Pirates of Penzance

                                                   

Every single boy wants to be a pirate when he grows up, and most of the girls too. The reasons are compelling: Peter Pan, Treasure Island, Pirates of the Caribbean these days. And of course the immortal Pirates of Penzance, which is currently playing on OSF’s Elizabethan stage come fair weather or foul.

I got to see Pirates on a rainy night in July (it’s a really weird year, even for Oregon), and not only was it a success, but I want to be a pirate even more than I did before the show. Director Bill Rauch embraced Gilbert and Sullivan’s use of pop-culture reference and unrestrained silliness by infusing their hundred-year-old operetta with some of the popular music styles that have come since then: gospel, British-invasion rock ‘n’ roll, and rap (the police officers do a little rap). Early in the show, Eddie Lopez (who plays Frederick) was standing alone on stage when the rain really started to dump. He tossed his head back and looked straight into the sky. I knew somebody at some point during the show they would have to acknowledge the rain, since it was on everybody’s mind. I don’t know if I was reading Eddie’s mind, or if he was reading mine, but he burst out into an impromptu “Singing in the Rain,” while shooting a guilty “is this okay?” look at the conductor. It was. It brought the house down.

Bill Rauch’s attraction to fun is a real jolt of positive energy for OSF, and they need it this year with the Bowmer almost falling down. His sense of play is a perfect match for this old musical and brings out the best in it and in the splendid cast he’s got performing it. It deserves a rain-drenched standing ovation, and a hearty “Yo ho ho!”

A Rough Chester Pepper Translation

As part of my work on dramatizing "Coyote Hunts the Sun," I've been trying to expose myself to every version of that story I can lay my hands on. I found a recording that Bill Bright made of Chester Pepper telling it - interestingly, it's a different version than the one Bright translated for his Dictionary. That they were different was all I could tell just listening to it, so I sat down with the cassette in my tape recorder, a Word document open on my laptop, and both Karuk dictionaries open on my lap. I worked through it line by line, trying to tell what Chester was saying and then rendering it into English so I could tell what was going on. Here is my very rough translation (the numbers on the first section correspond to the time marker on my tape recorder):

56.              Pihnêefich úum ‘ukúphaanik.

Coyote       it      he-did-anciently.

Coyote did it.

57.              Vúra          ‘xúti             pa  kúusrah u’ahoo     thírav.

(emphatic) He-thinking the sun         he-walks  to trail [like a deer]

He thinks, “I’ll trail the sun where he walks!”

 

58.              Ma’     pa  ta                súpaah tur                (váa tur     pa  vásih)

Uphill the (perfective) day      pack [wood] (he   pack the back)

Uphill the day packs wood, he packs it on his back.

59.              Kumâam                    vúra            hôoy   poo’aramsîiprivtih (tur     vásih)

It-a-little-ways-uphill (emphatic) where no-comes-from       (pack back)

But it doesn’t come from a little ways uphill, where it’s packing! 

60.              Xas   xuti

Then thinks

Then he thinks

Kíri     váa kari uum

I-wish he   still  arrive

“I wish he’d still arrive.”

61.       Pukára   kúusrah úuyroov                 ánsim

            Nobody sun         mountain-upriver  go-to-bed

            Nobody was the sun so he went to sleep in the upriver mountains

62.       Ta               mukfúukraa

            (perfective) his-climbing-up-from-downhill

            He climbs up the hill.

            Vúra          kaan úum maruk fúku

            (emphatic) there he    uphill  climbs

            He climbs uphill there.

63.       Yee  yáxa sáruk       kari vásih pa   kus’

            Well look downhill still  back  the sun

            Well look downhill: it’s still the sun’s back.

            Pa   kum   pa’ahoo

            The some the-walk

            He travels on. 

64.       Koovúra váa kaan  uum

            All          he   there arrive

            He arrives there.

            Kumisha   xas   ta                 vásih pa  kus’

            It’s-water  then (perfective)  back  the sun

            It’s water and he still sees the sun’s back.

65.       Nu vêen vura           vêetshiip             tu                páapvuuy tu                xuti     nu amvaan mûuk   aramsîiprivtih

            We pray (emphatic) start-to-attack    (perfective) the-tail     (perfective) thinks we eater     with      starting-out

            We pray that the tail we think to catch and eat will start out!

66.       Vura           vaa pihnêefich ukúpanik.              That’s all. Vaa vura           kich.

            (Emphatic) he   coyote        he-did-anciently. That’s all.  It’s (emphatic) over.

            Coyote did it. That’s all.

1.         Coyote did it.

2.         He thinks, “I’ll trail the sun where he walks!”

3.         The day packs uphill: he packs it on his back.

4.         But it’s not just a little ways up the hill, where he’s packing!

5.         Then he thinks,

6.         “I wish he’d still arrive.”

7.         Nobody there on the mountain upriver was the sun so he went to sleep.

8.         He climbs up the hill.

9.         He climbs up the hill there.

10.       Well look downhill: it’s still the sun’s back.

11.       He travels on.

12.       He arrives there.

13.       He’s at water and still he sees the sun’s back.

14.       We pray that the tail we think to catch and eat will start out!

15.       Coyote did it. That’s all.

How to Be An Effective Dramaturg

My friend Casey Faubion has been trying to establish a quasi-dramaturgical department at Camelot Theatre in Talent, OR – or at least to develop the role of the dramaturg at Camelot – and as part of that he invited Martine Green to give a talk on “How to Be an Effective Dramaturg” at Camelot. Martine is a mid-career ‘turg currently working at OSF. Her three-hour talk was nicely organized into two-parts (leave it to a dramaturg to instinctively give an informal lecture a pleasing structure).

In her first half, she went over David Copelin’s “Ten Dramaturgical Myths.” I’ve listed them below with my own thoughts on what Martine said.

1.         “Literary managers and dramaturgs tell playwrights how to rewrite their plays.”

While some bad ones might, I already knew from my work at SBU and Native Voices that the good ones don’t.

2.         “Since dramaturgs have raised staged readings to an art form, playwrights have been encouraged to develop their plays to death.”

I’ve heard this before. Martine made an interesting point about following the organic growth of a play. You can tell when a script can’t benefit from any more workshops. Then it’s time to start looking for a place to get it a production, at least so the playwright can see what it’s like on its feet.

3.         “Literary managers and dramaturgs function as ‘objective voices’ in rehearsal.”

Can any human being really be objective? Don’t we all see the world through the lenses we’ve developed by living? Martine says we’re supposed to be a “creative informed objective voice.” I like that.

4.         “As intellectuals, literary managers and dramaturgs want to replace warm human emotions in the theatre with cold abstract ideas.”

I know I like to be an emotional vampire in rehearsal. Just kidding, I like to be focused on making a fun experience for the audience. Martine says that part of the blame goes to the academic institutions that train dramaturgs to focus more on theory than on production. Not all of them do, but none of them should. I think priority should go towards putting plays up, and only theorize about them later.

5.         “Literary managers and dramaturgs are no more than powerless, stage-struck ‘Ph.D. gofers’ with no real artistic talents of their own, reduced to working as underpaid readers and clerks.”

No, because a good ‘turg has to have an artistic instinct and a feel for the theater.

6.         “Dramaturgs interfere with the ‘natural’ relationship between the director and the playwright (of a new play), and between the director and the text (of an older work).”

Our jobs are to help facilitate that interaction, all the time looking out for the story that the primary artist (be they director or playwright) wants to tell. As Lue Douthit says, we’re the “keepers of the story.”

7.         “Literary managers and dramaturgs don’t like most American theatre the way it is. They want our scripts and productions to be more theatrical, more resonant, less naturalistic, less trivial, more aware of the world, better. Can’t they appreciate how wonderful things are?”

No. There’s always room for improvement, and if things stay the way they are, that means American theater has gone stagnant.

8.         “Literary managers and dramaturgs are just critics in very thin disguise. They’re not ream players, they have little sense of performance, and they’re always demanding instant results.”

Maybe the bad ones. A good dramaturg should be a team player and they should have a great sense of performance.

9.         “Dramaturg is such an ugly word.”

Yep. I want to be called “Guardian of the Dionysian Mysteries.”

10.       “There will always be literary managers, because someone has to read all those plays, but dramaturgy is a nasty fad that will go away.”

Not exactly, because somebody always has to keep the story. But it’s true that theaters are cutting literary departments like it’s going out of style. Martine gives it maybe two years before only a few special companies like OSF have a staff of actual dramaturgs.

So that was the first half! During the second half, Martine talked about her process of doing production dramaturgy. She talked about note-giving etiquette, which I’m already figuring out pretty quickly on my own. She also talked about the forms she gives her protocols. They’re definitely different from Steve Marsh’s five-part binders. She puts a clean copy of the script, her marked up copy, and other editions of it in her binders. She also creates a glossary based on the questions she has on her second read. I liked hearing about her tricks and am already using them. She showed us OSF’s copy of Love’s Labors Lost which has the Quarto, Folio, and production copies of the scripts juxtaposed line-by-line next to each other. I just did that this morning with the different versions of “Coyote/Cottontail Hunts the Sun,” the dramatization of this Karuk/Yurok/Northern Paiute myth I’m working on!