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american repertory theater | expanding the boundaries of theater
Beowulf
Bad Boy of the Middle Ages
Talking SongPlays with Dave Malloy
Pirates of Penzance Walk the Plank
The Hypocrites (sincerely)
Gilbert and Sullivan
2012/13 SEASON americanrepertorytheater.org
Beowulf Pirates of Penzance
To round out our 2012/13 Season, I’m excited to introduce you to two productions created by two exceptional young theater companies. Each of these shows takes a bold, new spin on traditional material: Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage, created by Banana Bag & Bodice, turns that epic tale into an evening of immersive, raucous delight, and Pirates of Penzance, created by director Sean Graney and his Chicagobased company The Hypocrites, is an energetic take on the beloved comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. Both of these productions were originally featured in our Emerging America Festival: Beowulf in 2011 and Pirates just last June. I am thrilled that their success demanded we bring them back for a full run in our current season. Coming to OBERON in April, Diane Paulus, Beowulf brings a rock-and-roll Artistic Director soul to the medieval legend, with original music composed by Dave Malloy, one of the co-creators and performers of last season’s popular Three Pianos. Come see OBERON transformed into a mead hall, as we follow the hero on his world famous and timeless adventure. Pirates of Penzance comes ashore in May! With all the music performed onstage by the multi-talented cast, this Pirates is immediate, contemporary, alive, and still brimming with all the satirical wit that has kept Gilbert and Sullivan so popular for nearly a century and a half. Read on in this Guide for inside information about each of these inventive productions. As always, thank you for joining the A.R.T. experience, and enjoy the ride!
Photo: Dario Acosta
Welcome to the A.R.T.!
masthead guide staff Managing Editor Ryan McKittrick Senior Editors Grace Geller Brendan Shea Graphic Designers Tak Toyoshima Contributing Editors Jared Fine Kati Mitchell Joel Zayac
Contributors Marissa L. Friedman Sean Graney Alexandra Juckno Fiona Kyle Dave Malloy David Manella Kenneth Molloy Georgia Young
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Spring Cover Photo: Matthew Gregory Hollis
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Pirates of Penzance
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BEOWULF—
A THOUSAND YEARS OF BAGGAGE APRIL 16, 2013 - MAy 5, 2013
By Banana Bag & Bodice | Written by Jason Craig | Music by Dave Malloy Directed by Rod Hipskind and Mallory Catlett OBERON becomes a 21st century mead hall in this passionate retelling of the Old English epic poem. Watch as Beowulf sings, struts, and slashes his way through a thousand years of literary scholarship, revealing the raw and rowdy SongPlay within.
an epic introduction original old English
modern translation
Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon· hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scéfing sceaþena þréatum monegum maégþum meodosetla oftéah· egsode Eorle syððan aérest wearð féasceaft funden hé þæs frófre gebád· wéox under wolcnum· weorðmyndum þáh oð þæt him aéghwylc þára ymbsittendra ofer hronráde hýran scolde, gomban gyldan· þæt wæs gód cyning.
Listen! We– of the Spear-Danes in the days of yore, of those clan-kings– heard of their glory. how those nobles performed courageous deeds. Often Scyld, Scef’s son, from enemy hosts from many peoples sized mead-benches; and terrorised the fearsome Heruli after first he was found helpless and destitute, he then knew recompense for that:he waxed under the clouds, throve in honours, until to him each of the bordering tribes beyond the whale-road had to submit, and yield tribute: that was a good king! Translated and edited by Benjamin Slade
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Photo: Chloé Laetitia Thomas
Pirates of Penzance
Beowulf
Jason Craig as Beowulf and Rod Hipskind as Grendel
21st Century Epic
Fiona Kyle speaks with Beowulf writer Jason Craig, composer Dave Malloy, and performer Jessica Jelliffe Fiona Kyle: What drew you to the story of Beowulf?
FK: As an epic poem, Beowulf is very long and includes a vast amount of characters. What was your process for conflating and condensing the story into one act?
Jason Craig: Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage started as a commission by The Shotgun Players in Berkeley, California. They pretty much opened the doors to any subject matter we JC: The way I write is based on economy. We run a theater wanted; it could be a completely brand-new story made up by company, and I’m always thinking about our actors playing multiple us, or it could be an adaptation. Because it was a relatively big characters. Less people on stage will probably make it easier in the commission with a company that I’d never worked with before, long run, especially when we go on tour. Then Dave writes a score I kind of wanted to play it safe. So I picked Beowulf, for seven people… so that kind of screws that having never read it, which I guess is not all that safe. The idea up! But, our adaptation is boiled down to “I think that adaptation we ended up creating is informed by the way the necessary components—Beowulf, Grendel, humor comes that Beowulf was first told. Originally it was not written Grendel’s mother, the dragon, and the king, down. It was told in mead halls by different storytellers and who represents the people—and has simplified from wanting bards who enhanced the story as they saw fit. We wanted the story so that it’s more approachable for an the audience to do a similar thing. And in our version, there are three audience to sink their teeth into. to participate. academics giving their discourse on the original story. Laughing is an FK: Your adaptation juxtaposes the violence FK: There are many different musical styles included in and gore of Beowulf’s world with a wicked easy way to Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage: could you talk sense of humor. How did that come about? participate in about how they help tell the story? and relate to JC: I think that humor comes from wanting the Dave Malloy: I write pretty instinctually. Jason writes audience to participate. Laughing is an easy way the play. Plus, the script first and then I look at that script. Then I take to participate in and relate to the play. Plus, it’s it’s just fun to each individual scene and moment and go through how I just fun to laugh. Also, when I read Beowulf I laugh.” want to set it musically. It’s not like I decide that the whole realized it was about a cocky hero. It’s comic score has to be jazz, or techno, I just start writing and book stuff, completely not my aesthetic at all. I something comes out, and that stems a lot from how I listen didn’t grow up playing Dungeons and Dragons; I to music. I listen to things on shuffle, and I listen to lots and lots never read the superhero comic books, so my response was of different genres of music all at once. When Beowulf makes his to laugh at the original story. That was one of the ways I could grand entrance, the writing for that moment is very bombastic, so get involved with it; to have a sense of humor about it. We’re being it felt like it needed a big, driving techno beat. reverent with Beowulf, but having fun with it, too.
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Beowulf Pirates of Penzance
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AN EPIC BEER BRAWL AT GRENDEL’S DEN It is written that the wounded monster Grendel, following his defeat at the hands of Beowulf, flees the mead hall Heorot to perish in the nearby marshes. However, some scholars* speculate that the real-life Grendel actually survived his encounter with Beowulf, chartered a longboat across the Atlantic, and set up shop in Cambridge as a publican and brewmaster. Having traded one mead hall for another, the monster opened the eponymous Grendel’s Den in the heart of Harvard Square. Grendel’s Den has been a Harvard Square fixture for almost 1000 years** and continues to be a popular spot for drinkin’ and half-price eatin’. We’ve come up with an epic beer list from the Den’s sizable collection*** that would satisfy even Beowulf himself (though, as per the founder’s request, he has been banned for life).
Round One
Southern Tier Pumpking Imperial Pumpkin Ale All hail King Hrothgar with this big, deliciously malty pumpkin brew.
Round Two Carlsberg
German-style Pilsner I hear they had this classic Danish beer on draft in Heorot (12th century Denmark’s premier meadhall).
Round Three Grendel’s Ale
English-style Pale Ale No night of paying liquid homage to Beowulf would be complete without sampling Grendel’s house beer, brewed from an ancient recipe passed down by his mother. At this point, triumphantly march to the next mead hall, OBERON, and enjoy Banana Bag & Bodice’s raucous re-telling Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage! Grendel’s Den is located at 89 Winthrop Street in Harvard Square. Drop in 11:30am to 1:00am every day and raise a glass to everyone’s favorite Old English monster. *actually no scholars **40 years, specifically ***the Den rotates their beer list all the time; our picks are subject to availability
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FK: In adapting a thousand-year-old epic, did you find it necessary to reevaluate some of its characters, or approach them from a contemporary perspective? JC: I don’t think it was necessary to re-evaluate Beowulf, but I thought it was necessary to do it with Grendel. We’re currently in a time where people are labeled as villains. “What is evil?” is a question that’s been on people’s tongues in the past ten or twelve years. I think that taking a different look at Grendel, the “villain” of Beowulf, is quite important. DM: Grendel’s mother, even more so than Grendel, is justified in her desire for vengeance. Her son has been killed just for being who he is. Beowulf’s slaying of Grendel and its aftermath is one of the moral ambiguities of Beowulf. FK: What has been the reaction to Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage? Jessica Jelliffe: When Jason first started talking to people about Beowulf, they told their versions of it and their feelings about learning it in school. Most people seemed to have a frustrating relationship with the poem and often had not even read the last part of the story. It seems to me that a large part of what our Beowulf is about is rediscovering and embracing the story. A lot of people who didn’t necessarily love the poem see the play
Jessica Jelliffe as Grendel’s mother and Rod Hipskind as Grendel.
and have a change of heart about Beowulf. They realize that they didn’t get to appreciate it when they were forced to read it in Old English. FK: Beowulf played at OBERON three years ago, and again in the spring of 2011. What are your thoughts on returning to Cambridge/Boston? JC: We’re looking forward to getting back to that space and performing it for three weeks. It’s really exciting that the A.R.T. is bringing us up here for such a long run. We’ve been doing these little blips, one night here and one week there, and it’s great to have time to dig our teeth in. Boston and Cambridge are huge academic towns and we have had great response from students and professors here. They liked how open we were to having fun with Beowulf.
Fiona Kyle is a first-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
The Legend Continues…
Over the past 1000 years, Beowulf has been adapted into films, comic books, novels, toys, t-shirts…you get the idea. Here are some highlights from Beowulf’s journey through the highbrow, the lowbrow and everything in between. Grendel. Gardner, John. New York: Knopf, 1971 Beowulf: Dragon Slayer. DC Comics, 1975-76. Grendel (opera). By Elliot Goldenthal, Original Dir. Julie Taymor at LA Opera in 2006. Beowulf (film). Dir. Robert Zemeckis. 2007. Grendel’s Cave (online game). grendelscave.com, 1998-Present.
Photo: Chloé Laetitia Thomas
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On words that describe plays with music in them By Dave Malloy This show began back in 2007 with a ridiculous idea: to write an opera based on Beowulf. It’s not actually a ridiculous idea, seeing as it’s already been done at least three times, but it was a ridiculous idea for us. “Opera” suggested so many things that we lacked. Supertitles. Large string sections. Training in “opera singing.” Et cetera. But we had a fun time using the word, marveling over its elitist weight, and the gravity of it informed the work. Musically, this meant fusing my usual jazz and rock tendencies with more classical harmony and melody, channeling Bach, Schubert, and Mahler (none of whom wrote a significant opera, but still) and contemporary operatists like Glass and Adams, and reveling in the paradoxically distancingyet-more-revealing emotional veil of singing “We started that all the sung-through musicals I love—from Jesus Christ Superstar to Miss Saigon—seem throwing to share. around ‘partAs the piece developed, two worlds began opera/partto take shape, that of our lecturers and that criticism,’ are exceptions to everything). The other commonly cited of Beowulf. And one seemed decidedly less distinction between “opera” and “musical” is that in an opera musical than the other. Now “opera” typically which the music is the primary driving force, while in a musical the refers to a piece that is exclusively sung, as certainly had lyrics are (music critic Anthony Tommasini recently wrote opposed to a “musical,” in which there are a lot of cool a compelling piece on this distinction in the The New York spoken sections. Of course, this distinction gets punctuation in Times)… but again this definition gets messy quickly, and in messy and inaccurate pretty quickly (this strict the case of our work, we strive to put the two elements on definition makes Pink Floyd’s live performances it, but was not equal footing. And the half measure compromise of the term of The Wall more of an opera than Mozart’s Die quite right” “music theater” to me feels oddly bland and PC at best and Zauberflöte, which has extensive spoken self-loathing at worst. sections), but as our piece began taking shape Now truth is, back in the day in Europe there were and the sung-to-spoken ratio started to even quite a few words in use. Opéra comique (Carmen), operetta (Die out, “opera” seemed a bit less correct to my OCD ears. We Fledermaus) and Singspiel (Die Zauberflöte) are all terms started throwing around “part-opera/part-criticism,” which describing “operas” that employ popular music and feature spoken certainly had a lot of cool punctuation in it, but was not quite right dialog. We leaned toward Singspiel, German for “singing play,” but either. There was still that weight that we liked, but the lack of of course, we’re not German (and neither is Beowulf), so after a recitative, the mostly four-minute pop song structures, the fact that quick bit of quirky translation we came up with “SongPlay.” we aren’t The Who in the seventies... somehow “opera” just didn’t In the end these words don’t matter much, and deciding that fly, you know? they do matter leads to awful things like José Carreras singing But then the obvious alternative, “musical,” seemed too... Maria. Sondheim I think said it best: “opera is musical theater that commercial a word. Much as I love me my musical theater (I can takes place in an opera house in front of an opera audience.” sing every lick of The Music Man, My Fair Lady, and Les Miz, So. easy), there is a campy, easily digestible, high-school-dramaIn the end, we have this play, and there is quite a bit of song in nerdy (and hey chill, I was one) connotation to the word that just it. It’s a SongPlay. isn’t as viscerally compelling as “opera.” I don’t think this odd Okay? inappropriateness of the word is unique to this work; West Side Story and Sweeney Todd come to mind as other uneasy members of Dave Malloy is the composer of Beowulf—A Thousand Years the genre. Plus Banana Bag & Bodice’s generally loose and abstract of Baggage and was one of the creators and performers of last narrative structure seems at odds with the clear two-act classicism season’s Three Pianos. of Broadway (though, again, Company, A Chorus Line, HAIR—there
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Beowulf
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The Hypocrites’ Pirates of Penzance May 10, 2013 - June 2, 2013
Pirates of Penzance
By Gilbert and Sullivan | New adaptation by Sean Graney and Kevin O’Donnell Directed by Sean Graney The Hypocrites bring their award-winning and audience favorite production from their native Chicago. An eighty-minute exotic excursion featuring bathing beauties, philosophizing pirates, and grown men in remarkably short shorts! Come ashore with the “Very Model of A Modern Major General,” the Pirate King, and a banjo-picking Mabel. The show features beach balls, sunshine (the artificial kind), and tons of fun music.
Rob McLean
Pirate King
What did you learn about Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? That their plots are RIDICULOUS and they love the chord of E flat. What about The Hypocrites makes them stand out among other theater ensembles? We spend a lot of time trying to define this. I think it is how we combine seemingly opposite things: funny and tragic, smart and silly, highly theatrical and emotionally honest, in our work. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? Captain Roger Bonney. An Internet quiz told me this once.
Emily Casey Daughter
What did you learn about Pirates of Penzance and/or Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? I’ve learned that these guys really knew funny. Each time we remount, I wonder if I’ll be sick of the jokes. I never am. No wonder this show has been around for over 100 years. What about The Hypocrites makes them stand out among other theater ensembles? Risk taking. The Hypos encourage actors to just jump out of the plane and worry about the parachute later. It is both terrifying and exciting and makes for really fresh, interesting work. Favorite song from the show, and why? It’s hard to pick one! I like them all in such different ways for different reasons. I used to hate “Climbing Over Rocky Mountain” because I thought skipping, playing the ukulele, singing and acting at the same time was impossible. But now I actually look forward to doing that each show. Also, tutus make everything easier. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? I don’t know but I hope I’d be as cool as Christine’s character Ruth if I were a real-life pirate. And as sexy.
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Frederic
Mabel/Ruth
What about The Hypocrites makes them stand out among other theater ensembles? A real sense of community with our audiences. We want people to always feel welcomed and know that they are a vital part of what we’re making. We’re all in this together! Favorite song from the show, and why? Oooh boy. I think it’d have to be “Sighing Softly to the River.” It’s a moment in the show when we really take things down, to this simple, quiet, and beautiful place. I could listen to Matt and Shawn sing this duet forever. Seriously. For. Ever. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? Scurvy Stulik? I feel like I’d forget to take my Vitamin C supplements.
What is a favorite Hypocrite project? Every production I’ve done with the Hypocrites is one of my favorites, but one that springs to mind is Sophocles: Seven Sicknesses. In a four-hour evening we presented all seven surviving Sophocles plays (and ate Greek food with the audience after spraying them with fake blood). It was a good time. What did you learn about Pirates of Penzance and/ or Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? I have learned that Gilbert and Sullivan are super duper smart and super duper fun, but very, very, very hard to master.
Pirates of Penzance
What did you learn about Pirates of Penzance and/or Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? How funny this stuff is! These guys were a real laugh riot. I remember Sean saying he went into the script to adapt the libretto, but ended up keeping most of it.
Beowulf
Zeke Sulkes
Christine Stulik
Favorite song from the show, and why? I love all of the songs in the show, but if I had to pick it would be my duet with Mabel (Christine Stulik). I have known Christine for almost 10 years, and every time we share that moment onstage it makes me happy and thankful to be alive... the joy is all consuming. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? The Dastardly Glute, because I’m Celiac and can’t eat Gluten.
Dana Omar Daughter
What did you learn about Pirates of Penzance and/or Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? Oh man. I learned everything! The plot to every Gilbert and Sullivan show is complex but incredibly rewarding and fun. The more times you see the show the more you realize fun plot/musical points you didn’t pick up the first time. They also created some really great jams. What about The Hypocrites makes them stand out among other theater ensembles? As an actor, you really feel part of something familiar and new all at once. I think The Hypocrites do an amazing job of paying homage to the original piece but simultaneously not being afraid to do something new and interesting with it. Favorite song from the show and why? Ah, “Leave Me Not to Pine.” It’s so beautiful and simple. I especially love our rendition of it. Plus, I’m a big sap. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? Buxome Blackwater. How cool does that sound?
Shawn Pfautsch
Pirate
What did you learn about Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? My grandparents were both voice professionals and they dragged me, sighing and sullen, to the Dallas Opera in order to expand my artistic horizons. I can’t say that I ever truly enjoyed even the most “crowd pleasing” operas (The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni)—I liked some of the arias, hated the recitatives, was confounded at the expense of the sets and costumes and nearly died of clapping during the long curtain calls. But I remember seeing a production of The Mikado in Ohio and loving it. Later, as a voice student in high school and college, I think I was purposefully kept ignorant of Gilbert and Sullivan— they’re just too smart and catchy to be taken seriously by many opera professionals. I think if I had been properly introduced to Gilbert and Sullivan as a voice student, I might not have ditched the opera world for theater. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be and why? My pirate name would be “Spyglass” because I’d be the pirate at the top of the mast with a telescope in hand looking out for trey-zhure.
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Beowulf
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Matt Kahler
Pirates of Penzance
Major General/Samuel
Doug Pawlik Pirate
What did you learn about Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? Gilbert and Sullivan have earned their reputation. They were, and still are, prolific jokesters who love to take social, political, and legal conventions and stretch them to the point of hilarity! I think that if they were writing today, they would still be just as popular of a writing duo. I also happen to think that if they were able to see our adaptation of their operetta that they would eat it up by the spoonful. What about The Hypocrites makes them stand out among other theater ensembles? The Hypocrites seek to make a more literal audience connection than most theater companies. Many of their shows are in promenade style, like Pirates where we are acting IN the audience, with you! We are right next to you and your presence is part of the scene, influencing our choices, informing the text moment by moment. Some of my favorite memories of doing this show involve audience members who were, quite literally, right in the swimming pool with us. This style, I think, allows the story to feel fresher, more real, and makes an audience feel more invested in its outcome. Favorite song from the show, and why? The crowd favorite, “Modern Major General,” because of the overthe-top silliness of the song in general but also because of the way our own Matt Kahler plays off (and with) the crowd night after night. It never fails to make me smile seeing how that song exceeds peoples expectations. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? Something like the Purple Fox. I think I am a rather colorful person and it’s my favorite color. And a Fox because of the swift way in which I flit around the stage with my clarinet and short shorts.
What did you learn about Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? These guys were basically the first pop music writers, in the way we still think of pop-ultra-catchy tunes that stick in your head, with silly, brilliant lyrics. What about The Hypocrites makes them stand out among other theater ensembles? The Hypocrites have no fear. And they combine that with the ability to craft stories in an intimate way from the text, to the ensemble, to the amazing design team. The end result may be joyous or it may be terrifying. Or both. But it will make a mark on you as a theatergoer. Enjoy. Favorite song from the show, and why? “Sighing Softly to the River”—I just love singing it. It might be the silliest song in the show. If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? “Yeti Jack” Larch. I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.
Ryan Bourque
Pirate
What did you learn about Pirates of Penzance and/or Gilbert and Sullivan from working on this show? I learned how to connect with an audience and really share an experience with a group of people, in and outside of a cast. Doing this show, you really get to know an audience, and each incarnation of the show brings a new experience, to something very familiar. I also learned that Gilbert and Sullivan can write some amazing songs, and story lines that can still make people laugh. Favorite song from the show, and why? “Away, Away,” because I get a sweet guitar solo.
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Photos by Matthew Gregory Hollis and Paul Metreyeon. Compiled by Marissa L. Friedman. Marissa L. Friedman is a first-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
If you were a real-life pirate, what would your name be? Thomas.
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By Will Eno Directed by Marcus Stern Feb 22, 2013 to Mar 2, 2013
The Abolitionist Project
Pirates of Penzance
The Flu Season
Beowulf
THE 2012/13 A.R.T./MXAT INSTITUTE SEASON
Devised with the Class of ‘13 and Directed by Steven Bogart May 24, 2013 to June 1, 2013
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The Hypocrites’ Pirates of Penzance
By Sean Graney
Pirates of Penzance
manages to comment on the faults of society without the heavy I had very little experience with The Pirates of Penzance before hand of judgment. It smartly allows audiences to question the world I decided to direct it. In college, while I was studying “serious” on their own terms. I loved everything about Pirates of Penzance. acting, I was introduced to Pirates only in theory. The title was a I was surprised that it took me so long to fall in love with the work cliché for everything wrong with superficial theater and would often of Gilbert and Sullivan. It was like arriving at work one day and become a disdainful punch line for mockery musicals. realizing that you are deeply in love with a coI started The worker you had ignored for fifteen years. Hypocrites in When I starting thinking about how to direct Chicago fifteen Pirates, I remembered something else that had years ago in order to frustrated me with Threepenny: the incorporation explore theater in a of the orchestra late in the process. This always personal way. (I had felt strange to me, to have such a sudden no idea what that expansion of the group of artists. So I looked meant then, and I to the work of the Scottish director John Doyle, still don’t.) About where the performers act as their own musical five years ago, I accompaniment. I also thought it would be thought it would be exciting to make this production more immersive interesting to explore and allow the audience to mingle with the a musical with The performers. Hypocrites. The first I made a script that could be played within musical we staged an hour and a half for a cast of ten with some was the Brecht/ fun theatrical doubling, then my composer/ Weill masterpiece collaborator Kevin O’Donnell began working on the The Threepenny arrangements. Opera, which We cast the show with amazingly talented seemed like the and eager performers. Some could play most logical choice. “Pirates ... is interesting instruments, some were really Rehearsals began completely proficient guitarists, some had great voices, and I quickly realized some just had a great energy but could only the requirements hopeful, yet, roughly plunk out a few chords on the guitar. of a musical are with such But everyone in the cast was up to the crazy completely different amazing challenge of creating our version of The Pirates than those of a of Penzance, or so we thought. straight play, which precision of When we opened our production in should have been wit it manages Chicago, I was nervous about how it would be obvious before we to comment received by Gilbert and Sullivan purists. But began, but it wasn’t. I found people who love more traditional The Man, did I learn much from that process. on the faults Pirates of Penzance productions really enjoyed One of the frustrations I encountered while directing of society, our version—not as a proposal to abolish more Threepenny was that being a director who mostly adapts without the conventional versions, but as a counterpoint. classic text, I could not explore my usual creative process with the piece because, as with most musicals, having been heavy hand of I also found that people who have no relationship to Gilbert and Sullivan found our created within the last 100 years, it still remains under judgment.” production a really great introduction. We copyright laws, and cannot therefore be adapted. However, love Gilbert and Sullivan and our production Threepenny Opera was quite successful for The Hypocrites, is done in complete deference. We just have a and it seemed our audience was eager to see more musicals. different relationship than most people. We want to share A smart Artistic Director would have been able to overlook the that relationship with audiences and hope that they enjoy it. frustrations I had encountered and keep programming musicals. In fact, we have just created a companion piece to Pirates: But something felt forced, like a vague attempt to be financially The Mikado, being performed in rep by the same cast. It opened to successful, rather than delivering an engaging and unique piece enthusiastic audiences and great reviews. In the future, I hope to of theater. So I began to explore musicals that were in the public add more and more G&S, until we have a revolving menu of their domain, in order for us to modify the piece as we crafted the ingenious work. production in the rehearsal room. I hope you enjoy the show, thank you for reading this. The Pirates of Penzance was the first piece I examined with this charge, and I quickly knew it was the right project for Sean Graney is Artistic Director of The Hypocrites, and director of us. Pirates is smart, catchy, and optimistically subversive. It is Pirates of Penzance. completely hopeful, yet, with such amazing precision of wit, it
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The Pirates of Penzance, SAVOY THEATRE, 1908
a buried treasure:
the history of the pirates of penzance By Kenneth Molloy The death of the legendary Blackbeard in 1718 marked the end of an era that came to be known, in Gilbert and Sullivan’s day, as the Golden Age of Piracy. During this storied period, the predations of England’s privateers (essentially, legal pirates) upon foreign trade ships were a boon to the Crown, and many a buccaneer captured the hearts of the public. In comparison to the authoritarian command structure found on naval vessels, pirate crews were democratically organized; not only were food stores and loot divided equally among the sailors, but, up to a century before the American Revolution, pirate ships widely implemented three branches of government—an elected captain, a popular assembly, and a quartermaster to arbitrate disputes. The strange nobility of these renegades, and its premonition of a new political epoch, is reflected in The Pirates of Penzance. Though the thematic language of this comic opera is richly Victorian, Gilbert and Sullivan’s characteristic fearlessness to question power, to subvert tradition, and see the humanity of the rogue is a timeless gift. When W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan made voyage from London to New York in 1879, hoping to stem a national epidemic of unauthorized productions of their H.M.S. Pinafore, they were greeted in the harbor by a fleet of “pirate ships,” flying the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack side-by-side as they defiantly blared the stolen music. Jarred by this display, the duo hastily composed their next work here in the States, and in five weeks premiered The Pirates of Penzance at Broadway’s Fifth Avenue Theater on New Year’s Eve. Though this safeguard against future copyright infringement—then an embryonic legal concept—was ultimately less than successful, the circumstances of the operetta’s genesis are inscribed indelibly in it. Sullivan had forgotten his draft of the first act’s score
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Gilbert and Sullivan caricature by Alfred Bryan, 1878
across the Atlantic, and so suffered, in his words to his mother, “imprisonment with hard labour, never going to bed before 5:30 in the morning,” as he struggled to reconstruct his work from memory. As the entrance of the woman’s chorus escaped him, he interpolated “Climbing over Rocky Mountain” from Thespis, his first collaboration with Gilbert. Even the original composition from Thespis has in it a familiarity, which a computer-assisted Stanford study attributes to metrical “borrowing”—from Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” in “Pour, oh Pour the Pirate Sherry” and the traditional Christmas carol “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” in “With Cat-Like Tread”; scholars have detected resonances and parodies of a litany of musical luminaries, from Handel to Mozart to Verdi. Blackbeard famously dubbed his ship Queen Anne’s Revenge, a fitting name for a former slave freighter repurposed as an instrument of havoc. But Gilbert and Sullivan’s experiment with piracy was more, however, then a petty jab at the 150-some U.S. stages that staged their work royalty-free. The Pirates of Penzance, in its narrative of innocuous marauders revealed to be merely “noblemen who have gone wrong,” is a measured look at an absurd construction of justice and its opposite. It is an exercise in pseudo-piracy as well as self-piracy, the realization of ideas its authors had experimented with throughout their shared career: the arbitrary insanity of duty and loyalty, the hypocrisy and ineptitude of institutions, the transcendence of nature and art. Gilbert and Sullivan would no doubt appreciate the irony in that, though the salient argument of their corpus is a criticism of the status quo, the performance of that corpus has become canonical in last century. The Savoy Operas—so named for the theater erected continued on page 18 >
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by impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte to showcase the work of this phenomenal pair—inspire many to an almost eccentric devotion, perhaps best attested by a New York Times article published on February 29, 1940, which announces leap-baby Frederic’s longawaited twenty-first birthday and release from his indentures, then notes that Gilbert’s math was four years off. Such devotion is to be credited for the custodianship of Gilbert and Sullivan’s oeuvre through the decades, but implicit in it is often a belief that there is a narrowly-defined, intended “The Pirates of way to stage that oeuvre. Penzance... [is] Among the most significant points of collision the realization between the die-hard Savoyard school and the larger theater community was the 1980 The of ideas its Pirates of Penzance in Central Park’s Delacorte authors had Theater, a celebration of the work’s centennial experimented under the auspices of Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. The incendiary ideals with throughout of Papp’s early career and the establishment their shared sensibilities of his later efforts would seem to be career: the arthur Sullivan in 1864 reconciled perfectly in the operetta’s aristocratic arbitrary irreverence, but an apprehension of backlash Theatre and from there to a 1983 feature film. nevertheless hung over the production. Director insanity of duty History hereafter becomes almost too poetic. Linda Wilford Leach explains, “we treated Pirates as and loyalty, the Bennetts reported for The New York Times in 1983, a new work, as something living rather than as hypocrisy and “A production of ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ opened something to be done correctly,” with reverence in Dublin last winter, using what William Elliott, the ineptitude of toward the dead. “We approached the production composer of The New York Shakespeare Festival’s from the script itself, and from the music, rather institutions, the own original orchestration, calls a ‘literally note-forthan from the tradition of how it ‘ought’ to be transcendence note’ duplication of his musical arrangements. In done.” In this spirit, new, largely electronic of nature and theaters around the country, unlicensed productions orchestration was devised, and, in an echo of are featuring such original elements of the New York Gilbert’s desperate plundering of Thespis, two art.” show.” Pirates had yet again descended on Pirates. songs from the author’s other operettas were In approaching a production of The Pirates of interpolated, in the interest of showcasing Linda Penzance, be it an extravaganza like Papp’s or the work of an Rondstadt’s Mabel, a highlight of an ensemble led by Kevin earnest student troupe, the most common foible is to ask, “would Kline as Frederic. Despite these stylistic choices, deliberately posh the authors approve?” Aside from the fact that Gilbert and Sullivan costuming and a few tweaks to the libretto, only a few voices were two individuals who often didn’t approve of each other, of purist dissent came scattered amidst a torrent of critical and the transcendently topsy-turvy ethos that crackles through the popular praise as the show moved on to Broadway’s Minskoff Savoy Operas seems to approve of what it doesn’t approve. Let us remember the retort of pirate Black Sam Bellamy, to a merchant crew’s protest that the laws of god and man forbid piracy, “I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me! But there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure.” A Pirates of Penzance like director Sean Graney’s, coming to A.R.T. this May, with its greatly truncated 80-minute running time, spare ensemble-based orchestration, and relaxed, surf-shack atmosphere, is most certainly not the comic opera of 1879 or the musical of 1980. For that very reason, paradoxically, it most certainly is. Kenneth Molloy is a second-year dramaturgy student in the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
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W.S. Gilbert at his desk in 1890s
From the collection of Peter Joslin
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