On the other hand, Alicia, the 1960s BBC film version of the play (with young, smooth-faced Judi Dench, Diana Riggs, and Helen Mirren playing Titania and the lovers) has Hippolyta in the opening scene simply staring adoringly at Theseus. In most productions the idea that Hippolyta is the defeated Amazon queen, that she is a booty bride, is elided.

There is no better way to study a text, in my view, than to study it as an actor, with the intent, the imperative, to embody the character and given circumstances of the play. Thus the cast is only on page 12 of table work with the script as of last night. Every idea is listened to carefully--and they are all good. Can you see it in the photos I took? We are serious, and laughing alot. I love this seriousness, and laughing, as though theater matters. On the wall of the Siti Company studio where we are working there is a statement of intent that includes the assumption that theater is neccesary to the spiritual revitalization of the world. My guess is that there is not a person in this room who does not believe this.

Of Queens and marriage and fierce women

How appropriate that rehearsals of MND begin in QUEENS! Reading the text for the first time in a few years -- this time partially influenced by a conversation with director Julia Whitworth -- I've been thinking about the queens in the play. What does it mean to be a queen in Athens and the surrounding wood? And what might Queen Elizabeth I have been thinking as she watched Hippolyta and Titania have their dominion, property and "will" taken from them? Although no one seems to be sure, there's speculation that Shakespeare wrote MND for a wedding. Imagine! In the 1960 production at the Old Vic Theatre in London, Hippolyta appeared in manacles. In our own time, we're still conflicted about what makes a good marriage -- AND even who is allowed to get married. After seeing a production, the unwed QE1 surely must have felt supported in her own decision to remain a "maiden queen." Judith, I like that you describe Hermia and Helena as "wicked fierce." That gives us a parallel duo to consider.

The Quarry

Last week was an exciting time at the Settlement Quarry. On June 3rd, artist in resident Tawanda Chabikwa worked with Stonington-Deer Isle students on dance and story-telling though movement at the Settlement Quarry. While at the Quarry, Tawanda and artist Mia Kanazawa, who had designed sea-gull heads and wings for the children to use, helped the students work in groups to create choreographed dance sequences.

The work was in conjunction with the in-development production--Q2:Habitat. Q2 is based on the original 2007 Quarryography. A sneak peak of Alison Chase, Mia Kanazawa, and Nigel Chase collaboration at the Quarry will take place this August 7th and 8th. Full production scheduled for August 2010. Rain date: August 9th

First read-through brunch in the sweet soft air of Queens

Rebecca and Stephanie, Hermia and Helena, were wicked fierce today; no mild little ingenues these two spitters as they confronted each other over supposed betrayals in the fairy forest. It was an overall fierceness in the cast that most struck me in this first read-through. Puck fierce and chilly and absolutely clear in his detached manipulations; Theseus, with Hippolyta by the hair, so to speak, declaring Hermia's fate if she opposed her father's choice of husband; Titania almost guttural in her passion for Bottom; Bottom so fully full of himself. Lysander just clear (lovely rendering of the language) until his head is muddied by Puck's flower--and then venomous in his rejection of Hermia. I have been reading the play and watching film versions for weeks--never have I heard it so clearly. Already.

Welcome to Shakespeare in Stonington

Puppets from MacBeth, Summer 2008

Welcome to the blog for the 9th annual Shakespeare in Stonington series. This July “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will be staged at the historic Stonington Opera House. The annual series places great emphasis on Shakespeare’s language, humor, and the timeless importance of his work. Julia Whitworth (Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, The Tempest) will direct the newest in OHA's series. Stay tuned for more about "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Fragiles

A great picture surprised me when I walked into the DI-S K-8 school at 8 a.m. Friday morning to finish preparing for our show, "Sea of Birds," at the Reach Performing Arts Center: a first grade class circled around our teaching artist's lobby installation, finishing their learning from the artist's residency under the initiative and guidance of their teachers. They had collected "fragiles"--objects which they understood to be fragile, like the stories we tell each other about our lives. They were placing these fragile objects--slender forsythia branches, delicate paper objects, etc.--onto the fragile stick-and-tape structure they had created as a place from which to tell their own storytelling emerged (in the form of drawings on fragile paper, strung along the ceiling above the stick dome).

In creating these structures and teaching about and with fragile objects and spaces, Sebastienne Mundheim, our visiting artist, was giving the students a tactile, visual sense for something abstract: the fragility of our stories and memories. How are our stories fragile? In the way that "truth" is fragile: it is created amongst us, never by ourselves alone. There is our experience of something--and our memory of it, which is always slightly different from the actual experience. Then there is our telling of the memory, which shifts the experience again; and the hearing of this telling by the person or persons to whom we are telling it. Then the person to whom we told our story tells our story to others. And on the story goes into the world, each detail important to us, to our understanding of our shared world, and delicate as it is passed from mouth to ear and heart to heart.

And thus the students, placing their "fragiles" upon the delicate structure in the lobby, from which their drawings of the stories their mothers had told them emerged.

Check out the photos at our Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5780599838#/photo.php?pid=1905369&id=18518578665&ref=mf

Magic

I'm pretty sure nothing makes me happier than spending a day in the fall and one or more in the spring working alongside OHA's great volunteers to clean and spiff up the theater for the coming season. Last Saturday we had so much fun: the doors flung open and passers-by sticking their heads in; Cathy Marshall (Seamark's director) showing up to paint in her wonderfully paint-spattered painting pants, and doing a beautiful job of giving our expanded concessions counter coats of OHA Red and OHA Yellow; Michele Leveque of El El Frijoles making our stage the cleanest in the COUNTRY; Ted Crouch quietly fixing the broken window and back door of the office; Tinker and Sharon scrubbing the green room; and me crawling all over, organizing the shop (!), hoisting things up to the catwalk and out to the deck . . . the place took on this magical smell of what can only be called, well, love: and by the time I shut all the doors and turned out the lights I was sad to go home. You can catch the magic, too, Saturday May 23 when we hold another volunteer cleaning day. I'm not making this up: the magic is there.