photo by Joe Mazza and Brave Lux

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

KCACTF Region 2 Finalists!

Good news! Two of the plays from this website, 1, 2, 3 and Understanding are finalists at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival! This means they'll be performed at Festival 44, the Region 2 conference in Pennsylvania, and have a chance of moving on to the finals in Washington, D.C.

This is particularly exciting because from the whole of Region 2 only six plays were selected as finalists, and two were mine. So cross your fingers and hope the odds keep working in my favor!

More new short plays, analysis, and the continuation of my thoughts about U.S. and East European theatre will continue, though the holidays seem to have brought a short hiatus while I work on my new full-length play, tentatively titled Classes.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Do No Harm

This was part of an evening of "La Ronde," in which each playwright inherited a character from the previous play. I inherited character "B" and had 24 hours to write this. And here it is.

Do No Harm
by Jacob Juntunen

(B is sitting at a table. C is standing.)

C
Nice basement.

B
I expected you sooner.

C
She died at 2am, it’s only 3:30 now—

B
I mean before 24 patients died.

C
Why don’t you call and turn yourself in? It will be simpler.

B
I want my job back.

C
I would have been here sooner if all the deaths had been in oncology. Besides, it’s not like you updated your address in the hospital directory after you quit.

B
How did you track me down?

C
I called your mother. You talked to her everyday on your breaks, so—

B
She’s upstairs if you want to say hi. She still makes that chocolate cake you like.

C
It’s a little late for a visit.

B
So why don’t we just discuss the terms of the hospital rehiring me—

C
There’s no way the hospital’s hiring you back after 24 deaths.

B
You fired me, but didn’t press any charges. You have some new evidence?

C
It’s nice your mom let’s her forty year old son sleep in her basement.

B
We shop together. I help her with the housework she can’t do anymore. She’s pretty weak at 84.

C
You could afford the best home for her, instead you get this crazy notion, and just because you can’t be prosecuted—

B
This is the best way to help these people. I was the best you had.

C
Until you went crazy.

B
You’re the one pumping people full of toxins, shooting them through with radiation—

C
I don’t kill them.

B
I offer the family a way towards the inevitable that is faster and more merciful than—

C
We took an oath: Do no harm.

B
Oh, Jack. Just leave if we’re going to have the same conversations from the break room. This is the twenty-first century. We both know rules are passé.

C
(putting phone on table) Why don’t we see if the police think rules are passé?

B
It’s no crime to die. I saved the ones that could be saved and—

C
The woman tonight, she was my patient. She wasn’t terminal.

B
I saw the chart—

C
Then our interpretations of her symptoms differ; she was scheduled to begin treatment tomorrow—

B
Now, Jack, you can’t have it both ways. First you say there are rules, now you say there are different interpretations of a chart. There’s either truth or there’s not.

C
There’s truth—

B
And you know it?

C
Sometimes. (holding up container) I know, for instance, that this contains enough morphine to kill your mother.

B
That’s a fact, but hardly a truth—

C
Your mother’s old. She’ll die sooner or later. There’s no cancer yet, but otherwise her case isn’t much off the woman you killed tonight—

B
I’m a doctor. I don’t kill people, I give family members the means to let their loved ones go. I don’t give the injection.

C
Then you won’t have any guilt when I kill your mother.

B
Now who’s the crazy one? I just want my job back, and you’re talking about killing—

C
You think I won’t put this into your mother’s vein?

B
And give up your storybook life? What would the wife and kiddies say?

C
If it will keep my patients from dying, it’ll be worth it.

B
And when the police come?

C
I’ll tell them about the 24 bodies at the hospital that died for no reason after you left, after all those talks we had about you perfecting a way to painlessly let them drift away.

B
What if I promise no more deaths?

C
A murderer doesn’t get to work at a hospital.

B
I’m not guilty of anything.

C
Then you shouldn’t feel any guilt when I kill your mother. You can just stand by and watch. Or you can accept that the outmoded rules apply, pick up the phone, and turn yourself in.

B
There’s no chance of getting my job back?

C
Just pick up the phone.

(A moment. Then B picks up the phone)

B
Fine. Put your morphine away.

C
You won’t regret this. I’ll vouch for your character, what you were trying to do, try to get you clemency—

(B hands C the phone)

B
I have a much more sophisticated compound than morphine.

C
For what?

B
We’re going upstairs and telling mother goodnight together. Once you’re done with mother, I trust you can show yourself out?

(blackout)

Read full lengths by Jacob Juntunen here!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Rewritten, Code Name: Astrea

As promised, here's the version of Code Name: Astrea that was performed in Chicago this weekend.

Code Name: Astrea
by Jacob Juntunen

Characters:
APHRA BEHN: A young woman.
HAROLD BLOOM: An older gentleman.
JOHAN BEHN: A young man.
YOUNG WOMAN: A young woman.
CHARLES II/DUTCH PRINCE: The same handsome man; could be two puppets.

Set:
A table and chair downstage right. Properties needed: A white sheet, cardboard crown, a composition book, a pen, and a few bills of money.

(APHRA BEHN sits at the table writing in a composition book. JOHAN BEHN and YOUNG WOMAN hold up a white sheet between them, like a screen, center stage. JOHAN BEHN and the YOUNG WOMAN will hold the sheet throughout the play. HAROLD BLOOM stands in front of it.)

HAROLD BLOOM
Welcome to “How to Read and Why,” radio edition. I’m Harold Bloom of Yale University, and tonight we discuss a film coming this summer to theatres everywhere, Code Name: Astrea which dramatizes the life of Aphra Behn, a writer hailed by the Modern Language Association as the sexiest bisexual spy playwright ever.

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

HAROLD BLOOM
The film begins in a period just after England’s civil war, and Charles II has regained the throne soon after Aphra Behn’s marriage:

(JOHAN BEHN holds out his hand to APHRA BEHN)

JOHAN BEHN
My love—

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

(APHRA BEHN tears a page from the book and hands it to JOHAN BEHN)

JOHAN BEHN
I’m dead?

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

(APHRA BEHN takes the paper from JOHAN BEHN and gives it to HAROLD BLOOM)

APHRA BEHN
Here it is. In ink. Indelible. Once it’s printed, it’s a fact: no man can change it.

HAROLD BLOOM
There are some, in fact, who doubt whether Aphra Behn’s husband ever existed—

APHRA BEHN
If he didn’t exist, then where did his obituary come from?

HAROLD BLOOM
You wrote it.

APHRA BEHN
From my pen to the paper of record. A fact.

HAROLD BLOOM
We shall see.

APHRA BEHN
This exquisite and charming young woman here is going to take it to the newspaper, making my writing part of history.

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

YOUNG WOMAN
I will always treasure this obituary.

HAROLD BLOOM
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.

YOUNG WOMAN
Did your mother leave you any money?

APHRA BEHN
She was just a nanny.

YOUNG WOMAN
My father isn’t going to give me money unless it’s my dowry.

APHRA BEHN
I could write a novel about the African king I met in Venuzuela.

YOUNG WOMAN
Oh, yes, please, put all those lurid details in public.

HAROLD BLOOM
You were never in Venezuela.

APHRA BEHN
It could make a fortune.

HAROLD BLOOM
She was never in Venezuela. It’s a novel she wrote. That’s all.

YOUNG WOMAN
I could always return to my father’s house.

APHRA BEHN
Something else then.

(APHRA BEHN returns to her writing table)

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

HAROLD BLOOM
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. He stays up nights dreaming of you, just waiting for you to release him from his… information.

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

YOUNG WOMAN
Maybe you should write that novel about Venezuela.

CHARLES II
You’ll never worry about money again.

YOUNG WOMAN
Don’t you want people to know about slavery in the New World?

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

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

APHRA BEHN
Sign it.

(CHARLES II does so)

APHRA BEHN
(to CHARLES II) When’s the next boat to the Netherlands?

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

APHRA BEHN
(to YOUNG WOMAN) Don’t worry. I’ll write you.

(APHRA BEHN and CHARLES II move behind the sheet)

HAROLD BLOOM
This movie’s 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 from APHRA BEHN’s actions below the sheet) So, oom, thees are ze Egyptian cotton sheets voo vanted to, oom, see. Zey make zee bed quite nice, yes?

APHRA BEHN
(muffled from behind sheet)

DUTCH PRINCE
Soar-y— oom— um— deed voo awsk soom theeng?

(APHRA BEHN puts her head above the sheet and wraps her arms around DUTCH PRINCE)

APHRA BEHN
Dear, dear prince. Are the troops moving East or West?

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

APHRA BEHN
Maybe it’s not proper for me to be alone with you in bed, a poor widow and all—

DUTCH PRINCE
West! West! We moving theem Westerly!

(APHRA BEHN and DUTCH PRINCE duck behind the sheet)

HAROLD BLOOM
But Aphra Behn was betrayed!

(APHRA BEHN emerges from behind the sheet)

YOUNG WOMAN
Aphra was betrayed? The only letter I received from her was the one begging me to send money for her fare back to England.

APHRA BEHN
No other money was forthcoming.

(CHARLES II pops his head up from behind sheet)

CHARLES II
Oh, hello, Aphra. Got to run. Empires to build.

APHRA BEHN
You said I’d never worry about money again.

CHARLES II
What an odd thing to say.

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

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

(CHARLES II exits)

HAROLD BLOOM
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— She’ll help me.

YOUNG WOMAN
I hope you’re not talking about me.

HAROLD BLOOM
But escaping debtors’ prison is hardly the same as a real prison escape, not nearly as dramatic—

(After furious scribbling from APHRA, YOUNG WOMAN throws money at APHRA who scampers around the ground picking it up.)

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

YOUNG WOMAN
You look good on all fours.

APHRA BEHN
This is still my story. You don’t even have a name, and I become the most produced playwright of the 1670s.

HAROLD BLOOM
After John Dryden.

(APHRA BEHN returns to her table and starts frantically writing)

APHRA BEHN
But I did it on my own, a widow, with no help from the likes of you. (at YOUNG WOMAN to hurt her) I even wrote that Venezuela novel where a woman loses her virginity to her real love, an African king. (back to HAROLD BLOOM) I’m in anthologies!

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

(HAROLD BLOOM takes APHRA BEHN’s book; she remains sitting)

APHRA BEHN
No! Wait! I haven’t written the ending yet!

HAROLD BLOOM
There’s no need to show any more.

(HAROLD BLOOM motions to YOUNG WOMAN and JOHAN BEHN)

APHRA BEHN
But I’m the playwright! I get to write my own ending! Hey!

(YOUNG WOMAN and JOHAN BEHN cover APHRA BEHN and her writing table with the sheet)

HAROLD BLOOM
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 the men who count. 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!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Code Name: Astrea being performed in Chicago!

A revised and slightly longer version of my short play, Code Name: Astrea, will be performed in Chicago as part of Caffeine Theatre's Aphra Behn Coffeehouse! I'll be there for the Saturday performance. Check it out, if you can, and I'll publish the revised text on this blog Monday.


Saturday, November 5, 2011, 1pm
Newberry Library, 60 E. Walton, Chicago

Sunday, November 6, 2011, 4:30pm
Collaboraction Theatre, 1575 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago
IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE 3PM PERFORMANCE OF OR,

BOTH EVENTS ARE FR

Caffeine Theatre brings together local and international performers, writers, composers and choreographers to celebrate and respond to Aphra Behn’s work. Winning entries of our poetry contest, Golden-Pointed Darts, Or, a Contest in Poesy to Honour the Incomparable Astraea and other Adventuresses, Spies, Writers, and Thespians will also be performed.

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!

Friday, September 30, 2011

What Am I After? or, Evaluating 1, 2, 3 and Killing the Father

As this blog begins to take shape, I realize I want it to serve three purposes. They are:


1) To post the short plays I’m writing every week.

2) To discuss my relationship between theatre in the U.S. and Eastern Europe.

3) To evaluate my ability to reconcile my U.S. and East Europe theatre influences in the posted short plays.


The first two I’ve already begun; the third will begin with this post. Of course, I’m hoping comments from readers will allow this blog to be more dialogue than monologue, and this is particularly true for my evaluation of the short plays. In an ideal world, I will post a new short play every Monday, an evaluation of that play on Wednesday, and a continuation of my relationship to U.S. and East European theatre on Fridays. That said, I want to use the rest of this post to discuss how I see 1, 2, 3 and Killing the Father working within my varied influences.


Simply, 1, 2, 3 is the story of a woman at the time of her father’s death feeling as though she cannot pay him back. The prompt for this play was “loss,” and, while the loss of a parent is perhaps a clichéd subject for art, I felt that the story of the quarter could embody a feeling many people have about small gestures of generosity from parents that will forever remain unrepaid. I started from that, the realist story of a young girl wanting a quarter from her dad and feeling bad when she “wastes” it thinking she’s controlling the ghosts in Pac Man. This would be my U.S. narrative side.


From there, I tried to think of two stage images that could be created simply, and perhaps simultaneously, in the vein of Kantor. This got me thinking about white sheets from his ending of Wielopole, Wielopole, and led me to the idea of a man lying in a sauna under a white sheet and a body lying in a morgue (or in state?) under a white sheet. So this was a more visual creation, but still essentially realist story-telling. Or so it seems to me.


Connecting the two was more problematic in this process, and, I think, ultimately the part that seemed the most influenced by the East European theatre I’ve seen. I knew there were two periods represented onstage, and the thought of having two actors play the woman at different ages quickly occurred to me. Having them join hands and count their steps forward in unison between “scenes” between the younger self and the father took longer to come to, and, for me, was the real structural risk.


When it was performed, the storytelling seemed perfectly clear. People understood the separate times, that the two actors were playing the same woman, etc. But there was some confusion about the moments of holding hands and counting.


For me it referred on a literal plane to the three lives in Pac Man that a quarter buys. Symbolically I hoped it would take on the meaning of all the wasted time we spend thinking we’re paying attention to the important aspects of life (the “ghosts” in the game) when, in fact, we should have entirely different focuses (on the “pac man” in the game). These meanings were important to me and didn’t entirely come across.


But when Kantor writes about his work, he never so obviously defines any of its symbolism. He instead writes about attempting to literally combine realities, for instance subtitling Dead Class a “séance.” He writes about attempting to project his memories into a “room of memory,” which, as I understand it, is as much a mystical as artistic process. So what was I doing with the locking of hands and counting? I was collapsing worlds and trying to project a memory of mine into a fictional world. The clasping of hands of a child/adult self and counting was meant to open up a real theatrical space to explore time, death, and regret. If it didn’t do it, it came close given the reception from the audience.


I found Killing the Father far less successful. Though not realism, the piece, to me, is a relatively simple narrative. The telling encompasses three moments in time: the present from which the Young Man is narrating; the recent past when the Man marries the Young Woman; and the more distant past when the Man married the Young Woman’s mother. I enjoy how all these periods criss-cross throughout the piece, and I enjoy the direct address, and the kiss at the end created gasps of disgust from the audience. So, as a piece of storytelling, I suppose it was successful. It was also a break from the straight U.S. realism my work often falls into. But there was never a moment of collapsing images into meaning without words, or at least not in the way there was in 1, 2, 3.


Noticeably, though, both these analyses lack an ability to clearly define my goal. I’m unclear what I mean when I say “collapsing images into meaning without words” or “open up a real theatrical space to explore time, death, and regret.” I’m not after straight realism; I’m not after recreating the visual theatre of East Europe as embodied for me by Kantor. What, then, am I after exactly? It’s no wonder I can’t hit the target if I don’t understand what it is. Perhaps as I continue the part of the blog exploring my understanding of U.S. and East Europe theatre I will gain a clearer awareness of the type of hybrid I’m after.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Killing the Father

Killing the Father
by Jacob Juntunen

(A YOUNG MAN in a suit stands and walks from the circle; as he speaks, a YOUNG WOMAN in a white dress with a white shawl dances the waltz alone. All characters address the audience as if it’s a jury.)

YOUNG MAN
Ladies and gentlemen, witness the new world order! My father is getting married to a woman with an adolescent child of her own; Dad’s so infatuated with his new family, I was surprised I even got an invitation to the wedding.

(MAN enters, dressed in a black tuxedo. MAN and YOUNG MAN hug)

MAN
At the wedding, I told my son, “You cannot cast out family. Ever.”

YOUNG MAN
Dad wasn’t drunk, but his college-professor diction is stronger when he’s had a couple glasses of wine, like a long-lost accent.

MAN
You must always be drunk, Son, on wine, women, or love.

YOUNG MAN
“Wine, poetry, or virtue,” Dad.

MAN
What’s wrong with love.

YOUNG MAN
It’s virtue, Dad. The quote is be drunk on “wine, poetry, or virtue.”

MAN
Ladies and Gentlemen, my son is drunk on virtue! That is his upbringing! He may come from a broken home, but our values are intact. When he left for college, I made him promise:

YOUNG MAN
“I will not associate with anyone corrupt.”

MAN
If you do, it will surely corrupt your soul.

YOUNG WOMAN
It was a dream from my childhood! Beautiful white dress, laughing guests, and the words: love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

MAN
Why is your new sister dancing alone?

YOUNG MAN
Step-sister.

MAN
I’m going to dance with her.

YOUNG MAN
That’s weird, Dad.

MAN
If my mother were still alive, I would dance with her at my wedding. Instead, I dance with my new daughter.

YOUNG MAN
Step-daughter. There’s no blood between you.

MAN
He believed then that blood mattered more than family by marriage. But he was in college, young, and his mind changed.

YOUNG MAN
Over the years, seeing her at Christmas with my Dad and new Mom, I came to understand she was family.

YOUNG WOMAN
He always bought me books of poetry, as if to educate me, but I already loved words. He was older, though, and introduced me to worlds.

MAN
I treated them equally, proofreading her high school English papers, paying his college tuition.

YOUNG MAN
Whenever I came home on breaks, he’d make sure to take me out to breakfast by myself. He called me his favorite son; her, his favorite daughter.

MAN
I ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen, what could make your new step-daughter feel more loved than a waltz?

YOUNG MAN
She’s losing one parent and gaiting another. She’s just a kid. What if she’s scared?

(MAN hugs YOUNG MAN, hard)

MAN
I’ll be as charming as a poem; my children will never be scared.

YOUNG WOMAN
The words from the priest! Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs.

YOUNG MAN
And so my father kept my step-sister, his new daughter, from being scared.

(MAN goes to YOUNG WOMAN and bows, asking her to dance in gesture)

MAN
Ladies and Gentlemen, I will admit she blushed at first, and what I said is forgotten. But I saw her and though, “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.”

YOUNG WOMAN
I will always remember the priest saying, “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” His son should remember that. Love always perseveres. Always.

(YOUNG WOMAN curtseys and YOUNG WOMAN and MAN begin to waltz)

YOUNG MAN
Ladies and Gentlemen, observe! A waltz consists of a step forward, a step to the side, and then a step together. If it wasn’t for that last step together, I would not stand before you this evening.

MAN
My son cannot understand that people grow apart. That even a second marriage may fail. I finally admitted I loved someone more than his stepmother.

YOUNG MAN
My father divorced my step-mother, and my step-sister turned eighteen. Judge for yourselves the events that occurred after I graduated college. But remember: You must not cast out family, nor can you abide corruption for it will corrupt your soul.

(YOUNG WOMAN and MAN stop dancing and turn towards each other, holding hands. MAN pulls the white shawl from the shoulders of the YOUNG WOMAN and wraps their hands with it.)

MAN
With this ring, I thee wed.

(MAN and YOUNG WOMAN kiss, all smiles. MAN strides over to YOUNG MAN, arms out for a hug. YOUNG MAN pushes MAN away, violently, and exits leaving MAN and YOUNG WOMAN standing alone; blackout)

Read full lengths by Jacob Juntunen here!


Friday, September 23, 2011

Searching for the East Europe/U.S. Bridge

Since 1998 when I was first exposed to Tadeusz Kantor, I’ve searched for words to bridge the gap between East European and U.S. theatre. I’ve hobbled towards that bridge creating scripts; I’ve staggered at it in scholarly writing seeking to explicate how these forms work; I’ve stumbled in its direction teaching on both sides of the Atlantic, learning from my students and colleagues; and I’ve limped in the direction of this elusive understanding in Kantor’s archive, the Cricoteka, in Kraków. To grasp the function of theatre in these disparate locations one needs to understand the extremely different twentieth-centuries experienced by the two countries, the paths and traditions their theatres took, and the different business models embraced or, perhaps, forced upon them. One blog post won’t be sufficient to explore the factors I see twisting and turning through history, and, frankly, my thoughts are insufficient to clearly articulate how these theatrical modes successfully function in such different ways. Therefore, this blog will be a place to post my latest short plays and a site where I explore these formal questions alongside practical issues of creating theatre, from artistry to economics.


I spent February 2011 – July 2011 in Poland teaching theatre at Adam Mickiewicz University, and am now at Ohio University beginning an MFA program in playwriting that is structure-intensive. For the past three weeks I’ve tried to wrap my brain around my newly taught thoughts about U.S. narrative ideas alongside my recent viewings of abstract Polish theatre. Imagine my excitement, then, when Robert Kaplowitz wrote in HowlRound about his recent experiences in Prague; his disquisition examining different expectations, particularly for/from audience members in Prague versus those he habitually understood in the U.S., was fascinating. He writes, “I learned about works in Poland, where theater groups are creating environmental installations that are encountered by the audience on the streets of their neighborhoods, outside of any theatrical bounds or even scheduled performance times.” Walk around Kraków for any length of time and you are bound to run into these, festival or no, though I would argue they are within strict theatrical bounds; we Americans simply need to recognize them as such. And some of the random performances I’ve stumbled across in Poland are burned into my mind—particularly their imagery—in ways I find rare from U.S. theatre. That’s not to say I prefer Polish theatre, but when I think of it memories of images leap before me. Without doubt when I think of U.S. theatre I think of performances, stage pictures, and amazing lighting/sets/costumes/sound, but it’s much more likely I think of a great narrative script well served by those elements. However, if I were asked the “narrative” of Kantor’s Dead Class (check out this clip), I would be hard-pressed to answer, despite my familiarity with it, my teaching of it, my writing about it, and my love of it. How to reconcile its worldwide success, and, more importantly, its prominent place in my devotion to theatre with Aristotelian drama? To start with, we need to go back to the nineteenth century. So that’s where this blog will travel next.