The BackStage Blog

When Nick Keenan and I were in the early stages of redesigning BSTC’s website, we both agreed early on in the process that the new website should be blog-based.  There were a number of logistical reasons for this, not the least of which were financial.  Like most small theatre companies, we did not have a fortune to invest in the creation of this new website, and in most cases, blogging is pretty affordable.

But the interest in developing a blog-based site went beyond the need to keep our spending in check.  During our brainstorming sessions (primarily directed by the always inspiring Mr. Keenan) we decided that we wanted to use our site to not only promote our mission and our seasons, but to engage directly with our growing audiences.  We wanted to the new site/blog to be a kind of constant conversation between the artists and the audience that make up our theatre family.

Our seasons are a carefully programmed, thematically linked trio of productions that we hope will spark an open conversation between the artists and the audience.  We want our audiences to take part in the conversation; both positive and critical, in the stories that we are, essentially, programming for them.  Our stories are are both a challenge and a gift to those who come to see them.

So today, we are thrilled to unveil a extraordinarily simple but vital new feature of our website.  We are turning on a new feature that will allow our audiences and our artists to respond to each individual show, right on the show page.

What does this mean?

This means that an audience member will be encouraged go to our website after attending a BSTC production and leave a comment, a question or even a mini-review on the very page that is the central hub for information and news on the show.  That means that anyone who buys a ticket to the show through our website (our primary gateway to tickets) will be able to see the user-generated reviews and comments, and the responses left in turn, by the the producing artists: us.  Potential ticket-buyers will be able to see the conversation that is already happening around the shows before they buy their tickets.  The idea is not without risk: it could surely backfire if we don’t live up to the high artistic standards we set for ourselves.  (And we commit ourselves to leaving the negative responses up with the positive.)  But the risk is worth it.   It is an effort to increase transparency: to localize and popularize the narrative surrounding the experiences that our audiences have when attending our shows.  We want our audiences to learn from us, and we want to learn from them.  That is the point of any meaningful conversation.

So here we go!  From here on out, any show you see at BackStage Theatre Company is open for discussion.  Let’s start with Orange Flower Water.  Seen it yet?

If so, tell us what you thought.  Start the conversation.

Matthew Reeder

Artistic Director.

When I first met Aunt Dan on the page, it was clear to me that she is passionate and bold, and that she lived her life with an almost violent intensity.  I absolutely fell in love with her free spirit—with her Victorian blouses and nineteenth century men’s caps—and I was drawn in by her worldliness and non-conformance to societal rules.  Aunt Dan seems to let every moment of her life on earth have its richness.  I knew upon my introduction to Aunt Dan that getting to know her was going to be both a treat and a challenge.

Lemon recalls so vividly that some of Aunt Dan’s favorite memories included a week long rendezvous with a married man eating decadent foods and hardly leaving the bed as well as that pivotal moment of falling in love with a woman sitting stark naked on the sofa sharing the secrets of her life.  And just as I was enjoying learning about this interesting woman Lemon calls Aunt Dan, (though of no relation), I was stunned to find this whole other complicated layer.  Something took Aunt Dan off guard, shaking her inner being and coloring the rest of her life–and that something makes her fight hard to give everything she can to Lemon while destroying a very close friendship with Lemon’s mother.

As I got further into the play, it became clear to me that this “wordy” play, as some critics have complained, is rather a complex set of images, thoughts, powerful moments and truths—and though on the surface there’s no action in the play, I’ve learned that the action is in these characters’ hearts and minds—the evolution of the thoughts and emotions is the action.

As I sat with Aunt Dan, taking her on word for word, her firm concepts on war blew me away.  I became afraid of letting myself become this woman on stage.  She faces the heart of conflict and the ugly truths of war dead on and sharply asks “what about the things that would have happened the next day if the bomb hadn’t been dropped?”  She tears downs critics and journalists who mock our country’s leaders, saying they would be begging for help if they found themselves in the middle of the jungle facing the enemy.  She continues to say that these critics and journalists are cowards who never had to make such weighted decisions and instead they live this great way of life that is only possible because of our country’s leaders making grave choices.  Her intense views on Henry Kissinger’s role in the Vietnam War simply shocked me.  I do not share the same views as her, or at least I didn’t think I did at first—and this has been challenging to me as an actor.  How am I supposed to let awful images pour out of my mouth and with such venom?  And such things that people argue to this day are war crimes?

In preparing for rehearsals, I sifted through the events of the Indochina War leading to the Vietnam War and read through excerpts of the book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger.  But then I found that reading the black and white of the war still distanced me from the core of emotional truth that Aunt Dan harbors towards Henry Kissinger and why she so strongly believes in preemptive war.  My homework has had to become more visceral, looking at images and reading personal accounts of Vietnam and even the atomic bombs dropped in WWII.  The more I search to the find the truth in what Aunt Dan’s saying, the more I understand where she’s coming from—and that scares me beyond belief. War is happening right now, but that doesn’t cross our minds as we’re sitting in Starbucks.  I don’t know, it makes sense that I was initially stunned by some of Aunt Dan’s ideas, but they started to make sense.  She says “if there are people attacking our friends in Southeast Asia, you and I don’t have to go over there and fight them with rifles—we just get Kissinger to fight them for us . . . all these other people use force so we don’t have to, so we can sit her in this garden and be incredibly nice.” I had moments where I felt uncomfortable by how much I could begin to understand her perspective.  I have to think–if we believe our friends in another country are being murdered by power hungry people who are confiscating our friends’ farms and raping their children, why wouldn’t we fight to end that?  And if there are only one or two countries where this is happening, why would we wait until the number of countries we’ll have to fight are twice the number we’d have to fight now?

This piece is wildly intimidating–as Wallace Shawn states and doesn’t shy away from, evil triumphs in this play.  It’s as if the actor and audience is asked to let their mind ponder darker thoughts of what would happen if we truly were outright killing for power.  I am thankful that director Matthew Reeder dedicated the entire first week of rehearsals to discussion, table work, and several full read throughs of the play.  We started to dissect and digest this play from the onset, and as we put this play on its feet, the questions and discussions didn’t stop.

This play takes us through some very dark and murky places, but I have to say I am captivated.  I read something somewhere that if it doesn’t scare you, it’s not courageous.  I am sitting here right now so thankful for BSTC’s courage, my fellow cast member’s courage, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the audience take this journey with us.

–Brenda Barrie