Some children (like myself) get a better handle on who they might be simply by learning who they are not. It was pretty obvious to me that I had no athletic skill and, when it came to dancing, was a bit of klutz. But unlike other boys, I could play music by ear and was a fast typist.
After realizing that I was flunking my college courses in my advanced math, I changed direction and became a theatre major, where I learned that without any talent at drawing there was little hope of designing sets and costumes. My skill levels in a course on stagecraft were so bad (I was barely able to hammer a nail without bending it in the wrong direction) that my exasperated professor offered me a sweetheart deal: If I didn't show up for the rest of the semester, he'd give me a B as my grade.
While most of the other theatre majors were burning with a desire to act, I was not. But I slowly noticed that I was doing one thing they were not. I was going to performances as often as I could, sitting in darkened theatres, opera houses and learning by observation while being royally entertained. Taking the subway from Brooklyn into Manhattan was a given (during the Cuban missile crisis I bought a standing room ticket for a matinee of Camelot, melodramatically determined that if I had to die that weekend, I wanted to perish in a Broadway theatre).
Looking back, I now understand that, by realizing that I was really good at being part of the audience, I received a unique education. I learned more about theatre, opera, and passion while sitting in the dark than I ever did in a classroom. When I started writing about opera, I was surprised to hear singers I interviewed say things like "Well, you know what you're talking about, so let's talk shop." Once, while giving a master class to young artists at the Des Moines Metro Opera, I was introduced by a singer I knew from the San Francisco Opera's Merola program who told the apprentices they could relax because "He's one of us."
A life-long love of theatre also exposed me to numerous ways in which scenery designed by inspired theatre artists could frame a dramatic experience. The craft of such gifted artists as Boris Aronson, Oliver Smith, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, and Beni Montresor could make fantasy worlds appear before my eyes through a scrim and then disappear into a theatre's flyloft. Revolving stages fascinated me. To this day, memories of two absolutely brilliant moments in theatrical lighting (the Act I finale of 110 in the Shade, as Lizzie Curry walks upstage silhouetted against a blazing prairie sky -- and the opening frame of Sweet Charity) remain etched in my memory.
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| Gwen Verdon in 1966's Sweet Charity |
Sopan Deb's recent article in The New York Times entitled "See How ‘Beetlejuice’ Designers Built a Habitat for Demons" gives some stunning examples of what can be accomplished by a gifted creative team. In the following two clips, scenic designers Riccardo Hernandez (Parade, Indecent, Caroline, or Change) and David Korins (Hamilton, The Pee-wee Herman Show, Dear Evan Hansen, Beetlejuice) describe how their passion drives their art and helps to shape their storytelling.
Many artists whose careers were centered in nontheatrical fields (David Hockney, Jim Dine, Gerald Scarfe, Jun Kaneko) have brought their talents to bear on major operatic productions. The following two videos feature fashion designer Zandra Rhodes and a brief clip demonstrating the dragon costume Maurice Sendak designed for the opening moments of his beloved production of The Magic Flute.
Many years of attending live performances also gave me valuable insights into the history of theatre as an art form, how a designer's creativity is executed through stagecraft, and how new technologies (such as digital mapping) become invaluable tools of the trade.
Set design is often subject to budget constraints (especially where small theatre companies are involved). For plays in which all the action takes place in a house or apartment (The Odd Couple, Other Desert Cities, August: Osage County, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) it's possible to frame the drama in a unit set which features one or more rooms. Lately, for dramas that cover a span of history, a magical combination of curated projections, video, and digital mapping can make a theatrical experience seem much larger and more fluid than one might have imagined just from reading the script.
Two recent Bay area productions stand out for how their set designers helped to solve each drama's narrative challenges. Though staged by regional companies on opposite sides of the Bay, these two plays brought to light an interesting contrast: One was about Jews being persecuted as "the other" during World War II. The other was about Palestinians being persecuted as "the other" by Jews after World War II.
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The U.S. premiere of Palestinian-Irish playwright Hannah Khalil's poignant drama entitled Scenes from 71* Years is currently being produced by Golden Thread Productions at the Potrero Stage (an intimate performance space which is dwarfed by the scope of the intense family and political dramas created by conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians). As Khalil writes:“I’m sick of seeing Arabs on stage. Don’t get me wrong; I love Arabs (hell, my dad’s Palestinian), but why are we always portrayed in the narrowest way? Crying mothers, stone-throwing resisters, dead martyrs. I saw a poster for an American-Arab comedian’s show, the tag line read: ‘I’m not a terrorist, but I have played one on TV.’ Smart, I thought. Expose the stereotypes. Those same clichés got me writing in the first place. My heart ached for the fantastic Arab actors I knew who had to don a suicide vest at every audition. My first play about Palestine (Plan D) was put on in London in 2010. It was based on testimonies of Palestinians who lived through the creation of Israel in 1948 and tells the story of what happens to one fictional family.”
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| Palestinian-Irish playwright Hannah Khalil |
“The thing that surprised and delighted me the most about the production was the fact that many people (Palestinians in the diaspora) approached me afterwards to tell me their story: What happened to them, their family, what happens to them now, every day, living under occupation. And what stories they were! Full of pathos, drama, and dark, dark, wry humor. What a resource I’d been gifted. But how to tell all these tales? So many that, if I were to write each into a play, that would be my life’s work. My hope is that, in the future, I won’t be sick of seeing Arabs on stage because, at last, they’ll be portrayed as actual, real people as opposed to terrorists.”
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| A scene from Hannah Khalil's 2010 play, Plan D (Photo courtesy of Curtis Brown) |
According to historian Walid Khalidi, "Plan D was named after the Israeli 'Plan Dalet' which entailed the destruction of the Palestinian Arab community and the expulsion and pauperization of the bulk of the Palestine Arabs...calculated to achieve the military fait accompli upon which the state of Israel was to be based.”
Khalil's drama (which had its world premiere in London in 2016 under the title Scenes From 68* Years) is described by the playwright as "an epic snapshot of Palestinian life under occupation." Its director, Michael Malek Najjar, suggests that, as a collage of scenes, it is both a reflection and a remembrance. "The reflection is that of a Palestine being slowly and meticulously removed from the map by settlements, walls, and segregated highways. The remembrance is of the Palestine that still remains -- the rich land that is filled with olive trees, with old stone villages, with traditional ways of life."
Because Khalil's script evolves through numerous vignettes that take place in the decades since May 14, 1948 (when, following World War II, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed that the new Jewish state was to be named Israel), it's easy for an audience to get lost in the historical hopscotching that, after a while, can become quite tiresome. What her play accomplishes, however, is extremely important in today's political climate (where Republicans are accusing people of not being sufficiently American if they fail to support Israel with the same level of patriotism they feel for their own country). In short, it puts human faces on Palestinian people rather than treating them as mere statistics or "the other."
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| The cast of Scenes from 71* Years |
The cast of nine includes Palestinian, Arab, and Middle Eastern actors from around the Bay area (Marisa Darabi, Afif Houssain, Nida Khalil, Dean Koya, Kal'el Lopez, Rasha Mohamed, Lawrence Radecker, Adam El-Sharkawi, and Ayla Yarkut). As Torange Yeghiazarian (the founder and artistic director of Golden Threads Productions) notes:
"One wonders why Palestinian narratives are so politicized in the United States. So many productions and art exhibits have been cancelled. What is so threatening about the lives of Palestinians? About their music, laughter, and language? This is a play that simply says 'We are here, still, despite everything.'"With sound design by James Ard, lighting by Cassie Barnes, costumes by Brooke Jennings, and a simple set designed by Mikiko Uesugi, Erin Gilley's projections provide the glue that holds Khalil's play together. The performers vary in strength, with the women faring much better than the men.
Performances of Scenes from 71* Years continue through May 5 at the Potrero Stage (click here for tickets).
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Up in Walnut Creek, Center Rep is staging The Diary of Anne Frank, which was written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and adapted by Wendy Kesselman. Long before universities began to offer courses in Holocaust studies, Anne Frank's diary was being used as a teaching tool. Like many American students, I'm pretty sure I read the play in high school and saw the 1959 film adaptation starring Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Shelley Winters, Lou Jacobi, Ed Wynn, and Richard Beymer. As directed by Timothy Near, this was the first time I had actually seen a production of the play performed onstage.The action takes place during World War II, as the Frank and Van Daan families are led to a safe shelter space in the annex of an office building in Amsterdam. With the Nazis marching into France, Dutch Jews have good reason to fear for their lives. For some, a growing number of local families have bravely undertaken to hide Jewish families from Hitler's forces.
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| Monique Hafen Adams, Victor Talmadge, Maya Michal Sherer, and Marcia Pizzo in a scene from The Diary of Anne Frank (Photo by: Mellophoto.com) |
Part of the drama's challenge is for a set designer to create an environment in which two families can hide while living in a variety of spaces ranging from a kitchen/living room to a small space under the staircase that leads to an attic. As always, the gifted Nina Ball (who excels in devising scenery with a puzzle-like efficiency), has created a unit set with enough playing areas to isolate actors who, like Monique Hafen Adams (Anne), need moments by themselves or just enough space to interact with one or two other characters. Even without walls, Ball's set allows the audience to understand how cramped the hideout can feel and how difficult it is to maintain personal boundaries under such strict conditions.
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| Nina Ball's set for The Diary of Anne Frank (Photo by: Mellophoto.com) |
With costumes by Jessie Amoroso, lighting by Kurt Landisman, and sound and projection design by Teddy Hulsker, Center Rep has mounted a handsome production blessed with an impressive cast of local actors. Anne's parents (Victor Talmadge and Marcia Pizzo) as well as Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan (Michael Butler and Dominique Lozano) each have moments in which their inner frustrations burst forth as the tension from living in such close quarters continues to mount.
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| The cast of The Diary of Anne Frank (Photo by: Mellophoto.com) |
Offering a sharp contrast to Anne's unrelenting optimism are Maya Michal Sherer as Anne's sister (Margot) and Kevin Singer, who gives an impressive performance as young Peter Van Daan. Making the most out of supporting roles are Paul Plain as Mr. Kraler, Alison Quin as Miep Gies, and Michael Patrick Gaffney as the finicky dentist, Albert Dussel.
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| Dominique Lozano (Mrs. Van Daan) and Monique Hafen Adams (Anne) in a scene from The Diary of Anne Frank (Photo by: Mellophoto.com) |
While a distance of nearly 75 years since the events depicted onstage might lessen the impact of the Nazis who arrive to take the play's characters to Auschwitz (even as British and American forces are landing on the beaches of Normandy), it's impossible to ignore how timely The Diary of Anne Frank remains in these troubled times. With ICE and CBP personnel rounding up undocumented immigrants (as well as Central American refugees seeking asylum) and Stephen Miller foaming at the mouth in his desire to develop and enforce more sadistic immigration policies in what was once known as "the land of the free and the home of the brave," there is no guarantee that innocent people being targeted as "the others" (some having already been put in cages near the southern border) won't face more gruesome rigors during our lifetime.
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| Michael Patrick Gaffney as Mr. Dussel in a scene from The Diary of Anne Frank (Photo by: Mellophoto.com) |
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