What Jane Saw

I have been catching up on all things Jane and I have to say I got absolutely lost in a website that's been around for a while - www.whatjanesaw.org .  UT Austin - no pun intended - has done an amazing job on this virtual gallery.  To see this Joshua Reynolds retrospective, and incredibly, the way Jane saw it, from the comfort of one's home is to go on an imaginative exploration-expedition.  The paintings in three galleries are hung close and one above the other, the intensity of the exhibit offers up the clear eyes of this renowned painter.  The portraits of Goldsmith, Johnson, Barretti are astonishing in clarity.  All offer the visitor a glimpse into the world of the time.  I have my own "What Jane Austen Saw" in this Hoppner portrait in the background of "Love, they say, is like a rose..." Jane wrote in a letter, "I long to have my portrait painted with a red background."  Hoppner was famous for using red backgrounds for his sitters. He was also most famous for his portraits of women - would that Jane had sat for him in her short lifetime!

Upcoming Work

Getting more than three things ready at once:

1. Acting as Jane Austen in "Cheer From Chawton" at the National Arts Club, New York City on Monday, February 11th directed by Susan Pilar & Amy Stoller.
2. Playwriting:  My new 10 minute play, "All Roses" will be read at the next Blue Roses Winter Shorts Series on Tuesday, January 29th. At the Abingdon Theater Company Spaces, New York City.
3. Directing 4 plays for 3 evenings also through Blue Roses: Monday, January 28th, Not To Be Ignored Series, "Careful What You Wish For by Judy Stadt starring Louisa Cabot and leslie Shreve.  Tuesday January 29th, Winter Shorts "The Last Holdout" by Judd Silverman starring Frank Anderson and Blair Sams. Monday February 4th, Blue Roses Celebrates Alaskan Playwrights, "Better Than The Alternative" by Mollie Ramos starring JoAnn Yeoman and "From Afterlife" by Carolyn Roesbery starring Linda Selman and JoAnn Yeoman.
4. Speaking on a Technology Panel for Theatre Resources Unlimited (TRU) on Tuesday, January 22, 2013.  Wish me luck!
5. Improvising:  Will appear as Aphra Behn with Women Stage the World again on Monday, March 4th, 2013.

When it rains it pours!

Jane Austen's Supportive Family

In my stacks of "must-read" periodicals and books, I unearthed Persuasions, Issue #31, 2009 and I came across a wonderful and thought-provoking article written by Maggie Lane called "Brothers of the More Famous Jane...".  Besides being a remarkably easy read for a scholarly article, the information provided in the essay was for me a revelation.  Here are some of the sentences that most intrigued me:

• "In the case of Sense and Sensibility, it seems probable that the sum of about £180 had to be paid upfront for printing and advertising - in which case Henry surely advanced the money, for such a sum massively exceeded Jane Austen's slender means.  Sales of about 420 copies were needed to break even.  In the "Biographical Notice" of 1818, Henry tells us "she actually made a reserve from her very moderate income to meet the expected loss."  She had no such reserve; Henry was both concealing her poverty and lauding her modesty, but we can read between the lines her fear of debt and of increasing the huge obligations she already felt to her brothers.  The appearance of Jane Austen's first novel owed everything, in my opinion, to the force of Henry's confidence and calculations as well as to his cash and his contacts.  From this point Henry was totally involved in Jane Austen's publishing life."

The ramifications of this particular article are incredible.  Henry used his contacts to secure a publisher.  Henry paid for the publicity and publication of her first novel.  So the looming question here is, would we even know Jane Austen if it were not for her wealthy, politically connected brother?  People will hate me for saying this but for all artists this problem exists and exists to the present day.  Personally I know of brilliant work that does not see the light of day because there is not a mass of money available to put that work forward.  There is also the matter of riding the tide of what is currently popular.

More to come...

Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by Yussef El Guindi

American Theatre Magazine has been posting astonishing plays lately and I just finished reading "Pilgrims Musa..." over the weekend.  Again I only meant to skim the piece and again I was drawn in.  Mr. Guindi manages to capture and speak to all of us when his character, Abdallah, says, "The everyday pilgrimage you make when you open your mouth to a stranger and hope to God you are understood."  How many of us have felt this way each and every day.  Everytime I audition or make a submission or try to talk to another member of the Moms Club.  Every day.  Later the same character says, "The way you have to open up and travel to the place someone is coming from."  How many of us resist doing this?  How many times have I judged ahead of time.  The world continues to surprise me.  As hard as it is to be my age and continue performing, writing and so on.  Even thinking.  Sometimes I feel judged for that.  But here I am admonished from the pages of this play, to continue to grow and continue my quest for a theatre that will be all inclusive, environmentally sound, promoting the rights and the literature of women.  This kind of work forces a person to be more, to stand up for what you believe in.  Thoughts for the day!

Water Color Artist James Prosek

"I could not believe these fish were so huge.  They looked like sculptures - polished marble sides, glistening steel backs, fins like blades of metal, eyes like miniature Earths with atmospheres and seas and forests and deserts."  Just finished reading an article about artist and conservationist James Prosek.  The guy looks like a young Mel Gibson.  Besides having an amazing work ethic (up to 14 studio hours per day), he is making a conservation statement about Atlantic fish.  Sometimes you wonder how art and making any kind statement mix.  You have to decide who you are, what you want to say.  This guy is a modern Audubon, the paintings are remarkable, he experiments with metallic powder, powdered mica, etc. to record exactly what is in front of him. The article says for the canvas, "Prosek used 60 inch tall rolls of paper cut to size and dyed with up to 20 bags of tea." Apart from some magnificent descriptive language, I find this gentleman the real thing.  What is engaging to me is the way he sees these fish.  His experience of them is so intense.  One might look but not see.  That is the job of any artist, theatrical or otherwise, to really see, intensely, profoundly with complete clarity. I wish I could say it better.

Profiles Production of Sweet and Sad by Richard Nelson

On a recent trip to Chicago, I took a short cab ride to Profiles Theatre Company on North Broadway.  They have a new and rehabbed space which I found intimate and wonderful.  The ceiling is high and looks like a tin ceiling, plenty of space for lighting equipment, excellent sound system.  Richard Nelson calls "Sweet and Sad" one of his "disposable" plays because of the precision of the setting (September 11, 2011).  But I was glad to see this play produced.  First off, there was Joe Jahraus' deft direction.  I would have to look at the text for the play but I loved the fact that the audience entered to an empty space and then the actors put the entire space together.  They brought a rug out, laid it down.  They entered with the dining room table which seemed mythic in its own way.  They brought a cart table in, dishes, silver ware, food.  They served themselves like so many family dinners.  Robert Breuler as Uncle Benjamin Apple was a piece of genius casting.  Kate Harris and Darrell Cox inhabited their characters to the core.  I admit I had some troubles with the supporting cast but some of that had to do with the writing.  For example, there is a middle sister...who is she?  Why does she want to turn her actor-boyfriend into a full-time waiter?  What does she need the money for?  The woman playing this character was dressed like a sober matron.  The text says she's divorced, maybe several times, I would have dressed her more provocatively suggesting that she's the sister who gets around.  As it stood, I did not buy that relationship with her bald actor boyfriend for a moment.  The pacing of the production, the use of overlap was executed perfectly by all. I enjoyed the way the ensemble worked.  They clicked.  I did not think all the characters were defined enough and the program was confusing.  It lists only Robert Breuler as Equity and yet the ticket price was $40 so I found myself wondering who is union and who is not, were some actors paid and some not?  Would explain some of the uneveness of the acting but it seemed from the program like all the actors had won awards, done loads of work, etc.  Loved seeing the family dynamic up there.  Very important to see this play in relation to Belles.  Thought provoking.  Making me think and write and re-write!  Thank you Richard Nelson!

Reflections on Steven Karam's Sons of the Prophet

Writing facilitates thinking.  I am writing about the things I read because it helps me to think about them.  Just finished reading Steven Karam's Sons of the Prophet published a few months ago in American Theatre Magazine.  As is my usual mode, I had just planned to skim the play given mommyhood provides me with limited reading time but I was drawn in.  I found the play universal and profound.  The fellow is not afraid to stop and reflect.  Gloria's line "Manhattan is fabulous but...I'm not sure there's anything more...invisible in that city than a single, 60 year old woman."  He underscores this with humor by having the male character respond with "A single, 70 year old woman?"  This observation took my breath away.  Performers frequently get sidelined after 40 - an acting career - the hardest thing ever to decide to do - becomes hard in ways that were unimaginable when one was twentysomething.  Yet, I've always felt most actors don't realize their full potential in terms of emotional depth and thinking until after 40.  The other line that really grabbed me (there were many) "...no one's life should be about finding stability..." "Yes, but whose life isn't?" These words in terms of a life in the theatre.  Yes, I agree, this young writer is compassionate and profound and understands well beyond his years.  Steven Karam was discussed at a producer round table at the Roundabout that I recently attended.  Todd Haimes said he gave this young man a chance because he felt he would drop out of theatre if he did not receive immediate encouragement.  Though I felt the punishment of this remark, I can understand too.  However at the time I felt like shouting, "What about the rest of us, Mr. Haimes?  Those of us who keep going in spite of receiving very little encouragement, very little major recognition?  You feel you need to encourage yet another white male?"  But I didn't.  Any remark like this would make me seem ungrateful, bitter, unhappy.  So I look to this script as inspiration for my own work and hang on to that.  I like the idea that Karam allows characters to observe profoundly on life, on what it's like to be alive.  A play isn't just about true to life dialogue, it must contain those universal hooks, else why write?  These hooks must be woven into dialogue so that the characters HAVE to say them.  That makes the work truly remarkable.  Thank you, Mr. Karam.

More on Uncle Vanya at Lincoln Center Festival

Thoughts are flooding in fast and furious.  The purity of this production staggers me.  I have to go back and read the other translations I have of this play.  Part of the poetry of this production was embedded in the entrances of every single character.  What was being said onstage before any character entered either reflected on that particular character or provided a stark contrast to that character.  I cannot count how many entrances were like this but one in particular I vividly remember: Sonia is complaining about how plain she is and Yelena enters just at the perfect moment to counter-pose the two.  This was like sculpture to me.  It was truly great art.  Unforgettable art. In a world of corruption, and it's everywhere, there was no corruption here.  Nothing was ruined.  And it was so simple.  The actors played clear, clean intentions unmuddled by garbage.  The whole vision of the production true to Chekhov.  If I could challenge myself to clean up the entrances on "Belles" in this way and to simplify the language where it needs it in the way this production has done, I would have a shot at something real.  So I throw down the glove to myself.  Thank you Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton and Tamas Ascher.  On Ascher's website, it says his productions of Chekhov have run 5 to 7 years in Hungary where there is still a repertory system.  I well know how shows and actors improve with time, having performed as Aphra Behn from 1996 to 2011 and as Jane Austen from 2005 and still going.  Why, why can't we go back to this system in the United States?  It is our loss. http://lincolncenterfestival.org/index.php/2012-uncle-vanya

Pitch-perfect production last night at Lincoln Center - stunning emotionally - the acting, the directing, the adaptation - all faultless:  http://lincolncenterfestival.org/index.php/2012-uncle-vanya.  Makes me want to get to work on everything, inspiring, stirring, can't stop thinking about it!

Toolbar gone - no pictures - help?

I have now entered the "new post" section of my blog about 20 times and the tool bar is incomplete.  It will not let me post photos.  I hope to have this resolved at some point but will struggle thru for now.  If anyone is reading this and can show me how to get my tool bar back, please send instructions in the comments section.  Thanks!

Abundance...

Have been using my pages mainly to write about my bookings.  I've had a good bit of work the last few months.  First a reading of "Rust" a new 10-minute play I wrote for the Blue Roses Douglas Stevens Infusion Reading Series in May held at the Bruce Mitchell Room at ART/NY.  "Rust" having to do with the way suburban areas have devolved (meant in the archaic sense) in the "Rust Belt" state of Ohio.  In June, I was invited to guest write a blog entry and appear as Jane Austen at a benefit for Going To Tahiti Productions adaptation of Persuasion.  Also in June, I directed a reading of the CBS Radio Version of As You Like It adapted by Brewster Morgan at the Players Club.  In July I was asked to play Miss Maria Mainwaring (prounounced "Mannering") in a reading of an adaptation of Jane Austen's Lady Susan put on by Theater 2020 at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Brooklyn Heights.  Such varied activity has been stimulating, exciting and fun.  Being a Mom, though, I feel as if I've got ADD and I don't know which direction to look first.  I have plays to improve and submit, a hilarious show about Jane Austen that I love to do and an acting resume of which I've been quite neglectful.  And then there's the directing side of me!  Some would say, an embarassment of riches, while I say, I don't know which direction to turn.  Each has an aspect that I love.  Some might think I am just tossed about from project to project lost without a compass on the professional ocean of theatre work.  This is defining me right now.  But I like to think it is shaping me too.  Our child won't be little forever and I must choose to look at this as the universe's way of preparing me for something larger that will come my way in the not too distant future.  This is the optomist in me.  In a jaded world - and I consider myself jaded too - I still feel positive about what can happen in the theatre - what theatre actually makes possible not just for me but for everyone.

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"The Belles of Beccaria" by Karen Eterovich. A family frozen by loss awakens to repressed desires with the return of an old flame. A Midwestern take on The Three Sisters. Starring Louisa Cabot, David Copeland, Marianne Cullinan, Barbara Farrar, Anthony Newfield and Leslie Shreve, Music/Sound David Green. Original Direction by Erma Duricko.

Very happy to have finally hit upon my synopsis summary. Always excited about the work, feel something very special about this work. Have had all sorts of ideas about directing it too. Yet how could I hope that anyone would ever let me or why? I mean I've had the full fantasy of it...Lincoln Center phoning me up, giving me an unlimited budget. Why we could have a real kitchen, live orchestra, ballroom dancers...starring Olympia Dukakis, Marian Seldes, Angela Lansbury, Vanessa Redgrave, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, somebody stop me!

Tech is done, Locust Grove is lush and green, beautifully situated, an idyllic setting for the show. I can well imagine myself back in time. Skin terribly dry, can't seem to get anywhere with it, I am grateful for the humidity. Dress working beautifully, providing much needed coolness. Tired, happy looking forward. Very good I ran play backwards, I felt ready to jump around as I had to!

Had final fitting Friday, delighted with new dress, it will still be in keeping with the December date of play, but be light and cool for any warm weather bookings we might get. Photos must come soon!

Travel Journal Pick Up - MAY 1, 2011 HILTON HEAD ISLAND - Every thing is running on schedule. Hank met us at the theatre, gave us a tour, signed and gave us his book too! Went to lunch first, then to housing, a lovely condo near the beach - Fiddlers Cove. The warm air so soothing. Back to the theatre for tech. Which goes quite well. We run it with cues, then go cue to cue. Ann and Andrew, from Next Stage - Bath - drop into rehearsal - I am thrilled to see them - it has been since September! After tech, back to condo for a walk on the beach and a light dinner. Very happy with the SCRC black box theatre. Quite comfortable, acoustics excellent. I've discovered I've no access to a computer. The condo is not wired. J will work during the day while I have our little one and then I am performing every night. So no access. A week without one. A week of emails piling up. But there it is. I will make the best of it. I have posted the wrong charity, Hank tells me, but I cannot correct this now until I am home and can revise the link. Home is where I have "contribute" so there it is. The correct charity is linked here: http://www.hhisafeharbour.org/

Pick up from Travel Journal: April 30, 2011, Saturday
I write today from Savannah, GA. So comfortable down here. One arrives and one feels taken care of. I feel I have a special link or tie to the south. When I came down here for graduate school (University of South Carolina) I had just been through a terribly difficult time. And here we are, my dear father, Anthony Eterovich, has just passed away. It's very hard to explain how comforting the warm wind is. May is a perfect time to be here because it's not too hot yet. Though the heat never bothered me much, I used to walk around carrying a large cup of ice and sipping it as I walked up the street to rehearsal. Wish we could see Jeannine, but will be too hard to make the trip up and perform. We had a lovely meal at Vic's By the River. Our little one went to sleep early because no nap today. But I worry about everything and am excited to see the theatre tomorrow, May1.

http://www.hiltonheadtheatre.com/Just back from a rewarding week in Hilton Head, South Carolina. I will provide updates as I look back in my journal from the week. There was no opportunity to do real time updates. The condo where the theatre located us had no internet connection. I performed the show every night and was not able to go to the club house during the day to do updates. On my project list, get a new phone! I can't believe I've waited so long to do this! Just very out of date! Want to post photos as well. SCRC is an absolutely lovely theatrical space with wonderful acoustics. Jane Austen did well in there!

Photo by Owen Benson

Every day is a fun day. Even when there are challenges. Even when everybody in the house has a cold. Working though, lots on my mind. Today worked through the first half of Jane. Focused on my posture and the body types of Mr. Bennet, Mrs. Bennet, the Dutchess, Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt and Miss Tilney. The silliness must still be based in reality. Even though I was tired from running around, I still feel joy from doing this work. Couldn't get it out of my mind that Michael Kahn said he might come to see the show at the EAG. But I'm sure he says that to all his ex-students to give them encouragement without really meaning to come. I guess, after all these years, I feel like someone that is as big a deal as he is wouldn't come to a play by little old me. But then there is part of me that loves to hope and loves to imagine it. I feel I can say almost anything I want here, secretly, I think I am the only one that reads my blog! So how can it matter if I express a little self doubt here? It just happens some times. I'm working on "Belles" too. I've found a really nice ending for the play, I think. Like the idea of continuing the Ballroom Dance motif throughout. Photo taken by Owen Benson at the 10th Annual Jane Austen Festival in Bath, UK.

Rehearsing Jane today with props. Working on word endings. One gets lazy, you see. So I am back at it and really having fun. I love the idea that anything can happen (within reason)! Worked on differentiating the physicality of all the characters Jane plays. Amazing that ballroom dancing makes me much more conscious of my body in space. If I were running an MFA program I would make yoga and ballroom dancing part of the required curiculum. What is the well-rounded performer? With so much (technique) out there, sometimes the basics get left behind. Moving and speaking, not just so one is in character, but so one is communicating that character with an audience. Communication must never be left behind. I love all aspects of the theatre and some would say, in my old age, have an appreciation that I never had when I was younger. So this bit of acting I get to do in "Cheer from Chawton" and the writing I get to do on "Belles" I really have come to cherish.