Why I left

Someone told me last night that they heard a rumor about me. So, here’s my response to that rumor. Yes, I left a show. However, there was no throwing of anything, nor was there any “storming out.”

I guess, in a way, it’s nice to know that people are thinking about me and talking about me. But I would prefer you talk TO me. You’ll at least get accurate information. Of course, I understand that you may prefer to share a juicy story. But this one is just not true.

Here’s what is true.

I had some very basic problems with a director. I gave it a lot of thought and concluded that for my own mental and artistic health I needed to not continue in that situation. I also realized that my leaving the show would be the least damaging solution for the production and the theatre. I emailed the producers, and we had a series of meetings. There was no happy solution, just a confirmation that there were serious problems, including a significant disagreement about a basic artistic principle on which the director and I were unwilling to budge.

I told the producers that I had discreetly asked around but been unable to find anyone I could confidently recommend who was available to replace me. And I told them I would be willing to keep looking to help them find someone, if they wanted me to. They didn’t say much one way or the other about that. I complied a detailed list of everything I thought a replacement music director would need to know: what I’d already taught; what probably needed more work; band members contact info; etc. I sent an email to the band members and pit singers to let them know I was not continuing as music director and that they could contact the stage manager for more information. Over the next few days, I finished the work I had been doing on the band parts and sent that to the lead producer. (The show is written for 18+ musicians, and we were doing it with 8, so I had been working on and off for a month, putting together a version that would work. Also, that particular score and parts are notoriously full of mistakes.)

So. I didn’t just walk out of a show. I was angry, but it was not an emotional decision. I have known people who walk out of shows, semi-regularly. That’s not me. This is only the second time in the 25 or so years I have been doing music direction that I have left a show. Yes, I am passionate, but I am not rash nor thoughtless. And if you really know me, you’ll know that I am honest and direct. If you hear something about me, you can ask me about it. Then, you’ll hear first-hand information, and just maybe we’ll get to know each other a little better in the process.

tech rehearsal nomenclature

Dear people who do theatre, 

I’ve noticed lately some misuse of certain words and phrases for technical rehearsals. So, here’s a public service announcement. It’s going to be long, but if you do theatre (especially community theatre), you should at least skim through this, and share it with your friends. You may be using these phrases incorrectly.  

A “tech rehearsal” is a rehearsal WITH THE ACTORS in which the focus is the technical elements of the production: lighting, sound, sets, props, costumes. This is generally the rehearsal where these elements are added for the first time, though there may be some props or costume pieces, etc., that have been used already in rehearsals. Typically, cast and crew work through the entire show, often stopping, going back and re-doing some light cue or sound cue or scene change or quick costume change. You may go back and do a particular cue several times until it works. 

This can be a long, taxing rehearsal. In the professional (equity) productions I’ve done, tech is a “10 out of 12” day, meaning it’s a 12-hour rehearsal in which the cast gets a 2-hour lunch or dinner break. In community theatre it’s often more like a rehearsal on Sunday from sometime mid-afternoon “until we finish.” I’ve done shows where the tech rehearsal was broken up into two days, either purposely scheduled that way, or decided in the moment because it was getting late and we were nowhere close to being done with tech. 

Some people (and theatres) seem to want to skip this kind of tech rehearsal, and instead they end up stretching it out over the entire tech week, adding a few more tech elements every night – even to the point of adding a few last minutes things on opening night. Perhaps calling that entire week before the show opens “tech week” contributes to this misunderstanding. It shouldn’t be that you add the tech elements throughout this entire week, but rather that this is the week in which you work with all the tech elements. You should plan to have all the tech elements in place not by opening night but by the tech rehearsal, which then gives a production several rehearsals between tech and opening for the actors and the crew to work with and get used to all the tech elements. It also provides a buffer of several days to discover if something isn’t working and needs to be changed. 

If you’re doing a musical, do not call the band for a tech rehearsal. It is a waste of their time and your money. (You are paying them, right? Please, tell me you’re paying them.) 

You may run through all of a show during a tech rehearsal, OR it may be a “cue-to-cue.” This means you work one technical cue – lighting, scene change, etc. – repeating as needed, then you skip ahead to the next technical cue. So you skip over bits of scenes in which there is no technical cue. This is still a tech rehearsal, so THE ACTORS ARE THERE ON STAGE. 

A tech rehearsal without the actors is called a “dry tech.” This is a rehearsal with the stage manager, the tech crew, likely the designers and director (but not necessarily). In a dry tech, you may run or work or fix many of the technical elements of the show. 

I don’t know if there’s a specific term for when the director and lighting &/or sound designer(s) sit in the theatre talking about and building various cues without other tech crew and such. I’d probably call it something like “setting the light cues,” though it may fall under the category of dry tech. And, of course, there will be times when the lighting designer and some other tech crew or other folks are in the theatre physically adjusting the lights, adding gels or gobos or whatever. I don’t know what that’s called. Perhaps that’s also within this dry tech category. 

A meeting in which the director, light and sound and costume designers, and perhaps others, discuss the technical elements, possibly even talking through scene changes, lighting cues, etc., is called a “paper tech.” No one is actually moving things around or setting light cues and such – you may not even be in the theatre – but probably people are writing things down. 

A paper tech is a bit like a production meeting, but it’s specifically about the tech elements for a production. You’re talking through scene changes and costume changes, lighting and sound, etc. A producer (or artistic director or board member?) may not necessarily be there, as you would expect in a production meeting. You won’t be discussing ticket sales, nor PR, nor casting – none of that stuff. 

There. Those are different types of tech rehearsals. Please start using these phrases correctly. If I’ve missed or gotten something completely wrong, do let me know. I'll update this. 

Okay. Rant over. 

(For now.) 

Previously unseen photos

I dreamed last night that I found a bunch of photos I’d forgotten about and hadn’t posted anywhere. I’ve had this dream before. While I’m having the dream, it’s sort of exciting: cool photos of mine that people haven’t seen before! But when I wake up, I do not like the dream. 

Here in real life, there are photos that I haven’t ever posted anywhere. Some are just not as good as those I did post, or I didn’t want to post 50 photos from the same shoot. Others I think are actually quite good, but the model the model didn’t want me to post them. And whenever THAT has happened, it made me really mad. It still does. I currently have cheap prints (from my printer) of a couple of such photos hanging on my wall, but visitors here are quite rare. 

In the past few years I’ve had a very hard time letting go of my anger at people who’ve disappointed me (like models who’ve said after a 2-hour shoot and quite a few hours of editing by me that they don’t want me to post their photos). Actually, “been unable to let go” is probably more accurate. 

I like taking pictures, but this whole area of artistic exploration has cost me. It's certainly cost me a ton of "facebook friends" but also some real-life friends, of which I’ve never had many. It's definitely cost me some work as a musician, which is ridiculous. I mean, it’s an unrelated field, yet people don’t want to hire me because they think what – I’ll show up naked at a rehearsal? That’s not going to happen. 

Anyway, I’ve probably lost more work than I know, but there are at least two people I know for sure refused to hire me because of my photography. (See "So, what happened to Mississippi?"& "So, what happened with City Arts?") In one case it was someone for whom I didn’t care much nor have much respect. But the other was a guy that most of the people I know locally loved and respected. That guy recently died, and it seems everybody was eulogizing him. Meanwhile, I was still pissed off at him, though I didn’t say anything at the time (I’m not completely insensitive), and I think that just pushed me further away from all those formerly friendly acquaintances. 

Well, this has gotten bitter. I am bitter. I think I never entirely fit in the world before, as a composer and writer. But most of the time it seems that my photography – principally my choice of subject matter – has pretty well pushed me right out of it. 

Passion

I’m watching Stephen Sondheim’s Passion this morning. (It’s a musical. Sondheim is a major musical theatre composer/lyricist…just in case you didn’t know. And the book, i.e., dialogue and such, is by James Lapine.) One of the cast of the show I’m doing now mentioned it, so I thought I’d look for it online. I found the entire show on youtube.

I was already familiar with it. In fact, I just leant the original cast recording CD I have to that cast member. I’ve listened to it several times and watched some of the video, but not all of it. I’ve also played a few songs from the show before.

Anyway, I like the show. It’s not a big flashy presentation sort of musical. It’s dark, and not really happy sort of show.

It’s about this soldier and the two very different women who love him.

He starts out with one, and they declare how happy and in love they are.

Then he leaves on assignment where he meets the other.

There’s a lot of struggling to deal with this other woman who loves him desperately and trying to maintain the relationship with the first woman.

I rather like the score. I think a lot of it is based on a small number of musical themes. That’s something Sondheim does—not just repeating material, as some other music theatre composers do, but developing it, as a classical composer might. You’ll see it more in Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, and Sunday in the Park with Georgethan in some of his earlier shows. And it seems that Passion is his most “condensed” score in that way.

I haven’t done an analysis of the score, though I did propose such an analysis as a project for a music theory class, but the teacher rejected the idea, saying that it was “popular music” and we didn’t deal with popular music in the class. Actually, we had done some work with popular music already in the class, AND I would suggest that this show is not really “popular music”. It’s much more a work of artistic merit.

Anyway…it’s a great show. I’d love to do it sometime. It’s not really a big show, in terms of cast size and sets and props and such. But you’d need good singers—not just good voices, but people who are capable of learning some very difficult music. After all, it is Sondheim. You need musically advanced singers for a lot of Sondheim, but they must also be good actors to do the material justice. That’s what I like about really good musical theatre—it’s not just actors who can learn some notes or singers who can learn some blocking. 

Oh yeah, some shows also require strong dancing. This one doesn’t. Sondheim doesn’t write much for dance. 

So, what happened with City Arts?

Okay, this will be long, but I don’t really want to write a whole lot about this. Because I don’t really want to get angry, or any more depressed than I usually am. So mostly this will just be copied and pasted from my email.

I couple of months ago I got this email from the City Arts Drama Director:

Your public blog has recently come to my attention.  Having seen it, I have no choice but to let you know that until such time your naked pictures are not available to the public you will not be allowed to work with City Arts.  Our concern is that parents may not understand your point of view and that makes your association with us, potentially damaging to our tax-funded program.

Should you want to discuss this with me, I am available to schedule a meeting at your convenience.  We are not terminating you, but rather using the guidelines of Roster work as an as-needed employee.  At this time, your services as an accompanist can be served by others on our roster.

Well, the only involvement I’d had with them since starting this blog was that I had once or twice before prepared recordings for their children’s theatre to use. (Yeah, instead of their hiring someone to play the piano, the music director—who is a friend of mine—asked if I could make a recoding.) So, being the creative and often bored type I am, instead of just sitting down and playing through and recording the piano accompaniment as written, I did a (small) orchestration of all the music in the show and had my computer make a recording of that. It was not terribly extensive or complicated music, but this did constitute an artist effort on my part.

So, I wrote back:

That’s fine. I would ask that you inform the others involved with the show to not use the recordings I’ve prepared.
If you would, please, let me know when this has been taken care of. Thanks.

Well, I got no answer from him for a week, during which I contacted my friend the music director and was contacted by the stage director/children’s theatre director, both of whom basically said that it was unfortunate it went this way and that the artistic director didn’t need to send that original email. And they both asked me to reconsider. Yet my feeling was that this was not something I wanted to reconsider.

So I wrote again:

Has this been taken care of?
I want to be sure that the files I sent are deleted and any hard copies that may've been made are destroyed
Please let me know.

He did respond to that:

As this is a work for hire, I don’t need to destroy anything. Please send your invoice for payment. Feel free to call my cell if you have questions. I don’t have your number, otherwise I would have called on the first contact.

So I wrote and sent this diatribe:

I’m sure if you wanted to call me, you have my number somewhere, as it has not changed in the past 5 years.

Since I started posting my blog, over a year ago, you have not hired me as an accompanist. I’ve never thought you to be under any obligation to do offer me any work. 

You said in your email last week that my “association” with City Arts could be damaging. Well, this recording is the only “association” I currently have with you, apart from occasional attendance at meetings of the Playwrights’ Forum (of which I’m not currently a member). So, when you contact me to tell me that I will “not be allowed to work with City Arts” I think it’s a reasonable assumption that this position of yours should apply to the recordings I’ve made.

If that is not what you meant, then I don’t know why you bothered to send that email. But you did. You have created this situation at this time. I understand your decision. You’re acting as an administrator out of fear of potential backlash due to ignorance, conservatism, and religion. That is the side you have come down on in this.

Sadly, it is not surprising. However, I completely disagree with your position on this. I would like to think that the director of an Arts program, and a playwright, would make a stand to support personal and artistic exploration and expression, whether or not you or others may like it or are comfortable with it.

Now, I do not consider my photography as being directly connected to my work as a musician, however you have chosen to make that connection. So I am taking a stand, since you will not, in support of artistic expression. This is an issue of artistic integrity, and not something from which I’m likely to back down. Therefore, I must insist that those recordings NOT be used by City Arts.

Furthermore, this is not work that you have “hired” me to do. As in the past, this is something I did at the request of the music director as a favor and for which, in the past, I did not get paid to do, nor do I expect to be paid for the time I put into these recordings.

Well, again I got no response from this guy. Another week later, I found out from the music director that they’d gotten someone else to make a recording.  So I wrote this guy again:

I have heard that the children's theatre will be using a different recording from the orchestrated one I prepared. I would appreciate some official word, confirming that this is indeed the case. It would allow me to consider this situation officially resolved, so I no longer need to be concerned with it. Thank you.

He didn’t answer. The children’s theatre director did. And I still have heard nothing from the artistic director.

I don’t get it. It’s a lot like the reaction of the guy in Mississippi last year.

Apparently, from what I’ve gathered by talking to a couple of other people, no one had lodged any sort of complaint. He and the directors of the show for which I’d made these recordings had talked about it and decided it would be okay to use the recordings, and then he sent that first email.

This was all a “what-if”/pre-emptive-strike/covering-my-own-ass-in-case-of-future-whatever sort of thing.

I have yet to run into this City Arts guy socially (or professionally). And when I do, I’m not sure exactly what my response will be. But I don’t have anything much to say that I haven’t already said. I mean, I could say more, but it would likely just get personal and insulting. 

Naked Opera 9 (a miscellaneous threesome)

So, I’m spring cleaning, in the fall. Well, almost fall, so last-day-of-summer cleaning.

Also, I’m not sure I have enough to say about these three clips to make them separate entries.

Wagner’s Parsifal at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, 2005:

I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t know why there’s a mix of clothed and naked people. But it does conform to an often-seen approach to nudity in opera—that is, the singers are clothed, and it’s non-singing extras or dancers who are naked.

Gounod’s Faust (I don’t know the production info. Anyone?):

Another not-unpopular choice—one or two naked people, again, not singing, surrounded by clothed principals and clothed chorus.

Verdi’s Rigolettoat the Royal Opera House in London, 2012:

Ah...what every opera needs—an orgy. 

Sancta Susanna (naked opera 8)

Sancta Susanna by Paul Hindemith

I believe this is from a production at Opéra de Lyon with Agnes Selma Weiland as Susanna 

and Magdalena Anna Hofmann as Klementia.

I had never heard of this opera until this evening when I was looking for something to write about. 

And now, I only know what I’ve read on Wikipedia (see the link above, at the top).

It sounds interesting. Has anybody out there ever seen a production?

The Rite of Spring

My first semester in college I took a music class—I think it was Intro to Music Lit, one of those courses for music majors that you were supposed to take before your main music history classes—in which, at some point half-way through the semester, we watched a video of part of The Rite of Spring. 

The Rite of Spring, or Le sacre du printemps, is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky.

And Vaslav Nijinsky

choreographed the original production for the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1913. Both the music and the choreography were considered outrageous and nearly caused a riot by the audience.

It was definitely “pushing the envelope” in its day.

The score is now considered a major work of early 20th century “classical” music.

Well, when I watched this video in that class, just a little over 20 years ago, it wasn’t “outrageous”, but to me it seemed quite new and a little shocking. There was some nudity.

(AHHH! Naked people! AHHH!)

There was a solo dance in which the female soloist sort of danced her dress off. I didn’t know the piece then. I didn’t know that it is often performed with nudity. I was just surprised by the fact that her dress was falling down and she didn’t stop dancing, and no one stopped her to tell her. I thought at first that perhaps it was just one of those live performance accidents, but it eventually became quite clear to me that she couldn’t not be aware of this situation.

I don’t remember what the class discussion involved after we watched the video. So I don’t recall if the nudity was even brought up.

I have occasionally looked for that version, but I haven’t found it yet. I don’t recall any names—the dancers or company involved.

(None of these are from that version.)

Thinking about it now, I find it shockingly ridiculous that I found it surprising and shocking and had never seen any artistic performance before then which included nudity. And I can’t imagine I was the only one in the class who had that same level of ignorance or, if you’ll pardon the pun, that lack of exposure.

We still find nudity shocking today—at least nudity that doesn’t fit into certain acceptable or expected categories. Naked babies are fine. Nakedness in pornography is pretty-much a “given”. Nakedness in (some) cable TV and movies is okay as long as it’s set up right: a love scene or a shower scene or if it’s done for comedic effect. But it must be “pointed to” in a sense; it must be filmed in such a way as to bring it to our attention and played for the most titillation possible.

(BLECH! We suck.)

Ya know folks, artists are entertainers. Yes, we sometimes present nice, fun, sweet, pretty, socially non-problematic work which is extremely unlikely to offend anyone. 

BUT!!! We also are instigators, commentators, instructors, and many other things ending with “-ors”. Sometimes we present challenging, uncomfortable, ugly, shocking, surprising work that you very well may find offensive or may not even fully understand. If you’re shocked or surprised or offended, then you should ask yourself why.

What is being presented here that I find problematic in whatever way?
What is the author or creator of this work trying to do?
Should I be offended? Am I supposed to be upset about some external thing?
Or perhaps should I be re-examining myself and my assumptions about art and life?

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Well...

If you’re still with me... 

This turned into more of a rant than I expected. I’m quite certain I know why that is. Most likely I shall share that here sometime soon. 

Ercole su’l Termodonte (naked opera 5)

"Non sia della vittoria" 

from Ercole su'l Termodonte (Hercules in Thermodon) 

by Antonio Vivaldi, 

sung by Zachary Stains as Ercole (Hercules)

Spoleto Festival, Italy, 2006 directed by Alan Curtis

“Onde chiare che susserate” 

also from Ercole su'l Termodonte

sung by Marina Bartoli as Ippolita (Hippolyte)

For some reason there are Spanish subtitles.

The entire opera (same production) is here: "Vivaldi Ercole sul Termodonte 2006"(with no subtitles).

If you’re gonna have naked ladies, it’s only right to have a naked dude too.

Okay, actually there are no naked ladies in this production. There are some one-bare-breast-ladies. And some transparent-ish tops on a few ladies.

Anyway, bravo to this Zachary Stains fellow. He’s basically naked most of the time he’s on stage.

And bravo Mr. Vivaldi,

for writing this naked opera role.

Okay, fine. You're right; he probably didn’t write it as a naked role. But that Hercules does look like the classical Hercules. 

NOS

So, while working on yesterday’s "naked opera" blog, I discovered a new (to me) acronym: NOS. It stands for “Nude On Stage”.

There are fans, lists, web threads. Here’s one: nakedonstage.forumfree.it. However, sometimes these threads devolve into movies with some nude scene or set in a strip club.

I’m a fan of nudity, and a fan of live stage performance—music, theatre, dance—so I’m certainly a fan of the idea of on stage nudity. Haven’t seen any nude opera performances, that I recall. But I have seen some onstage nudity...that didn’t involve a pole. I mean, I’ve seen that too.

I saw a production of God’s Country (at least, I think it was God’s Country, by Steven Dietz) in which there was, at the end of act 1, an unnecessary, super-brief, topless girl. I don’t think it had anything to do with the play or the scene. And if you weren’t looking at the right part of the stage for those couple of seconds, you’d never know it happened.

I saw a production of Bent by Martin Sherman. The script indicates there’s a naked guy in one scene, but this production had another naked guy in another scene. But in the context, it made sense. Great play, by the way, if you don’t know it. There’s also a movie version which is good. But I think I prefer the play. It’s more gutsy, visceral.

I’ve seen Equus, which has some nudity. Also a really cool play, and there’s a movie of it too. (By the way, a recent-ish production stared Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter movie fame. Yes, he was naked. And yes, apparently you could totally see his “wand”.)

Anyway...

I’ve seen a couple of dance pieces that had nudity. One of them was at a dance festival, and the point of the “nudity” seemed to be something like, “ha-ha, we’re naked ladies back here, way upstage, but you’ll never know for sure, as we slowly inch across stage seated, and facing upstage. But, oh yeah, we’re naked. Heh-heh.” It was just a short part of medium-length piece, and seemed to me kinda pointless, really. The other piece was a longer work about the 7 Deadly Sins, and had some bits of nudity here and there, as well as a more extended solo and duet.

So... Sometimes onstage nudity is pertinent to the work—the play or dance or whatever. And sometimes it’s not; it’s more “hey, let’s have some nudity here”.

Now, I’m all for nudity, whether it’s making a point or if it’s more recreational in nature. But, I think onstage nudity in some works can be...inappropriate. That’s not a word I like much, when it comes to life—people interacting with each other and that sort of thing. But, I feel strongly that in an artistic work there can be choices that are not appropriate for that piece. Now, if the point of the piece is to shock, then great, shock away. But to insert something for shock value, or for your own personal/political/social/etc. agenda that doesn’t pertain to the work is inappropriate. That’s not to say one can’t find new and different ways to present some existing work. But don’t superimpose some idea or element that doesn’t make sense and can’t be justified by what’s already in the work—in the script or score or whatever.

As a professional singer friend of mine put it:

“...throwing naked bodies onstage just to have naked bodies and shock the audience is disgusting. There's a fine line between tastefully done and just doing it because you want to do it. It's like baking a cake. Do you take your time? Measure the ingredients, mix them well and then decorate it beautifully? Or do you just throw all of the shit into the oven and hope a beautiful cake comes out?
There has to be thought and meaning into why there is a naked body onstage.”

Okay, rant over. 

"Endless Pleasure, Endless Love" (naked opera 3)

Rosemary Joshua and chorus in "Endless Please, Endless Love" from Semele by Händel.

English National Opera, London, 1997

I really like this. It’s fun.

There’s another video of this aria with Cecilia Bartoli in what appears to be the same or very similar staging, but to me she seems less playful, less fun throughout. And her exit is more modest. So, boo! on all counts. 

Stuttgart Alcina (or, naked opera 2)

Georg Friedrich Händel

I actually don’t really know anything about this opera.

Alcina (by Haendel)

Nor about this production.

Staatsoper Stuttgart 1999

But in researching the topic of nudity in opera, I came upon this video.

I’m not sure if this counts as onstage nudity or if it’s a wardrobe malfunction, but considering the dress (which is kinda awesome) it’s either the former or the later just waiting to happen.

Catherine Naglestad “Ah, mio cor”

An issue I have with this particular video is that, given the explicit sexiness of that black dress, I don’t really buy the fact that the “boy” is a boy.

Yeah, pants roles (female singers playing young male characters) are a traditional operatic convention. But I often have difficulty turning off the part of my brain that says “that’s a woman”. And in this case, it’s even worse. I think the fact of seeing breasts onstage makes me all the more aware of the breasts on that “boy”.

Another point about this video: I’m not sure how I feel about the contemporary look and feel of an older opera, one which has the sound and feel of an older opera. Maybe it’s just the harpsichord, but for whatever reason, the visual doesn’t match the aural. I don’t mind a director’s changing the setting, nor doing a sort of minimal set, etc production, nor even something more surreal and eclectic—if it works. I suppose even changing the time period would be okay in some cases. But if it sounds old, putting it in a modern-looking and modern-feeling setting seems odd to me.

I don’t seem to have any problem with taking it in the opposite direction: for example the musical Les Miserables is set in revolutionary France in the early 1800s, yet the music is contemporary pop-ish musical theatre. I’m fine with that. And of course, I’ve seen productions and movies of Shakespeare plays that put the action in a more contemporary setting. Some were effective, some weren’t. There’s a great film of Richard III set in 1930s England. I think it works quite well.

So what’s the difference? I don’t know.

Anyway...my original point was: here’s an opera production that fits what a friend of mine was talking about when she said “More graphic nudity, sex, violence is definitely a trend in opera. I think it's trying to appeal to our dulled senses.”

If you’re interested, here’s my first naked opera entry:

“Strauss & 7 Veils”

Strauss & 7 Veils (or, naked opera 1)

(an excerpt from the score of Salome, by Richard Strauss)

I found this video a year or two ago while looking at opera stuff on youtube.

Maria Ewing in Salome (the opera by Richard Strauss) 

at the Royal Opera House, 1992

It’s the second half or so of the dance. If you’re interested, you can check out the whole thing:

Maria Ewing, Dance of the 7 Veils from Salome

This performance got me kinda curious, as it’s actually not horrible, and I started looking for other Salome’s dances. From the videos I found, when there’s actual nudity it’s usually for just the final second, before Salome collapses and some people rush around her and cover her with a cloak or something. I can’t seem to find many of those videos online now. Maybe someone felt embarrassed by the bad choreography and had them removed.

Anyway, in the story this dance is supposed to be a seduction, part of a deal between Salome and her step-father, Herod.

(Hey kids, it’s bible-story time! Yay! ...seriously, the story comes from Mark, chapter 6)

He says if she dances for him, he’ll give her whatever she asks. Then she does this sexy dance and asks for the head of John the Baptist, who they have in the dungeon.

A major problem with the “Dance of the 7 Veils” is that it’s a lengthy (usually) solo dance for an opera singer. “Traditionally” opera has had a lot of stand-there-and-sing-and-look-dramatic type of performers. And I think it’s still often the case that opera singers aren’t necessarily great movers. There’s just not much emphasis on movement in their training, certainly less than in the training that actors, especially musical theatre actors, get.

So the “7 Veils” Dance often ends up being Salome running around a lot and acting “sensual” &/or distraught, taking off a “veil” or two, then more running and sensual/distraught-ess...maybe some slow “seductive” moves? Well, the full dance is about 9 minutes long. What the hell do you do with an opera singer for that long?

Tiziana Sojat as Salome (not sure where or when)

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you just have boring choreography, or a really bad “dancer” doing what might otherwise be decent choreography. Or maybe you just have a non-dancer doing bad choreography invented by a non-choreographer.

So, if you have a soprano who doesn’t really move well, and who isn’t okay with taking her clothes off, you’ve got a problem. Back in the day, a lot of your big sopranos were exactly that: big sopranos. And as a friend of mine said, “Who wants to see Joan Sutherland naked?”

Well, this ain’t Dame Sutherland, but I suppose it’s pretty much the same:

Montserrat Caballe as Salome, Teatro de la Zarzuela de Madrid, 1979

Supposedly, in the original production, the soprano Marie Wittich (pictured here:)

wouldn’t do the dance, so it was done by a dancer. That might actually be a preferable situation for many productions. Recently there’s been more of a sexification of opera, and you’re seeing a lot more attractive “big” singers these days. (I’ll write more on that soon.) So, of course, if you have a singer who can handle the music and can move well and isn’t shy about taking her clothes off in front of an audience, then, by all means, go for it.

Catherine Malfitano as Salome, Berlin, 1990 (with Horst Hiestermann as Herodes)

RSC Marat/Sade

Here’s a BBC article about Royal Shakespeare Company production which a friend of mine posted on the facebook this morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15428711

I’d really love to see this production. If you’re not familiar with Marat/Sade, it’s a show with bunch of insane asylum inmates being led by the Marquis de Sade in a production of a play he wrote about an assassination. It has some songs, but it’s not a musical. As written, the play has the potential to be really dark and violent and disturbing.

I’ve seen 2 other productions of the play: what I recall about the first was that it was dark but kind of scattered; the second felt distant—it literally was, as it was on a regular proscenium stage with the audience at a nice, polite distance. It seems to me the show would have to be less effective with that setup.

Anyway, this RSC production sound like it might actually be gritty and disturbing. Any show that regularly has audience members walking out is something I’d be interested in seeing. Or doing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a production that I would describe as gritty and disturbing. I've seen things other people may've described that way, but I suppose I have different standards.

I did see a production of Man of La Mancha which was kinda gritty, but it wasn’t really disturbing. It’s Man of La Mancha—too hopeful and positive. I was involved with a production of Bent, which was disturbing, but not gritty. I saw a really awesome production of West Side Story which did not (unlike the other WSS productions I’ve seen) seem to be about a bunch of gay boys prancing around stage; it was violent and actually made sense, but neither gritty nor disturbing. There’s a 1994 London cast recording of The Threepenny Opera that sounds awesomely gritty, the opposite of a university music department production I saw, which was more like and operetta.

This new RSC Marat/Sade apparently has “sexually explicit” material and torture. Bravo. Now, I’m not turned on by the idea of violence. But, (and this is much like my recent critique of Hair) if you’re going to explore something, then fucking explore it, don’t shy away from it, or politely tip your hat toward it. If you’re gonna do, say, Cabaret, you can’t be afraid of exploring presentational sexuality—sexy girls skimpily clad. If you’re gonna do Equus, you can’t be afraid of nudity and violence. (If you’re gonna do a naked blog, you can’t be shy about people seeing your genitalia. By the way, people who have a “my naked blog” as a ploy to get people to check out your not-naked-blog: I call bullshit on you.)

A guy I know recently mentioned a show his school was doing, and that they were censoring it somewhat. That shit makes me mad. (See, I’m cursing. Sometimes cursing is the right thing to do.)

I’m tired of polite theatre. I’m tired of pandering to a repressed audiences’ sensibilities. Take a fucking risk of offending someone. Maybe it’ll start a fucking conversation about theatre other than, “Oh that was so good...That must’ve been a lot of working learning all that lines...Didn’t little Susie sing pretty?” Fucking comfortable, middle-class, community-theatre bullshit.

Well... I wasn’t really planning on a diatribe.

I suspect this was brought on by several things; the timid nudity in the show I saw the other night; recently hearing a theatre artistic director talk about the “politics” of casting (i.e., figuring out who you need to cast for various reasons other than who would be best in what roles); someone’s mentioning that they heard other people talking about this blog who presumably aren’t talking to me about it nor commenting on the blog (there’s a significant dearth of comments on this blog); and the continuing trend of people unfriending me on the facebook (the hemorrhaging has stopped, but there’s still the occasional trickle).

Hmm...

So...
I really just wanted to say how I’d like to see that RSC Marat/Sade production.

HAIR

Last night I saw a production of Hair at Elon University.

I’d seen another production—a community theatre production—several years ago. So, I guess I’ll be comparing the two a little.

But first, let me say this:

I don’t really like the show. I have issues with the show. In its day, it was probably very important. It was putting something on stage that people weren’t accustomed to seeing, at least not on stage in a polite theatrical setting. But the story isn’t always clear—the hippie-freedom of the thing gets in the way a lot. Certainly one might make the argument that the show is simply that: hippie freedom.

In fact, one of the people who went with me last might said he’d met the author years ago, and the author said the show should be really loose and free. But that’s not what I generally go to theatre to experience. I wouldn’t’ve gone to see this show if I’d had to buy the tickets. Someone I know had connections.

I’m sure it’s absolutely possible to have a show about hippie-freedom but that makes a stronger point by having a clearer story. As it is, Hair just seems to be throwing a bunch of entertainment at you in a self-aware sort of way. There are several lines in the script which refer to the audience, etc.

But if the point is to “experience” a taste of free, crazy fun then there are better ways to do it. For example, attend a theatre party. If it’s the right party, there’ll be people actually smoking pot (or doing something)—it may be in a back room somewhere, but you can find it. If you stick around long enough, there will be nudity. There will be talk of sex, and there may be actual sex. Definitely there will be loud music and singing and dancing and occasional moments of tender emotional outpouring.

So, this production last night:

Generally, it was extremely well performed. That’s very typical of Elon—they have some amazing singers and dancers and actors and various combinations of all three. The first act was strong, much more focused than the other production I saw several years ago, and probably more so than most productions. The second act seemed weaker—maybe due to the writing, maybe not. I don’t know. But it seemed lacking after act 1. It’s an odd act—most, or a big chunk, of it is a drug trip which is a series of vignettes. But that doesn’t stand out as being significantly different, as the rest of the show shares that quality. There were video projections and a chick in a black unitard with what I think were bones painted on it I assume representing death—the trip mostly deals with anxiety about Viet Nam. There were some nice moments in act 2, but it just didn’t live up to the energy and excitement of act 1.

The nudity:

In the original production there was nudity. In the production I saw several years ago there was nudity. In a production a friend of mine was in a few years ago there was nudity. I would assume it’s always done with nudity, although I’m not naïve enough to think there aren’t theatres who would choose to do the show but who would never consider putting nudity onstage. It’s the same kind of groups who’d put up a show that has a lot of profanity, but then censor it, so as to not upset the delicate sensibilities of their audience. (Or perhaps it’s more about the fears and timidity of the producers/directors.) And to those people I say, “Choose a different fucking show, assholes. There are tons of “family-friendly” options out there.

Or better yet: http://christianplays.net/ or http://www.christiantheatre.org/ I mean, isn’t that the issue? (Oddly, there’s no heathenplays.org or .com or whatever. Oh yeah, that’s just regular theatre.)

So, there was nudity in last night’s production. It was in the typical place: the act 1 finale. Here’s what the director said in her notes in the program:

“In the spirit of this theme of freedom, my point of view as director was not to censor, nor require, the nudity, but rather to leave it as an individual option for each member of the company. Although there was much rehearsal for every other part of this production, this particular moment was never rehearsed. The final decision is ultimately left up to the performer, based upon his or her character’s beliefs, in the given moment of the scene.”

Now, I know this director. I don’t particularly want to hurt her feelings (and if you’re reading this, feel free to respond—for that matter, anyone should free to respond to any of these blog entries; in fact, please do), but...to me that feels like a bit of a cop-out. And the way that the nudity was presented felt a little bit like a cop-out.

It was not, “Hey, look at us, we’re naked, we’re free, it’s a part of who we are.” The cast, except “Claude” (the “main character”), was in a semi-circle across the stage, standing pretty tightly packed together. Clause was out in the middle of the audience, standing on the arms of two seats with a spotlight on him. With that staging, he should be the focus of the scene, although most people were probably looking, squinting, trying to see more of the naked people onstage. So, to me, it seemed more like, “this is Hair; we’re naked, but you can only sort of see it.” You could tell that some were totally naked, some were clothed, but there were very few individuals. Perhaps if I knew the cast, I might recognize more individuals. But the lighting was about as dark as you’ll see onstage except for a blackout.

Now, I’m not old enough to have been around back in the day, so I don’t know exactly how nudity of that group (hippies) in that time (the 60s) should play. But it didn’t feel like freedom or self-expression or defiance of social convention. It felt like they were doing Hair, and that’s what you’re “supposed” to do at that moment, so they did it, but not in a way that would be too offensive.

The other production I saw several years ago embraced that nudity much more. If I recall correctly, in that production there was nudity in a couple of other spots as well, not just the act 1 finale. There didn’t seem to be any fear or uncertainty or reluctance concerning the nudity. It was unapologetically part of the show. My feeling is that it should be unapologetic and unfearful. If you’re gonna be naked (and free), just do it.