Fugue
Posted by Karen Callaway on 7/27/2007Melinda Lopez’s blog (posted July 19) re her play Gary certainly was timely. It allows me to riff on her comments about creating a play and the music in it — where things are more improv than planned.
For me, as she wrote/mapped the play, the importance of music became a planned element, no longer improv.
When we 101ers heard the first reading of Gary on June 4, Ed read the stage directions, “Fugue. Scene 1. The Beginning.” Then the actors spoke…
Along about Scene 8, I started recognizing that the scene titles weren’t the traditional kind — a location and the time of day and or season — and that some also were musical terms. I began writing them down. At the same time, I realized that “Fugue” might be the play’s subtitle (if you will).
So I started “seeing” the play as a score as I listened to the words spoken and imagining the action and interactions. Seeing the theme/s as a melody, oft repeated by different characters — the secrets and giving/losing trust and love that Melinda refers to.
It became important to know all the scene titles. I asked if it would be possible to see a script only long enough to write them down, or if not, could someone could get them to me. Thanks to Hillary Dixler, Steppenwolf’s literary intern, here’s the scene list. From how “Fugue” is positioned in the list, it appeared that my supposition of it as the play’s subtitle might be correct — to wit, Gary: A Fugue:
FUGUE
1. The Beginning
2. The Girls
3. Asteroids
3½. Untitled Solo
4. The Beginning
5. The Echo
6. The Solo
7. The Family
8. Duet 1
9. Duet 2
10. Make-Up
11. Duet 3
12. The Boys
13. Solo
14. The River
15. The End
Obviously, the play is a work in progress, and by opening night there may not be 16 scenes: There may be more, or fewer. They may be in a different order. With different scene titles, or no titles at all. And, too, “Fugue” may no longer hold true as the subtitle.
I know “fugue” is a musical term, but I was pretty vague re its meaning. One trip to dictionary.com later, I not only had refreshed my memory of the definition listed first, but learned about the definition listed second.
fugue [fyoog] n.
1. Music. a polyphonic composition based upon one, two, or more themes, which are enunciated by several voices or parts in turn, subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually built up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at the end.
2. Psychiatry. a period during which a person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase.
The use of “Fugue” as a subtitle is so appropriate, for many of the characters, given the two definitions of the word.
Melinda: Thank you for your blog entry and the chance to riff on it. I hope another 101er (or more than one) will add to this piece. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the open rehearsal on July 21.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:26 am
After watching the rehearsal and being in the post-show discussions with the artistic staff and after they left, I wanted to come back and add some comments:
We were lucky enough to see the play run from beginning to end — for the first time, the director said. I was interested to see that the original scenes and titles hold up, except for Scene 6, Solo. It now seems to occur after Scene 9 — at least, there is a solo there now, and there is nothing discernible as a solo after Scene 5. But there has been another — and for me, fascinating — addition: The play now opens with a musical number titled (you guessed it) “Fugue.”
Now I wondered, as I took notes during the rehearsal: When Ed said “Fugue,” then immediately “Scene 1, The Beginning” at that first reading, was it because at that stage of the play there was no music, just what I’m calling the subtitle? Or that there always was supposed to be music and there just wasn’t any at that time, or lyrics either (including no stage directions to indicate such)? Or when she finally heard the play read, did Melinda decide to write an “Overture,” to set the scene more — the last words of the song are “Down in Gary”)? Or maybe the answer is, simply, “all of the above.”
Meghan noted to the group that Melinda, after hearing Gary read, said she thought there was another song or two in it. The “Fugue” that opens the play probably is one of those new songs. By the by, I think there’s another new song at the end of Scene 14.