When we produced Aunt Dan & Lemon in 2009, we summed up the production and everything we had learned about it in a simple phrase:  “Are You Listening?”  Wallace Shawn’s play is a wild departure from everything that we hold true about what makes a play work.  It has no real plot, very little action, very little in the way of onstage dramatic tension, and its centerpiece was a sickly woman who sat motionless in a chair and spoke directly to the audience, sometimes for as long as twenty five minutes straight, about very complicated ideas.  Aunt Dan and Lemon became less about what was happening onstage, and more about the ideas that the audience were asked to grapple with as they listened, deeply, to Lemon’s story.  According to dramatic theory that stretches all the way back to Aristotle, the play should not work.  In spite of this,  Aunt Dan & Lemon remains one of our most successful and talked-about productions.

That play, and the Tenth Anniversary Season it was produced in, marked a pretty major change of direction for BackStage Theatre Company.  While previous seasons focused on the notion of producing “Big Things in Small Spaces,” our 1oth Season saw us taking a step away from that aesthetic, focusing instead on stories that put our newly developed mission sqaurely in the limelight.  Instead of producing big things in small spaces, we began sinking our teeth into the intimacy of our small spaces, and asking our audiences to “step inside” the private experience of family.   And each production following Aunt Dan & Lemon has placed a heavy emphasis on the need for active listening.  From the vaudevillian surrealism of Albee’s Play About The Baby to the metatheatre of Lichtenstein’s Memory and the generational puzzle-box of Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain,  the act of listening becomes essential to the experience of attending one of our plays.  All of these close examinations of family require active, imaginative participation on the part of our audiences.  The desire to engage our audiences as discerning, probing and attentive participants remains a cornerstone of what we do.  In fact, in an overstimulated, plugged-in, multitasking visual age, we believe that this kind of theatre becomes a kind of necessary sanctuary.  We hope that the productions you see on our stages give you respite from the noise of our online, over-marketed lives, and provide room for imaginative travel and contemplation.

Which brings us to the Listening Series.  In an attempt to add something else to our regular producing season, we set out to create a new off-night series based around this idea of close listening.  Each Listening Series features a challenging short play that we believe requires this kind of participation.  And each Listening Series presentation will not take place on a stage, but rather in a comfortable room that reminds you of someone’s home.  Harkening back to the days of when families used to dim the lights and gather around the radio, the Listening Series allows you to sit with us, sip a glass of wine, close your eyes and let your ears and your imagination take over.  To enhance the experience, each Listening Series will feature either unique sound design or live music accompaniment.  After the story is over, you will be invited to talk with us about what you heard, what you didn’t hear, and where your imagination and your intellect led you.

It’s a loud, busy world.  We hope that our stories continue to provide you with an opportunity to slow down and lose yourself in quiet, meaningful contemplation.

But most of all, we hope to see you again.

Warmly,

Matthew Reeder

Artistic Director

BackStage Theatre Company

Almost an entire season ago, when I closed the script cover on my first reading of Jonathan Lichtenstein’s Memory, I was dumbstruck. The latter half of this terse and economical play was devastatingly powerful, and contained scenes that were filled to the brim with wrenching, truthful moments of emotional power, and I was left breathless and purified in that beautifully cathartic way that only good drama can provide.

These deeply powerful moments revolve around two of the most emotional episodes in human history, the Holocaust and the present struggle for peace in the Middle East.  These scenes are not about politics, but about ordinary families attempting to live their lives within a cage of troubling politics that are beyond the control of themselves and everyone around them.

As I sat in my chair with my script in my lap, there was something else that was nagging at me. Despite the devastating nature of the holocaust scenes (and they are vivid, painful, and transporting) this was not a Holocaust play. Nor did I feel it was it a political play intending to draw clear and provocative parallels between Nazi’s and Isreali’s (although some will inevitably feel that way). There was something subtler, something more abstract and intriguing going on in this usual play.

These latter scenes of striking emotional power, and the threads of the entire play itself, are framed by a mysterious convention of a play-within-a-play. The premise as it appears in the script is simple. Memory begins with a group of actors, a director and stage manager rehearsing scenes in a shabby room. The actors all play themselves, use their own names and they proceed to rehearse a play. There are interruptions; by the actors, the director and from noises outside and the actors inhibitions. But by the end of the play, these interruptions are all but gone, and those powerful scenes mentioned above have come to the forefront and the “actors” have all but disappeared into their parts.  There are no hints from the playwright as to why or to what end this convention should be utilized or how to do it. The only reference to any kind of scenic instruction appears above the very first line of the play. “A rehearsal room.” Advice from the playwright begins and ends right there, before play even begins.

For weeks I tried to reconcile the convention of the play with the vivid story of the Holocaust and the Middle East. It was tough. On the surface, the playwright, with the exception of one deeply surprising and powerful moment, seems to abandon the convention 2/3 of the way through his play. But despite the mystery of the convention, the play-within-the-play element seemed somehow inextricable from the experience of the play as a whole.

A long time ago, a directing teacher once told me that my primary job as a director is to understand the play and its characters from every possible angle. He claimed that everything else flows from that understanding, and for the most part, I still cling solidly to that advice. But in recent years, I’ve become increasingly comfortable with taking a few steps into the darkness of uncertainty. As long as I trust the playwright, his instincts and the story he is trying to tell, I will let him take me and my actors into that dark place. If the playwright knows what he is doing, even if only on a subconscious level, the darkness can be navigated. That’s the true process of theatre.

And that’s when it dawned on me. As is so often the case, as soon as we stop over-analyzing and looking for ways to decode the hidden meaning, that is (of course) when the understanding comes and the meaning materializes. Despite the intensely moving and emotional nature of the pivotal holocaust scenes, this is not a play about The Holocaust. Memory is a play ultimately about the thing itself: the process of theatre. Play-making.

Very early on in our process, we discovered the parallels between Eva’s journey and the journey of the actress playing Eva. Both Eva and the actress Brenda must navigate the pain and anxiety of speaking the truth in the climactic scene of the play which, interestingly, is not during one of the holocaust scenes. The climax actually comes during that final, surprising bit of play-within-the-play that occurs after we have all but forgotten about the convention itself. It is startling and powerful and mysterious to watch actor and character struggle with the same climactic moment of parallel truth. It is a powerful, gutsy moment of playwrighting, and an astonishing example of deeply courageous acting on the of the part of Brenda Barrie. It is a moment that beautifully illustrates the complex and often painful relationship that real actors have to fictional characters whose stories they are expected to tell with truth and compassion.

But if the play itself was content at simply being “about play-making,” then it could become a clinical exercise that would have little impact on a lay audience. But thankfully, Lichtenstein, like all good theatremakers, cares deeply about various layers of truth, about his characters and about the story that the play-makers are attempting to tell. He bravely uses the framework of a semi-autobiographical story that reaches back to the holocaust to remind us that theatre is an intricate process of events that start with the desire for ordinary human beings with ordinary lives and ordinary problems to share stories with other ordinary human beings. That desire to share a truthful and transporting story with a roomful of strangers is at the heart of Lichtenstein’s generous play and is at the heart of theatre itself. The play-within-a-play convention disappears in the final half of the play, because the playmakers finally allow their own lives and personalities to take a backseat to the remarkable story they are telling. With the audience in attendance, unity is achieved with the unfolding story. The magic of theatre takes hold, and it ushers this collection of temporary strangers into an embrace of darkness and directly into mystery of the tale being told.

Memory plays now through December 18th at the Viaduct Theatre.

A Farewell from Lemon…

“…I really feel I’ve had a great life, because of what I’ve learned from the people I knew.”

– Lemon, “Aunt Dan & Lemon”

At the end of this wonderful adventure with “Aunt Dan & Lemon”, this line is one that leaves the strongest impression, as we finish yet another chapter in the BackStage family story.

I thought about all the lines of logic and argument Lemon and Dan share with the audience, the political, moral, and social considerations and challenges Wallace Shawn presents, and the obvious “family” issues present in Lemon’s childhood.

But as I pondered how I wanted to say goodbye and what words would best convey my feelings about this incomparable experience, what I am left with is the family I gained through this production – “the people I knew”.

Matthew Reeder, Artistic Director of BackStage Theatre, and our fearless leader for “Aunt Dan & Lemon” taught me to have faith in not knowing.  To trust the unseen, the formidable “gray”, and know the truth lies within.

Brenda Barrie showed me an artist’s path that exemplified grace and poise.  Her questions or times where the journey to Dan was less clear were never larger than her quiet strength and determination.

Ron Kuzava is a warrior – an actor who never let a personal challenge interfere with finding and gloriously executing a role made for him.

Eric Paskey is fearless.  Let me tell you, this man knows how to play. He spent many nights in rehearsal owning the room and setting, then raising, the bar for fun.

Anita Deely is an actor that lives in the present – all the time.  I learned how to accept each rehearsal and performance for their own splendid individuality, accomplishment, and success – and released expectation for empty duplications.

Caitlin Emmons reminded me to see things new – from the beginning of an actors’ journey – with anticipation and excitement.  She is eager to learn and wise beyond her years as a result of her brave vulnerability.

Michael Reyes is a force of positivity.  He took each day and saw its gifts.  Our strides and growth as a family were constantly celebrated by him, and our mistakes were brushed away with love.

Jen Poulin, Heath Hays, Brandon Wardell, Tom Haigh, Joanna Melville, Elise Kauzlaric, Geoff Coates & Megan Frei created a magical world for us, and generously listened and addressed every concern and idea.  The ability these artists possess to see a world from several new lenses and then collaborate, bringing the best of each to an astonishing collective whole, reminded me of every piece’s value – seen and unseen.

Our board and donors, our staff, our subscribers – you showed us commitment and dedication in the midst of uncertainty with this controversial play.  Your championing of BackStage Theatre humbles me to be a part of such a strongly supported vision.

Part of finishing a story is accepting you’ve reached the end, but the amazing thing is that still, in my memory, what I’ve learned from the family of “Aunt Dan & Lemon” will continue on and on…

And I will be forever grateful.

Rebekah Ward-Hays

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 have been having a conversation with a very talented and once quite successful friend about his inclination to return to the musical theatre stage after an almost ten year hiatus in the 9-5 corporate world.  This inclination apparently resulted from a particularly potent burst of (of all things) shower-singing.  He claims (and I don’t believe him, but the story is better this way) that once he made the decision to give up the stage he essentially quit singing, cold-turkey, even in the shower (mm-hm).  But recently, his stage-diva heart broke through his well-crafted armor, and he broke down and sang his lungs out, and apparently something essential shifted inside and he suddenly and deeply and painfully missed it.

Since then, he has been timidly inquiring about the present state of the Chicago theatre scene.  His equity card is long defunct and he is carrying a ten year gap in his performance resume.  He asked if I thought he was nuts for considering a return to the stage at the old age of 35.

“Of course you’re nuts.  Don’t do it,” I told him.  ”Unless, of course, you can’t live without it.”

A day or so later, I found myself thinking about my own pronouncement.  Being the artistic director of a theatre company with very limited resources more often than not places the artist in the backseat to the detail manager.  Amongst cash-flow questions and budget resources, season planning, strategy retreats, rights acquisitions, casting, production staffing and networking, I find myself with very little time to remember why the hell I chose to do this . . . why I can’t live without it.

I can point to an onstage moment almost twenty years ago when my geeky teenage life was broken open by the first of a series of I-Can’t-Live-Without-This moments.  The moment occurred while singing the final bars of the “Moonfall (Reprise)” in the latter half of the Mystery of Edwin Drood.  Standing in the arms of a pretty teenage soprano, we blasted our untrained lungs into the darkness beyond edge of the stage.  And it was in that instant that I sensed for the first time, that perfect, widescreen silence between our final notes and the eruption of the applause.  And it was that tiny moment of pure, church-like silence that stopped me in my adolescent tracks.  To me, that silence was proof that something real and good had been exchanged between myself and the audience, and in that brief moment of silence, we had been somehow unified; sharing an experience that was full and warm and giving and true.  I felt generous and at home in that silence.  I felt I had given a small, deep gift, and that gift had been accepted with grace and humility, without the clutter of politics.  It was a powerful, deeply human moment of connection, and it spoke to something missing in my everyday encounters with everyday people.

Twenty years and two degrees later, that silence still profoundly motivates me.  And the perfect expression of that unifying silence alludes me, thank God, so I keep looking for it in the stories I choose to tell.  I tell stories in the theatre because the theatre allows a sonorous silence of unity to explode in a room full of disparate, noisy creatures.

It is difficult to talk about something that is without sound or color, something so rich and so personal.  But there it is.  It is why I cannot live without it.

So what I want to know is: Why can’t you live without it? I want to hear your story.