny, bring on the jokes! (Non-funny is certainly still eligible, of course, so not to worry.)

• Connections: We encourage you to read about next season’s plays and consider how your play might be in conversation with them. It’s certainly not required, but we may consider thematic and artistic connections when planning the series.

When can I apply? Readings will take place during the run of our three mainstage productions, so there will be three deadlines to submit plays over the course of our 2016/2017 season. The deadline to be considered for a reading in conjunction with TAME., the first of our mainstage productions, is Friday, September 2. There will be other opportunities to submit for readings during the run of The Gospel at Colonus and King Lear (likely in December and March, but stay tuned for details), and we will keep plays not selected for TAME. in consideration for later readings.

How do I apply: Simply fill out this Google form! When finished, remember to email me at clearwood@avantbard.org with a PDF of your script.

When will I hear back? All selections for our TAME. readings will be made within a month of the production, so you will hear back from us with an answer either way in early October.

How else can I be involved? If you’re interested in performing in a Scripts in Play reading, feel free to email Artistic and Executive Director Tom Prewitt at tom@avantbard.org with your resume, headshot, and inquiry. If you’re interested in being a reader, email me at clearwood@avantbard.org for details!

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Artist Spotlight: Megan McNitt, visual artist/librarian

June 26, 2016

Avant Bard’s Inception Circle for The Good Devil (in spite of himself) was populated by a diverse group of members from both our theatrical family and local artistic community. The conversation–essentially a community brainstorm gathering that examines our upcoming production and supplementary engagement possibilities–inspired a myriad of dramaturgical and community-oriented ideas, from program notes and lobby displays to blog posts and special AfterChats.

art One of the most resonant ideas was to contact local non-theatre artists and ask them to respond to the themes of censorship and free expression. I delved into this by first researching artists who have already created work surrounding these ideas, namely those who have partnered with the District’s annual Banned Book Festival. One of the most immediately captivating of these participants was Megan McNitt, who is not only a local visual artist, but also a librarian with a direct interest in access to literature and the arts.

Megan was generous enough to not only provide insight into her experiences as a visual artist, but to actually create works of art specific to our production. Below you will find photographs of these pieces (which look even better in our lobby) as well as her bio and artist statement.

Note: For information on how to purchase one of Megan’s paintings, or a portfolio of her other work, please contact her via her website, http://www.meganmcnittsurfaces.com/.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

I am a Washington, D.C.-based visual artist. I use 2-D media to explore the intersections between mass media and the internal world and to celebrate the District’s beautiful neighborhoods and gardens. There is no standard course of professional certification for artists and my life presents no exception to this rule. After studying art history and training to work in libraries the Recession of 2009 left me under-employed yet with an abundance of free time and nervous energy that I channeled into painting & drawing. Two of my grandparents were artists: an illustrator in New York and a potter in Michigan. Forty hours of my week are devoted to the District of Columbia Public Library where I work as a librarian at the Tenleytown branch.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The pieces I made for the WSC Avant Bard’s production of The Good Devil (In Spite of Himself) are mixed-media: acrylics, print media image transfer, and fiber. I juxtaposed images of democracy such as the American flag and language from the Bill of Rights with contradictory information such as photographs of the Vietnam War and the parental warning for explicit lyrics. The compositions allude to the challenges posed to free speech in today’s society. Many schools, universities, libraries and similar institutions face criticism for airing fact and opinion about science, politics, and human behavior.

As the world becomes mutually intelligible with the proliferation of internet technology, it seems as though world powers rush to control if not censure the public and the press. Even though personal securities and identifying data are extremely important to protect, do governments abuse their reach in the name of protecting citizens? How is it that what begins with a wrist-slap for discussions of sex, of experience, and of belief are misconstrued, used as evidence, and stored as material for profiles? The mind needs to exercise itself in order to know what it can and cannot tolerate. How threatening is that?

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Avant Bard Blog

The shocking relevance to today of a legend about a noble city that welcomed an accursed stranger

By Maegan Clearwood, Resident Dramaturg

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

ARTIST STATEMENT

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