Didactic theatre -- arguing pro vs general con

I know there is no support-- the past is inscrutable.  But I don't think religion/ritual/education/propaganda/language/music/storytelling can be separated out.  Groups develop ways of being together within an environment that (sort of) works.  The "imitation of an action" that elicits a pattern of shared feeling builds and maintains the structure that every child must grow to fit into if the group is to survive.   I remember seeing a PBS show on a dying tribe.  They needed about  15 specialists in addition to the 60-70 hunters fishers and gathers to make a go of their island.  They have songs and dances about their work and play, and as you say the kids work alongside their parents and learn from them. But the youth are no longer willing to be, say, the trap maker's apprentice just because the tribe has to have one to survive on the island.  The kids have heard stories of the city, and they want to go experience those more exciting roles....  So in a few years they will all have to leave-- or die.

Is a seder didactic?  It is ritual and lesson and religion and history and a play within which the players and audience are the same.....

Coming to Cambridge March 8th

Celebration of Women’s Writing and Readings - Free.
Saturday March 10th 10:00 am-2pm. info 617-630-9704
Central Square Library, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridge, MA.

10:00 FREE WORKSHOP on WRITING FROM THE NEWS with Clauder Gold Medalist Monica Raymond & Geralyn Horton. Using news items & free wheeling free association to create scenes and monologues.

11:45 am STAGED READINGS of SHORT PLAYS
and scenes by local and ICWP women writers:
Debra Wise performing Faith in an excerpt from her play "States of Grace", about author Grace Paley.

Cynthia Wand’s "The American Woman": about Shakespeare scholar Delia Bacon; with Rena Baskin & David Rothauser.

Joyce Van Dyke's "Not My Real Mother": a legendary meeting between Tennessee Williams and Mother Teresa; with Robert Bonotto & G. Horton.

Lee Roscoe's "Mobile": a piece of art comes to life; with Sean David Bennett and Peter White. Monologue "Hunting Life": man and prey.

Monica Raymond's "The Biopsy": a sister’s reaction to a test for breast cancer. Directed by Victoria Marsh.

Rae Edelson's scene from "Surf Casting": older man, younger woman on Nantucket explore need and loss; with Ted Kazanoff & Rena Baskin.

TALKBACK and REFRESHMENTS to follow the readings. This event is a good opportunity for women who are interested in play writing but not connected with a group or theatre to come make connections. Men welcome.

Rosanna Alfaro & I will be going to ICWP/NYC!

Where I will perform an excerpt from Rosanna's "Martha Mitchell" Friday, March 23rd, at The Drama Bookshop (Arthur Seelen Theatre):

Here's the message:
On behalf of the N.Y. ICWP readings committee, I would like to thank you all for submitting your work for consideration in the ICWP Celebrates International Women's Day readings in New York City. We received 70 scripts from 30 member playwrights located in four different countries!
Every script we received was read blind (with no knowledge of the author's identity) and given careful attention by at least two readers (sometimes as many as five!)
Having received acceptances from all selected playwrights, we are now thrilled to announce the rosters!
Friday, March 9th, at The Dramatists Guild:

THE THERAPEUTIC HOUR by Guy Glass
WINDOWS by Judith Pratt
BLOOD SISTERS by Robin Rice Lichtig
SHORT-TERM AFFAIRS by Donna Spector
THE UNDERSTANDING by Rachel Rubin Ladutke
CALAMITY JANE SENDS A MESSAGE TO HER DAUGHTER by Carolyn Gage
THE MIRACULOUS DAY QUARTET by Mary Steelsmith
PIKE by Terri Febuary



Friday, March 23rd, at The Drama Bookshop (Arthur Seelen Theatre):

THE SOME OF ALL PARTS by Mrinalini Kamath
WHY D?YA MAKE ME WEAR THIS, JOE? by Vanda
CASUALTIES by Sandra Dempsey
HURRICANE IN A GLASS by Kimberly Pritchard
FLYING BLIND by Kathleen Warnock
OVERCHARGED BRICKS by Emily Cicchini
EVEN THE DIRT BLEEDS DOWN HERE by Carolyn Nur Wistrand
MARTHA MITCHELL by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro


Readings will begin at 6:30 each evening, followed by a reception.

Please stay tuned for more details as they emerge. We hope to see you there!

Also, if anyone would like to offer help with publicity, organization, or other areas, please back-channel me. Thank you all for your enthusiasm and your support!

Rachel Rubin Ladutke

political theatre, enlightenment

Sunday I spent sitting being enlightened-- mostly in the dark. After a morning singing in the UU choir at a "Spirituality and Mental Health" service, I went to the Nora's matinee of A.R. Gurney's SCREENPLAY at Boston Playwrights Theatre. When Gurney taught at MIT he was active with the College Republicans, and on the advisory board of Playwrights Platform. I saw student and Concord Players productions of his early plays, and knew him slightly; he's Old Money from Buffalo, and chronicles the battered remnants of Noblesse Oblige. I've always liked his work-- a recurring thread has been uptight upright Republican males in love with or married to adventurous bleeding heart liberals. (Sylvia, Far East) Recently -- well, at our age, recently means the last decade or so-- Gurney has turned away from drawing figures of Republicans as Flawed vessels of classic Nobility to satirizing them as power-drunk hypocrites: not particularly successfully (The 4th Wall, Mrs. Farnsworth), but with intelligence and honesty. Now he's finally got it Right! SCREENPLAY is 70 minutes of liberating
laughter. Set in 2015, a few elections down in the Jeb Bush era, it parodies Casablanca and battles cynicism. One of the outrages in the SCREENPLAY plot is that the government has instituted Border Control in reverse, on the model of dictatorships elsewhere. Dissidents not shipped off to a gulag are on a vastly expanded "no fly" list to prevent them from saying or publishing abroad the facts and opinions censored in the USA. I got home to scan the Sunday news roundup and discovered that just such a "security" provision has been tucked undebated into law, ready to be applied when the regime deems it convenient! Holy Toledo! The play was
written and produced in NYC before this outrage, when it would have served as a warning-- would that it was produced on network TV, and seen by millions!

Sunday night I saw Zeitgeist's production of David Hare's STUFF HAPPENS at the BCA-- the Royal National's commission about the run- up to the Iraq war. You've probably heard of this play, but may wonder why it's worth seeing. "We"-- effete educated
Northeasterners-- know all this "stuff"-- unlike most of America, we were paying attention. But STUFF HAPPENS isn't journalism: its model is a Shakespeare history play, or a Greek tragedy. Ironic as it is, it isn't satire. It is the imitation of an action, an arc from decisions to consequence. My friend Rosanna Alfaro brought me the script from London, and I'd read it more than once-- no surprises. Still, I was left shaken and weeping. I'm grateful to David Miller for producing it, and a fine cast for making it work.