MOT: The Play’s the Thing? - International Thespian Day

This author, who is on Pacific Coast Time, may sometimes show up later than when the post is published. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule.

So grab your cuppa, and join in.

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November 23 isInternational Thespian Day, because in 534 BC, Thespis of Icaria stepped out of the chorus, and became the first recorded actor to portray a character onstage in a play. His name was recorded because he won a prize. Ironically, the name of the play in which he made this momentous debut has been lost to us.

He also invented theatrical touring, carrying his costumes, masks, and props in a horse-drawn wagon. In 1939, the National Theatre of Greece honored this innovation by sending out a touring company called  ΆρμαΘέσπιδος (Árma Théspidos) – The Wagon of Thespis.

From the time of the cave dwellers, people have been acting out their experiences to share them with others. Story-telling, poetry, song, and acting are very close relatives, and often happen all at the same time. Religion is their unreliable stepfather, who has made much use of their services, yet has betrayed them again and again.

In the Western Tradition, the theatre of the Ancient Greeks is the wellspring of the art form, rooted in the mysteries and sacred ceremonies of polytheism. Perhaps that is why the monotheists have so often been unkind to players.  

When I started my research for this post, I was astonished – and appalled – by how much bad poetry has been written using the theatre and acting as metaphors for something else. Where are the good poems about being an actor, or about being in the audience?

I couldn’t find them over the course of a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon, so here are some bits and pieces of poetry from plays written by poets, two translations of Bertolt Brecht’s poem about Hollywood, and for the coda, a poem of my own.

Getting a good translation to English of an Ancient Greek play is as difficult as getting usable translations from German to English of Brecht’s plays. If you want to do a production of either on stage, the first thing you must do is gather all the available texts and your company of actors, for several sessions of cut-and-paste to come up with a script that can actually be performed. Because translations done by scholars seldom bother with what an actor needs – words that sound somewhat like conversation.

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Ismene to Antigone in Antigone, Act I, scene 1, by Sophocles - translation by Robert Fagles, who does a better job than most:

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Oh my sister, think—
think how our own father died, hated,
his reputation in ruins, driven on
by the crimes he brought to light himself
to gouge out his eyes with his own hands—
then mother ... his mother and wife, both in one,
mutilating her life in the twisted noose—
and last, our two brothers dead in a single day,
both shedding their own blood, poor suffering boys,
battling out their common destiny hand-to-hand.

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Now look at the two of us, left so alone . . .
think what a death we'll die, the worst of all
if we violate the laws and override
the fixed decree of the throne, its power—
we must be sensible. Remember we are women,
we're not born to contend with men. Then too,
we're underlings, ruled by much stronger hands,
so we must submit in this, and things still worse.

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Of course, we who speak the English language have the delight of William Shakespeare, both poet and playwright, but few actors can do him justice without years of training, and intense study of the text.

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Doubt thou the stars are fire 
Doubt that the sun doth move 
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love.

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– Hamlet’s letter to Ophelia, read by Polonius in Hamlet - Act II, scene 2

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Other English language poets have tackled the problem of putting verse on the stage – this bit is from T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, spoken by Miss Celia:

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Everyone’s alone—or so it seems to me.
They make noises, and think they are talking to each other;
They make faces, and think they understand each other,
And I’m sure they don’t. Is that delusion?
Can we only love
Something created in our own imaginations?

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And here are some lines from J.B. by Archibald MacLeish:

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“Blow on the coal of the heart.
The candles in churches are out.
The lights have gone out in the sky.
Blow on the coal of the heart
And we’ll see by and by…”

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This comes near the beginning of The Lady’s Not for Burning, by Christopher Fry:

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(Clerk:Can I have your name?)

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Thomas: It’s yours.

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(Clerk: Now, look –)

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Thomas:

It’s no
Earthly use to me. I travel light; as light,
That is, as a man can travel who will
Still carry his body around because
Of its sentimental value. Flesh
Weights like a thousand years, and every morning
Wakes heavier for the intake of uproariously
Comical dreams which smell of henbane,
Guts, humors, ventricles, nerves, fibres,
And fat . . . the arterial labyrinth, body’s hell.
Still it is the first thing my mother gave me,
God rest her soul.

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Bertolt Brecht fled in 1933 from Nazi Germany, after his plays had been banned. First he went to Denmark, and then Finland, and then he came to America. He tried to write screenplays in Hollywood, only to be hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He deflected the accusations he was a Communist, but moved to Switzerland after the hearings. By 1949, he was in East Berlin, running the Berliner Ensemble.

Here are two translations of Brecht’s stanzas about Hollywood. They were done several decades apart, and each reflects the language of the time of translation as much as they interpret what Brecht had written.

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Hollywood Elegies

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by Bertolt Brecht

- translated by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn

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Beneath the green pepper trees
The street-walker musicians solicit, two by two
With the writers. Bach
Has a four-part perversion in his clutchbag. Dante swings
His scrawny ass.

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The city is names after the angels
And you meet them everywhere, angels.
They stink of oil and wear gold pessaries
And with blue rings around their eyes
They spend their mornings feeding the writers in their stagnant ponds.

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Every morning, to earn my bread
I go to the market where lies are trades
In hope
I take my place among the sellers.

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The town of Hollywood has taught me this
Paradise and hell
Can be one city: for those without means
This paradise is hell.

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In the hills there’s gold
At the coast they’ve found oil.
Greater fortunes come from the dreams of happiness
That the people here inscribe on celluloid.

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Hollywood Elegies

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by Bertolt Brecht

- translated by Adam Kirsch

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1

Under the long green hair of pepper trees,
The writers and composers work the street.
Bach’s new score is crumpled in his pocket,
Dante sways his ass-cheeks to the beat.

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2

The city is named for the angels,
And its angels are easy to find.
They give off a lubricant odor,
Their eyes are mascara-lined;
At night you can see them inserting
Gold-plated diaphragms;
For breakfast they gather at poolside
Where screenwriters feed and swim.

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3

Every day, I go to earn my bread
In the exchange where lies are marketed,
Hoping my own lies will attract a bid.

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4

It’s Hell, it’s Heaven: the amount you earn
Determines if you play the harp or burn.

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5

Gold in their mountains,
Oil on their coast;
Dreaming in celluloid
Profits them most.

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Imagine if History made a clerical error, and the “first actor” might actually have been a brilliant young player named Theophanis. What’s in a name? I wrote this poem in 2016, out of exasperation

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To the Disputed Woman Who First Graced
the English Stage as Desdemona

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December 8, 1660– A woman– likely Margaret Hughes, but possibly Anne Marshall – appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare’s play Othello

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How careless men are with our histories!
How easily one pretty face confused for another.
Perhaps they were so beguiled

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By a glimpse of feminine ankle,
Or the sighs raising your womanly bosom,
They never noticed your face at all.

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Even now, the first thing ‘historians’ tell us
Is whose mistress you probably were.

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G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies!

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