Dramaturgy by Cassandra Rose

Cassandra Rose (Dramaturg for He Who Gets Slapped) created a packet for the cast of the show and presented them with historical and inspirational information. While this was given to the actors at the beginning of the process it may be interesting to see what the cast kept in mind while rehearsing before you go to see the production. Below are a few pages from her packet.

 

PAGE 1

Glossary
a votre service [446, Count Mancini] French. At your service.

stiletto [447, stage directions]- a short dagger with a blade
that is thick in proportion to its width.

chacun a son gout [447, Count Mancini]- French. to everyone his/her taste

[447, Briquet] – (formerly) either of two bronze coins of France, equal to 5 centimes and 10 centimes.

obscurantist [449, Mancini]- one in opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge.

busker [451, Mancini]- Earlier, to be an itinerant performer, probably from busk, to go about seeking, cruise as a pirate, perhaps from obsolete French busquer, to prowl, from Italian buscare, to prowl, or Spanish buscar, to seek, from Old Spanish boscar.

jongleur [452, Briquet]- juggler

sic transit, gloria mundi [454, Mancini]- Latin. “And so the glory of this world shall fade.”

Plutarch’s Heroes [456, HE]- Plutarch was a writer during the Renaissance period who wrote extensively about mythological heroes. His heroes include Pericles, Theseus, and Alexander the Great. A more complete list can be found at http://www.e-classics.com/

pour faire passer les temps [456, Mancini]- (via babelfish) “to make spend times.” More succinctly, a way to pass the time.

Ciel [456, Mancini]- Sky

gold louis [463, Consuela]- a former gold coin of France, issued from 1640 to 1795; pistole.

succes fou! [465, Mancini]- French (via babelfish) “Insane success!”

Mais certainement [466, Mancini]- French (via babelfish) “But certainly.”

Mais pas convenable [468, Mancini]- French (via babelfish) “But not suitable.”
char [468, HE]- any trout of the genus Salvelinus (or Cristovomer), esp. the Arctic circle. OE *ceorra lit., turner, deriv. of ceorran to turn, it being thought of as swimming to and fro time and again.

Nous verrons [470, Mancini]- French (via babelfish) “We will see.”

Mad Victory [471, stage directions about Zinaida]- The goddess Nike.

Churl [473, Mancini]- a rude, boorish, or surly person.; a peasant; rustic.; miser: He was a churl in his affections; English History. a freeman
of the lowest rank.

comme il faut [477, stage direction about the Gentleman]- (via babelfish) “As it is necessary.”

phiz [484, Mancini]- slang for face

milieu [485, Mancini]- surroundings, esp. of a social or cultural nature.

baccarat [485, Mancini]- a gambling game at cards played by a banker and two or more punters who bet against the banker.

tout a fait [486, Mancini]- French (via babelfish) “Completely”

signori, miei complimenti [489, Mancini]- Italian (via babelfish) “Gentleman, mine compliments.”

tais-toi, maman [497, Briquet]- French (via babelfish) Keep silent yourself, mom.” I don’t think the mom part is correct.

Mamouchka [501, Briquet]- Most likely Czech. Darling, love, etc- a term of endearment.

Assez [504, Mancini]- French (via babelfish) Enough! That’s right, he says enough twice.

Taisez-vous [504, Mancini]- French (via babelfish) “You conceal.”

 

PAGE 2

Leonid Andreyev
Playwright
“My Grandfather had been exceptionally handsome, talented, famous, and yet in this picture he appeared doomed, like the Russia he had loved.” -Olga
Carlisle, granddaughter of Andreyev
• Born Aug. 9, 1871 and died in 1919 at 48 years old.
• Was suppressed in the Soviet Union until the about the 1980s.
• Was possibly manic depressive as described by granddaughter.
• Buddy of Maxim Gorky who wrote Summerfolk.
• Fiction writer, photographer, painter, and playwright.
• 1902- “The Abyss” and “In the Fog” were published, Andreyev famous.
• Gorky and Chekhov constantly pressured Andrevey to become political, refused.
• Arrested in 1905 for allowing Social Democratic Labor Party to meet in his apartment.
SDLP was a socialist/marxist party which later split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
• Andreyev’s work was suppressed then revived in 1990s Russia to wild success.
“I have heard his voice resound on the stage, in HE’s speech
about immortal love in “HE Who Gets Slapped.” I hear it in
tales of terrorism as experienced both by the perpetrator and
the victim; in the words of those who are about to be put to
death lawfully, and in the tales of the dark side of sex. And
especially I heart it in the that solemn refusal to accept the
inevitability of death that distinguishes Russian writers from all
others.” -Olga Carlisle

Leonid Andreyev
Famous Short Stories
(Or, how Andreyev is the Russian Edgar Allen Poe you’ve never heard of.)
“Are you afraid!” I repeated kindly. His lips twitched,
trying to frame a word, and the same instant there
happened something incomprehensible, monstrous and
supernatural. I felt a draught of warm air upon my right
cheek that made me sway—that is all—while before my
eyes, in place of the white face, there was something
short, blunt, and red, and out of it the blood was gushing
as out of an uncorked bottle, such as is drawn on badly
executed signboards. And that red and flowing
“something” still seemed to be smiling a sort of smile, a
toothless laugh—a red laugh.”
-The Red Laugh, Leonid Andreyev
Gentress Myrrh’s rendering of The Red Laugh
• The Red Laugh- A soldier and his family during the 1904 Russo-Japanese war learn the true absurdity of war.
• The Abyss- Like Spring Awakening (the original play) but with more strolling in the woods and rape.
• The Seven That Were Hanged- An in-depth look at seven condemned people from conviction to hanging.
• Silence- A Father pushes his daughter to speak about what’s bothering her, but instead she kills herself. From there the silence follows him everywhere.
• The Lie- A man does not believe a woman when she says that she loves him, so naturally he kills her. He laughs all the way to jail.
• Lazarus- Lazarus was dead for three days. And everyone that looks upon him now dies inside.
• Ben Tobit- Ben has a toothache. Oh, and Jesus is being crucified that day near his house. It’s a very painful toothache.
• Laughter- A guy gets a mask for a costume party that people cannot look at without bursting into laughter. When he finally tears the mask off he is sobbing. Clearly, Andreyev had an obsession with inappropriate laughter, violence, and awkward silences. Andreyev’s stories were considered groundbreaking at the time but most scholars nowadays consider him to be too sensationalist to be taken seriously- He made an impression because he hit multiple nerves. Repeatedly. Whatever. I still like him.

 

PAGE 4

FAMOUS “HE” TRANSLATORS (part one of a series):
F. D. Reeve
“Seems to me that theater people look down on translators the way ladies and gentlemen looked down on theater people three hundred years ago.”
F. D Reeve translated HE Who Gets Slapped for the Arena Stage (located in Washington, DC) in the 1960s to wild success. In fact, that production is how HE Who Gets Slapped is remembered in America today. He translated enough Russian plays to make a two-volume Anthology of Russian Plays and later the Nineteenth Century Russian Reader. Reeves also received The Golden Rose from the New England Poetry Club for his other work. According to the interview I found, he’s very bitter about translating now. Nowadays, he claims, directors find a writing buddy or the director cobbles a couple translations together to make the text reflect her or his vision, instead of going to the text to find what it’s really saying. And if you’re wondering if he’s related to Christopher Reeve, he is. He’s the man of steel’s father.

 

PAGE 5

HE Who Gets Slapped
1924, MGM
The Play v. The Movie
• The following characters are missing from the movie: Tilly, Polly, Thomas, Angelica, and Zinaida. Well, Zinaida might be in a later scene as an unnamed lion tamer yelling at HE for releasing her lion from its cage. . . More on that later.
• The movie opens with HE married and in academic standing. We watch the gentleman steal his wife and his work, in that order, along with slap HE in front of every academic that matters.
• HE’s wife totally jumps from man to man with the greatest of ease.
• There is a lengthy scene of Bezano and Consuela picnicking in a field and generally being adorable.
• HE releases a lion into the same room as Count Mancini and the Baron, and they are eaten by the lion. Go ahead, reread that sentence if you have to. Mancini and the Baron are eaten by a lion.
• HE dies from a fatal sword wound to the heart. On stage. I almost cried.
• Bezano and Consuela live happily ever after as horseback riders in the circus. Apparently MGM made the director change the ending to a happy one because MGM at that time didn’t do unhappy endings.

You can find the entire movie online:

I guarantee the music will be stuck in your head for the next month or so.

 

PAGE 6

How to Be a Clown

“People start to see what they look like in makeup and they really start to elicit some things that they have kept inside of them.”
-Mr. Snowberg, from the article “Beyond Cream Pies and Face Paint.”
• Traditional whiteface clowns (like Pitu) design their makeup themselves. When writing about Pitu, W. Kenneth Little puts it so: “Pitu (a pseudonym) has consciously fashioned his entire clown persona in much the same way that human identity has been selfconsciously constructed as a manipulatable, artful process since the 16th century.”
• Augustes, on the other hand, don’t wear white face. They are the “lower class” clown, who are always more of a hinder than a help in whatever situation they’re in.
• Whiteface clowns start as an auguste.
• When classical clowns start out they are more after poetry and art than funny bits and laughs. Over time, their acts become less reflective and more violent.
• Pitu’s act focuses around the persona of a culturally refined gentleman of intelligence and means whose acts always turn into chaos and confusion

 

 

PAGE 6

Violence in Theatre

SLAPSTICK
As evident by the scores of skateboarding, snowboarding, motocross and other personal entertainment vehicle accidents that go viral on the internet, there is a fine line between humor and horror when it comes to pain. Look no further than MTV’s “Jackass” for proof. What comes to mind for me is the Carol Burnett sketch “Chuckles Bites The Dust,” where we find out Chuckles died from getting his head stuck inside a large can of stewed tomatoes. The whole premise of the sketch is the other characters choking back laughter as Carol Burnett, the mourning widow, tries to get through her grief over her very real, very still dead husband, no matter how hilarious a situation it happened in. As Jackson says in HWGS, the humor in the pain is dependent on how far away the audience is- too close, and they’re not going to laugh.

DEATH ONSTAGE, OFFSTAGE
The tradition of Greek theory was to have all death and violence take place offstage, out of the audience’s eye but not out of story’s focus. Shakespeare is credited with having the first onstage torture in King Lear’s famous eye gouging scene. It seems to me that the difference between onstage/offstage violence is with which part one want the audience to think with- their brain or their gut- and how quickly you want them back to thinking with both.

AMERICAN DEATH ROMANTICISM
Death is a prevalent subject and theme in American storytelling, as it was in American life. Death was a threat to early colonial settlers from the get-go and that threat continued on a national scale until after WWII when America entered its era of better living through chemistry. Rugged individualism tends to lead to dysentery, as any Oregon Trail player can tell you. So America did what it did best: it romanticized death and threw in some Christianity to boot. In the 1890s Emily Dickinson did attempt to look death squarely in the face, but others like Edgar Allen Poe made death exciting, enthralling, and beautiful. But death isn’t poetic or sublime- it’s physically disgusting and pathetic. This is the gap HE misses in his poison suicide (which by the way, is a horribly horribly painful way to go- see image above for example) and the gap we as Americans must be carful to jump over in the production of a Russian play.

 

 

For Further Information:
RECOMMENDED READING

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare… Of course HE read Romeo and Juliet. It’s how he validates Consuela as a star-crossed lover.

Mythology by Edith Hamilton
More than you’ll ever want to know about basic Greek and Roman mythology.

The Lord Of The Flies, by William Golding
Go with me on this one. Part of HE’s character is that he has a different persona when he’s wearing makeup. . . much like when the boys put on war paint in the last section of the book. It’s a connection I made for myself while I was reading about clown makeup.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING
HE Who Gets Slapped, the 1924 movie. Again, the link is:

or you can google “He Who Gets Slapped movie”
I, Claudius- Caligula
Based on the book and made into a miniseries, this section follows the story of Caligula, that wonderful Roman Caesar that believed he was a roman god like Zeus, liked to dance around his palace in a gold bikini doing rape ballets, and impregnated his sister. Talk about mythological complexes.

Recommended listening: my Scissor Sisters playlist
1. I Can’t Decide
2. Ooh
3. Lights
4. Might Tell You Tonight
5. Intermission
6. Kiss You Off
7. Land Of A Thousand Words
8. The Other Side

Lighting Designer Jill Bowarchuk

He Who Gets Slapped Lighting Designer, Jill Bowarchuk, puts her design for the lights into perspective with a rendering showing the set, different light sources, moods, and colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Interview With Directors and Dramaturg

An interview between Dramaturg Cassandra Rose, and Directors Jeff Ginsberg and Susan Padveen about He Who Gets Slapped.

The key to co-directing is to find that partner who not only thinks and works like you, but can build your ideas with complementing contrast, depth, and dimension. The cast and production team of He Who Gets Slapped have a unique opportunity; they are collaborating with two directors who have not only worked together numerous times in the past, but have also been great friends for quite a while. Cassandra Rose, Susan, Jeff, and I sat down for thirty minutes and delved deep into the play, its text, its playwright, and the meaning behind it all (at least for this particular production). While Cassandra Rose probed questions, I sat back and enjoyed listening to these two directors finish each other’s sentences and build upon each other’s ideas.

Jeff first found this play when he was in college. While he was in love with major Russian playwrights such as Chekhov and Gorky, he didn’t know much about Andreyev as a writer except for He Who Gets Slapped. When he proposed it last year for the mainstage season, he envisioned it as an “epic piece”, and when it got approved he asked Susan if she would work on it with him. “I knew this was going to be a big task and I respect her and wanted her input.” With the two of them slated to do this together, they were in full swing to create that “epic piece” that Jeff wanted. Susan agrees with Jeff that this play is a big undertaking and to make it anything but big would only hinder the intentions of the play itself, “… it’s one of those plays that if you don’t have a big screen that you are playing it against it becomes mini. The big screen is the life of this circus, and we want to make that very ‘right’.” The preparation that goes into co-directing is beyond the normal preparation of a single working director; you have to “be even more on top of your intuition and intellectual ideas about character and everything else, because you have to talk about it in advance,” mentions Susan. To prepare for this the two of them have gone through the different versions and adaptations of the script, and have sat down numerous times to talk about the characters and the text. They have sifted through the old and dusty to create a piece of work that actors can believably live in and audiences can easily watch and understand. There is an advantage to working with four directorial eyes, the show’s product is going to be multi-faceted and have more than just one point of view. Having this opportunity paves the way to create a uniquely rich production. Now, with production meetings in motion, with a great student design team, and with rehearsals beginning, the play comes more and more to life.

In He Who Gets Slapped a well-to-do man (named Paul Beaumont, or He) shuts the door to his planned life and joins the circus. Walking in with no skill he becomes reincarnated as the clown who can be slapped a hundred times. And as Jeff puts it, “It’s the classic sense of the outsider, this gentleman, coming in with his fifteen thousand dollar top coat and wants to be a clown but has no skills. It is Frasier in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer would be a great He.” Yes, the play is very entertaining and comedic dealing with circuses and clowns; however it isn’t all giggles and fun, there are fatal turns and it does end tragically. Cassandra acknowledges the fine line between laughter and heartache, and brings up the question of where that line ends and starts. Susan’s answer is that “it’s that idea that we love to see people fall down, we love to see people slip on bananas.” But they both raise an important issue, at what point do people stop laughing? Jeff notes that “to these incredible characters there are no consequences. What is really interesting in this tragic play is that the hero and the heroine die and there are consequences; it’s a violent play.”

To both Susan and Jeff the play is a tragedy, “it ends tragically.” And as we learn in our text analysis classes, tragedy is not just about the play ending in tears; “It’s not just that the hero dies at the end, it is that by virtue of how things start out that they are destined to go a certain way. There is a fatal flaw that sends the story in a particular direction. Who is the hero in Slapped?” Jeff answers her: “It’s He.” “If it is He and his fatal act is that he tries to punish someone who has hurt him, and the minute he does that…” and Jeff finishes Susan’s thought, “Tragedy ensues!” To these two co-directors the play is about letting go of the things that have damaged you in the past, releasing them and then moving on and forward. It’s also about “going through something, instead of going around it.” Jeff puts it very plainly, “the purpose is that you cannot run away from your experience. And He runs away from his experience….” In this particular play they both believe that the playwright thinks you should go through and penetrate whatever it is you are facing.

The idea of this world is very exciting to the two directors. To Jeff the play reminds him of a Grimm’s fairytale. “The story is very enchanting in a way, there are elements of a fairy tale and it does feel fantastic, and of course the circus adds to that by making it other worldly. It isn’t taking place in a sweatshop or a kitchen, or the back room of a Howard Johnson, it is very romantic.” Andreyev was a visual artist himself and what he created in this play (through characters, setting, action, and text) is visually enchanting. With the help of all the designers, audience members are going to be able to see this world that they are creating and for approximately two and a half hours live right along with them. The product of this particular production is sure to hit the hearts of today’s audience, Jeff makes that connection to this hundred year old play, “I think there are elements that are universal, the play is about love and romance, and being passionate about being an artist. It is about people who are really bohemian; and they don’t conform to society’s mores and manners. They suffer, and live, and laugh. They are a family even though they are not related.”

Directors: Jeff Ginsberg and Susan Padveen

Stage Manager: Loretta Gorski

Dramaturg: Cassandra Rose

Set Designer: Ellen Ranney

Lighting Designer: Jill Bowarchuk

Costume Designer: Melanie Berner

Sound Designer: Heath Hays

Fight Choreographer: David Woolley

Choreographer: Amy Uhl

Circus: Midnight Circus

An Interview with Jonathan Berry

An interview with the director for Of Mice and Men.

In the midst of one of most devastating times in America we follow two best friends, George and Lennie, as they travel the dusty and economically poor setting of California. Through their less than triumphant attempts at finding a better life in an era that isn’t forgiving, we see the two men struggle to stand strong. Of Mice and Men is a classic tale that has captured our hearts since its initial publication in 1937. Now, more than ever, director Jonathan Berry feels it is the perfect time to recreate this tale live for an audience.

For Jonathan the play is mostly about the relationships between mankind in desperate situations. In Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck takes the epic situation of the Dust Bowl in California and boils it down to a story about two men and the question of the human condition. “For someone to do that with the richness of the situation and keep such a clear focus on the relationship between two people is heartbreaking. It is such a beautiful relationship; it is simple and clear.” Jonathan feels that there is a camaraderie between George and Lennie; the result of that has brought them a sense of connection and humanity that didn’t exist for the migratory workers in California. “Men had lost all connection with each other; they became tools; they became humans without a family; individuals who moved on from job to job where they were seen as instruments of labor as opposed to men. Those workers had lost all contact with human beings and relationships.” Because George and Lennie created a bond they were able to try and hold onto that lingering sense of humanity. Jonathan feels very strongly about the overall message of the play; he believes that “it is about attempting to find that human connection in really challenging situations. Situations that are built and wired for separation and isolation.”

It isn’t a mystery that America is facing hard times these days. Yes, we may not be in as bad a situation as those that faced the Great Depression and Dust Bowl of the 30’s, but we are most certainly in an economic downturn. And at this moment in America, Of Mice and Men can speak out with a great strength. “Call it good or bad timing.” says Jonathan, “I think one of the things that is a product of a recession is this loss of purpose and drive to an existence. It’s this loss of hope and this desperation that comes from not feeling that there is a better life possible. I think there are a lot of people right now who are going through a version of that.” Berry believes that this is exactly what happens to George and Lennie throughout the play. They construct pipe dreams of buying their own house and magically those turn into a possible real life situation with the help of Candy. Unfortunately things lead to unwanted outcomes and all their dreams fade away; and for them a sense of purpose diminishes because for various reasons they can’t hold steady jobs.

Jonathan is fortunate that his timing lucked out so well, the timing in which the play is being produced as well as his timing for getting hooked onto the project. He had always been a fan of Steinbeck, however he had never read the book or seen the play performed. This summer he had the opportunity to watch a rehearsal of Steppenwolf’s Of Mice and Men production directed by Michael Patrick Thornton. Former Columbia Theatre Chair, Sheldon Patinkin, happened to be at this run and after the show Sheldon came to him to offer him the gig at Columbia. “The job opportunity was lucky timing. I found out about the run forty-five minutes before it was supposed to happen. My bike was in pieces in the backyard. I said to myself I think I can strap on a tire, wash off some grease, and get down there in forty-five minutes. I raced there and I arrived breathless and panting just as they were starting the first scene. I am not sure if I would be here today if I hadn’t gone to see that run through. I am certainly glad that I am. And as for having a play assigned to you, I really can’t hope for much of a better one. My affection for it, for Steinbeck, and what it says about the world and the time we are living in is enormous!”

The biggest step for Jonathan is to get the actors into a place where they can simply tell the story. He has an opportunity to direct Of Mice and Men without the worry of decoding the text because the writing is so deliberate and clear; his main focus is on what he believes to be the core of directing and theater, the relationships between the people. Jonathan feels that the biggest challenge the team has to overcome is staying true and honorable to the characters without falling into any sterotypes. “I really feel like it is our job to make you see and hear this for the first time. I think that part of that contract is to ask an audience to come in with open minds and open hearts. When it’s all said and done that is why it is still read in high schools and produced regularly across the country. It is a beautiful story about the human condition, and what we need, and what we sometimes unfortunately lack.”

Director: Jonathan Berry

Asst Director: Jackson Haywood

Stage Manager: Hannah Herbert

Set Designer: Mike Mroch

Lighting Designer: Emily Barbian

Costume Designer: Tyne Wilson

Sound Designer: Ashley Brown

Fight Choreographer: David Woolley

An Interview between the Directors and Dramaturg

Jeff Ginsberg, Susan Padveen, and Cassandra Rose sat down and discussed the play, He Who Gets Slapped.

An Interview with Jeff Ginsberg and Susan Padveen – Directors of

He Who Gets Slapped.

Cassandra Rose – What is the play about?

Susan: The story is straight forward – it is a tragedy. It’s about not trying to recapture something that has passed. It’s about letting go of the things that have hurt you or damaged you, and moving on rather than trying to fix them or relive them.

Jeff:  I would say it is also about going through something instead of going around something. The purpose is that you can not run away from your experience. And the character of He runs away from his experience. Andreyev is saying that He doesn’t go through the experience to penetrate and understand it, he runs away from it, and then he creates it again.

Susan: It is what you do if you don’t go through it and feel the other side; you are destined to recreate it over and over and over again.

Cassandra Rose – How did you to find this play?

Jeff: I have known about it since I was in college, 30 or 40 years ago.

Susan: A hundred years ago!

Jeff: Yes, a hundred years ago… Thank you! I love the Russian idiom, Chekhov, and Gorky, and Pushkin. And I didn’t know much about Andreyev as a writer except for the play. I knew about the play for a long, long time, but I had never seen it.   It isn’t produced very often. It was a huge success in New York very shortly after it was written in the 20’s -  Stella Adler was in it, and other members of the Group Theater. It very quickly became a successful silent film with Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer.

Cassandra Rose – What made you want to direct it?

Jeff: I asked Susan if she would work on it with me. I envisioned it as an epic piece, and we have done loads of stuff together as teachers and advisors.  She has directed me in shows, and we had worked together before successfully as co-directors. I knew this was going to be a big task and I respect her and wanted her input. The idea of the circus was exciting to me, and I wanted to showcase all that Brian Shaw and Nana Shineflug have done to build physical theater in our department.

Susan:  I am just really attracted to it because in some ways it tells the story of our experience as performers and artists, but under circumstances even more transient than theater.  If you are a trapeze artist, you don’t have a 50 year career, you have 20 years if you’re lucky.

Cassandra Rose – I want to talk about the fact that you two are co-directing this play, as compared to the usual practice of a production having one director and an assistant director. What made you choose this route?

Susan: We were talking in directing class about what you prepare before holding auditions.  You tend to go into auditions with something in your mind and maybe it is written down on paper, and once you get in rehearsal it may morph, you may get ideas once you are working with actors. When you are co-directing you need to be even more on top of your intuition and intellectual ideas about character and everything else.  It creates a healthy discussion when you have a disagreement.  Jeff and I have a slightly different point of view about one of the characters.  As we work, I think those different perceptions will make the character more multifaceted.

Jeff:  I agree. A few weeks ago, we spent a couple of days going through the script and a couple of different versions; tearing away things and coming to a negotiation about the best possible phrase, or idioms that felt a little to British or archaic. And I feel like I have come to a greater understanding of the play. I also think we came up with the best of the various versions we were working on. It is going to become very actable and in a way contemporary for the people who see it.

Cassandra Rose – One of the themes in Columbia’s theatre department this year is imagination and enchantment. How does this play fit into “Theatre of enchantment?”

Susan: I think in every play there is an element of magic.  This play unfolds like a fairy tale.  Consuela is a lost orphan, she is taken up by a count and she becomes a great success – a beautiful, entertaining, beloved horseback rider, but then tragedy strikes.

Jeff:  The story is very enchanting in that there are elements of a fairy tale and it does feel fantastic, and of course the circus adds to that by making it other worldly.  It is also very epic and very romantic.

Cassandra Rose – There’s a famous movie adaptation of HE Who Gets Slapped from 1924 starring Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer, directed/adapted by Victor Sjöström, and produced by MGM. How were or weren’t you influenced by this movie (which, by the way, can be found in its entirety on youtube)?

Jeff: I love the movie! When I submitted this to the committee I didn’t know about the film.  I loved the imagery. The movie is an hour and twenty minutes long and the ending is different, but I was very passionate about the movie and I thought the whole play needs to be done in black, white, and grey.

Cassandra Rose – How do you plan to connect this Russian play from the early 1900s to today’s Chicago audience?

Susan: I think it goes back to what the play is about. We may not connect to the “Russianness” or the “Frenchness” of it, but we will connect to the central theme of facing up to life.  We have the option of running away or hiding from life – this play stresses the importance of facing life head on.

Jeff: I think there are elements that are universal, the play is about love and romance and being passionate about being an artist. It is about people who are really bohemian and they don’t conform to society’s mores and manners, they suffer and live and laugh. They are a family even though they are not related

Cassandra Rose – What has it been like working with designers?

Susan: The experience over the summer working with the designers has been informing our notion of the play and our understanding of the play. That is part of the great thing about working with a team of people on a very big project…

Jeff: I am excited. Susan has done a lot of epic things in directing and I have done a lot of small things so I am excited to create this world. I think the entire design team is really helping us to create the visual world. Andreyev himself was a great visual artist, a great painter and photographer – he was an amazing artist.   I think it’s going to very exciting to see the finished product.

He Who Gets Slapped Show and Tell

Even though the production team for He Who Gets Slapped has been working diligently since the start of the summer, this was the first time all the designers, directors, and actors were in the same room together. The designers presented the actors their concepts; and the actors “ooed” and “awed” over the models, renderings, poster boards, and dramaturgical packets. Here are some pictures from the show and tell.

Jonathan Berry’s Inspirational Images

Jonathan Berry shares some of the images that he has found inspiration from while  directing Of Mice and Men.

Melanie Berner, Costume Designer for He Who Gets Slapped

Melanie Berner shares some of her initial costume design ideas for He Who Gets Slapped, and little bit about the process when coming up with these ideas.

JACKSON

SWATCHES

MORE SWATCHES

TILLY AND POLLY

MORE  THOUGHTS

HE

CONSUELA AND BEZANO

HE WHO GETS SLAPPED

The Costume Designers Process

I’ve been thinking about this play since the end of May, just as school got out. I really started getting into it when I was in NYC in the beginning of June and found the most wonderful book that was ever created on the subject of the Circus. It weighs around 10 lbs and came in its own box with a handle for “easy” transport. My friend and I carried it all the way back home on a horribly unorganized Greyhound trip that ended up taking around 30 hrs, anyways, despite the flaws of Greyhound it was a fun trip and worth carrying the extra 10 lbs because this book really set the tone of this play for me and along with that helped me figure out how I was going to approach designing, or at least what I wanted the show to look like. About mid-June I did some character analysis and began collecting research images that were specific to each character for a couple of weeks. For the month of July this project was sort of put on hold. I was doing an internship, working part time and designing another show. It was a rough month, although just because I wasn’t working on Slapped didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about it all of the time. Sometimes taking a step away from a project is a good thing. Once August hit I had less commitments and a little bit more time to devote to this project, which I did, but it wasn’t until the beginning of September that I started having whole days to draw and paint. This is a really fun part for me. I practically lock myself into a nicely lit 10×10 room which holds a stereo, a bed, and a desk for drawing and painting. For a couple days in a row I would draw, taking breaks every now and again to munch on something or take a nap. No distractions and absolutely no clocks.

Slapped is cast by the end of September so in the next couple of weeks I must have my designs finalized, get them approved by the directors, and finally painted and swatched so they can be passed on to the costume shop, which marks the next step in the process which is building the show.

Mike Mroch Set Design Models

Mike Mroch (Set Designer) Gives Us A Look Into the What The World Is Going To Look Like…

White Set Model

Color Set Model

Ashley Brown (Sound Designer) Talks About Her Ideas

I want the music for Of Mice and Men to be all instrumental. Right now I’m playing with different kinds of  bluegrass. I want the music to sound like something the characters could play themselves. Of course they’re workers moving from job to job so they obviously need instruments they can carry with them. For this reason I don’t want the music to have any kind of keys. I’m focusing on things like banjos, fiddles, guitars and other stringed instruments that are easy to carry.

My sound effects are mostly ambient noise. I’m searching for sounds such as horses, dogs, and the general sound of people working.