A PAPER FOR PRESENTATION AT THE

ASSOCIATION FOR THEATRE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

7-10 AUGUST 1991

BY

JOANNE KLEIN

PROGRAM IN DRAMATIC ARTS

ST. MARY'S COLLEGE OF MARYLAND

ST. MARY'S CITY, MARYLAND 20686

In an Op/Ed column published in The Chronicle of Higher Education (17 April 1991), Cecilia Pang responded to the Miss Saigon casting controversy by outlining some steps that theatre programs in American colleges and universities might take toward promoting sensitivity to Asian aesthetic traditions. Full implementation of her suggestions lies beyond the pale of a small theatre program in a small liberal arts college like St. Mary's College of Maryland, where I teach. Because our curriculum, staffing, and facilities are rudimentary (however much the constitution of rudiments is a subject for ongoing redefinition), our options for programmatic diversification exist mainly through supplementing our core with topics courses, guest scholars or artists, and, most effectively, the selection of material for our production season. My choice of Carol Sorgenfrei's script, Medea: A Noh Cycle Based on the Greek Myth, was based partly on its utility as a vehicle for introducing Asian theatre techniques and aesthetics not only to the students and faculty (including myself) who mounted the production, but also to those campus and community members who attended it. However, the spectre of inauthenticity (as in bogus or colonialistic appropriation of extrinsic cultural traditions), which was relieved somewhat by the fact of a Western script, troubled us from the outset: enough so that, when Cecilia Pang's piece appeared almost two years after the production, I anxiously compared our process against her provisos and was pleased to observe a modest accounting for her concerns.

This paper will describe some of the processes and decisions we undertook when I directed the Sorgenfrei "Medea" at St. Mary's College in December 1989. Although script fidelity (including commitment to its various underlying aesthetic systems) determined our approach at the time of production, I shall also consider Dr. Pang's recommendations as a postfixed framework for discussing those choices.

Circumstances overdetermine all theatrical practice, so, before proceeding, I want to situate this production. St. Mary's College is a selective public liberal arts college located in rural Southern Maryland, about 70 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. It enrolls 1,500 coed, mainly residential students, and its leadership is committed to diversification of students, faculty, and curriculum, especially to reflect regional demographics, which include a large African American population, but small representations by Native-, Latin-, and Asian-Americans. The surrounding community, except for a few palatial estates along the rivers, consists mostly of farmers, fishers, and the military.

At the time of the "Noh Medea" production, the Program in Dramatic Arts (the College has a divisional rather than a departmental structure) had a full-time faculty of two generalists, a full-time non-faculty designer/technical director, and a couple of part-time appointments in the areas of movement and voice. (We have since added a full-time line in dance and movement.) The Program enrolls around twenty majors, has a substantial "General Education" component that includes large numbers of non-majors, and mounts four mainstage productions a year. The "mainstage" is a flexible space blackbox facility that seats between 125 and 310 people, depending on its configuration.

In view of these circumstances and of the Program's recent production history (which recorded good coverage in many respects, but omitted examples of Classical, Asian, and feminist work), I chose to direct the Sorgenfrei "Medea" as my first production at the College. For myself, this choice also provided inducement to remediate my ignorance of Asian theatre and its subsuming contexts, as well as a promise of antidote for the excesses I noted in my recent stagings. Furthermore, the Sorgenfrei "Medea," through its particular fusions, allowed me to explore and depict technologies of feminism and comparative culture, two areas of special interest to me. (I had just left a joint appointment in Women Studies and Comparative Literature.)

Classical versions of the Medea legend render the male perspective on her actions; even the role of Medea in Euripides's tragedy would have been created by a male actor, as if to physicalize the masculine origins of her character. Carol Sorgenfrei's modern re-visioning of this story confronts the plight of women in such a patriarchal system and replaces the male-animated character with one wholly configured by women.

In this and other ways, her script engages in a dialogue with earlier cultural projects. Its hybrid nature (apparent even in the title) fuses a dialectic between East and West, ancient and modern. Eastern cultural traditions provide the dramatic structure (a five-act text modeled on the traditional cycle and rhythmic contours of Classical Noh theatre), the performance style (a mixture of conventions drawn from Noh, Kabuki, and Kyogen, verging at times into Chinese Opera), and the narrative trajectory (Zen) of the play. The joining of Western myth with Eastern conventions suggests a new reading of the Medea story according to certain like and unlike cultural codes. For example, female impersonation by male actors (with all its gender-encoding baggage) is present in both traditions, while the Noh/Zen focus on unmasking of essence counterpoints (critiques?) our Western (white male) obsession with linear progress and action. (French playwright Paul Claudel observed that in Western Drama, something happens; in Noh, someone appears.)

The Sorgenfrei "Medea" opens in the manner of traditional Noh: after the Musicians and five Chorus members are situated in their traditional places, the God Play, or jo (beginning) segment of the drama begins. A waki, the deuteragonist or supporting character (here, Medea's now aged childhood Nurse), enters, introduces herself and her purpose, and then recites a "travel song" as she makes a journey, in this case to the household altar of Medea's Corinthian palace, the scene of notorious infanticide. Throughout this passage and throughout the play, interspersed choral odes serve as they do in traditional Noh to extrapolate the narrative by speaking both about and, unlike Classical Greek choruses, for the characters. At the conclusion of the waki's journey, the shite, or protagonist (here Medea), enters. The ensuing scene follows typical Noh practices in that the shite appears in disguise (Medea wears the concealing garb of a priestess), and her dialogue with the waki, which promises a feminist perspective on her story, sets the subsequent plot.

Still in conformity with traditional Noh, the three acts that follow God Play -- Warrior Play, Woman Play, and Frenzy Play -- comprise the ha (middle) segment of the drama, in which the shite dances a re-enactment of the prior event and then retires. Sorgenfrei focuses these acts respectively on the key moments of the Medea legend: her meeting and liaison with Jason, her reaction to Jason's betrayal, and her apotheosis after the crime. The kyu (end) segment of the script, the Demon Play, deviates slightly from conventional Noh, where it depicts the reappearance of the shite, who now reveals herself in a climactic dance that resolves the action. Medea's essential identity has already been revealed; during her apotheosis in the Frenzy Play, she performs a hikinuki (or instantaneous and theatrical onstage costume transformation drawn from the Kabuki). Sorgenfrei's Demon Play exposes the true identities of Jason and his sons, who reappear now as parasitic demons.

Sorgenfrei's graft of Asian, Greek/Western, and feminist sensibilities is synergetic. The mere confluence of these ideologies creates a vortex of reciprocal critique, provoking audiences into re-evaluation of cultural prejudice. Furthermore, the Noh tradition of depicting action from the viewpoint of recollection, in its poetic re-membering and discussion of past events, provides a good model for feminist re-visioning. Sorgenfrei's feminist project is also advanced by focus on discrepancy between the apparent and the real, a frequent plot in Noh drama. The Noh's Zen-inspired replacement of fact by idea, a theatrical strategy intended to induce contemplation that leads beyond the phenomenal world and its irrelevant surface detail toward concentration on essential patterns, instructively carries feminist messages about cultural encoding. Even the literary figure and stage trick of husk-like costumes that crack open to reveal inner truth conform with feminist views on gender.

Preliminary research and preparation for our production gradually focused on the traditions of Asian performance that, first, facilitated the dramatic values of Sorgenfrei's text and, second, appeared effectively producible in our immediate context. In conformity with the script, we capitalized on the distancing effects of Eastern and Western Classical theatres to create the poetic and political impact of the story. Our production aimed to replicate the aesthetic qualities of Sorgenfrei's script, which is frankly conceived by a Westerner for modern Westerners. Thus, our artistic choices contained only echoes of ancient and Eastern reverberations, as we formulated them along the lines of legibility and practicality within our particular context.

Except for minor architectural and ornamental deviations (some suggested by the script and some mandated by space and shop limitations), our setting replicated the features of the Classical Noh stage, a condition we deemed requisite to all aspects of the project. The performance took place on a raised thrust platform, which, because of balcony overhangs and other architectural considerations in our theatre, was surrounded on three sides (rather than the traditional two) by audience. Also included in the design were a slightly shortened hashigakari (the traditional angled ramp that leads from offstage to the platform) with its typical three pine-sapling markers, a conventional hurry door, traditional areas for the musicians and chorus, and vestigal representations of the four guidepost pillars that support the roof over the typical Noh stage. (We went roofless, despite my desire for the rarefying connotations of an indoor roof, as a concession to balcony seating and lighting pragmatics.) The rear wall of the set accommodated the Noh convention of a painted tree, Sorgenfrei's direction that the traditionally depicted pine be replaced by a geographically pointed olive tree, and sliding panels to reveal Medea with the dead bodies of her children.

[One note here that may exemplify the path of our production choices: Sorgenfrei suggests achieving this moment by raising a bamboo curtain near the hurry door to expose Medea with the empty costumes of her children over her arms, accompanied by two stage assistants who carry her chariot roof. We tried to produce a similar effect by extrapolating from elements of traditional Asian performance and components of our earlier production choices. Thus, we used the sliding panels (flying was impossible) to reveal Medea, flanked by stage assistants who held a parasol on which was painted a sun emblem, anticipating her upcoming hikinuki transformation into the Sun God. Since the children had worn Janus-faced hoods with reversible flaps, displaying helmet-like Jason masks in the front and angelic doll-like masks in the back, Medea now held out the empty angelic masks, which trailed red streamers to signify blood.]

Because a former graduate student of mine (Virginia Rossman) had designed costumes for this script when it was produced at the University of Denver some years ago, we hoped to address our invariable costuming deficiency (no designer, paltry stock, small budgets) by borrowing and amending her wardrobe. Unfortunately, half of the costume shipment, which was already incomplete due to usual factors of deterioration and disappearance, was lost in transit, and we had to make do with an improvisatory mix of garb that barely approximated Sorgenfrei's appealing vision of hybrid kimonos conveying aspects of East and West, ancient and modern, ethereal and earthy. Karate gies served as basic costumes for the stage assistants (who wore black), musicians, chorus, and children/dancers (who wore white). The principals (Nurse, Medea, Jason, and Cruesa) wore costumes pieced together from surviving Rossman stock, kimono rental joints, and student sewing efforts. Mostly as a concession to audience taste, but partly due to actor training and mask-making limitations, we employed masks only selectively -- for the children, for the demons, for Medea as crone and sun god -- choosing instead to use extreme make-ups based on traditional masks. Although costumes were a perhaps inevitable weakness of this production, the process and look of costuming was a little vindicated by our intended allegiance to Asian principles of interrupted coherence and to the cultural grafts of the script.

Except for the fans, which we purchased for the four principals and also for the chorus, the very few and crucially significant properties for the production were designed and constructed by a gifted student. Again, we derived these choices from Sorgenfrei's directions, which draw on the traditions of the Asian stage. Each prop was a simple, non-functional abstraction of its varying significances. The fleece, for example, was a jeweled web that represented both the fruits of Medea's labors (Jason's prize, Cruesa's shroud) and her entanglement in patriarchal motherhood.

Staging choices were inspired generally by the traditions and geography of the Noh stage, modified by the limits of our abilities, the habituations of our audience, and the qualities of the script. We added a traditional Noh okina (or masking) ritual at the beginning of the performance, although it was performed by the waki (Nurse) rather than the shite (Medea). Blocking configurations and movement styles (including dances) were sometimes highly formalized along Asian conventions and sometimes primitive in a more familiar manner, depending on the nature of the texted moment. The qualitative, rhythmic, and geographical patterns of jo-ha-kyu underlined these choices as micro and macro determinants, often serving to harmonize the conjunction of styles. For example, Sorgenfrei's transition from God Play to the more colloquial Warrior Play approximates the conventional transition here from jo (the simple, positional, celebratory preparation) to jo-of-ha (the destruction of an existing state) and thereby situates the change in playing styles, from the Asian/Classical idiom to one more Western/modern, that we found necessary at this point. In other words, the shift in key was authenticated by traditional structure.

The chorus sat at the side of the stage in adapted Noh attitudes, chanting and intoning their lines. Patricia Kihn, a part time member of our Languages and Literature faculty whose training and genius are in voice and speech, orchestrated the choral odes and coached the chorus. Like the music, which was composed and performed by two members of the Music and Art faculty, the choral vocalization was modified from authentic Japanese practice in order to suit the idiom and material resources (script, instruments, actors) of this production. Musical instruments were a mix of the authentic (including an eerie gagaku sound for Cruesa's dance of death) with the approximate (including some salad bowls), while the choral lines were scored among groups of voices, sometimes solos, to produce the exaggerated vocal effects of Noh and Kabuki performers.

The creation of Cruesa (Jason's beloved) by a male actor was one liberty we took toward satisfying the historical, cultural, theatrical, political, and thematic dimensions of this particular hybrid. The irony of male animation of this role, given the function of Cruesa in the text, the character Sorgenfrei has texted, and the twin traditions of female impersonation in the Classical theatres of Greece and Japan, was too delicious to let pass. Rankled equally by the sexist practices and fantasies underlining both theatrical traditions, I hoped that the onnagata Cruesa would serve not only to refract the Medea legend in consonance with the script, but also to create and critique this tradition for our audiences. Program information included an excerpt from Zeami's notes on the onnagata ("The performance by a man of a woman's role represents the most difficult attainment of all. . . . A woman never imitates herself. But if the real essence of a woman is given reality through [a male] actor's performance, then the Sphere of Accomplishment represented by that woman has been portrayed."), as well as Gallimard's line from M. Butterfly, "I was in love with a woman created by a man, and now everything falls short."

The process and final incarnation of this production was heavily influenced by our serendipitous discovery of a Japanese woman in the Washington, D.C. area, who is a classically trained Noh and Kyogen performer. Shizumi, who performs her own politically charged hybrid of Eastern and Western dance internationally to wide acclaim, was instrumental in shaping our working process and staging choices. Moreover, her collaboration was crucial in legitimizing this project to the extent that it mitigated the danger of bogus appropriation. The task of training American students in Asian styles of performance was familiar to her, and she had just finished coaching a couple of college Noh productions on the West coast. Because she, as a woman, was secretly trained by a Japanese master and had to leave Japan in order to perform the classical styles, we were further delighted by her suitability to our project.

Limited budgets restricted us to three four-hour workshops, a week or so apart, with Shizumi. These workshops were videotaped so that students could check and refine their progress between her visits. Each of the three workshops had particular foci, geared to her training system and our rehearsal phases. Generally, the first workshop introduced students to the basic moves, postures, rhythms, and vocal effects of Noh performance as well as to exercises for achieving these. The second workshop amplified this work, introduced fan use, and addressed particular needs (the okina ritual, the hikinuki, specific dances, the onnagata work, hashigakari entrances, and character portrayals) of our production. Our final meeting with Shizumi was devoted to general refinement, drill, and growth, together with intensive coaching of special problems and choral movements.

Apart from the Shizumi workshops (which the entire production company attended), our rehearsal process included early screenings of Japanese performance (the nearby Embassy proved fortuitous), discussions of research into the various traditions of the Japanese stage, and polarization exercises adapted from Benedetti to help the actors escape contemporary Western training limitations of voice and movement. We began early using breath as a source of emotion, rhythm, and action. Then we explored these breathing exercises as a basis for achieving the inner focus, grace, and presence (monomane and yugen), as well as the poetic externalization, that are characteristic of Noh performance. Rehearsal work also involved creation of the full emotional, physical, and vocal intensity of moments so that their subsequent ritualized enactments, through Noh techniques, would be resonant.

All of this work was directed toward the evolution of a performance style that was uniquely and genuinely suited to our project. We searched for equivalents that reverberated with Noh, that created an impression of Noh style. Throughout the process, the students and I were very apprehensive about the prospect of insulting rigorous, sanctified traditions through superficial imitation; we strived to create an idiom that was viable for this production, working as much as possible within the constraints of authentic Noh.

Our departmental practice is to schedule at least one open audience discussion during each performance run of our season. As is generally the case, the open discussion of our Sorgenfrei "Medea" included an invited panel of speakers, who addressed various aspects of the production and its cultural contexts. These discussions generally help to broaden and integrate the ramifications of our productions, and in the case of "Medea," they focused independently on the principal aims of our efforts, gratifying our work. Further testimony to the success of our endeavors came in a lengthy written report by ACTF adjudicator, Mel Mrochinski of Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. The following excerpts from his erudite (and very complimentary) report will serve, as they are intended, to evaluate the effectiveness of our project:

Beyond satisfying our determination to diversify our theatre program, especially through the selection of material for our production season, the choice of mounting Medea: A Noh Cycle Based on the Greek Myth addressed Leonard Pronko's observations in his critical study, Theatre East and West, that East/West theatrical fusions will help us escape the limited perspectives and stale forms of Western drama: ". . . Oriental theatre is a revelation of the human condition in a much more profound way, a way that our rationalism may not allow us to accept. . . . [It] invites us to enjoy the feast of total theatre from which we have been excluded for too long." The choice also reflects my agreement with Peter Arnott's point (The Theatres of Japan) that presentational theatre (including both Greek and Asian Classical theatres) typifies ages that recognize artistically elusive forces lying beyond human scope, and with his corollary point that representational theatre (including Realism) is the idiom of smug ages that limit their attention and artistic depictions to the immediate material environment. Thus, the "Noh Medea" project engaged our program and its audiences in a confrontation with these larger issues, while it enabled us, as advocated by Dr. Pang, to promote the multi-ethnicity of American society and to include Asian cultural traditions in our curricular mainstream.