Announcing the 2011-2012 Season
Posted by Martha Lavey on 3/02/2011
Dear Friends,
For Steppenwolf’s 2011/12 season, we are exploring what happens when everyday lives are touched by war. In each of our five plays, war exerts a pressure—sometimes centrally, sometimes obliquely—on the lives of the characters. Against the pressure of war is a great longing for home. This oscillation between the impulse for war and the search for home (site of our deepest loves) is enduring in the human psyche. Chris Hedges, the veteran of many wars as a correspondent has written a book, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. In it, he describes war as “a narcotic” of which he partook for many years. As he writes:
The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.
In the case of each of our plays, war incites a purpose, an urgency in its characters and moves them to action. Poised against the uncompromising urgency of war is a search for home, a place of love and solace, an uncontested ground of clarity and comfort. We are moved to engage a conversation about the spectre of war because war is a deep presence in our contemporary life in America. Our country is engaged in two wars that have shaped our consciousness, guided government policy and reopened the wounds and emotions of previous wars. The events of 2001 gave new meaning to the word “homeland” —to be attacked is to be re-awakened to the enduring value of the safety of home.To the sanctity, the beauty and the utter elusiveness of home.
We are compelled by the urgency of these times. We are living with war and it is attendant upon us to mediate on the impact this hovering presence plays in our lives. A play allows us to consider war in the context of individual lives, in the context of the home. We are interested in what war brings to our psychological life, in how, as Chris Hedges says, war makes home unfamiliar, “The world we once understood and longed to return to stands before us as alien, strange and beyond our grasp.”
I am thrilled to welcome you to our 36th season and honored to bring you five plays animated by the big questions in our lives:
- Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris. Directed by ensemble member Amy Morton. Featuring ensemble member James Vincent Meredith.
- Penelope by Enda Walsh. Directed by ensemble member Amy Morton. Featuring ensemble member John Mahoney.
- Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies. Directed by ensemble member Austin Pendleton. Featuring ensemble members Francis Guinan and Sally Murphy.
- The March based upon the Novel by E. L. Doctorow. Adapted for the stage and directed by ensemble member Frank Galati. Featuring ensemble members Alana Arenas, Ian Barford, Tim Hopper, Martha Lavey, Mariann Mayberry, James Vincent Meredith, William Petersen, Yasen Peyankov, and Alan Wilder with Will Allan, Patrick Clear, Stephen Louis Grush, Michael Mahler and Shannon Matesky.
- Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. Adapted by ensemble member Tracy Letts. Directed by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro. Featuring ensemble members Ian Barford, Ora Jones and Sally Murphy.
These dispatches from the homefront are alive with the humor, the tenderness and the urgency of lives struggling to find home. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I look forward to embarking on another exciting season with you in 2011/12.
Sincerely,
Martha Lavey
Artistic Director
June 17th, 2011 at 10:40 am
I’m a look’n for blogs for Middletown. There ain’t any so, thought I’d scrounge around and find an area that best associates. This might not be it, but was written by the Libraian, so here we are.
Saw opening night of Middletown (last night). I have several wishes for the ambitious play. I wish every audience seat to been taken. I’ve not attended a Steppenwolf play before at 3/4 full. But our seats were awesome! Right up front, which is my favorite place to gaze upon Internationally Acclaimed. I love being up front and almost within the skin of the characters depicted. We had similar location for Detroit. For VW we were in balcony. But I digress.
Middletown is languistically beautiful. Too many lilting, musical, deeply thought-provoking phrases burst from the mouths of the actors and seemed gone before I could grasp them. They were fleeting, like trying to touch the stars? What I was left with was an over-all feeling of something beautiful. Not tangible, concrete, or showy. I don’t know how to explain it. Not like going to church, but rich in spirituality. The play gave me a comforting feeling. Somewhere, someone says - we ALL experience those things. Uh-hu, yes we do. Those are the ties that bind. I do think we are too close to our own species to believe the actors when they keep reminding the audience how ’special’ and ‘miraculous’ human beings are. I liked the final word on all and everything - the word Love. Used both as a noun and verb. Very nice touch.
I also liked when the wall was broken. That fourth wall, the one the keeps the audience at bay. I felt instructed upon during the opening monologue and also the Dear Librarian’s reading to us. I loved that! She was my favorite character. Just seemed to have a great handle on how to deal with loneliness and her affection for the little person who had made marks in the book she read from, was one of the highlights of the play for me. She was very endearing. I also loved when the Dude in the wheelchair gave me the tiniest of waves. I waved back. I don’t think I was halucinating, my husband didn’t notice. Maybe I was halucinating. But the tiny wave gave me a great comforting feeling of being part of the action. I adored that and hope it is kept tucked safely within the blocking of the scene. I believe it was during another monologue, which there are many in Middletown.
Of course, Tracy Letts made me very uncomfortable. That’s good acting and he is the greatest around. Although he seemed tired last night, although, that might have been a part of his characterization. Energy level was not up to other times I’ve seen him perform. But I am not complaing! His one scene - I don’t want to spoil the storyline for people - felt a lot like a scene from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - for those who have seen Middletown, you know what I’m referring to. I kept wanting to laugh, which might have been Mr. Lett’s objective? It was a very scary scene contrasted with the bed next door. I found the one great big theme a bit too mundane actually. (LaDeDa - and who cares really - you’re not a theatre critic - Mrs. Mumford - who the heck are you anyway?) (Well, I am a Steppenwolf on and off again devotee and have a love for the stage - I consider it my true home so there!)
All other actors were superb. Everyone perfect for their role. My husband fell in lust with Mother Mary. He kept leaning over and expressing is ardor. I got a little ticked off actually.
I loved the lack of passion in the play. Words onslaughted the audience. I had, as mentioned, a hard time keeping up. Did I keep hearing iambic pentameter? Not certain. Loved the lists. Loved opening monologue.
Would cut - audience scene prior to break, Houston scene, and tighten up act II. It lagged but, I’m sure your director noticed the loss of energy.
All in all. Made happy once again by Steppenwolf Theatre. Thank you very much.