Women In Arms

"So," says my lovely wife, "what's on the schedule for this week?"

"Disappointment," sez I.



So I hold in my hand what appeares to be a fascinating anthology: Seen and Heard: Six New Plays by Irish Women. I still expect that it's 5/6ths fascinating, but 1/6th of it is Women In Arms, by Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy. If I said "a physical piece of storytelling theater, reminiscent of Mary Zimmerman's Lookingglass work, dealing with the powerful women in The Ulster Cycle" ... I expect you're getting a picture and it's a picture of something that can't afford mediocrity. It will either be electric, or a crushing bore dragged down by the weight of its own pretension. And while there's a chance the original production was the former, the script is most certainly the latter.

It's just all so terribly earnest, so terribly "a celebration of". A celebration of Ireland, a celebration of myth, a celebration of theater, a celebration of women womyn. And I instinctively react poorly to anything that's "a celebration of" because it's telling instead of showing. I don't get to experience these stories and decide their importance, because Burke-Kennedy is too busy telling me how I should react. While these are interesting stories of titanic mythical women, but it's hard to penetrate the feeling of precious "celebration" enough to actually celebrate them.

Structurally, there's a decent attempt here at a style of storytelling theater, but the focus is off. There are too many times that slip into character-driven dialogue, then hop back into choral narrative just as the going gets good.

Before I call it a post, if you know an actor who can pull off the following stage direction, please give me their contact info:
Nessa begins to wonder if she is a Pig-keeper.
And I'll stop now, before trying to puzzle out the stage direction that requires the cast to assemble in the form of Picasso's Guernica, because that makes so much ....

2 comments:

March 30, 2009 at 10:37 AM Melissa said...

"Womyn." Ahahahahahahaha. I've never read this play, but I will go on record as saying that plays that show historical and/or mythological figures as static, iconic beings rather than three-dimensional human (or otherwise) beings with individuality bore the crap out of me. This is where Shakespeare really shines-- no hero is without flaws, no villain is without redeeming qualities and a valid motivation (at least to the villain's reasoning). Don't get in my face, cyberworld, about Iago, either, because, despite what people say, Iago is pretty clear about why he does what he does, which isn't anything but talk shit until Othello threatens his life unless Iago can prove Des is a whore.

Anyhoo, if the characters in any play are flatly written, the story becomes impossible to tell, particularly when the narrative is already known, as it is with so many historical and mythological figures. The characters' emotional journeys through that narrative are not already known to the audience, and become the play's main "story." If you erase a character's ability to have an emotional journey by making him/her flat, iconic, simultaneously less-than-human and more-than-human, then your play has nowhere to go.

March 30, 2009 at 10:39 AM Melissa said...

Oops-- meant to put "whore" in quotes. Bah.

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