Playwright Lauren Gunderson has memorialized Ada Lovelace, Henrietta Leavitt, and Émilie du Châtelet in some of her historical dramas. But as I sat through two recent performances that revolved around the peculiar strengths and weaknesses of women, I realized that their lives revolved around choices that have historically been made available to a small percentage of women owing to their social status, economic stability, and most importantly, their ability to make strategically wise decisions. One of these women's decisions were totally engineered by men. The other had a mind and will very much her own.
* * * * * * * * *
When Antoine François Prévost's novel, Manon Lescaut (L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut) was published in 1731, its protagonist was a robust country girl whose parents were sending her off to a convent. Though her teenage beauty attracted the lustful gaze of many older men, the handsome, young Chevalier des Grieux was the first to capture her heart. |
| Brian Jagde (Des Grieux) and Lianna Haroutounian (Manon) in Manon Lescaut (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
Manon quickly progressed from a seemingly innocent maiden to an increasingly greedy woman kept by a rich nobleman until des Grieux rescued her from nouveau riche boredom. Unfortunately, her handsome young lover's gambling addiction soon led to the couple's arrest, Manon's imprisonment, her deportation and eventual death.
 |
| Lianna Haroutounian stars in Manon Lescaut (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
Approximately 150 years after the publication of Prévost's novel, two composers were inspired to create operatic adaptations of the story. The first was Jules Massenet, whose Manon premiered on January 19, 1884 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. The second was Giacomo Puccini, whose Manon Lescaut premiered on February 1, 1893 at the Teatro Regio in Turin.
The San Francisco Opera is currently reviving Manon Lescaut in a production on loan from the Lyric Opera of Chicago that has been directed by Olivier Tambosi and designed by Frank Philipp Schlössmann (with lighting by Duane Schuler and choreography by Lawrence Pech).
 |
| Lianna Haroutounian stars in Manon Lescaut (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
Puccini referred to Prévost's heroine as “a woman who can handle more than one lover" and stressed that "Massenet felt it as a Frenchman, with powder and minuets. I shall feel it as an Italian, with a desperate passion.” In the following clip, San Francisco Opera's former Music Director, Nicola Luisotti (who is conducting this revival) explains what sets Puccini's music apart from the works of so many other operatic composers.
During my half century of attending live opera performances, I've sat through many more performances of Massenet's Manon than Puccini's Manon Lescaut (largely due to the popularity of the New York City Opera production that was mounted as a vehicle for Beverly Sills). While these two composers framed Manon's story in very different soundscapes, as I sat in the War Memorial Opera House watching Lianna Haroutounian as Manon and Brian Jagde as the Chevalier des Grieux, I found myself seduced by the power and strength of a character that never makes an appearance onstage: Puccini's magnificent orchestrations.
 |
| Brian Jagde (Des Grieux) and Lianna Haroutounian (Manon) in Manon Lescaut (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
For most opera lovers, listening to Puccini's score (Manon Lescaut was his first major success) reveals glorious hints of the musical riches to come in such later works as La Bohème, Tosca, Turandot, and La Rondine. The richness with which the composer applied tone and passion to his operas is one of the key reasons he is often referred to as the second greatest composer of Italian opera (at the time of Manon Lescaut's premiere Puccini was 35 and Verdi was 80).
The performance I attended was more notable for its efficiency, consistency, and artistic integrity than any operatic fireworks. However, it's interesting to consider some of the factors that might be responsible for that perception. Though Haroutounian and Jagde are extremely capable and reliable artists (who have been repeatedly embraced by San Francisco Opera's audiences), neither seems to have a major publicity machine working on their behalf. They are artists whose professionalism seems focused on delivering the goods to the audience (as opposed to becoming media sensations prone to cancellations). Their work was complimented by baritone Anthony Clark Evans, who appeared as Manon's scheming brother, Lescaut.
It's interesting to note that (other than a few madrigal singers) there is not a single supporting female character in Puccini's opera. In smaller roles, graduates of the 2017-2018 Merola Opera Program included Christopher Oglesby as Edmondo, Zhengyi Bai (doubling as the Dancing Master and Lamplighter), Christian Pursell as the Sergeant of Archers, and SeokJong Baek doubling as the Inkeeper and Naval Captain. Towering over them in height, dramatic presence, and blazing sonority, was Philip Skinner (a graduate of Merola's class of 1985) as the lecherous old goat, Geronte.
 |
| Philip Skinner as Geronte in Manon Lescaut (Photo by: Cory Weaver) |
* * * * * * * * *
While Manon's beauty provided the engine for her social mobility, Mary Woolley's brains were the key to her success in academia. Whereas, in a moment of crisis, Manon lost valuable time scurrying about trying to collect all of her jewelry, when rising to an important political challenge Woolley didn't shrink from her position and power on behalf of an important cause (women's voting rights).The first female to attend Brown University as a student, the thesis for her Master of Arts degree (1895) was entitled "The Early History of the Colonial Post Office." Later that year, she began her career teaching biblical history and literature at Wellesley College, where she quickly progressed to the rank of associate professor and, in 1899, was named a full professor. On January 1, 1901 (having accepted a job offer from Mount Holyoke College at the age of 38), Woolley became one of the youngest college presidents in the nation. She held that job for 36 years, retiring in 1937 at the age of 74 and dying ten years later.
 |
| Stacy Ross (Woolley) and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong (Marks) in a scene from Bull in a China Shop (Photo by: David Allen) |
While teaching at Wellesley, Woolley met and fell in love with a young student named Jeannette Marks (with whom she would share a decades-long relationship). After persuading Marks to accompany her to Mount Holyoke (a girls' seminary transformed into a university), she put the young author in charge of the school’s English Department.
The Aurora Theatre Company is currently presenting the Bay area premiere of Bryna Turner's deliciously political play entitled Bull in a China Shop with
Stacy Ross co-starring as Mary Woolley opposite Leontyne Mbele-Mbong as Jeannette Marks. The production has been powerfully directed by Dawn Monique Williams (the company's new Artistic Associate Director) who, in her program note, explains that:
“When Mount Holyoke’s digital archives hosted an exhibition on the lives and letters of Mary Woolley and Jeannette Marks, Bryna Turner (an MHC alum) was shocked she that hadn’t known this part of the school’s history or about this love story starring a queer woman as President of her alma mater. Compelled to write about them, she began working on Bull in a China Shop in January 2016. Though she initially struggled to find a dramatic way to tell the story, once Turner allowed her present to permeate their past, she found her play by using contemporary language embedded in dynamic short scenes that propel an audience through 40 years in a flash.”
 |
| Stacy Ross (Woolley) and Leontye Mbele-Mbong (Marks) in a scene from Bull in a China Shop (Photo by: David Allen) |
“For Woolley to advance women’s education she had to play the politician, to placate, put women’s suffrage on the back burner for a time (women’s suffrage was not on Woolley’s agenda). Jeannette Marks, however, was deeply passionate about the matter and this divergent thinking was cause for issue in the early years of their relationship. Using this fact, Turner reminds us that ‘We’re asking for something a little bit impossible: she had to make these compromises in order to become the person we now critique using the tools of feminism that her movement has given us. And yet we need to keep critiquing in order to keep moving forward.”
 |
| Stacy Ross (Woolley) and Mia Tagano (Dean Welsh) in a scene from Bull in a China Shop (Photo by: David Allen) |
Bull in a China Shop (which was first produced by LCT3 in February of 2017) takes place during the first third of the 20th century in and around two campuses in Massachusetts. “I follow Mount Holyoke’s Archives on Instagram and, a few years ago, they posted about Mary Woolley and Jeannette Marks and linked to a digital exhibit about their lives and letters,” notes the playwright. “I was totally blown away by their story. Not only was it innately dramatic, it was also incredibly moving to me to see this story of these women who loved each other for 40 years against all odds.”
Turner stresses that her drama aims to address such questions as: "What is revolution? What does it mean to be at odds with the world? How do we fulfill our potential? And how the hell do we grow old together?" She characterizes the five women in her play as follows:
- Woolley has the swagger of a gunslinger buttoned into an ankle length dress; a confident and caring partner to Marks.
- Marks (Woolley’s former student and current partner) is a moody and fitful writer and partner, an enigmatic teacher who is ten years Woolley’s junior.
- Dean Welsh (Mia Tagano) is a tight-lipped New England type who is Woolley’s subordinate, but Marks’ superior.
- Felicity (Rebecca Schweitzer), a professor in the Philosophy Department, is Marks’ roommate in a house off-campus named Sweet Pea.
- Pearl (Jasmine Milan Williams) is Marks’ obsessively devoted student, and the president of a secret society of fan girls of the relationship between Marks and Woolley.
 |
| Jasmine Milan Williams as Pearl in Bull in a China Shop (Photo by: David Allen) |
Working on a tidy unit set designed by Nina Ball with costumes by Ulises Alcala, lighting by Kurt Landisman, and sound design by Lana Palmer, Williams has directed Bull in a China Shop with an exceptional sensitivity to relationship tensions, professional power games, and the crackling energy that builds between two powerful intellects. Ably supported by Mia Tagano as Mount Holyoke's conservative Dean and Jasmine Milan Williams as a young lesbian infatuated with two older women who are lovers, Turner's script is filled with well-aimed barbs and zingers that are delivered with laser-like accuracy by Ross and Mbele-Bong (two exceptional artists familiar to Bay area audiences).
 |
| Jasmine Milan Williams (Pearl) and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong (Marks) in a scene from Bull in a China Shop (Photo by: David Allen) |
Turner's writing is so breathtaking (and Woolley's personal and professional challenges so intriguing) that audiences may not realize the passage of four decades in time until they notice the stunning pair of shoes Ross wears in the final scene. Performances of Bull in a China Shop continue through December 8 at the Aurora Theatre Company (click here for tickets).
No comments:
Post a Comment