A Blog Within a Blog Within a ... WHAT?

This week on the blog we’ll attempt what no-one in their right mind would: a satire on the satirical masterpiece, 'The Skin of Our Teeth'. The play plays with a play within a play (Got that? If not, click here). So we'll do our best with a blog within a blog...

Let us know if you find your way out of this. 

THE PLAYERS: 

• Krista Marushy: the person who came up with this stupid idea
• Morris Ertman: Artistic Director (Rosebud), Regular Director (The Skin of Our Teeth)

Note: all interview questions are real. Artistic liberties have not been taken with Rosebud’s Artistic Director, just liberties with art, in general.

AN INTERVIEW IN 3 ACTS

*ACT 1: Home*

A woman sits, distractedly, before a computer. The first words appear on the screen: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR THE BLOG. A rewrite looms ominously.

KRISTA: I’m sitting here in my living room, pleased to take you on the artistic journey into this blog process.

Calgary, AB.

This morning was daylight savings, and my children were appropriately unreasonable. In the news, many dispiriting things, mostly coming from the country south of our borders. There is reportedly a wall of ignorance moving northward, but disruptions within our own country’s communications indicate the wall may be surrounding us more closely than first suspected. For further information, see your daily papers, or grossly inaccurate social media feeds.

But let's settle into something a little more comfortable, as in, the actual interview.

She types more words into an e-mail then fires it off to Morris Ertman, Artistic Director, Rosebud Theatre.

KRISTA: I wonder if he’ll hate this idea.

Time passes. Slowly. Later that day...

KRISTA: 6 PM and he hasn’t responded yet! He almost certainly hates the idea. Direct questions would probably be best, but a telemarketer once told me a clear question is the most dangerous thing and should absolutely be avoided at all costs. Oh why oh why can’t anyone respond in a timely manner on their only day off at dinner time?

Every e-mail it’s the same ole thing: will they respond, or won’t they? Will they use words, attachments, emojis? Emojis, by the way, are the only sure way to tell what's really being said and if the Garden of Eden had more emojis in front of that treewe’d all be in a better place.
Of course Morris is extraordinarily intuitive so there really shouldn’t be a problem. Artistic too. He’s been running that Rosebud for so many years, it’s a wonder the theatre’s still standing. But since they’ve rattled along for some time now – my advice is not to inquire why or whither but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate – that’s my philosophy. (Or rather, a direct quote from The Skin of Our Teeth.)

Oh, look! The e-mail has arrived and all is right with the world.

*ACT 2: The Interwebs*

Krista opens the e-mail and transcribes Morris’s answers into the appropriate places. A blog appears on your screen:

Morris, why on earth would you choose this story at this time? Please keep your answers direct as there is too much artistic freewheeling going on as is. 

Because someone has to do this play in this time! It's all about the state of the world we live in right now - climate change, refugees, what is good in us, how can we survive? What is our place in the Cosmos? It was written in the 1940's, as if it were written for today! And I love Thornton Wilder. And the 1st Act is all about refugees finding safety in an everyday suburban home because it is so cold outside. What are we reading about in the news? Refugees crossing the border from the U.S. to Manitoba, losing limbs because of frostbite and a small Manitoba town of generous people bing overwhelmed by the steady stream of people seeing refuge... Short enough for you? It is a play about the end of the world, you know. 

What’s a question within a question that you have about the play?  

Why is a man's love for his son manifested only in expectation? 

The profundity of Morris’s answer reveals a doorwary. They open it and stand in front of the dawn of creation. The first moonlight blazes like the inaugural launch of a virginal ship. 

 Morris: Always present, some days appearing round, other days a crescent. And never the same for everyone on the planet.
  Krista: Do you have any snacks, and if so, what would they be?

              Morris: Nuts and mango juice.

              Krista: Do you think we’re meant to sleep under that light?

              Morris: We’re all meant to sleep under that same light.

They close the door.

Some would call this show Metatheatrical. First of all, what is that, and second of all, does it get confusing?
Meta Epic! It’s an epic show about a family spanning thousands of years surviving huge threats to its existence both outside and inside. [Meta = self-referential: the characters in the play are actors putting on a play and they sometimes acknowledge that.] And surprisingly, it doesn’t get confusing. It’s as if Thornton Wilder touched genius and heart all at the same time. It’s so approachable as a story. We know these people. We know their struggles and their triumphs.

What IS confusing about this play?
At the moment, nothing. But that could all change in today’s rehearsal.

What are some of your favorite lines from the script? 

   Mr. Antrobus: Broken-down camel of a pig’s snout, open this door!
   Mrs. Antrobus: God be praised! It’s your father! 

"Pass up your chairs, everybody. Save the human race."

Mrs. Antrobus: I have a message to throw into the ocean… It’s a bottle. And in the bottle’s a letter. And in the letter is written all the things that a woman knows. It’s never been told to any man and it’s never been told to any woman, and if it finds its destination, a new time will come. We’re not what books and plays say we are. We’re not in the movies and we’re not on the radio. We’re not what you’re all told and what you think we are: We’re ourselves. And if any man find one of us he’ll learn why the whole universe was set in motion.

When do you think humanity is most aware of the passing of time?
When we come to an actual understanding that this life is finite. This world is finite.

What’s the best reason to see this play right now, other than it’s profound hilarity and it’s hilarious profundity?  

It’ll make everyone feel again. It will give hope to live and love despite all the turmoil we face in the world. It’s that powerful. It chokes me up just writing this, because I’m thinking about the end of the play and the fact that it feels like beginning again is actually possible.

Discuss the difference between allusion and illusion, and if that matters to this play. 

Allusion is referencing something in passing in a way that gives it substance in the subconscious. An illusion is a trick of the perception. This play is a pastiche of ideas and people and places and literature and imagery that live in our collective conscience. It’s as if they’ve bubbled to the surface – to the lips of characters in the play that have survived thousands of years. Imagine being 400 years old. Imagine all of the reference to life one would contain at that age. All of the allusions that would be part of your life, all of the most important impressions and experiences. They’d be part of your vocabulary. Now multiply that by thousands of years, and what kind of language would one have to draw upon? It’s a staggering idea. And it’s what we as a collection of human beings possess because of literature, oral tradition, painting, theatre, art, movies, architecture, science, the experience of millions of people staring up into the heavens, standing on bluffs looking across prairie grass or ocean vistas, BIG LIFE so precious it can’t help but be noted in some way.

*ACT 3: Infinity & Beyond*

Krista, distracted, imagines Morris interviews her.

Morris: How many times have you read the script, Kris?

Krista: At least once. Twice. I’m gonna go with 4.

Morris: Did this play get your motor running?

Krista: I always like a play with big ideas that you can’t quite “get” until it’s in front of you. It’s very rare to read a play that can’t be done for another medium… i.e., made into a movie. This is a PLAY. Capital P. Hardly anyone does that, but I think it’s what Thornton Wilder did best. He knows what theatre is capable of.

Morris: If you were to ask me more questions, what would they be?
Krista: 

K: Do you have any dialogue swirling around in your head that
you’re just waiting to put into a play someday?
M: An old man in a Massey-Ferguson cap standing on a prairie bluff – the grass around him rippled by the wind, his long white hair blowing, his nose hairs rippling like the grass with every intake of breath.

            K: That’s not dialogue.

            M: It’s more a story idea than dialogue.

            K: Images mostly.

            M: There’s just a lot of swirling.

            K: Do you ever imagine interviewing me?

Morris imagines a blog with questions for Krista.

It goes on and on, like this forever. Just go see the show. It's way better than this. Trust me. 

'The Skin of Our Teeth' March 31 - June 3. www.rosebudtheatre.com

Inside 'The Skin of Our Teeth'

Opening our 2017 season is Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, which the playwright himself called “The most ambitious project I have ever approached.”

The original Broadway poster for The Skin of Our Teeth, 1942.

Relishing in staging the seemingly absurd and impossible, the play centers on an outwardly normal suburban family from the fictional town of Excelsior, New Jersey. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the world of the Antrobus family is anything but normal: dinosaurs prowl through the living room, characters address the audience, backstage crew enter and speak, and the set is disintegrating. This “so-called” New Jersey is merely the starting point for navigating 5,000 years of family antics and apocalyptic disasters. Through an Ice Age, Flood, and World War, the play’s title (Job 19:20  I am escaped with the skin of my teeth) makes the point clear: no matter how narrow the escape, the human race survives.

Simultaneously taking place in contemporary and prehistoric times, the set-up can sound confusing until considering another “modern stone-age family”. The Flintstones (1960’s) was a clear cave-man take on the popular family sitcom The Honeymooners (1950’s). Though the cartoon was both an absurd and satirical social commentary, it only takes the intro for The Flintstones to make sense. The Skin of Our Teeth invites audiences into a similar situation: Biblical archetypes mix with mid-century American dynamics to create something absurdly silly and still profoundly compelling. Instead of cartoons, the zaniness is theatre itself. The characters in The Skin of Our Teeth are actors putting up ‘The Skin of Our Teeth’, and regularly step out of character to complain about their roles or whenever the play feels particularly incomprehensible. With innocent and childlike disruptiveness, Wilder explodes ideas and characters not strictly confined to literal time. With little control over where we’ve been, where we’re going, or what might happen to us along the way, the audience (like humanity) is meant to hang on for the ride and get through it together.

Two of the play's famous leading ladies: (Left) Vivien Leigh in a 1946 production at the Piccadilly Theatre. (Right) Tallulah Bankhead originated Sabina on Broadway in 1942. Photo copyright First Night Vintage.

 When The Skin of Our Teeth premiered at New Haven’s Shubert Theatre on October 15, 1942, it received a notoriously mixed reaction (legend tells of patrons racing from the theatre at first intermission). At its New York premiere a month later, it received significantly warmer reception. In 1943, it won the Pulitzer Prize. Breaking nearly every established theatrical convention, the epic comedy-drama rightfully earned its place as the most unorthodox of classic American comedies and the assertion that “no other American play has ever come anywhere near it.” (James Woolcott, theatre critic).

Wilder had firmly established his literary reputation as a novelist with his immensely popular, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), which won his first Pulitzer Prize. In the 30’s, he began writing plays for Broadway and utilizing unusual structures and techniques. Our Town (1938), his best-known and most frequently performed work, broke ground with its bare stage setting and time navigating narrator. Earning Wilder his second Pulitzer Prize, it also demonstrates his long-standing fascination with the effects of the passage of time on individuals and societies. That preoccupation also surfaces in The Skin of Our Teeth, which emerged onto stages just as America (and Wilder himself) entered World War II. He later reflected that “It was written on the eve of our entrance into the war and under strong emotion, and I think it mostly comes alive under conditions of crisis.”

He was writing it as the world was descending into chaos. I think everybody was wondering: “Will we get through this? And if we do, what then? Will we learn anything? Will we grow or change or do it better the next time?"... The characters are continually hitting rock bottom and then finding a way – and it’s usually with the help of other people – to have the hope to move forward, despite the catastrophic situation that is facing them in that immediate moment. 

- Arin Arbus 

 New York Times: Why Thornton Wilder Matters in the Trump Era

 In later years Wilder was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and his  novel, The Eighth Day (1967), earned the National Book Award. In 1975, Wilder died in his sleep in Hamden Connecticut, where he lived with his sister.

Three time Pulitzer Prize winning novelist & playwright, Thornton Wilder.

One of the toughest and most complicated minds in American Theatre, Wilder’s plays have so affected theatre tradition that few serious dramatists ignore them. Their singular humanity and artistic vision continue to resonate well beyond his time.

Any play with three apocalypses, talking dinosaurs, and characters who refuse to say their lines is clearly aiming high. But when that play has a housemaid tell us in her opening speech that it will address all “the troubles the human race has gone through,” it may seem destined for ambitious failure. The Skin of Our Teeth, however, succeeds. A vast, symbolic play about all of humanity, Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece is also a witty, compassionate look at the struggles of a single family. Sure, the Antrobus clan (whose name derives from the Greek for humanity) may weather the calamities of ice ages, floods, and wars, but they also face the struggle of raising children, going to work, and trying to stay faithful for five thousand years. With staggering imagination, Wilder reminds us that the destruction and rebirth on his stage take their shape from the cycle of our own lives. It’s no accident that Sabina, the saucy housemaid who directly addresses us with her analysis of the play, closes by insisting, “We have to go on for ages and ages yet.” Onstage or off, she’s telling us, we’re all enduing the same old thing. 

- Mark Blankenship 

Notes on the End of the World, The Thornton Wilder Society

Join us at the end of this month as we attempt to stage the survival of the entire human race. It's a rare and exciting opportunity to catch 'The Skin of Our Teeth', at Rosebud Theatre, March 31 - June 3. For tickets and further information, visit rosebudtheatre.com

State of the Art: Radio Drama

This week we're talking shop with radio drama afficiando, Peter Church, who last performed on the Rosebud stage in 'Miracle on 34th Street' and returns in the upcoming 'The Skin of Our Teeth'. In-between, we sounded him out about the current state-of-the-art of radio drama, his passion for it, and his recommendations in the genre. This 'older' fashioned art form seems to be making a comeback, and Peter talks about why! 

Peter Chuch, performing live in a staged radio drama. Photo by Kevin Jacob 

In your last interview, you said, “Radio drama, to my mind, is one of the purest kinds of Theatre.” Can you first define "Radio Drama"? Is it any story on the radio, or is it also theatre plays presented in a radio ‘style’? 

“Radio Drama” is technically a misnomer. Most modern audiences are listening on their iPods or computers, so “Audio Drama” or “Audio Entertainment” would be a more accurate term. That said, I personally prefer "Radio Drama" because, even now, it still conjures the image of an actor in place behind a microphone and the listening audience huddled at home, sharing the experience around a little wooden box.
Theatre productions using the radio style are trickier to categorize. These hybrids are having a bit of a Renaissance right now. The audience usually watches a company of actors performing a play around microphones. Is it live theatre? Yes. And no. Is it a Radio Play? No. And yes!
I’ve written a number of stage shows in this style, and have waffled quite a bit on what to call them. How can I help an audience member understand what they’re in for? “A live radio-style stage show” is clunky. “An audiophonic experience”, is confusing at best (and pretentious at worst). For now, I think I’ve settled on “A staged radio drama”. Thankfully, this kind of theatre is gaining enough exposure that I find myself having to explain it less and less.

Why do you think this style is gaining popularity? Is it just a throw-back to a simpler time?

The convention certainly seems to be taking off! It can seem like a strange mix at first, [Theatres producing shows about radio performers telling a story] but I think it’s gaining traction for a number of reasons:

• It’s affordable for theatres to produce. In keeping with the tradition of the radio plays of the 1930’s - 50’s, actors stand around the microphone and read from the script. There’s no memorization period for the cast, and minimal staging required, so you can cut the expensive rehearsal process in half.
• It worked then, it works now. Before we had the technology to record radio plays, the shows were performed [and transmitted] in front of live audiences.
• Audiences enjoy a creative workout. Our imaginations are becoming lazy. We’re saturated in visual forms of entertainment that do most of the work for us. Or as Vincent Price said, “We’re trained not to use the imagination, but if you stick with it (radio drama) for a couple of hours those imagination buds start working.” Younger theatre-going audiences are generally more open now to experimenting with new formats like Radio Drama on stage, and older audiences remember the radio shows from their past and come to the live stage shows out of a sense of nostalgia.

What is it about radio, specifically, that you find so essentially pure?

Radio Drama is aptly referred to as “Theatre of the Mind”, and I think therein lies its great power. I deliberately write my staged radio dramas with the intention that audience members should be able to close their eyes at any point and still be absorbed in the story. The better your imagination, the better the story! Like ancient reciters of the great epics, an audio drama suggests the action to the listener and from there imaginations should take over.

One of the most popular mystery dramas of its time, The Whistler was an American radio program from 1942 - 1955.

Do you have a favorite radio play? Or is there a specific genre you’re drawn to?

Oh, gosh. That’s like asking a Librarian to choose a favorite book!

My favorite shows tend to be those “Real Thriller-Dillers!” from the 1950’s. While I love old time comedies like The Jack Benny Show or Our Miss Brooks and science fiction series like Dimension X, nothing quite beats the more lurid tales like Lights Out, Inner Sanctum, The Witch’s Tale, or The Whistler. Part of my preference, no doubt, comes from the psychological element of radio (the unseen will always be scarier than the seen), but I think it’s also because it’s really exciting to be shocked and surprised by a supposedly dead medium. At the height of the Golden Age of Radio, NBC and CBS were filled with sophisticated and harboiled programs that continue to represent the very best of the art form: shows like Suspense, Gunsmoke, and Escape still provoke and engage.

It's a Wonderful Life: On the Air at Pacific Theatre. Photo by Damon Calderwood.

Listening to a story on the radio tends to be strangely intimate, as it takes a certain focus to process purely 'aural' information and create the world in which it makes sense. Do you think theatre can distill the vulnerability that comes when people listen so acutely? Or is it the magic of the medium of radio?

I think it’s possible to have moments in the theatre with that kind of power or vulnerability, but I’m not sure that we can “capture” or control it. When done right, radio is able to hardwire itself into the listener’s imagination. 
In traditional theatre, a particular moment or a particular production can sometimes transport you. When it happens, it’s glorious, but I find it fleeting and capricious. There are so many factors that can pull an audience member out of the story on stage. In radio, the Storyteller is at the wheel and the brain can’t help but imagine what it’s hearing.

Visual entertainment is passive: put-upon the viewer. Reading a book is almost the opposite; it takes full effort from the reader, but they can shut that effort off on a whim. Radio Drama lives somewhere between the two.

I was once editing an Audio Play and accidentally dropped a sound effect into the wrong part of the track (it was a phone hitting the floor). I put the sound cue in a few seconds too early, and when I played it back, my brain was instantly convinced that the female character had just been hit across the head with a phone! The actor and the sound effect worked together to trick my brain. I wrote the play. I recorded the play. I acted in the play. And yet, with a simple insinuation from a sound effect, for a second… I believed.

Peter next to the Foley (Sound Effects) Table. Photo by Rick Colhoun.

What elements make a great radio drama, in your opinion?

The best radio plays aren’t just screen plays with sound effects slapped on them. Instead, they are carefully woven for a blind audience. Whether it’s comedy or drama, the best plays exploit the listener’s handicap and use it against them.

Here are a few clips from series that I think do it well. Hear how well the writers use our lack of vision to make the stories come alive:

JACK BENNY

Jack attempts to get his debauched orchestra members to clean up their act at the start of the New Year.

OUR MISS BROOKS

School Teacher, Miss Brooks, plays hooky to go skiing with handsome co-worker, Mr.Boynton. Suddenly the Principal, Mr.Conklin, shows up to catch her with her skis on.

THE WHISTLER

The classic scenario of a young couple stopping at a spooky old house after their car breaks down. Pay attention to just how dark the setting is, and how the actors use their proximity to the mic to help get inside your head. The sound quality is a bit poor on this one, so I suggest listening with the volume up and the lights off.

GUNSMOKE

Marshall Matt Dillon rides into a small town only to find out too late that the whole town is being held hostage in a barn by a gang leader looking to avenge the recent death of his brother. They capture the Marshall and are threatening to execute hostages if the identity of the hero who shot the outlaw’s brother isn’t revealed.

Is there a modern day equivalent to what was happening with radio in the 20th Century?

That’s a fantastic question. Hopefully it doesn’t seem like too obvious of an answer but I strongly believe that the Internet can easily be likened to radio in the 1930’s. It’s a relatively young medium that is radically globalizing our communities, and is simultaneously being used for news and for entertainment… It's interesting, however, that while the web has drastically changed how we consume our entertainment, it hasn’t much changed what we’re consuming.

Peter Church performs in A Christmas Carol: On the Air at Pacific Theatre. Photo by Damon Calderwood.

Lastly, any 'new' radio projects in the works?
I'm currently working on an exciting project with a producer in the Netherlands who has me scripting offstage dialogue for her modernization of Medea. The idea is that the audience is sitting in the theatre watching a young child alone in their room, while the (soon-to be-tragic) argument that leads to the child's murder is unravelling in the room next door. Not a traditional radio play at all, but we're using the same techniques for the listening audience!



Peter Church is performing artist currently residing in Airdrie, AB. His Audio Drama credits for the stage include 'It's a Wonderful Life: On the Air', 'A Christmas Carol: On the Air', 'Christmas Radio Double Feature: Gift of the Magi by O. Henry & The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde', 'Old Time Gospel Radio Hour' (co-written with Ron Reed & Kenton Klassen), 'I Love a Mystery!' (Original Radio Series Pastiche), and 'Radio Project X', a monthly radio cabaret in Toronto where he's co-founder, producer, writer, and director. His Audio adaptations include 'The Ghosts of Mariposa' by S.C. Pinney, 'The Wooden Angel' by Jason Hildebrand, 'The Other Celia' by Theodore Sturgeon, 'Black Ice and Hockey' by Peter H. Church (namesake and uncle), 'The Trail of the Flicker Flea' by C.H.M. Church (Grandfather), and 'Radio's Revenge': an anthology podcast of which Peter is also co-founder, producer, writer and director.