photo by Joe Mazza and Brave Lux

Monday, October 31, 2011

Understanding

Understanding
by Jacob Juntunen

(VECTĒVS and BEN sit at a table with a piece of paper between them. An awkward moment. MADARA enters. VECTĒVS and MADARA wave.)

MADARA
(to BEN in accented English; italics have accent, regular font does not) You are the American?

BEN
Oh, um, yes, you are—?

MADARA
Only one who speak English in village. From waitressing in Riga summers. May I see photo please?

BEN
(holding out piece of paper) It’s just a photocopy. Do you know this woman?

MADARA
(no accent) Oh, she’s so young.

BEN
In English, please?

MADARA
(showing it to VECTĒVS who cradles it) I told you she didn’t die for nothing.

BEN
What are you saying?

MADARA
Here he is, come to thank us.

BEN
I’m sorry, I don’t speak Latvian.

MADARA
(accent again) You come all this way and learned none first?

BEN
(holding out guidebook) I have this phrasebook—

MADARA
(not taking guidebook) Yes, “Where is toilet?” Is nothing but tourist sentences.

BEN
My grandfather died of cancer last month. I found this photo cleaning his bedroom drawers. On the back it says, “This woman saved my life,” and then it has this address written on the back of it, so I came here, but this man—

MADARA
You ask him who she is?

BEN
He was dead; I never even saw the picture before—

MADARA
No, I mean you ask this man here, in this house, who she—

BEN
I showed him the picture and he cried a little. He said something, but I didn’t understand.

MADARA
It is his sister. If you spoke Latvian—

BEN
(holding out guidebook again) I tried to use the guidebook—

MADARA
(tossing guidebook on table) Useless.

BEN
I thought maybe whoever lives here might know how my grandfather survived the war—

MADARA
Did you ask your grandfather?

BEN
He was just American to me. Until he got sick I never thought—

MADARA
(to VECTĒVS; no accent) He never even talked about us.

BEN
I wish you would speak in English.

MADARA
You never thought of your grandfather in Latvia. So why would little gay Jew come all the way here now?

BEN
He never talked about Latvia until he was sick, then he talked about the forests and wanting to thank someone—

MADARA
So you come to thank?

BEN
For what?

MADARA
Go to Rumbula Forest. Go to synagogue in Riga. Find out what to thank. No one living in this house saved your grandfather.

BEN
But maybe you could help me speak to other villagers who might know—

MADARA
(no accent) Oh, I know. Everyone here knows, but you could never understand.

(VECTĒVS takes the photo, cradles it, and begins to softly cry.)

BEN
I don’t understand— Why’s he crying again?

MADARA
He’s crying because his sister was helping Jews leave our village and hide in the forest.

BEN
Please talk in English.

(VECTĒVS stands and takes a few steps towards the audience, reaching out to empty space)

MADARA
He’s crying because when they came, they said they would shoot his daughter if he didn’t point to who was helping the Jews.

(VECTĒVS points to empty space next to him, as if to someone kneeling on the ground)

BEN
Okay, I get it. I should have learned Latvian, but I came all this way—

MADARA
The Jews his sister saved have descendents. Like you.

BEN
You keep saying Jews. I know that word.

MADARA
His sister has no descendents. And you don’t even know the sacrifice. That’s why he cries.

BEN
Do you need money? Is that it?

MADARA
(with accent) An American always thinks big tip at the restaurant means he should get laid.

(VECTĒVS returns to the table)

BEN
He wants me to know. He tried to tell me. Ask him. Ask him if he wants me to understand—

MADARA
Your child and your sister kneel on ground, cold metal pressed against the back of heads. Who you point to?

BEN
His sister died?

MADARA
You must watch head explode of child or sister. Whose blood you clean off ground?

BEN
I don’t have a child.

(MADARA tears the picture in half)

MADARA
You lack imagination.

(MADARA leaves.)

BEN
Wait! Please!

(VECTĒVS picks up the two pieces of the picture of his sister. He puts them back together as best he can, gently kisses it.)

BEN
(pointing at picture) Your sister? She died? Died? You had to choose?

(VECTĒVS stares blankly, not understanding. BEN picks up guidebook and reads from it)

BEN
(in East European accent) Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[Ben pronounces this slowly, haltingly, reading phonetics: “Sank voo wery mooch.”]

(VECTĒVS nods)


Read full lengths by Jacob Juntunen here!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

My Family's Mascot

My Family’s Mascot
by Jacob Juntunen

(LINDA, BEN, and SARAH sit, eating.)

BEN
You can’t even keep the soup warm until we eat?

LINDA
You were on the internet for twenty minutes after I said dinner was ready.

BEN
That’s called work, Linda.

LINDA
You’ve gone pro at Fantasy Football?

BEN
I swear I don’t know why we even live together, I could send you a check every month and you’d be just as happy—

LINDA
Well I wouldn’t have to watch dinner getting cold every night—

SARAH
Oh, you two don’t mean it, don’t fight.
I need to write my college essay,
See if there’s a bright
Idea in my head. It’s due today.

(SARAH starts to leave)

LINDA
(to BEN) Every time I call you to dinner you’re online and we sit here waiting—

BEN
I have a real job, okay, and the e-mails don’t just stop at five—

LINDA
My cooking blog is making more money than—

BEN
It won’t be when I make partner, so I need to get this brief written, or maybe I should just go back to the office—

LINDA
Or the bar.

(BEN starts to leave, but SARAH returns to the table and they both sit as she speaks)

SARAH
I forgot to say,
I got first place at the science fair today.

LINDA
Oh! That will put Elise in her place! I’m so tired of hearing about her daughter.

BEN
I knew hiring that tutor wouldn’t be a waste.

LINDA
I helped Sarah glue all those charts to the poster board while you were working late.

BEN
I showed her Excel to make the charts.

SARAH
You both were both so great.
You have to
know how much I appreciate
you two.

BEN
We do make a good team.

LINDA
We made something pretty amazing.

SARAH
Well, I need to write
My essay and e-mail it there
By midnight tonight
Or not get in anywhere.

(SARAH starts to leave)

BEN
I’m going to back to the office, to finish up that brief—

LINDA
Do the dishes first, I cooked.

BEN
It was soup. Rinse out the bowls and put them in the dishwasher. This goes to trial in—

LINDA
Soup’s a very popular recipe on my blog. People say they can’t even tell it doesn’t have meat—

BEN
Why don’t you cook a real dinner sometime, something where an animal died?

(BEN starts to get up; SARAH returns to the table, and they both sit as she speaks)

SARAH
Oh, now that we’ve ate,
did I say
I got a firm date
for my SAT?

It’s two days from now,
But I’m ready anyhow.

BEN
The Kaplan classes are good, but maybe we should get some computer practice tests?

LINDA
I could pick those up tomorrow on my way home from work.

SARAH
I have these vocab flash cards.
Could you two help me?
I feel like such a retard,
But I don’t want to be—

LINDA
Your Dad’s got some stupid brief he needs to get written tonight, so—

BEN
Get out the cards. We’ll go over them together.

(They all sit at the table and SARAH starts to hand out the cards)

SARAH
Hey, do you two
Remember Wednesday family date
night? We played Uno.
College will have to wait.

Read full lengths by Jacob Juntunen here!

Monday, October 10, 2011

You Are Brave

You Are Brave
by Jacob Juntunen

(A WOMAN addresses a group.)

WOMAN
You are brave.

Coming all the way to Romania. Sitting in this church. And so many of you. Ready to jump over the hurdles President Clinton set in your way. When the Berlin wall fell a few years ago, hardly anyone could point to Romania on a map.

But here you all are. So many of you willing to make this sacrifice to help a child escape poverty.

Have you been to a Romanian orphanage? They won’t let me take pictures, but if I had some here to show, you’d think you were looking at a concentration camp. And you are. A communist concentration camp for babies, open sores on their faces, screaming and rocking in their cells, their cribs, while attendants lounge in the hallways smoking and drinking coffee.

I’ve seen grown men fall to their knees weeping when they saw the thousands of little blonde-haired babies shrieking.

But you are brave enough to help these most innocent victims of communism.

And Clinton is making it harder, setting up insane background checks. Right now it can take years to get one of these babies out of the country, and then it’s too late. The attendants touch the infants five minutes a day. That causes permanent damage.

And Doctors Without Borders is against us! They say every one of you in this room cannot be a good parent. That you don’t understand the culture. That removing them from Romania will harm them permanently.

The last Romanian woman I met who dropped off a baby already had two children at home, no husband, and lived on twenty-five dollars a day from a government pension. She buys two loaves of bread, potatoes, and sometimes some beans. Instead of milk, her two children get tea with sugar. So it’s not like you’re robbing these children of some glorious Romanian culture. If you adopt a baby, you’ll give them milk, won’t you?

And they’re white. I know, I know: no one wants to say that out-loud, but when you’re pushing your Romanian baby around in the grocery store no one’s going to know it’s adopted just by looking at it. You know that matters, and an African or Asian baby isn’t going to fit into your family the same way.

You are brave. All of you are willing to come here, to a foreign country, and meet with me, even though our government says what we’re doing is illegal. They say people like me are profiteering. They say pedophiles want white little girls more than black ones. But you’re not a pedophile, are you? We’re all just in this room for the same reason: to help these children. And if Clinton and Doctors Without Borders would get out of our way, we could help thousands of children get out of this horrible country where these children have no hope and no future.

So if you have the cash with you, and, yes, I’m afraid the payment needs to be in cash, we have the children in the next room.


Read full lengths by Jacob Juntunen here!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Melodrama and Its Descendents


As I mentioned before, to understand the differences between U.S. and East European theatre in the 20th century one must first examine the countries' traditions in the 19th century. In the U.S., the most popular plays were melodramas and minstrel shows. Melodramas were directly descended from the neo-classical plays of 18th-century Europe and the Romanticism that followed. 19th-century U.S. melodrama was very much like Hollywood blockbusters of today: two-dimensional characters, fantastic special effects, and a premium placed on suspense. The minstrel show was a shameful native-grown theatre genre based on racist stereotypes of African Americans that appropriated aspects of African music and incorporated them into a variety-show format. Minstrel shows would greatly influence both vaudeville and the musical.


The melodrama was a distinctly formulaic type of theatre. Characters were heroes or villains, there was a damsel in distress, and the script consisted of predictable plot rather than character development. Since plot, suspense, and spectacle were the most important aspects of melodrama, technical artists of theatre were more important than ever before, often more so than the playwrights or actors. Technical artists staged horse battles on stage, ships sinking on stage, trains on stage, and, most famous of all, rivers of ice which actors had to cross onstage. The special effects of 19th-century melodramas in the U.S. were akin to the summer blockbusters that now come out of L.A. every summer.


The most successful melodrama of the 19th century was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but there were dozens of versions. Copyright laws did not exist as we know them today so anyone with half a mind could adapt the novel. At one point, dueling productions were across the street in New York City. More people saw some version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the stage than read the book in the 1800s. But no matter the text, every version included the runaway slave Eliza escaping dogs across an ice flow.


This type of spectacle was the most important part of U.S. melodrama, and part of what 20th-century U.S. drama will revolt against.


George Aikin’s version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the most popular, and its full text is available online. Part of its popularity was its incorporation of the other native form of drama from the U.S., the minstrel show. Understanding the minstrel show and its incorporation into much popular U.S. entertainment right up through today is the next aspect of 19th century U.S. drama that needs to be understood in order to compare U.S. and East European theatre in the 20th century. So next week I’ll begin my discussion of the minstrel show with Aikin’s character, Topsy, a character he added to the narrative.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

How Confusing to Be? or, Analzing Code Name: Astrea

Let’s talk about Code Name: Astrea.


Basically it’s a play trying to do too much in too few pages. The fundamental conflict I tried to set up was between Aphra Behn and the narrator (The Man), who turns out to be Harold Bloom. Since Behn his often held up as a woman able to make her own way through life and the first female professional writer, I wanted to point out that male critics, like Bloom, who degrade her and her talent are in essence telling her story. In other words: who gets to author Aphra Behn’s life?


I thought doing this in the form of a movie trailer detailing the more intriguing parts of Behn’s history would be an amusing way to get this idea across to an audience. However, Behn’s life involved far more than I should have tried to pack into four pages. Her marriage—if it existed—and her husband’s death; her bisexuality; her loyalty to King Charles II; her service to him as a spy; his refusing to pay her; her time in debtors’ prison; an anonymous sponsor paying her debts; her writing career; her death; and her reception by modern critics. It almost takes a page to write the synopsis, but I thought I could write a four-page play to encapsulate it! I think the meaning was unclear to most people. However, the audience was certainly amused; they laughed throughout, and most spectators were 18-22 year old undergrads with no knowledge of theatre history. So something about this worked. I’ll argue it was the form as much as the content.


It may be difficult to picture—reading plays is certainly its particular skill—but the image of a woman at a table writing, a sheet held up between two people, and a narrator on the other side of the sheet from the woman’s table, created a dynamic playing space. The sheet read as a continually shifting scenic element: first a screen for the movie, then a stage object like what’s used to hide puppeteers, a sheet on a bed, and finally a death shroud. With the exception of the death shroud, all these changes occurred without the sheet moving. The perception shifts were solely in the spectators’ minds. I was very pleased with this, and I think it speaks more to the Kantor influence of my background than the realist education.


Another aspect of the play that worked better in production than on the page was Behn’s struggle for control with The Man. Every time she attempted to wrest control away from the narrator, she wrote in a composition book. This tied her writing and her ability to control the discourse of her life together nicely. It may have been a literal metaphor since I ultimately hoped to write about Behn’s writing, but it functioned well, and it was clear that she lost power to The Man when he took her book at the end.


Making Charles II and the Dutch Prince ridiculous through the cardboard crown and an outlandish accent, and using the same actor to play both, also kept the audience engaged. Behn was played much more straight—the most realistic actor in the piece—which made the cartoonish King and Prince seem like dual sides of the patriarchal powers of Europe in the 1670s.


Finally, the end of the play was very clear. Even for those who did not know Harold Bloom, the character’s literary politics and his dismissal of Behn were read as I hoped by the audience. The image of her and her writing table being covered by a sheet made a striking, if perhaps cliché, picture of Behn being dead or perhaps an antique of furniture.


Least clear was the relationship between Behn and the Young Woman. I doubt most of the audience understood they were lovers. My actors did not at the beginning of rehearsal, and I realized then there wasn’t enough in the text to make it clear, but my piece was already too long. I have since rewritten it with more text between Behn and the Young Woman and I believe the new script works much better. It’s still probably more information packed into a short script than is ideal, but it brings up a question:


Is it a problem if an audience does not get everything from a script as long as it is engaging and hangs together?



Obviously one does not understand Shakespeare or Beckett the first time through, so need new writers hold themselves to a standard of writing simply enough for audiences to get everything? My rhetoric here, clearly, points towards my answer. Alas, I am not Shakespeare, but had I his talents I would not want to waste them “being clear.”



Ultimately I like the humor of this piece, the use of the sheet, and the fact that it is very much “in the moment,” i.e., the characters, though talking about history, are very focused on goals in the moment of the narrative. I think its main weakness is that it’s too short and, perhaps, too confusing. If anyone would like to see the longer, rewritten version, simply request it in the comments and I’ll post it.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Code Name: Astrea

Code Name: Astrea
by Jacob Juntunen

(APHRA BEHN sits at a table writing. A YOUNG MAN and YOUNG WOMAN hold up a sheet between them, like a screen. THE MAN stands in front of it.)

THE MAN
Coming this summer to theatres everywhere, a writer hailed by the Modern Language Association as the sexiest bisexual spy playwright ever, Aphra Behn, in a new movie dramatizing her life called, Code Name: Astrea.

APHRA BEHN
The king wanted my code name to be “Sex Kitten,” but I chose “Astrea” based on the pseudonym of the cross-dressing character in Pedro Calderon’s play Life is a Dream.

THE MAN
It is a period just after civil war, and Charles II has regained the throne soon after Aphra Behn’s marriage—

(The YOUNG MAN holds out his hand to APHRA BEHN; she tears a page from the book and hands it to YOUNG MAN)

APHRA BEHN
I’m writing my husband’s obituary, actually.

YOUNG MAN
I’m dead?

THE MAN
I find that an unlikely story. Your husband was a young man and it’s only been—

APHRA BEHN
(taking page from YOUNG MAN) Here it is. In ink. Indelible. This young woman here is going to take it to the newspaper. Once it’s printed, it’s a fact: no man can change it.

(APHRA BEHN kisses the page and hands it to the YOUNG WOMAN who puts it near her heart)

THE MAN
Back to the movie, then. It is a period just after Civil War, and Charles II regained his throne soon after Aphra Behn was widowed and thrown into financial crisis.

APHRA BEHN
(scribbling) So this is the part where the king helps me.

THE MAN
Why would the king help the likes of—

(CHARLES II pops up from behind the screen wearing a cardboard crown)

CHARLES II
I’m declaring war on the Netherlands. Go there and get information from the youngest prince.

APHRA BEHN
(kneeling) Your majesty!

CHARLES II
He keeps a portrait of you in his bedroom.

APHRA BEHN
I’m not sure I’m the right woman for this kind of job.

CHARLES II
You’re a widow. Knowledgeable in the ways of men and able to travel alone without suspicion. Plus I’d pay you.

APHRA BEHN
How much?

CHARLES II
You’ll never worry about money again.

APHRA BEHN
(holding out her book and pen) Write down the amount.

(CHARLES II writes a sum; BEHN looks at it and is impressed)

APHRA BEHN
Sign it.

(CHARLES II does so)

APHRA BEHN
When’s the next boat to the Netherlands?

YOUNG WOMAN
But you gave me your husband’s obituary.

APHRA BEHN
Don’t worry. I’ll write.

(APHRA BEHN and CHARLES II move behind the sheet)

THE MAN
This movie’ss being called the summer’s sexiest blockbuster costume drama spy thriller.

(DUTCH PRINCE [played by CHARLES II actor] pops his head over the screen)

DUTCH PRINCE
(Dutch accent; very distracted) Soar-y— oom— um— deed voo awsk soom theen?

APHRA BEHN
(putting her head above the sheet) Dear, dear prince. Are the troops moving East or West?

DUTCH PRINCE
Power ees quite thee awphroodeesiac for you, ees it?

APHRA BEHN
I could return to my bedroom—

DUTCH PRINCE
West! West! We moving theem Westerly!

(APHRA BEHN and DUTCH PRINCE duck behind the sheet)

YOUNG WOMAN
And the only letter I received from you was the one begging me to send money for your fare back to England.

APHRA BEHN
(emerging from behind sheet) No other money was forthcoming.

CHARLES II
(emerging from behind sheet wearing crown) Oh, hello, Aphra. Got to run. Empires to build.

APHRA BEHN
(holding out her book) We had a contract.

CHARLES II
You could appeal to the king— oh, wait. Sorry.

(CHARLES II exits)

THE MAN
Critics are calling it the most daring debtors’ prison escape in all cinema history.

APHRA BEHN
(moving to her table) Debtors’ prison? No, no, no—

THE MAN
But is escaping debtors’ prison the same as a real prison escape? Is it as dramatic—

(After furious scribbling from APHRA, YOUNG WOMAN throws money at APHRA who scampers around the ground picking it up. They make eye contact and the YOUNG WOMAN shakes her head in disgust)

THE MAN
That’s a bit dues ex machina, isn’t it? In Shakespeare you would befriend a guard or fight—

APHRA BEHN
(back to scribbling) It’s my story. And I become the most produced playwright of the 1670s.

THE MAN
After John Dryden.

APHRA BEHN
But I did it on my own, a widow, with no help from the likes of you. I’m in anthologies!

THE MAN
A sign of the dumbing down of American culture, like this film. I’ll take that.

(THE MAN takes APHRA BEHN’s book)

APHRA BEHN
No! Wait!

THE MAN
There’s no need to show any more.

(YOUNG WOMAN and YOUNG MAN cover APHRA BEHN with sheet)

THE MAN
Despite the hype, Code Name: Astrea remains a deeply flawed film. It mainly demonstrates that sex sells and lurid curiosity keeps a fourth-rate playwright taught alongside Shakespeare. Skip this movie, skip Aphra Behn altogether, and read the only playwright that matters: William Shakespeare. This is Harold Bloom of Yale University signing off from another episode of “How to Read and Why,” radio edition. Thank you and goodnight.

Read full lengths by Jacob Juntunen here!