Flux Theatre Ensemble

In order to move forward this conversation regarding quality, we are putting some of those principles into practice with a new blog series, Exploding Moments. We'll be exploring how quality productions work through the prism of individual moments. By asking the artists involved how they created a particularly successful moment, and examining how it works in production, we hope to find take-aways to apply to our own work. At the same time, we hope to celebrate excellence in the field through this specific, detailed, useful exploration of what works.

Past Exploding Moments include Two Girls and Infectious Opportunity. This post features Evanston, A Rare Comedy by Michael Yates Crowley, directed by Michael Rau (whose excellent work on The Great God Brown was featured on this blog here). Evanston, A Rare Comedy was a part of the undergoundzero festival at PS122 and The Summer Sublet Series at HERE.

The play begins with the disappearance of a teenage girl in deepest suburbia and ends when a meeting of The Evanston Women's Book Club goes horribly awry. In between, a transgender student dreams of death, a housewife dreams of Mexico, an economics professor has an affair with a Whole Foods check-out clerk, and the financial crisis rages on.

This post will focus on the moment when Sharon, a leader in the The Evanston Women's Book Club, mourns the death of Betsey, one of their most important members. As Sharon lists the products Betsey loved best, her eulogy moves from comedy to a surprisingly moving paean for the things her friend loved. Both sublime and ridiculous, it perfectly captured the painful depths beneath suburban superficiality.

I asked the playwright, director and actor Anna Margaret Hollyman (Sharon) some questions about that moment.

1. What was your process in writing this eulogy for Betsy? Was it there in the first draft, or did it come around later, and if so, why?

Michael Yates Crowley: The list of products has always been in the script, and it's actually changed very little since the first draft. I think I changed the order a bit. I spent a few afternoons researching product names, from Evanston shops and websites. There's something magical about the sound of these products ("Crabtree & Evelyn Cade Juniper Bark Scrub" sounds like some kind of incantation). One thing that has changed is that I was originally going to perform the list, as the ghost of Betsey, but Anna Margaret was so great we decided she should do it. And, of course, it makes more dramatic sense for it to be Betsey's friend.

2. The sound design (by Asa Wember) of this moment is especially striking: at first, comic; then beautiful; with a tension underneath throughout. Can you describe the design of this moment and how you got there?

Michael Yates Crowley: The song is Ravi Shankar's "Vandanaa Trayee". There was a point during rehearsal when both Rau and I realized the moment needed something more, and we'd always been joking about how Sharon would put on some oriental-sounding music and incense. I wanted something with a sitar and chanting, so I found this and Asa worked it into the sound bed. The song is hilarious by itself, and combined with Anna Margaret's performance it was definitely one of the best moments in the show.

3. What was the process like of working on this monologue? How sincere did you intend it to be? Is it a eulogy at her actual funeral, or does it stand outside of any literal place or action?

Michael Rau: Building this part of the show went through many revisions; I spent a long time in rehearsal with Anna Margaret figuring out the tone of the list; how it built emotionally, and simply defining the given circumstances. We spent a long time struggling with interpreting
Crowley's stage direction--that the list should be solemn like a graduation; I think we took a fair amount of license with it---by our last performance at HERE, Anna Margaret was practically dancing. This moment went through a lot of trial and error. I made poor Anna Magaret repeat the list so many times, with different attempts at placing emotional builds, or changing the given circumstances. And even then once I was happy with that, I still felt that it needed something more, so Crowley and I sat around one night and went through our mp3 collections, and read the list aloud. Crowley played this song, and instantly I knew that was the right one. We gave it to Asa, who mixed it into the sound bed, and we worked to re-calibrate the list with the song, and played around with different timings, and where and when in the music to say some of the items.

Anna Margaret Hollyman: Originally, the list was read much like one would read off names at a graduation, or more accurately, names of victims after a mass tragedy. Crowley had specific ideas about the cadence and intonation, so that eventually, the words themselves have no meaning, and the audience finds themselves lost in a tangle of products. We definitely played with that for a while, at one point I actually had pieces of paper with each individual product listed, and I tossed each one out into "the universe", and they all ended up on the floor.
But eventually Rau gave me the direction to put individualized meaning behind each product on the list, and all of this hinged on sincerity. I think the list is Sharon's strongest attempt at being sincere. Rau always said that the more seriously Sharon takes things, the funnier, and sadder, ultimately. We always envisioned her in her backyard, lighting candles, maybe wearing a kimono, playing Ravi Shankar, and trying to make the experience as, "spiritual" as possible. All of these things on the list essentially sum up the life of Betsey, and it's only through listing these things (with sincere feeling) that Sharon can mourn the loss of her best friend.

THE TEXT:
WHAT BETSEY LOVED
(SHARON is holding the bundle of paper from Betsey’s funeral. She reads each scrap of paper, then lets it fall. Her manner is studiously solemn; items are read in the same tone of voice as names at graduation, or in a list of disaster victims: flat, even, slow.)
SHARON
Whole Foods Organic Grapefruit Mint Triple Milled Soap
Northwestern’s homecoming game
Pom Wonderful Pomegranate Juice
Kiehl’s Restorative Argan Skin Salve
No-cal lemon gelato from that place on the corner
Lululemon Vitalize Tank and Dharma Crop Pants
Starbucks Raspberry Scones
Apple iPod nano in pink
Cold Stone Creamery coffee ice cream with bananas mix-in
L’Occitane Cade Juniper Bark Scrub
Ocean Spray Craisins
Brunch at Le Peep on Sunday mornings
Aveda Tourmaline Charged Exfoliating Cleanser
Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask
Nigella Lawson Bliss Mezzaluna Board, Beech
Jamba Juice Razzmatazz Juice with Antioxidant Power Super Boost
TiVo
Skinstinct Kukui Nut Volcanic Scrub
Body-Wick triple system tech sport bra in grapefruit by Victoria’s Secret
Philosophy airbrush canvas spf--silk-to-satin pigment foundation
Amazing grace--perfumed firming body emulsion--skin firming lotion
Crabtree and Evelyn Nantucket Briar Foaming Milk Bath
Aveda Enbrightenment Brightening Treatment Toner
Whole Foods Antioxidant Shea Butter
Pilates
(End scene.)

THE TAKE AWAYS:
Sincerity is one of the keys to comedy
The banal and sublime are not all that far apart
A rehearsal process should gradually layer meaning onto a moment

YOUR TURN:
If you saw Evanston, A Rare Comedy, what other moments did you find effective?
If you didn't, was this post specific enough to be useful anyway?
Is there a show you've seen recently that has a moment worth exploding? Read the full story

When I was a younger man oh hell let's say when I was a boy, I loved Eugene O'Neill as a convert loves the polish of his new found religion, I was blind off the shine of him; my inclination to drink, already strong and stronger for wanting to lose myself in everyone else, found in O'Neill's artistic journey proof it was more than mere cowardice, but rather the necessary apprenticeship of genius. To drink, to go to sea, and I had already been there so I could focus my energies entirely on to drink, and I was, drunk; six nights out of seven and all seven straight if I was trying. Funneling half a case of Busch is no way to spend a night but it's a great way to lose one; and that was the way I lost many, or rather to my mind then, gained the experience necessary to quote Baudelaire and mean it.

And the play of all plays in that time of life was O'Neill's Great God Brown. A meditation on how those who are good at living are often terrible at Life, told through masks and perhaps the most obviously poetic language of O'Neill's career:

"Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid of love, I who love love? Why am I afraid, I who am not afraid? Why must I pretend to scorn in order to pity? Why must I hide myself in self-contempt in order to understand? Why must I be so ashamed of my strength, so proud of my weakness? Why must I live in a cage like a criminal, defying and hating, I who love peace and friendship?
Why was I born without a skin, O God, that I must wear armor in order to touch or to be
touched? Or rather, Old Graybeard, why the devil was I ever born at all?"

This is Dion Anthony, the mocking artist, in the moment where he first removes his mask and reveals his sincere self. Those first years of school, those words ran through my blood like mercury, I was mad for them. I myself was engaged in the construction of a rather crude and unconvincing mask, and Dion and Eugene's fit so much better.

You would not hear those words, if you'd seen Michael Rau's production at Columbia Stages, nor would Dion remove his mask; for in this production, there are no masks and there is little Dion. To take the central stage language of O'Neill's play away and expect the story to stand is bold; to remove much of the text of the primary antagonist (Dion) is to risk rewriting the play entirely. But Rau's vision, while not O'Neill's, is a fascinating, well-thought riff on it; and I was excited to see the play this different light.

Rather than masks, much of the action takes place behind glass screens, obliquely hinting at the role-playing and distance between public and private self that O'Neill made explicit. When Brown takes on his murdered best friend's persona now, he does not adopt his mask, but rather his shirt. In all these changes, what emerges is a story of one man's obsession for another man's life, and with the excellent Jon Levenson as Brown, it makes for exciting theatre.

There is quite a bit of dissonance between the awkward, rough and passionately original play and this leaner, sleeker, simpler version Rau has staged; but this dissonance adds to the disconnection at the heart of this production. Brown, good at everything in life, resents the love showered on his friend Dion, who is terrible at living and yet is possessed with an undeniable Life. For this, Brown murders him, and tries to become him, until he is consumed by him.

As for O'Neill's uncut masked version, it presents so many challenges in tone and style, that I doubt I will ever have the chance to see it well-staged - I wonder if it even can be. And Rau's version caught enough of the tormented heart of this play to be worth watching.

Also exciting was the chance to see the excellent Catherine Gowl as Cybel the earth mother prostitute; and Sarah Schmitz standing out in an Ensemble role. Both of these actresses, and the eerily present Levenson, are actors I hope to see more of. Read the full story