The Production Notebooks

Theatre in Process, Volume One

Mark Bly

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781559361101
• eBook ISBN: 9781559368216
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre Direction & Production

First in a series of casebooks exploring theatrical pieces from writing and design through production. Includes: Ntozake Shange's The Love Space Demands, Crossroads Theatre Co., New Brunswick, NJ; Danton's Death by Buchner, Alley Theatre, Houston; The Clytemnestra Project, based on the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis; and Children of Paradise, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Minneapolis.

“The CLYTEMNESTRA PROJECT”

AT THE GUTHRIE THEATER

by Jim Lewis

During the summer of 1992, the Guthrie Theater’s Artistic Director, Garland Wright, chose to open his season by retelling the Clytemnestra story. Wright adapted and directed three Greek plays using translations by twentieth-century poets: Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis (W. S. Merwin and George E. Dimock, Jr.); Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (Robert Lowell); and Sophocles’ Electra (Kenneth McLeish). The three plays were presented in two evenings on the Guthrie thrust stage, with Iphigeneia at Aulis performed on the first, and Agamemnon and Electra performed on the second. On weekends, the entire trilogy could be seen in a single day. Jim Lewis, who created this notebook, served as a resident dramaturg at the Guthrie Theater in the early 1990s.

DIRECTOR		Garland Wright
SET DESIGNER		Douglas Stein
COSTUME AND MASK DESIGNER		Susan Hilferty
LIGHTING DESIGNER		Marcus Dilliard
COMPOSER/MUSIC DIRECTOR		Michael Sommers
CHOREOGRAPHER		Marcela Kingman
DRAMATURGS		Jim Lewis, Michael Lupu
VOCAL COACH		Karen M. Kehoe
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR		Anne Justine D’Zmura
STAGE MANAGER		Russell W. Johnson
CASTS
Iphigeneia at Aulis
AGAMEMNON		Stephen Pelinski
OLD MAN		Richard Ooms
MENELAUS		Stephen Yoakam
FIRST MESSENGER		Peter Thoemke
CLYTEMNESTRA		Isabell Monk
IPHIGENEIA		Kristin Flanders
ACHILLES		Bruce Bohne
SECOND MESSENGER		Richard S. Iglewski
CHORUS LEADER		June Gibbons
CHORUS OF WOMEN OF CHALKIS		Christopher Bayes, John Bottoms, Paul Eckstein, Nathaniel Fuller, Richard Grusin, Shawn Judge, Jacqueline Kim, John Carroll Lynch, William Francis McGuire, Brenda Wehle, James A. Williams
SOLDIERS AND BRIDE’S MAIDS		Scott Comin, Craig Holt, Laura Karpeles, Michael Meredith, Dawn E. Reed, Pamela D. Taylor, Robert Werner, Paul Zemke
Agamemnon
WATCHMAN		John Lewin
CLYTEMNESTRA		Isabell Monk
HERALD		James A. Williams
AGAMEMNON		Stephen Pelinski
CASSANDRA		Shawn Judge
AEGISTHUS		John Carroll Lynch
CHORUS LEADER		Nathaniel Fuller
CHORUS OF OLD MEN OF ARGOS		Christopher Bayes, Bruce Bohne, John Bottoms, June Gibbons, Richard Grusin, Richard S. Iglewski, John Lewin, William Francis McGuire, Richard Ooms, Peter Thoemke, Brenda Wehle, Stephen Yoakam
YOUNG ELECTRA AND CHRYSOTHEMIS		Marguerita Carlin, Amber Zemke
SOLDIERS, HANDMAIDENS AND GUARDS		Richard L. Carriger, Scott Comin, Dawna Fox-Brenton, Craig Holt, Laura Karpeles, Timothy Lee, Greg McDonald, Michael Meredith, Chris Minyard, Ann Ozga, Gena Petrella, Peggy Rassieur, Daniel L. Reed, Dawn E. Reed, Pamela D. Taylor, Jennifer Watters, Robert Werner, Paul Zemke
Electra
ORESTES		Paul Eckstein
OLD MAN		John Bottoms
PYLADES		William Francis McGuire
ELECTRA		Jacqueline Kim
CHRYSOTHEMIS		Kristin Flanders
CLYTEMNESTRA		Isabell Monk
AEGISTHUS		John Carroll Lynch
CHORUS LEADER		Brenda Wehle
CHORUS WOMEN OF ARGOS		Christopher Bayes, Bruce Bohne, Nathaniel Fuller, June Gibbons, Richard Grusin, Richard S. Iglewski, Shawn Judge, Richard Ooms, Peter Thoemke, James A. Williams, Stephen Yoakam
GUARDS AND SERVANT WOMEN		Richard L. Carriger, Scott Comin, Craig Holt, Laura Karpeles, Timothy Lee, Greg McDonald, Michael Meredith, Chris Minyard, Ann Ozga, Peggy Rassieur, Daniel L. Reed, Robert Werner, Paul Zemke

INTRODUCTION

Garland Wright, artistic director of the Guthrie Theater, chose to open his 1992–93 season with a monumental production recounting the tragic Greek story of Clytemnestra. Three plays, each retelling a piece of her saga, would be presented over the course of two evenings: Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis (translated by W. S. Merwin and George E. Dimock, Jr.); Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (tr. Robert Lowell); and Sophocles’ Electra (tr. Kenneth McLeish). On weekends, this five-and-a-half-hour trilogy could be seen in a single day. The entire Guthrie acting company would be involved in the project, which was intended to challenge the company with issues of gender, performance and, ultimately, the meaning of “company” itself.

Set Designer Doug Stein and Costume Designer Susan Hilferty, both long-time collaborators with Garland, would join Guthrie staff members Marcus Dilliard (lighting); Marcela Kingman (choreography); and Michael Lupu and me (dramaturgy) in creating this work. Music would be composed and performed by Michael Sommers. Isabell Monk, the company’s leading African-American actress, would play the demanding role of Clytemnestra.

As production dramaturg, my primary task was to research and help choose the texts that would serve as the basis for this project; and in the absence of a playwright, to assist Garland in the editing, shaping and rewriting of the text as the situation demanded, while at all times guarding the integrity of these three very different plays. With the permission and final approval of the three translators (or their estates), we would severely cut large portions of the plays in order to fit them into a two-evening format. In addition, it was my function to provide Garland and all the other participants in this venture with the research and background materials that would make it possible for them to enter into a world so very different and distant from our own.

The final aspect of my participation, and perhaps most difficult to explain, was simply to join in and support others during the incredible journey we had undertaken. We had not set out to create just another play, but instead had ventured in search of the elusive ideal of “company.” Success or failure did not depend so much on the final product as on the manner in which we would come together (or not) to assist each other in its creation.

As resident dramaturg at the Guthrie Theater, I was fortunate to be involved with the production from its inception. The following are the events and thoughts I recorded contemporaneously in my notebook. I hope that I have preserved in this format a certain sense of the ebb and flow of excitement, despair, hope and frustration that is inherent in any project of this scope. I personally would like to thank all the participants, especially Garland Wright, for the openness and honesty with which we discussed every aspect of this project while still buried in its midst.

Spring 1991

Garland Wright, artistic director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, asks Isabell (Izzy) Monk, a member of the Guthrie acting company, if there are any plays she is interested in doing. Izzy remarks that she had been in a production of Ezra Pound’s version of Sophocles’ Electra, in which Nancy Marchand had played Clytemnestra, and that she has always wanted to play the part herself.

Garland is interested in the idea of returning to the Greeks, after directing a production of Euripides’ Medea the season before (Garland’s first Greek play). But his initial reaction is negative. He is hesitant to cast the company’s leading African-American actress as a villainess in her first queenly role.

On rereading the play, he confirms his suspicions: Sophocles’ Electra is an unforgiving play as it regards Clytemnestra. It is, in fact, an incomplete story that only touches on the end of Clytemnestra’s life, leaving unexplored the complicated issues that lead up to her murder. As Garland begins looking at the earlier plays, he flirts briefly with the idea of returning to the Oresteia, which he had considered doing for the Guthrie’s twenty-fifth anniversary season, as a tribute to Tyrone Guthrie’s f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• “The Clytemnestra Project”: The Guthrie Theater
• Danton’s Death: Alley Theatre
• The Love Space Demands: Crossroads Theatre Company
• Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream: Theatre de la Jeune Lune