I admit with a certain amount of professional anxiety that I am about to embark upon a theatrical journey that scares the life out of me. Here I am, sitting at my desk just hours before the first read-through of Aunt Dan and Lemon, nursing the feeling that already, this play has executed a kind of preemptive strike upon my artistic sensibilities and has, to a certain degree, prevailed. It is very disconcerting for a director to stare at a script that he has read a zillion times over and still have so many damned unanswered questions.
When they are staged, Wallace Shawn’s rarely-produced plays tend to garner a lot of critical praise, but John Simon, critic for New York Magazine, famously hates this play. And on a surface level, his criticisms have merit. Aunt Dan and Lemon seems to be completely unconcerned with the universal rules of playwriting. The play has nothing that might resemble traditional dramatic action, has little dramatic conflict and offers very little in the way of answers for the myriad questions it raises throughout the course of the evening.
And yet, after that very first reading nearly a year ago, I was left absolutely gobsmacked at the final page. This play has no right to be as compelling as it is. It has no right to succeed.
After several weeks of attempting to invent for myself a million pragmatic reasons why programming this play would be a huge mistake, I brought this play to our ensemble for a reading. The truth is, those well-formed, pragmatic excuses were steadily losing the battle against the ghostly whispers that lingered in the crevices of my brain every time I read the thing. The ensemble reading was, I guess, an attempt to excorsize those whispers, so I could shelf this beast and move on. It couldn’t possibly hold up in a reading.
But of course, it backfired beautifully. The ensemble reading was a monster. This astonishing play was even more compelling and mysterious and frightening when it was read out loud. What was worse, it was perfectly castable within our own ensemble and the play fit our mission like a glove and was easily producible on our shoestring budget. It was a done deal. There was no going back.
In the months that followed, the unanswered questions that linger around the edges of this play are still thick and palpable, and the question of its ability to “succeed” has made me question the set of parameters by which a play’s success is typically measured. Does a piece of theatre really “succeed” only by engaging in the high drama of conflict? Is a play “successful” only if it tells its story through riveting action? I remember the mantra of one of my early playwrighting teachers: ”Show us, don’t tell us.”
In most cases, I believe these Artistotlian rules of drama to be of enormous use to playwrights, and in most cases, plays with little propulsive action, little conflict and that offer very little in the in the way of stabilizing resolutions are doomed to fail miserably on the stage. Not only are these the basic guiding principles of drama, but they are tools that we as human beings employ every day as a means to organizing our very real world. What Shawn does by eschewing these typical rules of dramatic organization is remind us that real life is rarely lived in high conflict; that despite the constant influx of information from every conceivable source, sometimes the most dangerous ideas are passed in the form of whispers from people who are closest to us.
Come closer, this play seems to ask. Step inside. Listen carefully, and dare not to be spellbound. John Simon is right: ”nothing happens” on the stage. But this is not an arbitrary decision. Shawn, by asking the audience to listen deeply, seems to be more concerned about what happens in the troubled consciences and hungry souls of his audience as they are pulled closer to the heart of Lemon’s secret. When Wallace Shawn claims that Aunt Dan & Lemon is “about the audience,” he means it.
This is going to be one hell of a journey for everyone involved. It’s been a long time since I have felt so excited and so beautifully freaked-out before I began a process.
It is time to clench my fists and step into the dark.
i’m glad you’re a little apprehensive. it would be really scary to me if instead you thought: “Aunt Dan and Lemon…so easy.”
Matt,
Thank you for writing and owning the concerns about this show. When I read it, I ended with a sigh of “oh, shit.” That was for BackStage (because we have our own versions of John Simon in Chicago). But that was also a sigh of concern, and maybe resignation, for all the Lemons that inhabit my family, networks, and our culture. The more Lemons we have, the more power that accumulates to the Aunt Dans. And it was that recognition that ultimately led me to decide this play has a space to inhabit, in America and at BackStage. It really is the job of theatre to talk about what is hard to talk about, yet very important.
One other thing. I’ve said more than once that BackStage is at its best when taking big risks. Here’s another chance to prove it!
Well said, Matt. Conventions serve a purpose – to provide a structure in which something can grow and be nourished. But sometimes, breaking convention reminds people what is there to be explored digested. Here’s to the first bite of an adventurous meal!
explored AND digested…I meant to say.
I love Wallace Shawn. His writing creates emotional and spiritual space within the viewer, which is rare. And if a play doesn’t scare the hell of you, it’s not worth taking on. Can’t wait to see the show.
It’s interesting that John Simon also hates THE PLAY ABOUT THE BABY.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/theater/reviews/4360/
Of course, John Simon and Edward Albee have been enemies in print for almost 40 years.
Per Albee:
“And of course we have John Simon and Martin Gottfried and Robert Brustein–men who are basically concerned with themselves and a redefinition of theater that they can control. There is no excuse for John Simon, except his own need to create a John Simon.”