First Day of The Glass Menagerie
Posted by Nambi E. Kelley on 9/29/2008Coming into the room we were all there early. Some mix up on the rehearsal tape calling us for 10 when rehearsal didn’t start until 10:30. No worries, time to meet and greet anew. Anthony Fleming III, who is playing my gentleman caller, and I made great use of the time. We went downstairs to put my new Illinois license plates on my car. I thought it was kind of poetic: New license plates on the first day of rehearsal, a new sort of homecoming. New home coming. New home at the Wolf.
I’ve worked here a few times, this is my third show. I even wrote a play for the New Plays Lab when Michele Volansky was the literary manager here. But for whatever reason, this time coming into the rehearsal hall feels strangely new and yet familiar, comfortable. It’s like coming home, but the hero/ine is somehow changed. I’ve changed, grown, since the last time I was here.
We came upstairs and rehearsal began. Yasen Peyankov, our director, comes into the room, greeting each and every one of us with a hug, warmth, congenially…as if we are already family even though we’ve not yet begun our work. I feel close to him immediately, like there is something about him, his approach to his art, something in the warmth of his hug…yes, we are already family. A second sort of homecoming, meeting people who you have immediate connection with, well, family. I’ve never worked with him before, but immediately I trust him. He will lead us safely and carefully through the maze that is Tennessee Williams. We are safe in his care.
We begin. Yasen talks about the play. His words, so carefully chosen, off the cuff, yet strangely poetic. It strikes me as dauntingly beautiful. He speaks of the play as being…
“Heartbreakingly human.”
“Reminds me of Chekhov.”
“Today people are divorcing, losing their jobs, their housing, their dignity. That’s what makes this play relevant.”
“The fragility of each of the characters is the title of the play.”
“…people who are broken, but have their dreams and memories.”
“…like a beautiful piece of music, always trying to reach for each other, always unsuccessful.”
“The language is poetic, beautiful, approach it with an open heart and complete honesty and we can make the music of the play heard in heaven.”
Yasen set our goal for this production: to make the music of the play heard in heaven.
If Tennessee Williams is in heaven (which I doubt knowing the troubled life he led), mayhap he’ll hear the gentle strumming of his words, from our lips to his ears. And if he is in the other place (which is more likely knowing the troubled life he led) mayhap the music will be so clear he won’t be able to escape it, even there.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Umm…what are you saying at the end there? I’m having trouble parsing “the troubled life he led.”
Unless you mean that being buried in St. Louis (a place he hated) next to his mother (who, well, yikes) against his final wishes (to have his ashes thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge) is Hell for poor old Tennessee, in which case, yeah, I probably agree.
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Whoa, why is Tennessee Williams in hell?
I am aware of his alcoholism and a sometime penchant for exaggeration, but what in your opinion consigns this great man and beautiful writer to eternal hellfire? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s not a veiled reference to Williams’ sexual preference, i.e. the “troubled life he led.”
October 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Yes, Tennessee Williams had a very troubled life. According to our dramaturgical packet for the production:
“Williams’ family and early experiences amply prepared him for writing about society’s outcasts. His mother was an aggressive woman, obsessed by her fantasies of genteel Southern living. His father, a traveling salesman for a large shoe manufacturer, was at turns distant and abusive. His older sister, Rose, was emotionally disturbed and destined to spend most of her life in mental institutions. ”
The packet continues on to add:
“In Clarksdale, the five-year-old Williams contracted diptheria and nearly died. Although he survived the illness, for the next two years he was unable to walk.”
I could continue on quoting from the packet, about how close he was to his sister Rose before his mother allowed a lobotomy to be performed on her, destroying his sister, and consequently, his relationship to her. Could you imagine that happening to your loved one? I can, and it is painful.
These are all the makings of an extraordinarily brilliant playwright. I could continue on to illuminate further just how little I’ve written here, is evident in many of his plays, not to mention the autobiographical Glass Menagerie. Williams’ ability to capture the intimacy and strangeness of his relationships with his family is why we revere him, why we continue to produce him, why we are touched by the humanity in his work.
He had the courage to show us his humanity, his frailties, his very complicated and beautiful point of view of life.
So, I hope he hears the music of our play, because in our process, we are doing our best to allow his experience to come through us with the purity and clarity of his amazing writing.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:27 am
So his mother, father or sister are reason for him to burn in hell? Or was it the childhood illness?
October 15th, 2008 at 10:45 am
You’ve got me on this one, Nambi E.
Is Tennessee Williams “likely” in hell and do you “doubt” that he is in heaven because he abused prescription drugs or because he was a homosexual?
Please explain.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Some of you have reacted to a posting from actress Nambi Kelley on our production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. We have invited Ms. Kelley to respond again to your questions and comments, and if she chooses to do so, we will post it.
The purpose of our blog is to provide transparent and personal access to our artistic process and a public forum for a vibrant and free exchange of ideas. In pursuit of this objective, we often invite artists collaborating with us to offer their observations and insights about the work in which they are engaged. To be effective, contact with our artists must have immediacy. We therefore post the contributions of those artists in their own voice. Our editorial arbitration is based upon the maintenance of a civil tone and not the content or points of view being expressed. At times, the blog may reflect ideas or opinions with which we at Steppenwolf disagree. But we choose to honor the ideal of an open forum and let these issues be debated in our virtual public square. As we see it, that is part of the purpose of art.
We acknowledge that Ms.Kelley’s posting contains some ambiguity. But we have chosen to allow her to express herself as she sees fit, just as our readers are allowed to respond in kind.
To be clear, we neither endorse nor allow speech that is hateful, in posts or in comments. We ask that all conduct themselves in conversation with respect and generosity. We thank you for your continued reading and investment in these pages, and for the passion with which you meet our work.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
A number of people have interpreted the blog posted by Nambi Kelley on September the 29th to be homophobic. I can state without equivocation that this was not Nambi’s intent. The quote:
“If Tennessee Williams is in heaven (which I doubt knowing the troubled life he led), mayhap he’ll hear the gentle strumming of his words, from our lips to his ears. And if he is in the other place (which is more likely knowing the troubled life he led) mayhap the music will be so clear he won’t be able to escape it, even there.”
I believe Steppenwolf erred in not clarifying the meaning of the statement with Nambi before we posted her blog. We should have been more sensitive to the possibility that Nambi would be misinterpreted and ought to have asked her to make her remarks more clear.
What follows is an attempt to capture Nambi’s meaning from Literary Manager Joy Meads:
I’ve been surprised and saddened to see how many readers have interpreted this post as a condemnation of Tennessee Williams’ lifestyle. Perhaps because my point of reference is the text of Williams’ play, I had a less literal interpretation. (If you haven’t read or seen The Glass Menagerie, spoiler alert). The Glass Menagerie is a memory play. The speaker, Tom, an admittedly autobiographical figure, remains suspended for perpetuity recounting an episode of his past that still causes him searing regret. We all understand why Tom made the choices he did. Yet, in the final monologue, it’s clear that grief over his sister poisons every day of his life. He has traveled far in time and space from that apartment, but he’s unable to leave Laura behind:
“I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. …Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions, and I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. . . . Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into a movie or a bar. I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger—anything that can blow your candles out!”
When I read that statement, I hear a tortured soul, caught forever in the memory of the worst moments of his life. Nambi commends Tennessee Williams’ bravery in taking that pain and transforming it into art: “He had the courage to show us his humanity, his frailties, his very complicated and beautiful point of view of life.” Ultimately, I hear in her post a wish for peace for a man who’s been trapped for too many years in a prison of his own making: “mayhap the music will be so clear he won’t be able to escape it, even there.”
We regret any offense the blog caused our readers and I regret that Steppenwolf did not suitably protect our artist from misinterpretation.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:48 am
I am so frustrated with this discussion. Apparently - and despite the efforts of three Steppenwolf staffers as well as Nambi herself - I still don’t get it. Nambi said she believed Williams was probably not in heaven, because of his “lifestyle.” Further, she said it was more likely he was in that “other place”, again, because of his lifestyle.
Please, can someone explain in clear, non-obfuscating terms how in the world those statements are being misinterpreted? Neither Sobol nor Lavey nor Meads have explained how Nambi’s comments could be understood as anyting other than hate speech. (and the strongest kind of hate speech - stating that you believe that someone is likely condemned to eternal hell because of his “lifestyle”)
Nambi, Joy Meads tells us, commends Williams for taking his pain and transforming it into art. Okkkkk - but how does that counter Nambi’s statement that Williams is probably in hell?
I find the silence from Nambi herself extremely telling. IF she meant something other than what was conveyed to the many people responding to the post, why hasn’t she attempted to explain it? If I were being unjustly tagged as a bigot or homophobe, I’d attempt to clarify - quickly and strongly - precisely what I meant. I don’t understand why - if there is an explanation other than that she said exactly what she meant - Nambi remains silent in the face of such widespread criticism and “misinterpretation.”
Lavey (a woman whose intelligence and integrity I greatly admire) does nothing but repeat the claim that everyone is misunderstanding Nambi’s post. The references back to the dramaturgy and the text are utter non-sequitors. There is no connection between Tom’s haunted life and Nambi’s stataement that she belives Tennessee is probably burning in hell. If there’s a connection between WIlliams’ haunted life and the fact that Nambi believes he’s burning in hell, well, that’s a connection Nambi herself makes - and it is a hateful moral judgment on the part of someone who clearly believes herself to be in the godlike position of knowing - or at least having a pretty good idea of - who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell.
I’m finding it more and more difficult to believe that Nambi meant anything other than what she said: She believes Williams is in hell, because his lifestyle earned him a spot there. Through thtree different Steppenwolf staffers (so far), Kelly has said - in a convoluted, non-denial denial way - that this isn’t what she meant. Fine. Tell us what you did mean then.
Until shes does that, I will interpret Nambi’s words as they were spoken - heinous moral judgments by a young woman who believes certain lifestyles (hard drinking? homosexuality? compulsive playwrighting?) are evil enough to earn their practicioners a ticket to roast for eternity.
I won’t be suporting Kelly’s work - either as an actor of a playwright - in the future.
October 18th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I understand the concern of various posters in these comments and agree that, as Mr. Sobel says, there was “ambiguity” in Nambi Kelley’s original posting. But as an artist myself, I also believe there’s a good reason for the theater’s staff to be responding and taking responsibility for the conversation rather than the actress herself. This kind of discussion on this blog is vital to good theater — in fact, it’s probably why we are invested as audiences and artists in the first place — but there’s a time and a place for it in the artistic process. Directors, designers, artistic directors, literary managers, are constantly in this conversation. Actors may enter into it when they do table work at the beginning of the process, or after the show is running and they are participating in talkbacks or educational workshops… but even these activities are debatable in terms of how they do or do not contribute to the strength of the performances, and their usefulness probably varies from actor to actor… and while they are in rehearsal, actors have a journey they need to go through and a certain process that is important to commit to in order to give convincing performances. I can’t speak for why Nambi made the comment that she made, but I think it’s clear that she was committed to figuring out the play and the character, like any good actor would be. Perhaps she was at the beginning (first day of rehearsal!), figuring it all out, engaging in a poetic process, and find her way through a challenging text. At this delicate time, the theater clearly asked her to write a blog to help promote the theater and the production, but which it did not review or clarify before posting. Perhaps Nambi was trying to write something poetic and pretty, but was more focused on learning her lines and nailing her moments than worrying too much about what she was saying in the blog. Lavey states that the theater should have reviewed the posting beforehand to be sure that the content was clear and its meaning transparent, and to be sure that an actor in the midst of her process would not be misunderstood. Steppenwolf did not do this, and the actor has been placed in the center of a discussion that comes very close to character assassination at times! I find that rather harsh. And I can understand why she has chosen not to respond and has asked the theater to clarify for her. This discussion, as important and crucial as it may be for the theater and the audiences, can’t be useful to an actor in the middle of her process. If I were in her place, I would not want to read any of these posts until after the show is over! Perhaps this will change Steppenwolf’s policy on not reviewing actor’s entries before they are posted. (as a side note, I wonder if the actors are compensated for their work writing on the blogs? it makes even more sense that the actor wouldn’t have spent a huge amount of time on it if she were asked to do it without compensation) Just some things to think about before we assume that the reason she has not responded is because she meant her comment as hate speech. I do not believe this is the case.
BTW I think there is a very good posting here: http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/onstage/2008/10/16/risky-blogging/
October 24th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I’d chalk this whole thing up to experimentation on Steppenwolf’s part in trying out a production weblog.
As Tony Adler at The Reader, Isabella Black (above) on this page, and others have pointed out, there are real issues to opening up — in essentially real time — the rehearsal process and other aspects of the making of a show.
I think Martha Lavey is to be commended for acknowledging that the problem here was of Steppenwolf’s making and not of it’s actor. I also think that to further protect her artists, she should now close down this discussion.
March 4th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Controversy? No. Only adjustments in the interpretations from different perspectives which is one of the underpinnings of any artistic endeavors. As I smoke my newage electronic cigarette, I am reminded that it is not as it appears to be, but rather a simulation of an interpretation. I am enjoying the show.