BOBRAUSCHENBERGA MERICA CHARLES L. MEE
AN ACTOR PACKET BY MADELINE KRANZ
______________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents 1 Charles L. Mee 2-4 Biography & Work 3 The making of bobrauschenbergamerica 4 Bob Rauschenberg 5-14 Early Life 5 Education 6 Relationships 7 Early Work 8 Collages & Combines 9-11 Performance Work 12 Late Work 13 Commentary / Supplementary Material 14 Art History 15-16 bobrauschnebergamerica 17-35 Scenic inspiration Pages 18-35
_____________________________ _____________________________
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
CHARLES L. MEE http://www.charlesmee.org/index.shtml
What I like My own work begins with the belief that human beings are, as Aristotle said, social creatures—that we are the product not just of psychology, but also of history and of culture, that we often express our histories and cultures in ways even we are not conscious of, that the culture speaks through us, grabs us and throws us to the ground, cries out, silences us. I don't write "political plays" in the usual sense of the term; but I write out of the belief that we are creatures of our history and culture and gender and politics—that our beings and actions arise from that complex of influences and forces and motivations, that our lives are more rich and complex than can be reduced to a single source of human motivation. So I try in my work to get past traditional forms of psychological realism, to bring into the frame of the plays material from history, philosophy, insanity, inattention, distractedness, judicial theory, sudden violent passion, lyricism, the National Enquirer, nostalgia, longing, aspiration, literary criticism, anguish, confusion, inability. I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable. My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, careen into each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns. That feels good to me. It feels like my life. It feels like the world. And then I like to put this—with some sense of struggle remaining—into a classical form, a Greek form, or a beautiful dance theatre piece, or some other effort at civilization. —Chuck Mee
an interview with Chuck Mee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD03Ps5
______________________________________________ BIOGRAPHY Charles L. Mee (born September 15, 1938) is an American playwright, historian and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which makes use of radical reconstructions of found texts. Mee was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1938. He led a typical middle-class, Midwestern boyhood until he contracted polio at the age of fourteen. His memoir A Nearly Normal Life (1999) tells how that event informed the rest of his life. After graduating from Harvard University in 1960, Mee moved to Greenwich Village and became a part of the Off-Off-Broadway scene. Mee worked as editor for multiple magazines, and in 1965 turned to writing books to support his family. At the same time he increasingly became caught up in anti-Vietnam War politics, campaigning for anti-war congressional candidates and writing anti-war polemics. He wouldn't return to writing for the theater for another 20 years. His political activism and investigation of American imperialism led to his writing of political histories for the general public, books on summit diplomacy, international power sharing, and American history. Mee returned to playwrighting in 1985. Another Person is a Foreign Country (1991), an En Garde Arts site specific performance, was the first of Mee's many collaborations with director Anne Bogart. Orestes was Mee’s breakthrough play in 1992. The play was the first of ten plays that would use Greek texts as scaffolding upon which he would stick his new fragments of text and then "throw the scaffolding away and call whatever remained the script." In other plays, Mee explores twentieth-century American history and culture through the points-of-view of contemporary visual artists, and has written a number of comedies and romances. As source material, Mee would use Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, Molière, Anton Chekhov, René Magritte paintings, Bollywood musicals, and his own writing. His play Full Circle is based on the Bertolt Brecht play The Caucasian Chalk Circle. He is the only resident playwright of the theatre ensemble SITI Company, for whom he wrote Orestes, bobrauschenbergamerica, Hotel Cassiopeia, Under Construction, and soot and spit (the musical). Mee was the Signature Theatre Playwright-in-Residence for the 2007–2008 season. In 2008, Shakespeare and Renaissance scholar Stephen Greenblatt collaborated with Mee to write Cardenio. It premiered at The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) in 2008. He currently teaches playwrighting at the Columbia University School of the Arts.
_______________________________________________ THE PLAYS Solos • Fragments • First Love (2001) • Gone (2007) • Café le Monde • The House of Cards (1996) • Requiem for the Dead (2003) • Daily Life Everlasting • Life is a Dream (1996) • The Lives of the Artists • Eterniday • Salome (2003) • bobrauschenbergamerica (2001) • The Four Seasons Duets • Hotel Cassiopeia (2006) • Heaven on Earth (2009) • Limonade Tous les Jours (2002) • Picasso's Masterpiece • The Life Of George Washington • First Love • Self Portrait • Memory Palace The Trilogy: Imperial Dreams • soot and spit • Night and Day • I. Iphigenia 2.0 (2007) • Under Construction (2009) • Night (Thyestes 2.0) • II. Trojan Women: A Love Story ( 1994) • Comedies and Romances • Day (Daphnis and Chloe 2.0) • III. Orestes 2.0 (1992) • Big Love (play) (2000) • Vienna: Lusthaus (1986) Other Tragedies and History Plays • Fetes de la Nuit (2005) • A Walk in the Park • Agamemnon 2.0 (1994) • Fire Island (2008) • The Streets of New York • The Bacchae 2.1 (1993) • A Perfect Wedding (2004) • The New World Order • The Constitutional Convention: A Sequel (1996) • Paradise Park (2008) • Coney Island Avenue (2009) • Full Circle (1998) • Summertime (2000) • The Mail Order Bride (2004) • Bedtime Stories (1988) • Wintertime (2005) • Queens Boulevard (2009) • The Investigation (1989) • Cardenio (written with Stephen Greenblatt) • Utopia Parkway (2002) (2008) • Time to Burn (1997) • Dance Theatre Pieces • True Love ( 2001) • American Document (2010) • The War to End War (1993) • Another Person Is a Foreign Country (1991) • Belle Époque (2004)
______________________________________________ THE MAKING OF THE PLAY PROGRAM NOTE: The text for bobrauschenbergamerica was developed in a workshop with Tali Gai, Jane Comfort, Kathleen Turco-Lyon, Rebecca Brown, Reba Herman, Alec Duffy, Jacki Goldhammer, and Carolyn Clark Smith and incorporates texts from them as well as from Robert Rauschenberg, Fred Becker, Philip Morrison, Walt Whitman, William S. Burroughs, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Allen Ginsberg, and Laurie Williams.
Remaking American Theatre Charles Mee, Ann Bogart, and the SITI Company Scott T. Cummings http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/18209/frontmatter/9780521818209_frontmatter.pdf
And so, whether we mean to or not, the work we do is both received and created, both an adaptation and an original, at the same time. We re-make things as we go. The plays on this website were mostly composed in the way that Max Ernst made his Fatagaga pieces toward the end of World War I: texts have often been taken from, or inspired by, other texts. Among the sources for these pieces are the classical plays of Euripides as well as texts from the contemporary world. I think of these appropriated texts as historical documents—as evidence of who and how we are and what we do. And I think of the characters who speak these texts as characters like the rest of us: people through whom the culture speaks, often without the speakers knowing it. And I hope those who read the plays published here will feel free to treat the texts I've made in the same way I've treated the texts of others. —Chuck Mee “Most of my plays are filled with appropriated, sampled material. I mean, that's what I love to do, that's what I do. My original dramaturg is Max Ernst, who more or less invented the modern collage back in the time of World War I. And what I think he did was, he took material form the real world and rendered it as an hallucination. And that's sort of my model. And so I like to think that I sample stuff from the real world and I re-enter it as a work of imagination, hallucination, dream.”
a clip of SITI Company’s original production:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZczgZwZGqA
_______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ EARLY LIFE
BOB RAUSCHENBERG
http://fadedandblurred.com/spotlight/lenfant-terrible-robert-rauschenberg/ http://www.artnet.com/artists/robert-rauschenberg/ http://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org
1925 born Port Arthur,Texas
born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg to fundamentalist Christian parents in a rural oil town. “…I was going to be a preacher until I was thirteen. I was really serious about it. Finally, I decided I couldn’t spend the rest of my life thinking that everyone else was going to hell…”
1943 graduates, attends UT, drops out, get drafted
Rauschenberg makes a deal with his father to attend college (for pharmacy) for one year... After refusing to dissect a frog he was suspended, and one month later drafted into the navy where he served as a neuropsychiatric technician in the U.S. Navy Hospital Corps in San Diego.
1944 Serving in the army, first exposure to art
Rauschenberg gets his first exposure to art while serving the army; first painting in bootcamp in Idaho, then at his first visit to a museum, The Huntington Gardens near San Diego. Here he was particularly inspired by three paintings; (from left to right) The Blue Boy by Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds’s Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse, and Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence. Up until this point, he had no idea there was such a thing as being an artist; “…behind each of them was a man whose profession it was to make them. That just never occurred to me before.”
______________________________________________ EDUCATION & TEACHERS 1947-1952 Attends 4 art schools in 4 years
After the war Rauschenberg attended the Kansas City Art Institute for a year, then the Académie Julian in Paris on the GI bill. There he met Susan Weil, who would later become his wife. They left Paris and came back to study at the Black Mountain College, an experimental art school, where he was instructed by Josef Albers who Time had called Albers the greatest disciplinarian in America. Albers’ preliminary courses relied on strict discipline and he did not allow “uninfluenced experimentation.” Rauschenberg has described Albers as influencing him to do “exactly the opposite” of what he was being taught. From 1949 to 1952 Rauschenberg studied with Vaclav Vytkacil and Morris Kantor at the Art Students League of New York, where he met fellow artist and later lover Cy Twombly. http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/history
JOSEF ALBERS (1888-1976)
A German-born American artist, Albers immigrated after the Nazi regime shut down the Bauhaus, where he taught. In America he was head of Black Mountain College, and later taught at Yale. He is most famous for his Homage to the Square, which consists of over 1,000 pieces developed over 20 years.
http://www.artnet.com/artists/josef-albers/
VACLAV VYTLACIL (1892-1984)
A longtime teacher at the Art Students League Vytlacil played a role in promoting European modernism here in the 1930's. As a founding member of the American Abstract Artists in 1936, he pushed actively for the recognition of homegrown American abstraction.
http://www.artnet.com/artists/vaclav-vytlacil/
MORRIS KANTOR (1896-1974) A Russian born, New York based artist, Kantor produced an extensive amount of paintings exploring realism, cubism, futurism, fantasy, and their combinations.
http://www.artnet.com/artists/morris-kantor/
_______________________________________________ LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS
1950 marries Susan Weil (1930- )
Susan and Bob met studying in Paris and returned to Black Mountain Collage together. In 1950 they were married and in 1951 Susan gave birth to son Charles. They separated in 1952 and divorced in 1953. Weil continues creating art, and is most famous for her experimental 3 dimensional paintings. http://www.susanweil.com/Susan_Weil/Susan_Weil.html
1952-3 Cy Twombly (1928-2011)
A Virginia native, Twombly met Robert Rauschenberg at the Art Students League and studied with him at Black Mountain College. After Rauschenberg’s divorce the two traveled Europe for a year making art. They are rumored to have been romantically involved. Twombly is best know for his scribbling, inventive, graffiti-like work http://www.artnet.com/artists/cy-twombly/
1954 Jasper Johns (1930 - )
Rauschenberg and Johns were long term lovers since their meeting in 1954. Together the two are credited with dethroning the abstract expressionists and are called, “neodadaists” and precursors to pop art. They both created some of the most important post war American art. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/john/hd_john.htm
_______________________________________________ EARLY WORK 1951: The White Paintings
Originally considered a tremendous flop after a failed show, these painting have now secured their place in art history as important precursors to minimalism and conceptualism.
1951: The Black Paintings
The black painting moved to include newspaper as a base, a precursor to Rauschenberg’s later mix-media collages.
1953-4: The Red Series
Abandoning the black and red series Rauschenberg moved to red, work that would lead him directly to him famous combines.
http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/multimedia/ videos/23
1954 - 1964
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COLLAGE & COMBINES
___________________________________
Roy Lichtenstein said Robert Rauschenberg's combines
"marked the end of Abstract Expressionism and the return of the subject." The combines are radical for the way they fuse painting, sculpture and everyday objects.
“In 1955 Rauschenberg shattered preconceptions with Bed, a painting done on a quilt given to him by artist Dorothea Rockburne. This painting is incredibly sexual and looks like sheets after lovemaking. As a single bed it also implies autoerotic and private desires. An unexplored side of Bed is the polymorphous materiality of its glistening sticky substances: nail polish and toothpaste. Formally, which is the way the art world prefers to look at things, Bed performs a kind of triple rotation of psychic and optical space: You look down on, at, and into it simultaneously.� https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=tvpp2lAD9iY
I want to work in the gap between art and life. -robert rauschenberg
Monogram features a stuffed Angora goat encircled by a tire. The goat, whose snout is covered in multicolored war paint, is standing on a painting, as if grazing at pasture. A sort of gargoyle or ravaging scavenger guarding over and also destroying art, this cloven-hoofed creature is a shamanic manifestation of Rauschenberg. In early Christian art goats symbolized the damned. This is exactly what Rauschenberg was as a gay/bisexual man and an artist, at the time. A dingy tennis ball behind the animal suggests it has defecated on painting. Allegorically, Rauschenberg is a bull in the china shop of art history, a satyr squeezing through the eye of an esthetic/erotic needle. As Johns's Flag (1954-1955) is a Delphic rebel yell that says, "I create and am a part of this symbol of American openness even though as a gay man I am shunned by it," so Monogram is Rauschenberg's credo, a line drawn in the psychic sands of American sexual and cultural values. It is a love letter, a death threat, and a ransom note. It is Rauschenberg carving his monogram into art history.
1954-1964 collaborations with Cunningham Dance Co.
From 1954-1964, and again in 1967, Rauschenberg collaborated with dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham and his partner John Cage on over 20 works of dance; designing sets, costumes, sculpture, and helping to choreograph and compose.
The black painting moved to include newspaper as a base, a precursor to Rauschenberg’s later mix-media collages.
Merce Cunningham (1919-2009)
Cunningham was at the forefront of American modern dance for over 50 years. Like Rauschenberg in art, Cunningham is said to have repeatedly reshaped dance during his career and expanded the role of visual arts in dance. http://www.nytimes.com/video/arts/1247463664370/thelegacy-of-merce-cunningham.html
John Cage (1912-1992)
an American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century.He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, through his association with choreographer and romantic partner Merce Cunningham. http://johncage.org
_______________________________________________ LATE WORK
1962- Silkscreen & Printmaking In the 1960s, with his reputation and influence growing, Rauschenberg began to move away from the combines he had focused on for the previous decade and into printmaking. Though he had utilized image transfer methods in previous pieces, he started experimenting with screen printing and, in 1962, produced a number of largescale silk screen paintings, using a combination of his own photographs and photographs he found in magazines. Just as when he first began his combines, this new process resulted in an explosion of new work. Rauschenberg continued creating until his death in 2008.
______________________________________________ SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL Biography & Art http://fadedandblurred.com/spotlight/lenfant-terrible-robert-rauschenberg/
View Rauschenberg’s Art http://www.artnet.com/artists/robert-rauschenberg/
NPR Piece, “Rauschenberg Shifted Path of American Art” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90411572
New York Times Obituary http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/arts/design/14rauschenberg.html?pagewanted=all
Elegy for Robert Rauschenberg http://blip.tv/art21-exclusive/elegy-for-robert-rauschenberg-937227
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ART IN AMERICA
a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and farreaching transformations in Western Society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Impressionism (1870-1890) Abstract Art (1907 - ...)
Modernism:
glossary of artistic movements ---> http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0106225.html timeline of artistic movements ----> http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/timelines/
Cubism (1907-1915) -
POLLOCK
Futurism (1909-1914) Dadaism (1916-1922) -
--Rauschenberg born 1925
Surrealism (1924-1939) -
--Rauschenberg begins making art 1944
Abstract Expressionism “a post World War II in American painting, developed in New York in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris.�
(1946-1956)
Leading Artists:
Pop Art (1954-1970) -
-Willem De Kooning -Mark Rothko -Jackson Pollock
ROTHKO
Op Art (1964-1970) Minimalism (1960-1975)
DE KOONING
o enter text
“Everything Abstract Expressionism was, Rauschenberg and Co. weren't
Ab-Ex was big, lofty, abstract and made by older straight men. This neo-Dada, proto-Pop and Pop art was smaller, cooler, figurative, vernacular and often made by younger gay men. As Rauschenberg professed, "I could never make the languag of Abstract Expressionism work for me -- words like 'tortured,' 'struggle' and 'pain I could never see those qualities in paint. How can red be 'passion?' Red is red. Jasper and I used to start each day by having to move out from Abstract Expressionism."
the play
bobrauschenbergamerica charles l. mee
______________________________________________ 1- Title
hen c s u a r bob
a c i r e m berga
2 - What I Like Characters:! All Summary: Everyone bursts out doing various things and setting the stage while a voiceover plays.
What I like to do is... I start with anything, a picture, these colors, or maybe I just feel: happy.
Look, everything overlaps doesn’t it?
_______________________________________________ 3 - Bob’s Mom Characters:! -Bob’s Mom Summary: Bob’s mom recounts his childhood memories while unrelated pictures are shown.
“Art art was not a part of our lives.”
_______________________________________________ 4 - Our Town Characters:! -Becker Summary: Becker recounts memories of growing up in the country.
___________________________________ “...we had no fear of anything. You could just go and go you didn’t know where you were headed but you were a free person”
_______________________________________________ 5 - Setting Out Characters:! -Phil the trucker ! ! -Phil’s girlfriend ! On stage: ! ! -Bob’s mom ! ! -Becker ! ! -Rollerskater Summary: Phil poetically talks about driving at night, sees his girlfriend. Rollerskater skates across stage.
_______________________________________________ 6 - Falling in Love
you see someone and you fall in love and look at the guy Summary: Becker and Susan see and you think: each other, discuss the inexplicable I don’t think so nature of love. Kiss passionately. _______________________________________________ 7 - Triangle and yet there it is Characters:! -Becker ! ! -Susan you don’t know why ! ! -Wilson Characters:! -Becker ! ! -Susan ! On Stage: ! ! -Phil ! ! -Phil’s girlfriend
! ! !
On Stage: ! -Phil ! -Phil’s girlfriend
Summary: Wilson enters. Is enraged to see Becker kissing Susan, who he thinks is his wife, then fiancee, then girlfriend. She’s not. She leaves.
_______________________________________________ 8 - Making Nice Characters:! -Allen ! On Stage: ! ! -Wilson ! ! -Becker ! ! -Phil ! ! -Phil’s Girl ! ! -Susan (enters)
i don’t want to set the world on fire
Summary: Allen enters in a shower cap and towel, sings I don’t want to set the world on fire, all others join in.
______________________________________________ 9 - Another Lover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6vqPUM_FE&featu Characters:! -Carl! ! ! -Allen ! On Stage: ! ! -Wilson ! ! -Becker ! ! -Phil ! ! -Phil’s Girl ! ! -Susan (enters) Summary: Carl enters and dances with Allen, Wilson takes over singing. At the end Carl and Allen exit together, the other exit leaving Phil and his girl alone in the tub.
______________________________________________ 10 - The Bathing Beauty Characters:! -Phil !
!
-Phil’s Girl
Summary: Phil and his girl discuss love, public sex, shame, and money. A voice calls “lunch is served” and all come out for a picnic lunch.
“Every fifteen minutes I feel ashamed of myself at least once.”
_______________________________________________ 11 - Table Talk: The Stars Characters:! -Susan ! ! !
! -Allen On stage: ! -All, eating chicken
Summary: Susan and Allen discuss space.
___________________________________
_______________________________________________ 12 - Table Talk: The Dispute Characters:! -Susan ! ! -Wilson
Summary: Wilson confronts Susan about not loving him, she apologizes, he tells her sorry doesn’t cut it.
_______________________________________________ 13 - Table Talk: A Couple Seeks Advice Characters:! -Carl ! ! -Allen ! On stage: All, clearing the picnic Summary: Carl and Allen discuss their idea to start a chicken raising business, but they can’t agree on whose idea it was, or the logistics, and storm off angrily.
14 - Table Talk: Bob’s Mom’s Grandmother _______________________________________________
Characters: -Bob’s Mom
Summary: Bob’s Mom discusses her grandmother, who collected colored glass. She laments the beautiful objects sale when her grandmother was institutionalized, recalling how she wished to smash them, make them into something new and beautiful. Girl crosses on rollerskates.
_______________________________________________ 15 - Guy Talk
Characters:! -Susan ! ! -Phil the Trucker ! On stage: All in and out, eating ! ! -Allen and Carl iron ! ! -Phil’s girl swings ! ! -Becker sets up his box
Summary: Susan and Phil play checkers while discussing a stewardess’ affair. Susan leaves to pee and the action stops. When she returns she tells Phil that times have changed, he is doubtful.
______________________________________________ 16 - Becker’s Movie Characters:! -Becker ! ! -All, playing roles ! On stage: ! ! -Bob’s mom Summary: Becker directs the others in a movie he’s writing, complete with agents, conspiracy theories, rape, murder, bludgeoning etc. It dissolves into chaos.
_______________________________________________ 17 - Line Dancing Characters: -All Summary: Suddenly a line dance begins. When it ends all return to lives, Susan and Wilson are left onstage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AupZaN1ZP-c
_______________________________________________ 18 - Crazy for You Characters: -Wilson ! ! -Susan ! On stage: ! ! -Becker ! ! -Phil’s Girl
_____________________________________ 19 - Dessert
Characters: -Becker ! ! -Susan Summary: Wilson confronts Susan about only! On Stage: loving him when convenient, then storms out. ! ! -Bob’s Mom (brings out cake)
Summary: Susan eats cake, slowly at first, then voraciously at the end. Becker confronts Susan about falling out of love with him. She apologizes. Susan compares women and men.
I don’t think you can just drop someone like that
and just say I’m sorry.
_______________________________________________ 20 - Martinis Characters: -Phil’s Girl ! ! -Phil Summary: Phil’s girl covers the floor in a tarp, pours out gin, vermouth, and olives. She slides across the floor licking it up, Phil joins her in a bathing suit. The other come and clear the stage.
_______________________________________________ 21 - Why does the chicken cross the stage? Summary: A man in a chicken suit crosses the stage. A voiceover says “ a man in a chicken suit crosses the stage.” “Why does the chicken cross the stage?
---a man in a chicken suit crosses the stage---------------
-------------------------------why does he cross the stage?---
_______________________________________________ Characters: -Allen ! On stage: 22 - The Universe ! ! -All (moving as if on !
!
!
!
the moon, doing various tasks)
! !
! !
! !
! !
Summary: Allen speaks on ! perception and observation; the present and the past.
All any human being can ever observe is the past. You never see the present. 23 - The Laundry Opera _______________________________________________ Characters: -Carl! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
! !
Summary: Carl dives over and over into the pile of ! laundry that has fallen from the ceiling, ! ! while an operatic aria plays.
_______________________________________________ 24 - Clean Sweep Characters: -Bob’s Mom ! !
On Stage: ! -Becker (sweeping the laundry)
! !
Summary: Bob’s Mom goes over more photos from Bob’s childhood. ! Again, the projected photos don’t match her descriptions.
_______________________________________________ ! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
25 - The Galaxy
! ! !
Characters: -Allen ! On Stage: ! ! -All (enter individually, wave at Allen)
! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
! ! !
Summary: Allen climbs to the top of the ladder, indicated by Mee to be a ! different time and space, and speaks as a scientist on the Manhattan ! ! ! Project, recalling his feeling working on the atomic bomb. Important stuff: -Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, was conceived of during WWII and was the site of development of the first atomic bomb under Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. -Oppenheimer chose Los Alamos for its beautiful vistas he hoped would inspire his scientists.
More info: on ! -Los Alamos’ involvement in the Manhattan Project ! http://www.losalamoshistory.org/manhattan.htm ! ! -The Manhattan Project & Atomic Bombings ! http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-
Characters: -Carl
26 - Square Dance ! On Stage: _______________________________________________ ! ! -All (dancing) Summary: Loud country music plays. Carl conducts a square dance, everyone joins.
More info: ! -The history of country music, different genres, notab ! http://www.roughstock.com/history/ ! !
-An essay on country music and America Values http://books.google.combooksid=Y8crPCvAaNkC&lp
_________________________ ! -Recording and history of the square dance call 27 The Assassination Characters: -Carl ! http://squaredancehistory.org/items/show/509 ! ! !
! -Allen On Stage: ! -All (stare and exit)
! ! !
-How to square dance; lessons and videos http://www.videosquaredancelessons.com/lessons/
Summary: Several loud shots are heard, Carl drops dead, Allen catches and hold him. Important stuff: ! -Kennedy was assassinated when Rauschenberg was 38 -Pictures of Kennedy appear in multiple works of Rauschenbergs, most notably Retroactive I (right). He began the piece when the president was still alive, and was about to abandon it when Kennedy was assassinated. He then reworked it into “a meditation on Kennedy’s death and on the central place he had assumed, through his martyrdom, in modern American mythology.”
More info: ! -The making of Retroactive I ! http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/archive/readArticle/60 ! !
-Notable assassinations throughout history http://www.biography.com/people/groups/unnatural-death/assassinated/all
_______________________________________________ 28 - Chicken Jokes
Characters: -Phil ! On Stage: ! ! -Allen (holding Carl) Summary: Phil tells an extensive chicken joke to distract from the solemnity.
_______________________________________________ Characters: -Carl 29 - Welcome Speech Summary: Carl sits up and welcomes everyone to an art opening.
and so art lets us practice freedom and helps us know what it is to be free
and so what it is to be human
Summary: Applause and bravo’s from a _______________________________________________ 30 - General Applause concert at Carnegie Hall, featuring composer John Cage. The sounds continue throughout the next scene. More info: ! -John Cage’s biography and website ! http://johncage.org/autobiographical_statement.html ! !
-A review of the concert mentioned http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/17/arts/music-review-true-to
! !
-A recording of John Cage’s piece from the concert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms70jqdZHzs
__________________________ 31 - Yard Sale Characters: -Phil ! On Stage: ! ! -Bob’s Mom (puts something in yard sale) ! ! -All (buying things from yard sale) Summary: Phil recounts in detail eating on a road trip he’d taken.
_______________________________________________ 32 - The Beating Characters: -Alan Summary: Alan beats a trashcan with a bat.
_______________________________________________ 33 - The Marching Band
Characters: -All (watching) Summary: A “123 piece local high school marching band (or else a solo bag pipe player)” marchers playing across the stage.
_______________________________________________ 34 - The Dark Side Revelations 6:1 (the four horsemen of the apocolypse) 1
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
3
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
4
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
5
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
7
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and
Characters: -Bob, the pizza boy (a new character) ! ! -Susan ! ! -Carl ! ! -Allen ! ! -Wilson
Summary: Bob the pizza boy and Susan discuss forgiveness. Bob shares that he murdered his sister, her husband, and thei son believing he was the man from the bible given the power to kill and destroy.
More Info: ! -The four horseman of the apocolypse ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Ap ! ! -Satanic ritual abuse moral panic of the 80’s and 90’s ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse
You know I’ve been thinking about it and it turns out I love you
35 - Lovers Characters: Allen Carl Summary: In a very objective and frank conversation Allen tells Carl he loves him.
You do?
Yes. ______________________________________________ 36 - Falling in Love
37 - Fidelity
38 - Eternal Love
Characters: Carl Phil’s girl
Characters: Phil’s Girl Carl
Characters: WIlson Susan
Summary: Carl dances as he tells Phil’s girl about falling in love with a man (Allen?).
Summary: Phil’s girl recounts her love affairs at 19, and being angry when her boyfriend had one.
Summary: Susan tells Wilson she loves him, they have a conversation almost identical to Allen and Carl’s from scene 35.
_______________________________________________
And you’re not sorry about it? How do you mean?
That you find delight in someone who doesn’t seem to you in any other way desirable who doesn’t perhaps have those qualities that you can count on for, you know, the solid, long-term kind of thing.
I would just take delight long term.
Oh. So Would I.
_______________________________________________ 39 - The Waltz Characters: -Allen ! On Stage: ! ! -Wilson & Susan (waltzing) ! ! -Phil & Phil’s Girl (throw ping pong balls) Summary: Wilson and Susan do a waltz while Allen discusses predicting science and humans.
More info: ! -Video of different Viennese Waltzes ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1AkeBpyDsY ! !
-Viennese Waltz Demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfu8VaixdHE
_______________________ 40 - Whitman
I Hear America Singing Walt Whitman I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Characters: -Becker ! On Stage: ! ! -All (clearing the stage)
Important stuff: ! -Walt Whitman is considered one of America’s ! greatest, most important, and most prolific poets
Summary: Becker recites a poem to Walt Whitman, which draws heavily on Whitman’s poetry.
More info: ! -Walt Whitman biography and poems ! http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126
_______________________________________________ Characters: -Bob’s Mom 41 - Bob
Summary: An operatic aria plays as Bob’s Mom again recalls Bob’s childhood, talking about their faith, living poor in a rural community and her son’s Important stuff: promise. ! -Walt Whitman is considered one of America’s greatest, most important, and most prolific poets.
More info: -The Church of Christ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Christ
-Texas in the 1920’s https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/npt01
-Personal account of rural life in depression era Texas http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txrha/f070203a.htm
______________________________________________ 42 - The Last Dance
Characters: -Bob’s Mom ! On stage: ! ! -Becker ! ! -All (dancing) Summary: Bob’s mom begins dancing to Ibrahim Ferrer’s music. Becker joins her, the other come on dance, and leave in couples. Bob’s mom is left alone, she dances a bit, then exits into her house. More info: ! -Ibrahim Ferrer, Buena Vista Social Club full album ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Onv--r6dg
43 - The Final Moment a man’s voice says