I feel like it is a little talky, and it’s a little linear for my taste, but I think there are some really beautiful moments.
I adore the whispering.
I continue to love Ashley and Zac as Demetrius and Chiron.
I think the Lavinia “talking” is really affective.
POEMS
We are having feelings about our poems. I’m delighted. That means they are real.
Dayne
Their lies are almost too much to bear.
Zac
This isn’t a cinematic escape – life is in the flesh, not in the streams of projected action. Connection. Gratification. Stripped naked, bare, barren, wasteland. You may lose faith in love, but never lose faith in hate. Oooh. Wow. Kind of an amazing poem. I kind of love it.
Ashley
I wrote this thinking we were going to go in one direction – sex is violence accepted. Walking down the steps breathing. Open your fucking heart and listen. I need him to hurt. Open your fucking eyes and look. Open your fucking ears – do you hear her screams? I wear lipstick like a target. Open your fucking mouth – want to taste their blood? My lover brings me his hand – I sleep with it. Open your fucking hands – oh – you can’t. Okay. Wow. Just wow.
Nick
I desire to feel alive. I breathe again as a new being, moving without a single thought. Interesting.
Keith
What means you this? I am Bassianus – deny me not. I am confused. Obvs. Frequent occurrence.
Ross
So, I don’t know if this means anything. Worry is a convoluted mess of wasted energy. She comes to me when her vices fail her. Nothing ever wrong – except her. The self is not sole, but we are isolated. We don’t die simply because we must, but because we need to. Because we want to. Life is the struggle to fill the void when ourselves became our bodies. Assured I have the answer to a question no one asked.I LIKE IT.
Jen
I am miles and miles of pumping blood. I am living flesh. Scented with the sweat of the generations that made me. I am avast sea, an incomprehensibly vast sea. Deep deeper. Infinitely restrained. Hidden and horrible fantasies. A cut. I am terrifyingly liberated. And it is too much for my weak body. It is too much for my weak mind. Frail and extraordinary. Wooooooooow. Amazing.Yea.
Liz
I watch from somewhere inside myself. We are so sick of playing with fire. In a world made of glass a single pebble can ruin all. You’re toying with time. It’s a vicious world, tyrant. I’ll be your pebble. I am burnt.Wow. Apparently, we need the filmFunny Games.
Chelsea
What wasn’t there to come out. I can’t feel myself breathe. Was it empty before? I have come undone, unhinged from myself. What I cut out. I’ve lost something. Wow.
ASSIGNMENT: 20 minutes to write a song – music and lyrics. It cannot fall back on the song. What is the song about? Not love. Windows?
SONGS:
Chelsea
My little precious darling dear, why would you hide from me? I’ve ripped your love from you.
Dayne
I waaaaaaant her. I neeeeeeeeeed her. I’ll have her. She will. Be mine. Her hands her hands her hands her hands.This is totally fucking creepy and awesome.
Zac
Adrfit from the life of the man I’ve become. I’ll never be free. I’m stuck here, picking through ashes of ice. I like this. A lot.
Nick
Limitless bearings and fall from his hands. Garnet skies eulogy, burning oceans cry to me. Whispering winds deaf to me. Nick’s voice in song is actually really creepy and interesting. I am kind of into it.
Ross
Boys turn to men, but they don’t grow no older.
Liz
I’m here. Oh wait, I do. I have no fear. I wait for you. For I am here, waiting only for you. Ummm. Yes. Yes. YES. I love this. Love, love, love. Take your time in finding me, for I have time to spare. YESSS.
Keith
We fight like hell to figure out the things we knew before.
Ashley
Amazing tone. I love this humming. It resonates in the whole courtyard. It’s really not that bad to die. Now the heat and sweating and the dripping will stop. Let me know the geography of your hell.
Jen
I’ll see you where the sun sets east. Don’t forget me. Consuming beast. Cut you down and tie you up and feel your disease. Yea. Yup. Okay. I like the singing. Let’s sing.
Ross’s Thyestes monologue. I’m excited. I have not seen this in a long time. Nice. I like it. It’s cool. I don’t know how it gets used…but it’s definitely cool.
Zac and Chelsea’s chair work. I don’t quite understand how this works in the world.
TODAY. Keith is ill. Downer. Because we’re building Williams-specific, today is a play day. Yay! Time to review what you worked on over the weekend, then we’re going to do show-and-tell, and then we have a couple other things in store. Right now, take ten and review your work from the weekend.
SHOW AND TELL Nicole – Lavinia (monologue) Divided duty. Men’s natures wrangle with inferior things, though great ones are their object. A sense of pain. Men are not gods. Unhandsome warrior.I’m not really sure what this is or where it is in the world, but it was cute and good. COMMENTS: Desdemona. My favorite line is “even to a sense of pain.” Lot of parallels with Desdemona. NICK – Aaron Great wonder. I curse the day. Why should wrath be mute and fury dumb? You have lost half your soul. Hmmmm. Because of the marriage? How interesting. Or because of the dead baby. Perhaps because it’s after Desdemona, I am feeling all of these mantacchments in the world right now. This clapping is horrifically violent. I am a little traumatized by it. Switch to…a Titus?This is the day of doom. Make pillage of her chastity. Music honest as I am. COMMENTS: Basic mold of Aaron as Lady Macbeth, between when Tamora becomes Emperor and Lavinia as raped, sort of a Hamlet figure (Tamora), means or motivation for carrying through these acts. Sources: Macbeth, Iago. Interesting to see her as Macbeth and Aaron as Lady Macbeth. Feminize him, juxtapose those lines maybe? Cool. Interesting choice.
ROSS – Marcus (from Thyestes) She’ll kill or die. Punishment itself is what I want. Death is something you beg for.What happens to Lavinia is worse than death. Is it? What is worse than death? The end, the stop, the dark, the not-feeling. Torture.The mother’s tearing up her own flesh. She looks splendid.Okay, that’s horrifying. So totally horrifying.What words her first pain will break out in.I just got some crazy chills with that laughing belch.I want the mother to drink her children’s blood. I’m striding as high as the stars. COMMENTS: Really good selection. All cuts. 8 different scenes. Really nice cut.
JEN AND CHELSEA – Tamoras I feel like a butcher’s dog. The world’s dying out. Don’t talk so loud.Lorca in the world. I kind of want a Catholic prayer to the Virgin Mary in the world right now. Maybe in Latin? Potential Prayer: Blessed be your purity, May it be blessed forever, For no less than God takes delight, In such exalted beauty. To you, heavenly Princess, Holy Virgin Mary, I offer on this day My whole heart, life and soul. Look upon me with compassion, Do not leave me, my Mother. Oh, and this was brilliant. BRILLS. COMMENTS: We loved the imagery of Tamora losing her mind. After hearing Ross’s thing, it’s a really interesting idea. The thoughts. The mother part of her and the…her subconscious. All of it’s happening at once. No longer differentiate between violence and motherliness. It’s inside of her head. It’s her breaking. A frenzy of killing and she steps back and it doesn’t all make sense. In your head, when your brain is going that fast, a whirlwind, there is no side. It’s all just a mess. Macbeth as the anchor. Clear notion. Wanted you to resolve, love that you didn’t. Mother Courage, Lady M, Yerma, original poem, Hamlet. Singing and frantic, rocking to its own rhythm. It needs shaping, but what it has is really good.
ASHLEY AND ZAC – Demetrius and Chiron Crime is not an idea, it’s an act. It won’t rain. I never feel anything.OMG that “I never feel anything.” As a whisper. FUCKING.TERRIFYING.To give up freedom, to be dominated. More or less.OH MY GOD. I think the scariest part is the fact that it is funny and charming. Why would we do this? To prove that we are free. COMMENTS: Endgame, Murder by Numbers. So good. The movie Rope – Hitchcock. Killing for intellectual thought. Really interesting. Liked how certain things – hard to decipher what is what. Really well put together. The coin. She needs to have something. Now they’re not this one thing – they’re finding differences in character. Almost might want to look at Leopold and Loeb. How does this fit with what Ashley did last week? The growth of the coin is decimating. To prove that we’re free – we are not going to let weakness take over.
LIZ – Lavinia What win you if you gain the thing you seek? Who sells eternity to get a toy. I say no. ‘Tis not life I have begged so long for.I really like that mirrored Lavinia moment. It is sort of beautiful. And maybe Lavinia who is whole comes into the world? COMMENTS: Pieces finding a structure amongst themselves. When we come back from break, assignments for various people. Liz’s monologue with Ashley’s work as Chiron into scene between the three of them.
We are officially in high gear in the best possible way. I’m such a sad bastard 21 hours of the day. I’m gushing a little bit. This ensemble is really exciting for me.
Everyone I talk to is exhausted. For serious. It is as though the whole artistic world needs a nap. I need a nap. Of course, when I am tired I always have a lot of feelings, so I should be very emotive during today’s rehearsals. We are doing fables again – it has been a long time since our last visit with them, and I am looking forward to seeing what they will be in the world. Especially if we are doing all three today. It is like a coming together of a community.
We’re doing Joel and Candace’s fables today and we’ll do Anne’s next time. The plan is this. Two fables and a little conversation and it is for us to find out how it all shifted. There doesn’t have to be much conversation about it. Maybe Joel’s group is curious about how to talk about the work we’ve done. Then we are going to go work. This and next week are the formative moments. Now you guys are in all kinds of problems – in trouble – and this is good that you are, because we still have time to see what is happening with the creative process, and it’s time to adjust and switch and shift and you’ve done a lot of work. What’s happening, what’s not happening, time to see the results of that shift. Think about this week as a formative week that may change and shift your work. Your directors are very eager for that transition into the next phase. At some point, you will have some sort of structure that you can refine and go deeper. The development and location of the work will happen this week. You should see how your focus will shift into working more vertically, finding the way in for your personal investment and having a shape established. All this makes no sense unless it’s backed up by examples and it’s all different in each group. I’m acknowledging that this is a tricky and exciting and interesting moment.
There’s still some poem work being done and I like that a lot. SMYRA – for those interested in over the summer, I’m going to be doing a project about the language of theatre and the poem, let me know. There will be some work done over the summer, a bunch of us are going to be staying here and doing some work. If you are in town and want to do some work, there’ll be an opportunity for you. Poem work especially with Smyra.
JOEL:
Breathing. A heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Too many heartbeats. Sound, the sound of. Pleading. She is quiet. She will never give them the satisfaction.
Okay, this is crazy because. His first fable and second and third – this went far. I actually really like it. I’m very interested and curious. You created a place for a lot of great interest in the listener. I want to see the work that does that.
COMMENTS: I love how something became so innocent and then turned on itself. The silence was blissful and became the hunt, and that is so – ugh, a deer, so peaceful, but can instantly become this terrifying thing. What do you see in this fable that is so present? Sound. A lot of interesting sound. I think because it didn’t – it allowed your imagination to fill in things because it made it more vivid. It is very interactive. It wants you. It’s very dramatic. Aware of action. The sound, through sound, came movement. This piece had a lot more movement. In the quiet, nothing seemed like it was standing still. There are a lot of “oh, shit!” moments. This bad thing, this bad thing – quiet – oh, shit! Tension was there. I like it more now that it’s the bare bones, it’s just how it happened, just the events that make up a war and the violence of it. I loved this because it betrayed you. And I loved how everything was turned on you. Puts this face of an army, all living, beating beings. Cacophony. Transformed from the purest form of life – love. Don’t know what side you’re on anymore. That’s what I got. What I see in it is focus, structure, and clarity. Not oversimplification – there’s a lot to discover in it. The structure is really observable. Now things are falling together. Falling into its place. The work you’ve done is focused – now the shortcut has been established and you have a structure to which things will start belonging. And that is good to hear. I liked it for what it was even as a verbal presentation. Designers would love that.
CANDACE:
Lights on. I’m going to tell you a story. Once upon a time.Thebes was bad and all the people seemed to be sad. A dirty lying whore. Pretty, pretty Pentheus. Mother, Mother May I? ALL FALL DOWN.
COMMENTS: Any reactions? Did The Bacchae people expect this kind of thing? Is it somehow a surprising twist? Did it tell you something about the work you’re doing that you didn’t know? Different from where I saw the whole thing going. The loss of individual choice, the group mentality, that was a lot more present in this telling than what I usually think of. That everybody in Thebes has a choice about who they want to follow, that’s – but – this telling of the fable was significantly different, because everybody is highly susceptible to hypnosis. Outside influence. What was interesting was that the story was about people being seduced, Dionysus as a seductive thing, but it was still very appealing. The group mentality of following and going somewhere. I really like the sitting as children for the reading – it feels really honest and innocent, please come to me as children, and then it was sort of dirty – using the word whore and stuff. I wanted to believe and follow even though I knew it was bad. That power you have over children. Contrast between the promise of the form and the harsh contradiction in it. Innocence disappears very quickly. We’ve been talking about children’s stories, riddles, nursery rhymes, and how they seem innocent but if you actually listen, it’s extremely violent – why Dionysus is and what he calls us to do. That song made me want to get up and be violent and be gruesome, but in a pleasing way – addictive and attractive and better than what I’m doing now. Disney killed the whole roughness of children’s stories. Stuff is muddy and damaging for children as how they used to be. Now we live in a world where things are colorful and safe. The possibility of death and someone watching you, I guess I forgot that as we were doing it, this was just how…the picture of the child behind the fern leaf scared me a lot. Not a leaf – actually cuts. That was scary. We very much focus on choice, the people of Thebes have a choice, and then it’s yea but it’s so easy to make the choice to go to Dionysus – you can’t tell – because it’s like you’re possessed. Like they’re kids – gullible nature. Is there a choice? I’m a little concerned about the choice, it seems like there’s a harsh decision-making. In this country, when we think about choice, Dionysus is more complicated than abortion. Not seeing it through the Christian lens.
That’s why the play works – because of the lack of clarity we have about what’s chosen. Is there a choice, there isn’t one, maybe, hwo knows, but what’s in front of you is complicated. There is a complication in the reception of it, we don’t know what it is. In any case it is fascinating – are you killing the lion, what does it mean? Are you killing a being or releasing your own potential as a hunter/survivor, and the act of killing is already so not part of any sort of moral dilemma but it brings you closer to the animal sense of yourself – you exist through the multiple crime of killing other entities. Something about a hamburger. Sexual interest and desire in killing. All these things are raw and complicated and they don’t get any easier. It leaves you full of “what just happened?” It vocalizes something in you that is unresolved, dark, crazy, unhealthy. You have a choice not to face what you are. I’m just a morally clean person…but I think you will fail. If you think you are that person, you are going to basically betray that image. For so long we’ve been trying to find the answer, but maybe there is no morally correct side. It moves something in us that is there that we bury down inside. There is always something in us that is not sure. There is no right or wrong, yes or no. I hate it when something is presented to me as bad or good – the choice is not to be either bad or good, but. Poem exploring act of killing that is also felt as a sexual charge – act seen from a perspective that is beautifully complicated and would be – I wish that we had the time to work with these poems, but we don’t have that time for this right now. I emailed your poem to Candace. The idea of raw and dirty – dirty = complicated, not clean-cut, complicated psychologically without any censorship. That’s The Bacchae right there. The unexplored dirty insides that we have. There’s no end. About the form – I think it is interesting that Candace wanted to talk through images, while there is this song that is seducing and contemporary – it has guts; you need that work to have it being your song. I like the song. There is some fascination in the feeling that the song represents. What I really like also, there were moments of juxtaposition with the word and what the word means to somebody. There was a negation of the image – juxtaposition and contradiction happening in what you’re doing. Saying something and doing something else, it’s in the spirit of the play – shows something and talks about it in a different way.
Agave has two narratives when she has the head in her hand – she has one narrative and then there is another one. Most gruesome recognition in the whole of Greek theatre. Two ways of speaking about one head hanging by its hair and Agave holding that hair. Gruesome image of mother/son and what’s left of him, the feeling that I just complicated because it is not a killing. There is a whole complication that happens in the one image. The word fights for meaning while the meaning is in the image and is not a clear representation. I kind of stifled this thought and I’m just gonna say it – yes. I feel like it’s the words that pop up, juxtaposition, duality, contradiction. Why are lullabyes made – they have a different kind of resonance with who they’re intended for. All this heavy distortion, the screen in front of what you’re being shown, so you’re a different part of why it’s happening. Yesterday’s work really clung to me that was so many different things, it’s the desire to just do those things. Maybe it’s just because D feels like you need to kill, but it’s not explainable, all the acts are completely unexplainable, these people needed a change, but there’s just this passion, this need to be awakened and the act of killing is an exploration of feeling alive. And maybe you have a justification first, but it’s about not knowing what you’re doing but it’s the people of Thebes who get into your system – this is life for me and I’m okay with doing this over because it’s life to me, and it’s weird. And there’s this frustration, what side makes sense, and really like the ending is there is no end – we’ll never know what makes this happen. In fact, you can think about this is as the postmodern condition, we are returning in that feeling of being today in the world, where the world is so confusing to everybody, there’s no organization, it’s archaic, this world we have. It’s a return of the feeling the Greeks had when they tried to put primary order onto a world that is all chaos. The world was disappearing and the philosophers tried to grasp it, all this anxiety over failure was given to the theatre – unresolved and puzzling, crying when you see Oedipus leave Thebes, but you are still puzzled by it. How does this fit into your sense of order? Being postmodern is like being close to the Greeks. There is no center. NO right and wrong.
This was good. Very interesting. We need to work. See you guys in rehearsals.
Oh, my favorite part of theatre. Ten people in a room, all talking to themselves, gesticulating, having a lot of feelings, wandering about. It is when theatre looks like church or an insane asylum. Literally. This week’s plan is yoga, show’n’tell (monologues), and then sculpting. What will the world of TITUS look like after today? What is so exciting about this – why I am so excited to be here for it – is that after the actors have done all this work that comes from so deep within them, today they have been driven back into the text? How will they connect after all these processes? What have they learned? Will we be able to tell? Lights out and…yoga time.The other thing that could happen with these monologues is a new – and by could I mean will, obviously, fool that I am – understanding of what TITUS means today. Here, Now. This story of nationalism, pride, honor, and vengeance – how does it mean for these ten young people who are the future of theatre in the world? And so, how do all of these ancient texts become alive in the world – what does our world mean and how can we tell from what they say, what they feel, how they move and stand and relate and live? This is what I love most about this process. Just…watching, I suppose, and being in the presence of this sort of intensity. Even today, when it is mostly nervous energy and spring break alcohol intake being released through yoga poses. Even today, they are in the world and loving each other and in their bodies and utterly breathtaking.Monologues! How were your various journeys through the assignment? Zac – Demetrius doesn’t have any speeches except the one we all know – what I did was took a bunch of his lines and made a monologue – totally allowed. Some of lines are people not in the scenes. See everyone’s pieces, feedback, discussion – towards the end we’ll choose one and see if we can build it into something bigger, maybe two – experiment with building blocks. Not going to clap now – later. No – now. Ross – 1 Nicole – 2 Jen – 3 Zac – 4 Chelsea – 5 Nick – 6 Dayne – 7 Keith – 8 Liz – 9 Ashley – 10 Just for future reference. Apparently these are clapping numbers – I have not been to Titus rehearsal in a long time.
ZAC: Demetrius Speech – the bait and rape of Lavinia. Accusing Lavinia of all the wrongs her people have done, picking a fight with Chiron and claiming his turn, let me do my thing, and then and I start to rape her. It’s kind of bad. Yea. That sounds awful. Chiron and Demetrius circling Lavinia. Learn thou to make some meaner choice. Go to. Stay madam – here. Here is more that belongs to her – first…Honestly, I don’t know…wow.We hunt not, we with horse nor hound, to hope to pluck this dainty doe to ground.Wow. Okay. Yup. TALKBACK: What was different in execution than what happened in your head? I see Chiron and Demetrius being finally able to have power because Lavinia is a small figure – accuse her of everything that happened to us. I want Chiron to back off because I’m the older brother. Show him the ropes of what it is to be a man. OH MY GOD. This is so traumatizing. Because that means that rape is what it is to be a man. I’m not sure that’s untrue – but the fact that that is what we’ve tapped into – how horribly sad for men. And women, of course, but how horribly sad for men. What I found really interesting – the transference of power because Tamora gives you power and then you use it against Lavinia. One degree of separation between Tamora and Lavinia. She has no tongue to call nor hands to wash. WOW. It’s not hunting, it’s revenge.
NICK: Aaron Needs two guys. Zac and Keith. Surprise for us…interesting. I guess we will discuss it afterwards. Let fools do good and fair men call for grace. Vengeance is in my heart and death in my hand. Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.This whole physicalization of violence – the location of vengeance, death, blood & revenge.If there were devils, would that I be one. TALKBACK: I was trying to figure out how Aaron got to the point where we see him in Titus – I saw it almost as if Aaron is a Titus who had lost his family and ended up enslaved in Rome. Anyone associated with Rome is considered guilty in his eyes. Aaron covering himself in dirt, filth, and darkness and trying to put it into D & C. Finding something that is proof that he existed – it is in his son. As long as the son is alive, it doesn’t matter if Aaron dies. [How set is your movement – could you repeat it?] Majority I can repeat – not set in stone, but past the beginning, had most of it set in stone. Loved the beginning and when you were moving on the plane that you’re on now. Everything you did before you started speaking. I hate it when outside noises intrude on this time. That’s just a private note. I want them out of my experience. This repetition of Aaron gestures is really neat. A little Pina, as Joel says. Everyone agrees this is cool. Keep that it in your mind. Add in the baby heart transformation.
JEN: Tamora Circle. Lights. Totally bloody awesome. TALKBACK: Trying to rationalize the Aaron scene within Tamora’s character. She talks about how beautiful everything is and then she wants to convince them to murder on her behalf and she talks about how awful things are. She’s so convincing or her sons are so believable – I wanted to play with the dichotomy of those two scenes. Sun/sons - there is no life in Rome for her. She has to slip into some kind of madness. Wonderful pinnacle of a queen and then…I think it starts when Alarbus is killed. Went through and every line where she mentioned anything maternal or Titus/Andronicus – wrote down all the words in order. Wow wow wow wow. Alarbus is her firstborn and she offs her first born by Aaron. LIZ: Lavinia For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? When did the tiger’s young ones teach the dam. I SAY NO.Oh my. “I say no.”A poor unseasonable doe. I was slain when Bassianus died, for love is strong as death and jealousy is cruel.There is something horribly affective about her sitting and holding her body together – as though it will shatter if she lets go.A wilderness where there are no laws. Tears harden lust. Life imprisoned in a body dead. That is gone for which I sought to live, and now I need not fear to die, for love is strong as death. Justice is feasting. This could be a rape narrative from today. “Life imprisoned in a body dead.”Tears harden lust – invoke it and make it not-love. I have felt exactly like this. TALKBACK: That monologue is twice as long as Lavinia’s lines combined. How did you go about the research? A couple things that I knew off the top of my head, and then I read The Rape of Lucrece. Took me three days – it’s that depressing. Went through those and anything that immediately popped out, I copy and pasted – and within I found things that made sense and meant something to me. A lot of things Lavinia didn’t need to say but I needed to know. My whole goal was to give her a chance to say what she never gets to say. My heart is breaking inside of my chest right now. She never gets to explain what happened to her. I like your use of breath a lot.
CHELSEA: Tamora I will not beg in vain I am Tamora I am not Tamora she is thy enemy and I am thy friend. I am revenge. TALKBACK: Really nice and good stuff – let’s make it more avant-garde-y. ------------------------------ ROSS: Marcus I love those red things. Love, love them. The visual of them around her feet is rather extraordinary. Sorrow flouted as is double death. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome? Mine hath been idle. Let it serve that I have kept it to a worthy end.
TALKBACK: There’s blood on the floor. Obsessed with that. It went on forever and was so beautiful. I was like, man I wish I had some white gloves. Then mine were hunting gloves. They could’ve just broken them really bad and I had to finish them off. He really is not like his brother – he’s much more calm and in his head. And when he sees Lavinia, he’s not immediately brought to power and revenge, he’s relying on his words. When he figures out who did it, he snaps into Andronici mode. Using her chastity to get back at them? Fun to do it for Titus. I liked Titus’s back being to us – made you be Titus [audience]. Almost felt like an autopsy guy – the body has been desecrated, etc. KEITH: Titus Ooooh, we are playing with this blood now. Ross has brought props into the world. I am into the idea of them standing and collapsing towards each other – I think that’s super neat. TALKBACK: It’s where Titus talks the most – he goes off. And he talks for so long, and I wanted to do the whole damn thing, but it’s too long – that whole monologue, he details everything. I think the end, where he talks about what he’s going to do, can be kept as short. Thanks to you guys, my sons are dead…There’s a body count. Interesting. I like the idea of including the body count, I feel. This idea that the bodies have to be named.
DAYNE: Saturninus I can’t get over this blood on the floor. For serious. And the way that looked was extraordinary – the two lands divided, and the menacing approach with the shadows behind. TALKBACK: I feel like he’s a brat. In the other one he’s complaining – everything is pretty much his fault. He really reminded me of Leo in Man in the Iron Mask – the bratty twin. He had that stature of sheltered royalty. He thinks they’re his entourage, but they are in charge. I want him to fluctuate between angry and passive-aggressive. Don’t put it to bed. Keep driving at it. NICOLE: Lavinia Happy skipping Lavinia. This is somehow even more heartbreaking after Liz’s.With tears of joy shed on this earth for thy return to Rome. ‘Tis pity they take him for a stag. Even at thy teat thou barest this tyranny. ‘Tis present death I beg. No womanhood. O beastly creature.I love this indictment of Tamora’s womanhood.Confusion fall. Confusion fall. Confusion fall. TALKBACK: Lavinia – I wanted her to be strong. She’s royalty. She’s not somebody to be fucked with. She’s Titus’s daughter. She’s scared to death but she’s strong. She is worthy. And I wanted to play with that. Didn’t want to play with the innocent ingénue. Confidence. I loved that you really allowed transitions to happen – I’m really glad you took time in there to move us from place to place.
ASHLEY: Chiron I am as able and as fit as thou. Beg my passions for Lavinia’s love. Can my violence conquer thee?Oh my god oh my god oh my god. The coin tossing. Oh my god oh my god.Play the scribe. Wash thy hands. Wash thy hands. TALKBACK: Wow. I pasted some parts together and since he’s older, I see myself as young and immature. I see it as a game and trying to win her. That closet was pretty intense right there. The magic trick. You got so much out of Chiron. Added what was missing and did that really well. I added the “can my violence conquer thee?” Sensual in such a good way. GODDAMN PRODUCTION MEETING.I depart, with no joy.
Oh, the first day back after spring break. Everyone acts like they have not seen each other for months. It has been one week. They are so energetic and excited and smiley.
I hope your break was good – is everyone here, do we even know that? It seems like we’re missing a few people. I will keep it very short today. The phase in which you will see finally some progression and growth because your rehearsal schedule will get tighter and mainly it is about your checking in situation. There will probably be things you want to talk about. In terms of more work, I propose that two things happen – I am still very much intrigued by the poem project. So, those of you who would like to still continue that work are welcome to continue it individually with me. The way we do it will be like this – some of you have gone through many drafts – optional for you to come to me and meet with me and we can work individually on a performance piece. Whether it will be used by the directors is a different story. Even if it is not used and you don’t choose to work with me, it still has done some work for you – you have done some work for you. It’s not global, it’s always an individual thing – what are your current limitations, what is the obstacle – it is in the poem. Not everybody is going to be willing to go into that phase of work, so I think I can manage.
Another thing – I don’t want you to read too much or work too much as a writer because we have to focus on our performance. Nevertheless, you process is very valid and your arc of progression is important – it’s important that we make it an experience that can be documented in some way. At one point, and I think it is going to be sooner rather than later, I would like for you to start writing a 3-4 page response documenting your own process – this is the final thing I’m asking you to do – your own process in the class, in your project. Things that worked for you, things that inspired you, things that became a big obstacle and remained an obstacle, and things that you understand now differently. Whether it is from the way your director has worked with you, or through your reading and our conversations, from a quote you remember. Your flagship text will be Genesis of Apocalypsis because it is extremely valid for a performer to work with and be familiar with. Reflections on your process in comparison with Grotowski’s process – his is not a model, he says it is his journey. Don’t compare your process in terms of how you each did things – not the right way to approach it. It should be all about what is it I’m learning from this? Even if the experience is sometimes hard and sometimes you see no light, that’s actually an amazing moment of learning. That’s why you chose this path as an artist, because you’re not afraid of not knowing, this place of darkness is something that leads somewhere. A place of potential discovery, and when the discovery happens, the process is done. When it gets really done, you don’t do it anymore and you look for some other dark place to fall into. This will be a final paper for you. You can write more if you want, but 3-4 will enough. Make it a meaningful testimony, so I can learn from it. I will share your writing with the directors and with Liz. Then I will know your process – sometimes it’s hard to know your process. Not at the end of the semester – must be done the week before so we can have a class informed by reading your entries. Otherwise, no more reading from me. And the poem work, which I welcome you to do with me. Definitely meet the time after the presentation to have a final conversation, but that means that your paper will be due the week before. I might post some of them on the blog. Take advantage – read about your own work in rehearsal. How is it seen by someone else? The directors tell you how they see your work, but it’s good to have maybe other testimonials.
I’m not going to be judging them for their literary quality.
DUE DATE = April 12. The week of performances? Or the week before the week of? Due the same week as the performances. You can turn it in earlier. It’s very okay to turn it in earlier. Check in next time with the directors where the fables are at this point. We’ve gone through stages of fabling and stages of working. Something that’s maybe on it’s way to coming closer to your finalization of a fable. I’m curious about what you have to say. Candace can even dance it if she wants. [hee hee]
Sittin’ in a circle, ready for birthday cupcakes. This is the cutest little family of folks. I love them. Julien loves hand sanitizer. This is interesting. Oh, germs.
Yesterday’s rehearsal and discovery – we discovered the magic of light, darkness, height, and secrecy. Publix light discoveries. Different scenes where we can utilize the light and able to draw the house on the back of the wall, and there are ladders and the catwalk, and the light up there lets you shine light down almost like a creature lurking in the darkness. The colors are the same as the colors that matched up for all of the characters. Went up on the catwalks and played. Tried out different scenes with the lights. I like the idea of the spark of lights and power and knowledge. Tracing the shape of a house on the wall with the lights. When really dark, it’s really cool – unique element to play with. Lighting each other, colors combining on the face, different angles. We talked about because we have an even number of people but three characters, so we have an odd number of people, thinking that Lukas and Chelsea might be ideas/something to use/a different kind of presence. Never felt like a full person with Elizabeth, so going to play with different things besides just characters – Chelsea made a list of different things each character shares. Everyone wants something, and their wants mismatch and that’s where a lot of trouble comes from. Maybe Mary Shelley is in the world. She could do anything. If we did decide to put her or the representation of her in it, she could edit – what about Percy, too? She edited Elizabeth’s background. Mary and Percy Shelley? What our showing on Friday, the theme was that all the characters were looking for some way to control – and even the author didn’t have complete control. A big thing is control, or all of them want things to be a certain way and that’s why everything is so fucked up. Different clashing ways to get something everyone wants. Status is part of why nothing can work out. The creature and Elizabeth have such a low status. Victor’s voice being the bourgeois, and he wants to transcend even mortal status. Keep reminding myself about the reason why he got into this in the first place is because of his mother’s death – interesting to focus on the question of what is mortality, and especially today – people cryogenically freezing themselves – cloning dogs, choose what your baby looks like – fertility drug that celebrities are doing so they can have multiple children. The idea of immortality in terms of having left some legacy behind – Shakespeare’s version is having written the lines – Shelley is immortal. Old dead guys who are immortal. Do you write for the goal of immortality? Every single person in the story is trying to control the one thing that can’t be controlled, which is life and Nature and who they are and how other people feel about them. The one thing they personally can’t control is what they want so much to control. If you have an elaborate plan, you feel safe. It’s not even necessary following a plan of hours – I have to think that I will have time or it feels like it will never get done.
New Assignment: over spring break. All going to write new letters. These aren’t necessarily based on characters playing; to fill things out. To do this, some of this you can go back into the text and pull quotes from. I want someone to write a letter from Caroline to someone – a friend – regarding Elizabeth’s adoption (Cassie); A couple of letters to Victor that are condolences on Caroline’s death (can be from someone else): Rachel A letter from Victor to Clerval (spelling) about work on the creature: A letter from Victor to Elizabeth about work on the creature: Caroline can be introduced because a catalyst and it introduces Elizabeth into the family; Elizabeth adopted (chosen because beautiful – life if you married your stepbrother); can introduce Clerval because he can be someone to bounce things off of without ever being present – if there are letters to or from, he’s like an outside presence.
If Victor were writing a letter to his friends, would he be honest and open about the fact that he’s creating a creature? In this exercise – is that a limitation or – write what you want to write. Writes it but never sends it – his perspective. Writing but never sending letters – something that could be written. Write the letters that are never sent, letters that get torn up. Write an apology that you can never bring yourself to send [that cuts deep, deep, deep into me].
Letters never sent: Victor to Clerval Creation to Victor Victor to Creation Victor to Caroline Creation to Elizabeth
CHANGING LANGUAGE
I wish we could read her writing.
THINGS TO FIND FOR THE CHIRREN: Anne Mellor on Shelley
Questions for Professor O’Rourke: Differences specifically in terms of text differences – from a scholarly point of view, theatrically I can tell what version I prefer, which do you? Revision of the story of Elizabeth Lavenza is really important. The funny thing is that she says she never changed it – and about 40 pages of changes happened – I kind of think most of the changes that she made, is a compulsive thing when you rewrite. But the Elizabeth Lavenza is the really big deal. Mellor makes a deal about stylistic differences, but I don’t see it. That revision speaks to something central to the novel – you can’t go through life without creating affective hierarchies – the people in your family matter the most; worst form is racism – Shelley saw it as a spectrum, not as separate phenomenon. People didn’t get it – and she wanted them to. Elizabeth turning into a nightmare fairy-tale – taking the idea of the prince and turning it around and the Creation with Justine is really interesting.
That changed so much about the creature’s intentions. I’ve always fixated on that moment that it was an act of terrorism – I looked at it as an act of rape because he wants to take something from her with the expectation that she should be giving this to him, she can’t give him what he wnts. I meant terrorism in the sense that he blames people. Not much difference between rape and terrorism.
Jokes about Romanticism.
Interested in staging – have you decided – there’s a big thing – do you call it the creature or the monster? We call it the Creation. A real recent shift, about ten years ago that happens – that term pre-judges. Makeup? Have an idea for creature makeup that is really simple. All it would do is distinguish – we have two creatures. It would distinguish them as each and everyone else. I wouldn’t want the creations to look monstrous because I like to think of Victor as a monster. Everyone has the capability of that. I don’t know much about the stage adaptation tradition, but in the 19th century – Ira Aldridge did a Frankenstein the Man or the Monster and I don’t know a lot about it, but I sort of think – Aldridge was very canny, and I think he played the role as though his blackness was monstrous – that that’s what constructs the monstrosity, the way people react. Even exposing the way people see your leg not as normal – not normal because of how people see you, not because of how you see yourself. The stage version maybe just has a little lean and we are all acting like he is horribly disfigured. What about not even signifying it and turning it into a hidden signifier? The idea that the monster is undistinguishable and you have to kind of find that monstrosity.
You can also think about we all look different – no huge signifier between color of skin, gender – we can politicize. What if the monster is the asocial behavior – you become a monster when you are not contained within the norm – when you have no restraint on your feeling of desire for love, and you don’t understand that you don’t bring your private desire into the public sphere and that signifies your otherness. That’s how we think about people as monsters – those who do not stick to the norm.
Arrested Development. Accidental moments of violence or social awkwardness make you a monster. This is my monstrosity. A lot of the work we’ve been doing are moments where I completely forgot who was playing who and everyone was capable of doing violence or being victimized and it just became this really interesting – there was no boundary between the three main characters.
Interesting if we all explored the monster – drawing a card and figuring out who’s it – but then everyone has to agree on who the monster is. Everyone has to agree. If you draw a card that says you’re a monster today. We’re all different versions of each character.
I think each character is a different aspect of the other characters in many ways.
We’re focused on V, E, and C. Mary Shelley saw these people around her who were egomaniacs and that was the monstrosity in them – and then she looked at herself. How did she feel about the miscarriage? Probably didn’t want to get pregnant. Was she relieved? I see what’s wrong with these people but what about me. We have just started about talking about the possibility of exploring Mary Shelley. Ken Russell movie about the ghost story contest (GOTHIC).
Most of the introduction is fake. The publisher wanted it, you had to have something to make the new edition, so she just wrote it. Sure, sure.
Questions about Mary – how is Mary’s point of view so different from her mother’s? Mary – put down your sewing needle and be yourself. And for Shelley – women characters are my purpose is to love this man and that’s it. Part of it is the personal; Shelley is in the post-revolutionary generation, but Wollstonecraft believed she was going to change the world, but then the French Revolution became the Terror – so Shelley maybe believes in the principles but there’s not a way to suddenly change the world. Mary Shelley’s letters and journal are amazing. Late journal entries. Not being written for private purposes – she knows she’s leaving her legacy and her last couple journal entries are about political activism and that kind of stuff. We’re all really bothered by how incomplete the female characters are and part of why the creation doesn’t go well is because how he’s bypassing needing a woman and it doesn’t go well. Bypassing Nature. I think for Mary Shelley’s perspective, Nature doesn’t do such a good job. Why huge focus on Nature? Nature doesn’t choose – it isn’t partial. We exist in it. You can find beauty or you can go to see and drown. Nature is brutal. She has that terrible dream about her first baby and it runs through the whole book – Nature just did it to her. Her dream about her child. Made it so much more powerful and violent.
Questions about Rousseau – critique of Rousseau – read in the article that there’s one way of viewing the novel is a statement that man in his natural state is neither good nor bad, and that was how I read it the first time – man has choice, the monster can choose – the monster says after Victor has died, I could have chosen not to, but I was so bad. I saw it as existential. Nobody does choose otherwise. Her essay on Rousseau – is kind of out of the box. FIND THAT TOO. It’s a piece of genius – makes a weird judgment on Rousseau, at least he went crazy – so at least he does feel guilty. She’s so critical of him personally rather than considering his ideas. His ideas came out of his personality and his self-interest. The tradition of Rousseau studies is to take him seriously and Shelley really called him out. Making a philosophy to excuse your actions. To put it down on paper and to have other people believe it…that’s crazy. Isn’t that religion? [Hooray Perry!]
Multiple moments of characters dealing with death and birth bed. We die a lot in the scenes that we do. It does turn more into dying than creating. A lot of it is about birth – a nice reminder. Wollstonecraft dies giving birth to Shelley; never got to know her mother – where she and Percy Shelley courted – they went to a graveyard and sat on Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave and read poetry and then eloped. He was already married and had a life with two babies and then she totally felt like a monster. You can go to the grave and sit on the grave. It’s walking distance. King’s Cross tube station – on the right side – housing estate on the right – 18th century church still there with a graveyard.
Do not list Godwin or Wollstonecraft in the list of the graves. SO INTERESTING.
One of the reasons why people go to the Abbey is to see the beautiful famous people who have inspired so much. They’re not doing anything but decomposing.
What ideas – if you were going to see a response to Frankenstein – I know what I like, but what would you be interested in seeing? One of the things we were talking about at the beginning – I think there needs to be an arbitrary visual signifier that takes on absurd importance – how does a group form that consensus? The real mislead in the critical tradition on the novel is what did Frankenstein do wrong? Everyone is wrong. Everyone is looking at the creature and saying gross. Everyone does it. Nothing is wrong with the creation. What’s wrong is the way everyone treats him. If he could just explain what he was. This is how the world works – this is what Shelley is saying. People sort it out and say “those people are not going to count.” Walkton and the people on the ship save Victor and they say – the one we’re saving wasn’t the savage, but a European. AS EVERYBODY DOES. People make these distinctions. What if Victor makes a partner? Then you and a lot of other outside people are going to come take all of our stuff. Victor stands in defense of the Europeans. We’re going to be together and you’re not with us and that’s what makes us a group – when we leave when somebody out. If you’re not like us you’re against us.
How is that inside you? That’s the harder thing to find. That hate inside ourselves. I think she wants people, when they read the novel, to feel guilty. Instead, people think Victor is guilty. YOU SHOULD FEEL GUILTY. Everyone either felt like they hated Victor or they hated the creature – at first it was a very clear Victor is right or the creation is right, but we have found neither is right or wrong. I remember writing down that it made me ashamed of humankind – I can’t say that there’s not one of us who wouldn’t be repulsed by something that looked dead- I was so alienated by the creation’s behavior – killing a child, blaming the murder on Justine, then I gave up and didn’t like anyone.
The book is written out of guilt – if you look at the baby dream and think of her circumstances – this is not a wanted child – it’s terrible but on the other hadn, we are going to be able to do what we imagined when we eloped. A great deal of the emotional force in the book is from guilt. It’s a hard thing to elicit. It mostly does not produce that result, and I think it should. Even if you find yourself reading the book and siding with someone, you can still be made to feel guilty. I thought it was fine that the creation killed everyone, but other people were horrified.
Elizabeth’s step-siblings. What happened to the other four kids? The Lavenzas. What happened? How did I do that? What are you overlooking every day? Fundamental question of adoption – is it better to be adopted or left? It doesn’t turn out better that she’s adopted to a wealthy family. Sometimes there’s an issue – international adoption. Not right to take them out of their culture – are we bettering their lives by bringing them to the US.? Also that question, at least in a contemporary dialogue – is Elizabeth better off being adopted than her siblings, growing up poor but with family and each other?
The idea of changing – I see why – also because it causes her to be the complete opposite of the creation – it gives him more internal justification of killing her (creation) – but I’m wondering if that didn’t happen – if that edit didn’t happen – does that change the monster’s purpose? He kills Elizabeth because V won’t give him a companion. I would still kill her. Does it change it? I think it is completely different because of that. The adoption story underscores the choice of Elizabeth because of her looks. The difference is that the Creation is excluded from a familial order; 2nd version – she’s chosen, he’s not. Mary runs off with Percy – comes from household where there are three teenaged girls – she’s the one who’s chosen and goes off with him. During the writing of Frankenstein, one of the teenaged girls left behind commits suicide, the other girl is impregnated by Byron and loses the baby. Elizabeth is the chosen one and everything turns out – it didn’t get any better. What right did you have to have a better life than the people left behind?
It’s an astonishing life – her life is just astonishing. One miscarriage, one lived to a year old, one three weeks old. When she says that it’s a product of a happy times, you think, well, by the time you wrote the novel, it was only the one miscarriage and the sister’s suicide – then by the second one, lost two more babies and the husband. Percy built his own boat and took it out on the Mediterranean and drowned.
When he drowned – the bodies washed up and Byron and others came down to burn the bodies, one of them took Percy’s heart out of the fire and there was a custody battle over the heart. What the hell? Who gets the organ? How do you respond as the wife of someone who is dead?
Somehow it flattens out because they had it pressed in a book. Like a bookmark. Like dried flower. Hang it upside down. We should use that because it’s so disturbing. It sounds like bad poetry.
Trelawney, etc. re the heart.
If you travel to Europe and being in England – you can see these random body parts – in Romanticism – isn’t that more of a practice of how you would not move the body, but you would move the body part. Chopin’s heart was transferred from Paris to Warsaw. Almost like a saintly thing – they’ll get a piece of the saint or some kind of relic. Bone, head, etc.
Sometimes it has less to do with the person and more to do with the place.
ANNE MELLOR’S BOOK. MARY’S LETTERS AND DIARIES.
Form a community around a piece of someone’s body. It’s so disgusting to see this dead thing, but it’s cool to have Jesus’s finger in my church. It’s not disgusting then. Mary kept his heart and
Leigh Hunt might have had the heart first. She had one child who made it.
Husband reduced to parts of his body. Like keeping the ashes in an urn or stuffing your dog. Can’t do that to your husband though.
All these juicy details – we’d like to land in these details that are very fruitful, general ideas are wonderful but when you build a performance you have to touch something very tangible – I know what love means because I can touch your heart. Anything that you would like to give us that’s a palpable detail in which you are interested? Personally for you – where is that something in the novel to which you return that’s an object of wondering, a place that you find – what do you think of Victor Frankenstein? V thinks he failed and that’s the important thing – his own sense of failure – that seems to reflect her. You really have to worry about is the way you’ve failed people. Who really has a sense of failure because they failed other people – V is pretty singular in literature. How can you convey that to an audience – this is the burden of the book – how have you failed other people? How do people fail themselves? Mary Shelley – when she ran off with Percy Shelley – she ran off with him and what’s her obligation to Percy’s wife? She wrote in her journal – all the sorrows of her life she took as the retribution. Her son’s wife cut it out with scissors. No contact with Percy’s kids – tried to get them after the wife committed suicide – got married to get custody – British courts said they were unfit parents. V sees himself as a failure, but that’s also the same thing about the perception – how everyone sees it – if he hadn’t seen the creation as a failure, there wouldn’t have been otherness created – he succeeded and created life and the second it happened he couldn’t look at it – immediately shamed – failed because he succeeded. You push the envelope as far as you can, and when you realize you’ve pushed it as far as you want it to go and that’s when you look at the ruins of everything around you. And now there’s nothing.
We call my Victor the sad bastard Victor. And now knowing that Mary Shelley so much felt that failure is so palpable – the palpable aspect is the biographical narrative. It’s almost too deep. The unlikelihood of Frank making life is the same as this 19-year-old girl beating these two big poets, and what does it get you? You have a book and all these lives are ruined. This makes me wonder about Elizabeth. There’s such disdain – you get rescued and now she rains misery on Elizabeth on purpose – I used to think she just didn’t bother – but now I see why. The failure of the revolution is also a meaningful event in interpreting the novel. How does that translate to something that your generation attempts?
You grow up and want to change the world and the revolution fails – is there a connection that can be drilled. How does it relate to us in our time – what does it mean on the stage- it is becoming tricky – these wonderful ideas are so interesting to talk about and they need to land on the stage and become theatrical language. In a way we are even trying to get away from any conceptualization to find the response that is more primal/personal, and it kind of corresponds with people’s lives and understandings. We put ourselves in this struggle because we don’t want a heavy concept until the end – we don’t want to execute something, we want to discover something in the process of doing theatre around the novel.
Thinking about how it applies to our generation – what is our sense of failure – I’ve just realized this idea of failure – at this age, there are so many reasons to feel like a failure – even choosing to major in theatre – V being our age and thinks about failure and put so much effort into this thing and the potential – people who only watch musical theatre could watch this and say it’s stupid, we can just fall flat on ourselves. That’s what everyone goes through – you take something and put your life into it and you ignore everyone around you and abandon yourself to what you’re doing and you get what you want and there’s no one there. A lot of people will choose not to put their whole lives into what they want to do.
Even the safe way can be viewed as a failure – there’s failure at every turn. Victor being our age – he’s just old enough to have responsibility enough to go away to school himself, intelligent enough, but young enough not to be able to handle it when shit goes wrong. But if something happens, I will call my dad and he will bail me out. He’s very young.
Mary is YOUNGER THAN FRANKENSTEIN. She is 19 when she writes the novel.
Mary Shelley’s own life arc is the precocious version – unlimited sense of possibility- when she’s young (16) all collapses at 17. When she and Percy first eloped, they proposed that Percy’s wife go with them – they would all live together. Two years later the wife (Harriet) commits suicide. Parents did not believe in marriage, stupid bourgeois concept – until Wollstonecraft got pregnant, and then they got married. Marriage = stupid state-sponsored thing that special people aren’t supposed to do. A creation that kills. On one level, isn’t it that this word creation because you are artists and your work can do damage – when good things are used for the wrong purpose – it’s the nature of creation – there is danger built in and failure is part of it in some way. Even if our show’s a failure it’s still commentary on the book so we’re safe either way. We kill one audience member a night.
Brown-bagging audience members.
A lot of this may be involving the audience somehow – the audience choosing. Take out one person and you choose – one person sits far away. Normal people don’t like that. What if we could rearrange and we could start moving people how we want them to sit. A plant in the audience and pick that person to be the creature – let them think it’s a random person. How is this person different?
Precious presence – opportunity. To get more juice to the work. We talked about identification and the easiness in which we find ourselves – the creature in us – we identify with that otherness – isn’t that interesting in the novel itself – isn’t there some true desire for extraordinary life in us? Are our lives as crazy as this woman’s life? Have we gone as far as Victor? How much have we done? Or are we the norm? Are we the odd people or the others? Which do we want to be? How much of a revolution? How much am I doing?
The first paragraph of the essay on Rousseau – that takes up this question about. It’s difficult to know what to call Rousseau – In ordinary men, it would be called egotism or vanity. If you’re exceptional, how much more latitude do you have? How do you know if you’re ordinary? The question happens on two levels – the self as an individual, but also at an automatic political level where you take privileges for granted – individual as special, but also at everyone living in a rich country and clothes are made by people who make 8 cents an hour.
DO you know how revolutionary it is to destroy the notion of family? It is much more radical to reform family life and structure in a world that doesn’t recognize women (for Mary), and even today – communes have failed.
The Frankenstein family has that portrait over the mantel – it’s not everyone or the family – it’s a bunch of dead people. Family is fighting over a finite amount of stuff – that’s family. That guy died, we have his stuff.
Every generation thinks they’re the lost generation – everyone feels discredited and discounted. So I thought I was going somewhere smart. The idea of failing – we feel like we’ve been failed by the people before us who have left us this dying world. The next generation will blame us.
Frankenstein says – they should have told me not to study weird stuff instead of accepting.
After they elope, they met in the first place because Godwin is an important political philosopher and Percy is heir to money, gives Godwin money, and runs off with his daughter. Story is that Godwin had sold his daughter. Godwin was really pissed off – but continued to want money from Percy. Told Mary that they still had to send money, but not with Percy’s name on the check. Mary wanted to go see her father and he wouldn’t see and she stood on the street outside his house and waited for him. Comes out that her father failed her. Maybe a reason why the father figure is not as prominent – he’s not really do anything. Godwin remarries a widow with two kids. He sends Mary away to live with someone else then.
Interesting idea to explore the people before you and your own failures and how are they going to affect the people after you. I want to make scenes with Mary Shelley story – we’ve done some physical activities and paired characters together and mix people and see what happens. Might be interesting to make scenes with Mary Shelley and see what happens.
Can we find the happy in this story? No.
Walton never learns from Frankenstein. Poor genius. People insist on finding something happy – they think Walton learned. He did not. Walton glorifies Victor to the end. I would not have turned back. People are so determined to find something redemptive. People want Walton to learn.
Is there light in the tale? Light in the dark. Hopefulness? Creature teaching itself to speak. I know that there’s happy in the story. Temporary. I feel like if we somehow highlight the light in the darkness. Searching for something happy in the story. The fact that you are trying to find something happy. The search itself is fascinating. That is already a character – a search for something hopeful. The search for something happy – Lucas’s Elizabeth. Even in Hamlet – don’t play it knowing you’re going to die. There is hope. It vanishes in many ways. You cannot play death from Act I.
Something systematically missed: V embarks on this project of creating and renewing life after his mother died. Possibility that he can bring her back. The question of nature. Nature comes and takes somebody and he found it unacceptable. Emotionally unacceptable. I’m kind of on one side of a divide in Frankenstein studies – people try to connect this to what Shelley thought about science. I think that is a biographical story about her own life at the core of it. It’s not about spaghetti.
TITUS 
