Cashel Byron's Profession

I've blogged about how I received the Constable & Co. collection of the works of Bernard Shaw previously owned by noted scholar Chuck Berst, kindly shipped to me by his widow Roelina, who left in place all of the slips of paper where her late husband had noted something interesting.

Recently I was reading not a Shaw play, but one of the author's novels, Cashel Byron's Profession. The title, much like Mrs. Warren's Profession, hints that the seemingly respectable main character might have gained money and status in a less-than-respectable way. Instead of running a string of brothels like Mrs. Warren, however, Cashel Byron is a prizefighter.

The always insightful Chuck Berst had stuck slips of paper in Chapter VI of the novel, and had as a further help marked in pencil some key passages in which Cashel espouses an active philosophy of executive power. It might be tempting to attribute the character's views to Shaw himself, who later showed not just a tolerance for but even an admiration of authoritarian leaders such as Joseph Stalin. Here's a bit of the first marked passage:

Suppose you walked along the street and saw a man beating a woman, and setting a bad example to the roughs. Well, you would be bound to set a good example to them; and, if youre men, youd like to save the woman; but you couldn't do it by merely living; for that would be setting the bad example of passing on and leaving the poor creature to be beaten. What is it that you need to know, then, so as to be able to act up to your ideas? Why, you want to know how to hit him, when to hit him, and where to hit him; and then you want the nerve to go in and do it. Thats executive power; and thats whats wanted worse than sitting down and thinking... 

To Cashel, this is just common sense. However, readers today might recognize the same self-righteous mentality that allowed the Soviets to slaughter millions of people in an effort to "set a good example" for humanity. Stalin, after all, had asked his followers to "act up to" their ideals by killing others as well as frequently getting killed themselves. Perhaps most telling is that the prizefighter advocates knowing how, when, and where to hit and likens this to the executive power wielded by individuals and nations alike.

A few pages later, in another section flagged by an old piece of paper courtesy of Chuck Berst, the character makes the political analogy explicit. What is more, Shaw's prizefighter belittles those who struggle and strive to better the world without the necessary force to back themselves up and the necessary will to use that force when it might be effective. Here's another passage I found bracketed in pencil:

All this struggling and striving to make the world better is a great mistake; not because it isnt a good thing to improve the world if you know how to do it, but because striving and struggling is the worst way you could set about doing anything. It gives a man a bad style, and weakens him. It shews that he dont believe in himself much.

For those who might mistake a character for his author, this defense of executive power might seem pretty damning. Things look even worse for Shaw when later in the book he explicitly mentions eugenics, a concept most people today rightfully find abhorrent, though it was a common article of faith for many people (on both the left and the right) back in Shaw's day.

Toward the end of Chapter XIV, the heroine Lydia Carew explains to her cousin that since her "body is frail" and her "brain morbidly active" it makes sense that she marry "a man strong in body and untroubled in mind" since "it is a plain proposition in eugenics."

Before condemning Shaw for supporting a debunked ideology, however, it's important to read the rest of the book. In the final chapter of Cashel Byron's Profession, the narrator says of Lydia Carew: "Her children, so carefully planned by her to inherit her intelligence with their father's robustness, proved to her that heredity is not so simple a matter..." Instead, the boys inherit her own lack of athletic aptitude while the girls take after their father's impetuousness.

So while Lydia has faith in eugenics, the narrator most definitely does not. Of course, the narrator does not necessarily represent Shaw's opinions either, but the ending of Cashel Byron's Profession would seem to caution us against making too many assumptions about the author.

Advancing

Sometimes being a playwright means making small advances, little by little, hoping that something will finally stick.

That's how I've been feeling lately, as many small things have been dripping in, such as my play Combustion being named a semifinalist for Broken Arts Entertainment's Loved Ones series.

Combustion re-imagines the life and death of Marie-Anne and Antoine Lavoisier, who revolutionized chemistry around the same time a political revolution was happening in France. I've also been trying to get a reading of the play scheduled with American Renaissance Theater Company.

After an Earlier Incident, a play I previously developed with ARTC, has moved on to Round 2 of the selection process for the B Street Theater's New Comedies Festival in Sacramento. The festival had more than 400 submissions this year, so competition has been fierce.

So things continue to crawl along. I just hope that something sticks soon.

Back From Pittsburgh

In an earlier post, I blogged about the first day of the Mid-America Theatre Conference in Pittsburgh. Well, the conference has concluded, I’m back in New York, and my trip was quite eventful.

My own paper, delivered on Thursday, dealt with toy-theatre versions of Pizarro by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. People seemed interested by my handouts showing exotic, imagined visions of South America that were marketed to the youth of Britain.

Friday morning, I attended a session on the State of Pittsburgh Theatre, which featured Clare Drobot, Artistic Director of City Theatre Company and a fellow graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. She told us Pittsburgh audiences are getting fewer subscriptions these days, and are more likely to buy individual tickets. Fortunately, they can more easily find out what’s playing through the new website goseeashowpgh.com, which also includes discount codes.

Though I was accepted to the conference as part of the theatre history track, I was also interested in seeing some of the new plays being presented, so next I headed over to see the Dramatist Play Lab. Attendees presented staged readings of The Plagiarized Words of God Almighty by Nino Greene, Lysistrata Upstairs by Jen Plants, and Peanut Butter Androgyny by Johann Choi. My favorite was probably the first of these, which featured a neuro-atypical poet being left by the woman he loved.

In the afternoon, I attended a panel on Women in U.S. History. Richard Sautter delivered a paper on Ida Murdoch, the daughter of American actor James E. Murdoch, who was a contemporary of the famed Edwin Forrest. Rebecca Schmidt spoke about Maude Adams, who was a star of producer Charles Frohman and played Joan of Arc in a mammoth outdoor production of Friedrich Schiller’s The Maid of Orleans at Harvard Stadium. Last, Sidney Curran told us about the male impersonator Annie Hindle.

Later, at the American Nostalgia panel, Yuko Kurahashi gave her opinions of the musicals Hamilton, Parade, Suffs, and Floyd Collins. More informative was Ruby Dudasik’s paper on David Belasco’s Girl of the Golden West, which features a heroine who actually ends the play heading back east, away from the frontier. The most intriguing paper of the session was the one by Vicki Hoskins, which discussed a running feature in Playbill about “The Program Girl” which was printed in the first decades of the twentieth century.

I had intended to go to a talk in the evening on August Wilson, but other events intervened. Saturday, I caught the end of a panel on musical theatre, and then went to a session on Labor and Theatre-Making. Jennifer Sheier gave a fascinating talk on how union categorization has shaped how we think of stage management in the U.S. Alissa Bidwell then looked at children as a site of ideological struggle, focusing on the Depression-era children’s play The Revolt of the Beavers.

Sunday, I was able to catch up with some old friends, and now I’m back in New York. It was a whirlwind conference, to be sure.

Mid-America Theatre Conference

I am currently in Pittsburgh for the Mid-America Theatre Conference which has the theme this year of Making and Remaking Americana.

This afternoon, I'll be delivering a paper for a panel about international perspectives on the Americas. My paper involves toy-theatre adaptations of the play Pizarro by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

When Pizarro debuted in 1799, British audiences interpreted it as a parable for Britain's resistance to French aggression. At a time when people in Britain expected an imminent invasion by the French under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, the tale of Inca warriors standing up bravely to Spanish colonizers made audiences associate themselves with the Inca underdogs.

However, I argue that over time this explicitly anti-imperialist play came to encourage fantasies about empire, especially among the juvenile audiences of toy theatres. I'll be sharing images by the publisher Skelt of toy-theatre versions of Pizarro which might have encouraged associations between the Spanish colonizers and the British and might have generated a desire to possess the sublime landscapes of an exoticised America.

This morning, I attended a very interesting panel on immersive theatre and performance, with two scholars discussing American nostalgia. Erin Bone Steele talked about the musical Showboat, which self-consciously depicted showboats only after that form of entertainment had essentially disappeared. Then Rebecca Jackson delivered a paper on how Confederate Civil War re-enactors perform the politics of belonging even as they embrace a very specific ideological point of view.

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to a number of panels and programs, culminating in a discussion of August Wilson's legacy and future in American theatre. The conference concludes on Saturday, when we'll also all be assembling for a luncheon. It's good to be back in Pittsburgh!

Molnár and Film

Tonight I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where actress Isabella Rossellini introduced screenings of two early films, both of which were made by people with connections to the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár.

The first film, Lonesome, was directed by Paul Fejos, who had previously worked with Molnár before immigrating to the U.S. and making movies for Hollywood. Prior to moving to California, Fejos had also served as an advisor for a production of Molnár's The Glass Slipper in New York.

According to film expert Richard Koszarski, who spoke in between the two screenings, Fejos had made some movies in Hungary in addition to directing live theater there. It was Molnár, though, who helped Fejos make connections in the U.S. that allowed him to direct his first American films, the now-lost The Last Moment, and then in 1928 Lonesome, which was screened tonight with live music performed by Joanna Seaton and Donald Sosin.

Movies were never intended to be silent, but when Fejos was working on Lonesome, he assumed all of the music and sound effects would be improvised, much as Seaton and Sosin were able to do. However, 1927 was the year of The Jazz Singer, and after that, producers were demanding that sound be added to films. Fejos shot a few new scenes with dialogue, and the picture was released with a recorded soundtrack in movie theaters equipped for sound.

That was the minority of theaters in America, though, so when the film was released, most people saw it without those scenes of dialogue. Koszarski said some critics complained that the dialogue scenes made little sense and weren't necessary. (Indeed, they really weren't.) He also mentioned that Fejos's admiration for Molnár continued throughout his film career, and he longed to make a movie of Molnár's most famous play, Liliom, though he never did.

After Lonesome, we saw the German film Menschen am Sonntag, ein Film ohne Schauspieler, which translates as People on a Sunday: A Film without Actors. Shot without professional performers, the film was based on reportage by Curt Siodmak (who later penned the werewolf movie The Wolf Man) that was worked into a screenplay by Billy Wilder (credited as Billie Wilder).

Wilder also has connections with Molnár, since his later film One, Two, Three is based on one of Molnár's one-act plays. Both films tonight were enjoyable to watch, particularly with the live musical accompaniment.

Internationally Famous Rock Opera

I remember riding on a commuter train outside of D.C. with my sister when she spotted an advertisement for a coming performance of "The Internationally Famous Rock Opera CHESS!"

My sister looked at the ad and said, "I understand all of those words, but I don't understand how they can possibly go together."

I sighed, and began to explain. I think I started with the concept of rock opera, discussing Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy. Then I explained how Chess isn't really about chess per se, but discusses the Cold War in the context of a world chess championship. Finally, I told her that the guys from ABBA wrote the music to Chess, and that the song "One Night in Bangkok" (which had been all over the radio during our childhood) was originally from the show.

Then she got it. The musical Chess is indeed famous, and in fact internationally famous. It contains legitimate rock music, but within an operatic context. Also, like so many rock operas, it began with a kick-ass concept album. I did not go into its subsequent failures on stage, though they have since become legendary.

Now, Chess is back on the stage, playing on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre. I saw it last night with the brilliant Samantha Pollino in the leading role of Florence. Her amazing voice and superb performance make it perfectly clear why Broadway producers took one look at her and decided that she and she alone could play Florence on Broadway.

Actually, she's the understudy. No matter. She's still brilliant. If you get a chance to see Chess with Pollino as Florence, GO!

Aaron Tveit plays the American chess player, Freddie, while Nicholas Christopher plays the Russian player, Anatoly. Hannah Cruz portrays Anatoly's estranged wife, Svetlana. Apparently, Russian characters in the world of Chess can hold really long notes, and both Christopher and Cruz get to show off some breathtaking vocal stamina.

The choreography by Lorin Latarro (who also did The Heart of Rock and Roll) is pretty amazing, too. The opening sequence is fabulous, and the sexy dancing in "One Night in Bangkok" is quite impressive, especially the way it is lit by lighting designer Kevin Adams. The sleek set designed by David Rockwell doesn't hurt either.

When the show premiered in London in 1986, it had a book by lyricist Tim Rice. The book was completely rewritten by Richard Nelson for Broadway, where the show subsequently flopped. The current incarnation has yet another new book by Danny Strong, who is best known for playing Jonathan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Instead of fixing the problems of previous books, Strong's script creates new problems, including jettisoning the show's earnest seriousness in favor of some cheap jokes.

Strong gives us an ironic and self-aware narrator, played by Bryce Pinkham, who proved in Ohio State Murders that he can handle complex and disturbing material. Alas, he is rarely given a chance to do that in this production. Pinkham doubles as the Arbiter, but director Michael Mayer has him play that choice role with the same silliness as the narrator, which never quite works.

This production mostly gets the music right, though it cuts the wonderful song "Embassy Lament" (as did the infamous Broadway version with Nelson's mess of a book). The goofy remarks by the narrator render this song's comic relief unnecessary, which is precisely the problem. The new ending is another problem, but one that is best left without comment.

None of these flaws mean you shouldn't see the show. Chess is at last back on Broadway, and that is indeed something to celebrate.

Protectorate Drama

With the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, Parliament officially closed the theatres. Though the Red Bull attempted to put on some plays, the Globe was torn down, and drama was effectively banned.

That doesn't mean no one tried to stage dramas during this period, though. Strolling players might still attempt to perform skits at fairs and both private halls and public taverns might host actors for brief plays.

Those plays had to be kept brief, as authorities might intervene at any moment. Once Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Protector of the Realm, the authorities had a firmer hand than ever. Rather than performing full plays, actors mined longer dramas for brief sketches they called drolls.

In 1662, after the monarchy had been restored, many of these drolls got collected together in a book called The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport. The entertainment presented by Bottom and his friends was excerpted from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and other scenes were ripped from John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan, Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, and Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

A famous illustration for the book portrays Sir John Falstaff, who appeared in The Bouncing Knight, a droll based upon the Gad's Hill episode in The First Part of King Henry IV. With him is the Hostess, who appears in the same playlet. Other stock characters include a Simpleton and a French Dancing Master. These sketched-in characters, often reduced to a simple bumpkin, a testy lord, or a dull college professor, had a tremendous influence on Restoration drama once the theatres were reopened in 1660.

One droll, The Humour of Bumpkin, shows not just the forbidden art of theatre, but repressed dancing as well, and even makes references to Maypoles, a tradition the Puritans must have abhorred. In it, Bumpkin makes up his mind to fall in love, and is fortunately obliged by three country wenches who pull upon him, each wanting to be his sweetheart.

The drolls that persisted during the Protectorate were hardly great art, but they prove that theatre can never be completely repressed.