30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Bonus Play "My Left Breast" by Susan Miller

 

Here is another bonus play for my "30 Plays in 30 Days" September reading challenge. My Left Breast by Susan Miller is a one-woman show that I found in a collection I have of The Best American Short Plays 1993-1994. The play originally premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in the 1994 Humana Festival where Miller performed the piece herself. 

A multi-layered monologue, My Left Breast tells the story of a "one-breasted, menopausal, Jewish bisexual lesbian Mom", from a diagnoses of breast cancer through a mastectomy, from raising her son, to a breakup of a long-term relationship, and a diagnoses of osteoporosis... and through it all, Miller tells the story in a very human way, with plenty of humor, insight and poignancy.  I found the descriptions in the aftermath of her breakup relatable, and one can feel the no-holds barred honesty as she approaches each subject with a kind of grace in her writing.

Susan Miller received an Obie and shared the 1994/1995 Blackburn Prize for the play. It is published by Playscripts, Inc., a very fine publishing house (they carry two of my plays), so if you are interested in reading the play or licensing it for performance, you can visit their website by CLICKING HERE.

If you know this play, have read it, seen it, or performed it, let me know your thoughts by commenting on this post. If you would like to learn more about my plays, you can do so by CLICKING HERE.

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #22 "The Taking of Miss Janie" by Ed Bullins

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #22

The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins (pictured above)

I found this play in a collection I have of "Famous American Plays of the 1970s". It is not an easy play to read. The play begins with a white woman, Janie, in bed with her black friend named Monty. She is confronting him after he has just raped her. When this play opened in the 1970s, Bullins said described this scenario as a metaphor for race relations, but it is not an easy metaphor. The play won an Obie for Distinguished Playwriting, and also a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, but it is not a play I can imagine being produced easily in these times, though it was revived in 2006. In an interview with NPR (that you can find by clicking here) the director of the revival, Ms. Shauneille Perry, had this to say:

"It is a question of perception because I'd like to take note that the play is called “The Taking of Miss Janie.” And Mr. Bullins, himself, in various interviews, has said it was a friendly rape, quote/unquote. I'm not exactly sure what that means but I do know that in the play it's quite clear in the lines that Janie does not leave. She's not literally accosted and so on.

"In fact, she presents herself at the end. So, I think, Bullins was saying that Janie represents America, Monty represents black America and it was the black America in the taking of white America.I don't like to speak too much for the author but I think the word, rape, which I supposed is used for publicly purposes to get people in. But I think it's an overstatement of what actually happened and remembering that it's called “The Taking of Miss Janie.”

I don't know that I completely agree with this sentiment having read the play, nor do I think there is really such a thing as a "friendly rape".  And unfortunately, metaphor or not, I found the device problematic to say the least. Which is somewhat unfortunate, as there is still much to be taken in by this play. Bullins is a fearless writer--- he has won many, many awards--- and has a great deal to say by inverting stereotypes. Much of this play is a fascinating portrait and rendition of the turbulent 1960s, with many issues that are still so sadly prevalent today. 

My favorite line comes from Peggy, when talking, from the future, about the 1960s. She says:

"We all failed. Failed ourselves in that serious time known as the sixties. And by failing ourselves we failed in the test of the times. We had so much going on for us... so much potential..."

Ed Bullins has written many, many plays, won many awards and received many grants. He currently holds a distinguished Artist-In-Residence at Northeastern University, and was once the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. He is also considered one of the most prominent voices of the Black Arts Movement. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #21 "One Flea Spare" by Naomi Wallace

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #21

One Flea Spare by Naomi Wallace

One Flea Spare  is set in a plague ravaged London in 1665, which is perhaps why it is perfect reading for today, for right now, this minute. I have read that Naomi Wallace was inspired by Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year and the acquittal of the four officers who beat Rodney King. According to Laura Michiel's essay Times of Contagion: The Social(ist) Politics of Plague in Naomi Wallace's "One Flea Spare", to Wallace, "these events became linked, because spatial barriers broke down, obliging the rich and poor to share a common space." And indeed, this play is very much about class, particularly in the time of a mass illness. Lower-class guard Kabe at one paint preaches, "you will see who it is that dies, their mouths open in want, the maggots moving inside their tongues making their tongues wag as though they were about to speak. But they will never speak again in this world. The hungry. The dirty. The abandoned. That's who dies. Not the fancy and the wealthy..."

One need only look today to see things have not changed a great deal in this regard. The effects of the current pandemic (as well as upcoming disasters such as climate change) do effect the poor by a very noticeable margin. And while this project isn't necessarily about making any kind of political statement, I think it is worth mentioning how art, even historical art, can be a powerful reflection of our present-day lives. 

The story centers on a wealthy couple who are about to flee London to try to outrun the plague, but are forced to stay and quarantine (literally forced--- boarded inside and guarded) when a sailor, Bunce, stumbles into their house thinking it is empty. A young girl of 12, Morse, has also become a stowaway in the house without them realizing. Because these uninvited guests were spotted by guards getting into the home, the wealthy couple, the Snelgraves, cannot leave. The four are stuck together. 

And Wallace is very good at showing how this quarantine-by-force breaks down the usual societal norms as time passes. And as one may notice in the quote above, Wallace does not shy away from the sad and the gruesome details of death, whether describing the pits where the dead are thrown, or those waiting to die and the "tokens" on their skin, black boils of pain. 

The meat of the play is how the characters interact, and Mr. Snelgrave, the master of the house, immediately keeps his "rightful" place and makes Bunce and Morse his servants. But structure cannot last forever. Not in quarantine. There is emotional and physical manipulation, violence, and odd desire. 

Which is not to say that the play is without humor and beauty. Naomi Wallace is also a poet, and her dialogue is lyrical and effortlessly descriptive. My favorite character is Morse, a challenging role no question, for any young actress. She was a servant girl who watched her mother get the "tokens" of the plague, and saw her master throw her mother in the cellar behind a locked door, and gave her no food or water. From then, she was on her own, until locking down as part of this very strange, intense group.

The title One Flea Spare comes from a poem, The Flea, by John Donne, and Wallace uses this and the Brecht quote "Corruption is our only hope" as epigraphs in the printed version of the play. The play originally premiered in London in October of 1995, then was part of the Humana Festival in 1996. It  opened in New York at the Public Theater in 1997, and won an Obie award for best play. The cast included Dianne Wiest  and a young Mischa Barton. The play also won a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the 1996 Joseph Kesserling Prize, and the 1996 Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award.

This is my first introduction to the works of Naomi Wallace, and I anxiously look forward to learning more about her work. She is a MacArthur Fellow who has written many plays and several screenplays. I hope to learn more about her work soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend this play, though it may not be for the squeamish. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #3 "Painting Churches" By Tina Howe

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #3

Painting Churches by Tina Howe

Originally produced by the Second Stage at the South Street Theatre in 1983, Tina Howe's Painting Churches would go on to win an Obie Award for Distinguished Playwriting (for those who don't know, an Obie is a like a Tony, but for Off-Broadway), and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I have owned a copy for a long time, but this is my first reading of any of Tina Howe's work.

Howe has said that one of the themes of the play is the coming of age of an artist, and many critics have looked at the play as one might an impressionist painting. Howe herself has said that her enduring love of art was a catalyst for writing the play. 

The play focuses on the aging couple Fanny and Gardner, who are moving out of their home in Boston to live in their smaller summer cottage year round. Their daughter Margaret (Mags) has come to help them pack and move, and to also paint their portrait as she has always wanted to do. 

Howe gives each character moments to shine, and there are some lovely, almost dreamy and dream-like speeches and imagery. At other times, I found certain dialogue stilted (more of the banal back-and-forth stuff), but who am I to argue with an Obie Winner and Pulitzer finalist?

It comes to pass that we learn Gardner, an esteemed poet, is now living with dementia, which is one of the reasons Fanny is moving them to a smaller space where she can keep a better eye on him as he types away at his "new book" which is mostly nonsense. In this regard, I couldn't help but think of this play as a precursor to a work like David Auburn's Proof, though the theme of a once-brilliant parent sinking into a tragic loss of faculties is the only real thematic engine they share. 

A parent with declining faculties is a theme that hits close to home to many (including myself), but Howe doesn't sink into the maudlin. She deals with the subject head on, as Fanny does. It is bold to have Fanny laugh at her incontinent husband, but it is her only defense mechanism. 

As for Mags, she has simply always wanted her parents' approval. To feel seen and validated. Another relatable characteristic, certainly. 

I would be curious to see this play staged---perhaps some of my issues with what felt like clunky dialogue would be evened out in performance. 

Painted Churches was revived in 2012 Off-Broadway, and the wonderful and oh-so-sadly gone "American Playhouse" filmed a production in 1986. Perhaps if one scrounges the net, one might find it somewhere.