https://asf.net/project/the-tempest/

Artistic Director Geoffrey Sherman’s final Shakespeare production at ASF, The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s last plays, crafted with themes of magic, illusion and music. PS: The Alabama Shakespeare Festival had the guts to actually mount the first "translation" of Timon of Athens undertaken at the start of this OSF translation project. I saw it. It had ambiguities and subtlety intact. It was a wonderful production and the audience was delighted with the evening. The "translator" Kenneth Cavender, whose work I observed while I was member of the Royal Shakespeare Company when they were "translating" The Greeks with John Barton, is a genius and didn't exclude the uninteresting. He has just "translated" The Tempest which is currently in rehearsal at ASF. While we all mourn the passing of the era of being able to show off our super scholarly devotion to and reverence for Shakespeare, I have to say that I recently realized while sitting dumbfounded at a production of Pericles with the most fantastic sea storm enactments I have ever witnessed, that Shakespeare really dashed this all off and the plots are quite flimsy! In fact, if you ever directed A Midsummer Night's Dream in it's entirety with no cuts you can figure out that it plays like a brilliant night of vaudeville! Since he stole almost all the plot pieces, the main thing he had going for him, having a gifted ear to the ground and being totally a man of his time, was the language and the political intrigue. You all know that. I love touching core with Shakespeare in every way, Damned if it wasn't the reason I lived in England for ten years and became a member of the RSC and see the world through the agricultural, fairyland, treacherous fantastical lense of Bill and am writing my heart out on crappy old Facebook! https://asf.net/project/the-tempest/

55 to 70 years old, female. Duchess of Cornwall, 60s; must have some resemblance to living Camilla; actor of great complexity; an older but equally ambitious Lady Macbeth; reserved; able to say a lot based on the position of her spine; classical actor with impeccable chops; reserved until necessarily prompted to act; deeply in love with Charles and willing to sacrifice all to ensure they remain together.

Circus Barker

Kathy, this is why, after 12 years, I recognize a down draft/tornado about to happen. http://harvardpolitics.com/culture/the-alabamafication-of-america/ You may feel that anything from Harvard is somehow slanted, but it sums up what we have been witness to. I have thought a lot about it on my own, away from commentators. Our local newspaper is slanted to protect these guys. I really respect that you enter into exchange about all our worries. We are all surely worried. I want you to know that, since the day Trump got elected, it has not been about wanting Hillary instead. She lost. It's over. For me it's about protesting a force that endangers my hard won rights and those of my family. For example family planning. Alice got a gynecological exam and birth control pills from Planned Parenthood in LA while she was working here in AL because Alabama would not permit her any. Also when I was in college, girls died from infections following backstreet abortions. Nobody likes abortion, but it is a godsend to have safe, legal abortion in our country. I always argued with Penny that there were alternative abortions happening in the streets when unwanted babies grew up into young black men murdered on some parking lot. I have believed this for almost 50 years and watched unwanted babies shoot each other all over the country, everywhere I've lived, for every one of those years. For my part, I had the National Health in England. Dr Helena M. Reckless who referred me to the Migraine Center where I found out birth control pills were giving me crippling migraines. I had to use another form of birth control. Thank god for the National Health. So those are two things I respect that are targeted to be dismantled.

I WITNESS WOMEN'S MARCH

At least 200 people were there. Believe me, I can count a crowd/audience. Our theatre holds almost 800. I've seen 3,800 at the Met. What I saw was a hundred times a full house at our theatre: 80,000 to view. 80,000 in front of me, 80,000 behind me when we were at a standstill for the rally watching a big screen that was blocked by a tree and thousands of pink wool hats. 80,000 anyway I could see. We were packed in tighter than we had been on the Metro getting there. Any request to find a friend or go over the concrete barriers or hold onto a child seemed unreasonable. But all requests were accommodated. We broke down and helped, even if it meant budging off your good spot. Some stood on the concrete protection barriers which had a slim ledge at the top giving about a three foot vantage. Some sat determinedly on that ledge with a water bottle beside them. I thought those standing were like contestants on "Survivor" trying to endure and maintain balance. The sight of the vast crowd sustained balance. We suddenly heard that a four year old boy with a pink bandana was lost in the thick throng. The word was passed from ahead of us and shouted back and back again and again. Then fingers pointed to where he was found. A crest of pointing fingers followed his movement forward to his parent. A doctor near us was called for in two directions. Her first visit was away from us. All was well. Then there was a call of "doctor" near us. When she was assisted over the barrier near us and up into the hedge we were proud to help her, just to see her. It was the picture of universal health care.
A speaker told us that "in a few hours" we would march to demonstrate peacefully. The thought caused a visible shrinking in listeners. We had been there since 8:30, three hours already. Amazingly more people were wriggling into the pack all the time. How could the group thicken anymore? The Pre-March Rally opened with a piercing Native American chant swelling with bravery and touching emotion. It was a moment of beauty clarified. She had no mike for her drum but, thank god, did not wait for technical adjustment. The arrow of her voice fell straight into our hearts. Then America Ferrera was so clean in her introduction of the march. No ego.There was a song, a kind of rap corridos, which I could not hear well.Then Charlie welcoming us and then the organizer of the march with her new baby and then Gloria Steinam. After Gloria Steinem we could not stay still. We had to find Alice's friend Stephanie for whom we had been waiting since 8:30 at the FedEx Office on 10th and Independence. And we had to find answers for the call of Nature. We tried to edge through the sardine pack, back to the Hirshorn where a bank of toilets was. There were slipstreams to join, one moving horizontally across the crowd, two haphazardly parallel down the street. NOT ONE CAT FIGHT!!!! In an ocean of woman for eight hours, and yes, there was edginess in the bathroom line, but never a scratching, never a hissing, hackle-raised moment. No fashion competition. Something about those hats. Like taking the veil, there was a higher purpose than what we wore. Herding cats meant something different than stampeding horses. The symbol of the day was sinew clothed in softness. Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, standing, sky and outdoor

PROCESS AND TEXT

I'm an actor and a theatre director. I love watching my actors come away from the pages into their performance. As an actor it is tougher for me because I want to be word perfect. I over respect the script. You can't embody the text without being on your feet. While you are working the text into your being, you carry the text around. Then you start dropping it down all over the place. Some actors keep carrying it down their shirt or in their back pocket or up a sleeve or in their belt. This idea that you are not an actor unless you start rehearsal off text is a being inhibitor! They ain't kidding when they say "It's a mystery." Some keep their mystery to themselves, some are show offs, some only live when the audience shines on them. Demanding actors be "off script" at first blocking rehearsal seems inorganic and exclusive. There are all types of brilliant actors and they have many differing ways of reaching their performances. It can annoy you how they do it. You may feel they are not cooperating with the way you are working to fashion your performance or to fashion your show. But once you are actually in the performance with them, you will benefit from the energy and connection they have accessed in their own way. As a director I can appreciate a show that turns out even better than I anticipated.

...we'll tak a cup 'o kindness yet...

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Ghosts-Jon-J-Muth/dp/043963430X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329973540&sr=8-1#reader_043963430X

The main thing I've always loved in England since I lived there for a decade in the 70's is the magical quality of the light. In all my times returning there for visits to Geoffrey's family from when our daughter was a toddler until his mum's death, I've been enchanted repeatedly by that light, how it falls and glows through the softly mossy brilliant greens of the landscape and down the city ivy in London. I find the country very Peter Pan and Midsummer Night's Dream...Pre-Raphaelite.
Long shadows, elongated shadows. Everyone needs a shadow says Carl Jung!
When I returned from Windsor in December, I told Peter about the light. I am so pleased he caught that in the luminescent set. You see, I'm in love with the whole thing already.
Now we just need the people and the text! The main ingredients.
I will ask Brenda Van der Weil to email you a Falstaff costume rendering. I know she is working on colors this weekend. His headpiece is kind of comic opera right now with realistic horns.
Some ideas Brenda sent to me for the final scene were abstracted Art Nouveau masks and also children with plump rose wreaths on their heads -- Isadora Duncan look -- somewhere in here is the answer.
I checked on Gilbert and Sullivan performances in the early 1900's -- running strong into the 1920's!
Yours,
Diana

Links in the general area of music and movement:

Isadora:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKtQWU2ifOs

Below not the Mikado but puts me in mind of two little maids from school
Sumi Jo & Ah-Kyung Lee - Delibes - Lakme - Flower Duet

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4MmatVblDk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Letter to an actress:

Merry Wives is set in 1905-15 Windsor, England enhancing and extending the idea of ASF's "British Season" with 39 Steps, Travels With My Aunt and Henry VIII.
The set for Merry Wives is in autumnal colors (the text has an autumnal feeling) with a distinct pop-up book look in Art Nouveau/Tiffany window style. The town houses are framed by a proscenium arch in abstracted stained glass rendering of autumn trees. The houses are movable rotating carts - one side exterior, other interior. The distant vista is of the green grounds surrounding Windsor Castle and a view of the castle itself. The final scene of the play, which shifts to Windsor Great Park, features a Herne's Oak that is very much in abstracted Tiffany style!
It's a middle class play. Unlike most Shakespeare, not a noble in sight. I'm thinking about having Royals pass in an imaginary progress so Falstaff can bow. After all, Windsor is the royal seat.
As you know, I was over there, In early December collecting impressions.
Mistress Page and Ford are younger and sexier than often portrayed. Maybe a little touch of the Absolutely Fabulous. But wives of shopkeepers of Windsor, a town totally in service to the castle.I loved the feel of the original publicity shot. The ladies are completely delirious companions!!
There will be cuts -- for the sake of clarity and time.
Looking forward to your presence in our fair city!
Diana

"In the Book Of ..." another fine chapter in ASF's history...Rick Harmon

Although it has been said that the Alabama Shakespeare Festival production "In the Book Of..." is about immigra­tion, those who see it will quickly realize that while the play may address immigration, what it is about is great the­ater.
This is not some didactic po­lemic on a controversial issue, it is one of those rare produc­tions that manages to be con­sistently funny and incredibly moving -- one that haunts your thoughts long after the play has ended.
The play, written by John Walch as part of ASF's South­ern Writer's Project, concerns immigration, but its real focus is on disparate, broken people in a small Southern town and how through love and strength of family they make each other whole again.
The plot begins a world away from Mississippi.
Lt. Naomi Watkins (Rachel Leslie) is leaving both Afgha­nistan and the Army, but not by choice. Her husband, a mili­tary officer who deployed to Afghanistan at the same time she did, has died in battle. Now, she seems to have little interest in whether she lives or dies, an attitude that has endangered the troops she commands.
But she wants to make her last act in the military a mean­ingful one. Anisah (Sarah Co­rey), an Afghani translator working with the U.S. military, is also a widow. Insurgents murdered her husband, who was also a translator for the military, and now her life is at risk. Naomi, who is returning to the small Mississippi town of Broxton where her husband's family lives and where her hus­band had a home, is de­termined to bring Anisah with her.
But her timing couldn't be worse because her sister-in-law, Gail (Blair Sams), has just had an epiphany at McDon­ald's.
Gail has known things haven't been right in her life for a long time. Her husband, Bo Sr. (Christoper Gerson), isn't the man he used to be. He once enjoyed working with his hands. Then a wave of foreign immigrants willing to work for less sank the busi ness, forcing him to work at a sandwich-shop franchise, and seemingly emas­culating him in the process.Their son, Bo Jr. (Matt Dick­son), is in much worse shape, living a life of misery in pen­ance for accidentally causing the death of his brother.
In a brilliant monologue, Gail tells how her feelings about having illegal foreigners work­ing at McDonald's and laughing at her because they can't un­derstand her accent -- foreign­ers who have forever changed the small town she so fondly remembers and who cost her husband his livelihood -- co­alesces into anger. Soon, she has grabbed a broom, is stand­ing on the McDonald's counter and is talking about sweeping out the illegals, so America can once again be for Americans.
Her words don't just send Latino employees scurrying out the back door, they strike a chord with many others in the town. So much so that Gail is pressed (not that she has to be pressed that hard) into running for mayor, and her issue of sweeping out illegal immi­grants might just win her the campaign.
It's then that Naomi arrives with her own illegal immigrant in tow.
"In the Book Of. . ." has a fine cast of characters, but no villains. What we see are good people who disagree. In fact, perhaps the play's greatest strength is that Walch, director Risa Brainin and a superb cast have created a production in which we not only like every character, but care about them.
There is perhaps no bigger reviewer cliche than "I laugh­ed. I cried," but few will not be able to say it after this funny, uplifting play loosely on the biblical Book of Ruth about kind characters in a Mississip­pi town who help each other re­cover from private tragedies.
If the play is wonderful, it is matched by ASF's production. There is a valid argument that the play has one too many con­clusions, but there is no argu­ment that Brainin and the cast (which is only five people but seems like far more) do a bril­liant job.
The result is that the ASF-created "In the Book Of ..." is another fine chapter in ASF's history.

Alice in "Vagina Monologues" in LA

Production of "Merry Wives" performed on St. Leonard's Hill, Windsor in the summer of 2010:
"Towards the end of the piece we are invited to follow the players into the woodland, with some of us being given miniature lanterns to carry to the glade at the foot of the giant oak, Herne's Oak, where Falstaff will appear as Herne the Hunter and the play will reach its magical conclusion. The audience, as fairies with their lanterns, are surrounded by many more glowing lights suspended throughout the woodland. The effect is truly magical, and an image that will live with me long after these fine summer nights are over.

For those lucky enough to be invited to the performance it has been a splendid evening, the magic of which extends even to the walk back through the woods to reality where the glowing lights show us the path, with little bonfires flickering along the route too."

Frozen Thames

Elizabethan Frost Fairs
Zen Ghosts
the frosty covering of a perfectly green lawn
hoar frost
magical beauty of England , the England of King Arthur and Merlin
The sun slanting at an acute angle
mystical
legend
women struggling to lead perfectly ordinary lives while surrounded by
Falstaff's raiment
the heroic
Fairy-tale land

Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle
the cow jumped over the moon
the little dog laughed to see such a sight
and the dish ran away with the spoon

Autumnal
Skating pond
Puppets
The same landscape wher fiere wars are fought transformed by peacetime – Falstaff's dilemma
bonfires
all the great things about England – turning on the lights – flickering lights
Fairy land – hobbits – toad of toad hall

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING opens tonight for the Rep season at ASF. Plays til May 21.
Trailer can be seen:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31wc35N94-Q

Indian Cultural Extravaganza in DC in March

http://www.pravasiherald.com/index.php/pravasih/comments/washington_gearing_up_for_indian_cultural_extravaganza/

Films: "I Served the King of England," "Monsoon Wedding," "Salaam Bombay," "The Kama Sutra, A Love Story,""Mangal Pandey: The Rising," "A Passage To India,""Ghandi," "Heat and Dust," "Cotton Mary," "Shakespeare Wallah." More modern settings: "Slumdog Millionaire," "Bend It Like Beckham," "The Namesake,""Missippi Masala." Many Merchant/Ivory and Mira Nair films.

Using Oxford U. Press Shakespeare ed. Zitner to evolve after ancient, almost totemic belief in Arden for dusty decades.

Preface: development from text -- very musical, poetic use of dance, masque -- could be a musical! Dance. Extremely elegant European ballroom, controlled.

Characterization -- so British. Shakespeare captures the playfulness that persists in British verbal flirtation -- particularly upper class. After years of American speech for Shakespeare, let's try an English intonation. A Brit tune.

Trivia: Shakespeare rushed the production of MUCH ADO so as to be able to include Will Kemp as Dogberry just before Kemp was set to tour his Morris Dance around Britain. Kemp's plantive song about a bird was my opener for THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Proper names debate: will have to keep "signor" in the sense of "old cum." And also Italian names Pedro, Leonato, Antonio, Claudio, Don John, Don Pedro. Anglicizing will ruin flow.


Dear Bruce,

Rehearsals for "Much Ado About Nothing" start on the Saturday Feb 5th. First thing that I'll go over the concept of the production and explain costumes and sets. A good time for you to identify and evaluate the play and its comedic spirit. Also to bring forward background information on the Raj and expand our vision of the setting and time period in India.

The cast will have just gotten "Julius Caesar" up for school fest audiences the day before.

Saturday, Sunday and possibly even Tuesday will be for table work, going through the text with as fine a toothed comb as we can, digging for meaning. This is the time to open up the footnotes, look up all the obscure words, explore comic and poetic devices and figure out what it meant in Shakespeare's time and what it means in our time -- I'm using the Oxford Shakespeare, but we can bring in the Arden and the OED.

As for the Raj background, I would appreciate some materials for the cast. I've been reading tangentially. I know that the British were rigid in keeping separate from the culture of their conquered and controlled lands to the point of cruelty to those they oppressed and even to themselves. "The Women of the Raj" explains the power of women to maintain the boundaries and socially ostracize those who wavered. (Not so different from women of the South!)

It would be great if you could interview Dr. Chilka and report to us on her thoughts.

I am also aware of a drift away from norms on the part of the British and Indians. Especially as the fabrics of societies unraveled right before the war. The late 30's decadence, the whole Noel Coward posture. Or as Pinter said of a different context, "..a lobster and lobster sauce mentality we know fuck all about." I think of the Mitfords and many of their "bolter" set.

I think of this particularly in the Don John plot.

Mainly, the play to me is a set up for courtship and marriage. A rite of spring no matter what the historical setting. The cuckolding references and tons of ribaldry are in the great marriage traditions of many cultures: The wedding ceremony so sacred, the bachelor and bachelorette parties so profane. I am just worried that Shakespeare's cuckold jokes are too obscure for our audience to follow.

I think the Branaugh film slanted itself to catch the sense of flirtation and ripeness for marriage. Mesinna is a refuge from the troubles of the world where love is in the air.

Reminds me, I'd love your help in adapting place names and character names. They are Italian but have to become British or Indian. And also should keep the rhythm where they occur in the text. There may be other words we should watch out for so they don't grate.

So, I will leave messages after all that, and we can set up a time for chatting.

Trust you had a Happy and restorative Thanksgiving.

Yours,
Diana

-----Original Message-----
From: Mann, Bruce J.
To: huntressdi

Diana,

I love your concept for “Much Ado” – rich, colorful, deep, and fun. The Raj period will really set off the gender differences and the men’s club of characters. I have work to do to catch up on Bollywood, but I have a History professor here, Dr. Rashmi Chilka, who teaches the Raj and whose husband loves Bollywood movies.

I talked to her briefly about your concept, and she said the women then played an important role in upholding British traditional values in India. She said she would be glad to share more information on the Raj.

She also mentioned some Bollywood Shakespeare movies, Maqbool(Macbeth), set in the Mumbai underworld, and, based on Othello. Let me know what I can do to help. I could work up some materials on the Raj for the cast (or for you) or something on Bollywood.

I could ask Dr. Chilka about the cuckolding and whether or not we could substitute something else without marring the text too much.

P.S. I like the Branagh film, too, and many years ago, during our honeymoon in New York, we saw “Much Ado” with a young Sam Waterston as Benedick.

Sunday, November 07, 2010
Dear Bruce,
I wanted to get in touch and let you know about plans so far for "Much Ado About Nothing."
I'm setting the production in Raj India late 30's. I hope there will be an invasion of the spirit of Bollywood India with the dances. I am strongly influenced by the films "Monsoon Wedding" and "I Served The King of England"(Czech). Also Branaugh's "Much Ado" film. The sense of flirtation, betrothal and marriage, betrayal.

The set and costumes are nearly there.
The Raj was so very British but at that time some individuals fell to the charms of the country they were in. Those entanglements will be playing along with Shakespeare's brilliant battle of the wits.

I am worried by some of the more obscure allusions -- wearing the bull's horns. I see people in Shakespeare's text are afraid to marry because it leads to cuckolding!
Will need to cut some text.
Will need to change names to suit new locale.

The main concern for me is the casting of Beatrice and Benedick.

I discovered a bit of Shakepeare trivia in the Oxford Shakespeare edition: that the part of Dogberry was originally written for Will Kemp and the whole play hastened to production to accommodate Will's intended Morris Dance from London to Norwich.
I loved a tiny writing by Kemp set to music that I used for my production of "The Comedy of Errors." It was about a bird.

More India observation: Merchant/Ivory's "Heat and Dust", and "Shakespeare Wallah"; "The Case of the Missing Servant" and the "Case of the Man Who Died Laughing" Tarquin Hall; "The Weight of Heaven" by Thrity Umrigar, a sad story of US imperialism; "The Bolter' by Frances Osborne; "Women of the Raj" by Margaret Mac Millan and also the film "Mississippi Marsala."

Possible that "Slumdog Millionaire" started the wheels. Also an international festival held one day in August 2007 that included Indian dance from our community here in Montgomery. Wonderful.

Let me know your thoughts.
Yours,
Diana