Social Conscience in Jewish Theater

Here's a short essay I wrote that recently appeared in the Association of Jewish Theater's newsletter:

Should theater ask questions or give answers? Theater has always served as a vehicle for social conscience, and it seems natural that Jewish theater should take a particular interest in social issues. But how should theater in general and Jewish theater in particular, approach these issues?

In his keynote address at the AJT conference in Detroit, Gordon Davidson spoke of one of his most electrifying theater moments: watching a performance of protest play, raw with the issues of the moment. If someone had told that audience to march in protest, he said, they would have stood up and marched. There is a place for theater that steps back and reflects at a distance, he said, but there is also a place for theater that reacts, immediately and with great passion, in the moment.

This was clearly a theater of answers—and the answer was to act. As much as a speech in a crowded hall or a rally in a public square, theater can be an immediate call to action. And yet…as exciting as a call to action can be, part of me distrusts it.

The conference was full of calls to action and plays of social conscience, more so then I have seen in the past. Ellen Schiff and Julius Novick gave us a history of them—or rather, they gave us the history of Jewish theater, which, I was reminded, has been filled with playwrights from Odets to Rice to Miller to Kushner. And the Jewish Ensemble Theater treated us to a scene from Women’s Minyan, an Israeli play which is a call against domestic violence, among other social agendas.

Yet I wondered whether the segment from Women’s Minyan we viewed wouldn’t have been more effective if it hadn’t been as one sided. The abuser in the play turns out to be guilty of a host of other crimes, from homosexuality (considered a crime in the ultra-orthodox community where it is set) to incest. As the shocking revelations continued, I wondered what the play would have been like, had it examined the story of a man who had one crime alone, but was otherwise good. Is being a wife beater only to be condemned when it is accompanied by perceived sexual perversion?

Daniel Kahn and Psoy Korolenko demonstrated a history of Jewish calls to action in their music, performed a little later in the conference. There were Communist calls to action, Zionist calls to action, anti-Zionist calls to action, and a host of other isms, some ephemeral, some lasting. Perhaps most effective in their impressive array of Yiddish tunes was one called “Dumia,” a Zionist call to action that could now be read as a Palestinian call to action.

Each of the songs was a perfect, impassioned, representation of the feeling of those who wrote it. But what made “Dumia” so effective is it gave two sides of an argument, with equal passion, simultaneously. It was not a simple call to action but a dialogue within a single song.

To me, that is what theater does best. It presents arguments, not just for the sake of a single agenda, but also to create empathy and understanding of those whose opinions and beliefs are in complete opposition. Answering a question with a question is more than a punch line to a Jewish joke, it is a Talmudic tradition. Because truly, there are no complete answers.

But that power of the call to action—it’s undeniable. When Davidson spoke, I could envision myself in the audience. I knew the power he was talking about, and I wanted it in my theater. And Detroit is a city that calls for action. It is a city that has old money splendor literally right next to squalor. I could not help but notice that the incredibly gorgeous theater we visited in the city was in a neighborhood filled with old, abandoned houses, marks of the city’s poverty and decline.

Brothers and sisters, should we not arise and speak out against this injustice? Should we not put down our scripts and instead march into the Mayor’s office and say we are here, and we are not leaving until something, anything is done?

Or should we put on a play?

That’s a question to which I have no answer. Perhaps I should be marching. But instead, I write, I try to understand, and I hope.

Interview with Adam Gustavson

Adam Gustavson, the illustrator for A Very Improbable Story and artist extraordinaire was kind enough to agree to a little blog interview here. Here is what he had to say about working on the book and about being an illustrator:

1. How did you first get involved with A Very Improbable Story?

I was contacted by an editor at Charlesbridge over the phone, who made mention of a quirky story they had...by you... about a boy with a cat stuck to his head, that in the course of its narrative would teach the concept of mathematical probability. A boy with a cat stuck to his head? I’m usually a pretty quirky guy, and I’ve always had a leaning toward the matter-of-fact treatment of absurd premises. That said, not many of my published books at the time reflected this, so I was excited to sign on to a project that fill that vacuum of weirdness in my professional history.

2. When I first saw your illustrations, I was very excited that you understood both the style of the content of the book very well. I noticed, in particular, that the illustration of Cindy leaping on the marbles was almost exactly what I was envisioning, when I wrote that page. What gives you your psychic powers? Or rather, was your illustration style simply a good fit for my writing style, or did you alter it in some ways to fit this particular book?

Well, I’m terribly nearsighted, almost to the point of blindness, but I discovered that a diet high in carrots, traditionally beneficial to one’s eyesight, instead informs my clairvoyant senses, which have over time morphed into the production crystal clear psychic visions.

We were out of carrots at the time that I needed to start sketching this project, though. So I had to go with plan B.

One of the freedoms in book illustration is the ability to break from the rectangular format of “the page.” It’s actually a fairly unique freedom, I think. I’ve never met a picture frame manufacturer or found a stretched canvas that was prepared to have characters leaping in and out of pictures, but in the process of turning pages, it’s completely acceptable and at the same time can offset the expectations of both the viewer and the other characters.

In my mind, the most self aware member of a book’s cast, in this case Ethan, is probably smart enough to know he’s in a book. Maybe he’s been in one before, I don’t know. But I like the idea of taking even his expectations of the page turning, tension and release, plot developing rigmarole and turn all of those expectations on their respective heads. So to capture that, well, violation of having his little sister traipsing about his room, I felt she needed to traipse about the book in a similar way, with little regard for the pre-ordained order of things.

I try to do this sort of thing a lot when I illustrate; sometimes, it can bring surprising dynamics to a scene that might otherwise be lacking them. In this case, the scene and the course of the narrative seemed to be just about begging for it.

If I weren’t such a wordy fellow, I might simply say that it made sense to me. And the manner in which the story was written really did fit well into my aesthetic and conceptual sensibilities.


3. How much discussion did you have with the editor about character design? Do you do a lot of preliminary sketches?

None, really. I just thought long and hard about Ethan, where I thought he might live, his build, his popularity in school, his other hobbies, and when I’d procrastinated enough dwelling on and internalizing as much of this as I could, I set about drawing the young feller. The editor was pretty amenable to my leanings, though initially she wasn’t sure my Cindy was chubby enough.

4. One of the stylistic choices you made was to connect the cat, Odds, to Ethan's head, so that it seemed that there no border between Ethan and the cat. What inspired that choice?

That was a bit of a gamble I guess. I’ve always liked the treatment of darks in the work of Edgar Degas; they become a network of deep, vacuous shapes that lead from one to another, with highlights and details seemingly stitched about them. I wanted to some extent for Odds and Ethan’s coiffure to work this way together.

I also thought that if the reader could figure out how to get Odds off Ethan’s head, we’d all be in trouble. There’s nothing worse than attracting heckling from an audience you can’t steer from afar. “What’s he whining about? All he has to do is...” So I felt that if I worked in a manner where the viewer just couldn’t make out where one began and the other ended, we’d all have no choice but to root for Ethan.

5. At a signing, you mentioned that you are allergic to cats (as am I). Did you have to do a lot of cat research to illustrate the book? And are you a Claritin man, or do you go more for Allegra?

Luckily, I’ve had two ill-fated cat projects in the past. For one of them, I popped two Benadryl and wandered out to an animal shelter. I hung out in the “cat room” for an hour or two with a sketchbook, doodling, scribbling and making little notes. The cats, for their part, ignored me and spent the time jumping against the windows trying to kill pretty songbirds outside. I don’t remember much about the rest of that day, but I did eventually go out and buy a bunch of books about cats, so I could study how they jump, sit, lie down, and stalk. I dove back into those books and sketchbooks with A Very Improbable Story, as cats are deceptively difficult to draw and paint; their coats catch light a manner that to me seems very different from other domesticated animals, and their faces are rather compact, so everything has to go in just the right spot. Additionally, one thing that makes cats cats is their eyes...which aren’t incredible expressive. If I was going to get Odds right, I’d have to cheat on the eyes to make them more emotive, which meant the other facial proportions would have to be juuuuust right. My brother’s cat was kind enough to pose for a few reference photos along the way, too.

And I go in for Claritin redi-tabs these days. But if they don’t do the trick, it’s Benadryl and a big nap.

6. Did you like math, as a kid?

Not really. Looking back, I think I had the misfortune of being JUST good enough to land in math classes that were too advanced for me. I liked the theories behind math and mathematical principles, but the fact that math is learned largely through repetition of exercises nearly killed me. Every struggle, it seemed to me, led immediately to another rather similar struggle. I guess I’ve never been terribly patient, so I often turned in homework with the first problem answered and the next five skipped. If there had been cats with gambling problems involved, maybe things would have been different.

7. Is it difficult to become an illustrator for picture books? For a new illustrator, what is the probability of getting paid work?

It does take a lot of work to get there. For one, editors and art directors need to be able to trust your ability to draw the same character doing different things from different angles, to mix color consistently, and handle whatever they throw your way, whether you’ve done it before or not. So for a young illustrator, it takes a fair amount of self-confidence to jump in, knowing someone will say, “Well, you draw flying pigs and rural scenes very well; how would you like to take on a book about a third grade classroom in the suburbs? It has twenty characters...”

That said, I don’t think it’s impossible to land work as a new illustrator. I’ve been told that art directors love discovering people, and I think there’s some truth to that. And there are smaller publishing houses out there, which pay very little but may be more likely to take a chance on young talent. Getting the next book, and the next book...that’s actually a little bit trickier.

8. What would be your ideal illustration project?

More straight faced weirdness, I reckon.

As a kid, I always enjoyed anthropomorphic animals and eccentric adults...the sort of grown ups that don’t offer words of wisdom or proper, responsible guidance, but the ones incapable of editing themselves, incapable of remembering they’re speaking to children. Ebenezer Scrooge and Mr. Bumble were among them, and Mercer Mayer’s work from the 1970s was loaded with them too. Sometimes I think we’ve gotten very protective of children in fiction as a culture, and I think it would be nice if we could loosen up a bit and at least let them take risks during their flights of fancy.

9. What new projects of yours are coming up?

I’ve been doing a year of historical fiction, which is a lot of fun. I have a civil war era book coming out around Passover entitled A Yankee at the Seder, by Elka Weber and published by Tricycle Press. I was spouting all sorts of Confederate Judaica trivia while working on that baby. I couldn’t turn it off. My current project, for Peachtree Publishers, is another historical piece that I’m not sure I can give away yet, but it takes place in the early 20th century and gave me an excuse to paint a 1904 Packard automobile. And a one legged rooster. You can’t go wrong with a one legged rooster.

Check out Adam's blog!

Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas (redesigned web site)

Well, I'm taking the plunge once more...

In May and June, I'll be not only curating a Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas, I will be organizing the Association for Jewish Theatre's annual conference.

I wonder, as always, when embarking on these projects, if I'm insane to do it again. They are exhausting...but they are also exhilarating. I love seeing the festivals come together, and I'm excited about this one.

Now comes the hard part: doing it. Finding the shows, raising the funds...

For those interested in submitting, I have all the details on the theater company web site, at http://www.untitledtheater.com/JewishTheaterSubmissions.html

As you may also notice, I've been redesigning the theater company web site. A few quirks are still around. OK, a lot of quirks. An overwhelming number of quirks.

That's what happens when you don't really know what you're doing, when putting up a web site. I just fake it and do my best.

Why haven't I written more political drama?

I am drawn to politics. I find myself watching the RNC obsessively, much as I watched the DNC. I am drawn to political plays, it's in my theater's mission statement, and I produced a festival of plays by Vaclav Havel.

So why haven't I written more myself?

Partly, it's time. I seem to have so many projects piled up that it's difficult to write everything I want to.

Partly, it's a distrust of overtly political plays. They are too easy, especially when they are based on nothing but venting anger. I recently went to a preview of Beast, at New York Theater Workshop, and I hated it, especially as it related to George Bush. Whom I can't stand. Whom the playwright, Michael Weller, can't stand. But to me, it was stupid politics, wielded with a large bat intent on hitting anything on its path, without anything to say except that the author was very, very angry and wanted George Bush dead.

I couldn't care less whether Bush is alive or dead. I wish him no physical harm, I don't even wish him bad fortune (OK, maybe a little, in my worst moments). I just want him out of the White House.

Which he will be, soon. So I see even less point to knocking down the stick figure.

But it is the sort of self congratulation of many political plays, the smugness of them, that drives me insane. During a panel at the end of the Havel Festival, a number of playwrights talked about political plays in a panel. Some of the playwrights had done work I very much respect. But almost all of them entered into a sort of empty, angry rhetoric that said almost nothing.

An exception was Havel. He said only one thing - I write plays that ask questions, not plays that give answers.

I see the same smugness, the same self congratulation, at the RNC. Of course, conventions are a ritualistic sort of theater, meant not to examine ideas but to provoke emotion. But what I admire are those few moments, those few politicians, who make the ideas the basis of the emotion.

Of everyone, at both conventions, the person who did that most effectively, I thought, was Bill Clinton. I was reminded of one great talent he has--conveying ideas in an emotionally powerful way without simplifying them beyond recognition.

I like Obama. I think he tries to do the same, if not as effectively. I know he is considered a good speaker, and he can be effective sometime. But I hope, God I hope, it is effective enough.

Yet what have I done to help, over the last eight years? I wrote an essay to go along with the Havel Festival, that expressed some of my outrage, in a (I hope) nuanced manner. I wrote a short play in my 24-hour theater festival called Extraordinary Rendition


And I have produced and directed some interesting pieces. Cat's Cradle is very political of course, and I wrote the adaptation and directed. So that was something.

And I vote.

But I want to do more. It is not enough. I want to write something more.

What are the questions that need to be asked? I know one, which no one asks, in either campaign, but is perhaps the one that haunts me most: What are we going to do about all the people, In Guantanamo, across the world, whom we have held in prisons without charges and without evidence. What are we going to do to restore our soul?

It is simple to be angry at George Bush. Or Dick Cheney. Or Albert Gonzales. Or Michael Chertoff.

I grew up with Michael Chertoff. His father was our Rabbi, was my father's closest friend, for a while. I didn't know him well, he was much older than me, but I know Michael is not an evil man. His father was convinced that Michael was destined for greatness. He was convinced that Michael had inherited genius from his grandfather, a well know and respected Rabbi.

If I wrote a political play, maybe it would be about a young man with great promise and great intelligence, who later works for a team of people collectively responsible for one individual to suffer deeply, meaninglessly, and needlessly. Not out of malice, or hatred, just out of indifference.

To put more than one individual who suffers like that into my play might be beyond bearing.

When will I be ready to write this play?

I don't know. Not yet. I haven't figured out all the right questions yet. But somewhere in my brain, I'm working on it.

Halka Kaiserova, Consul General for the Czech Republic in New York

Halka Kaiserova, the Consul General for the Czech Republic in New York, is ending her term here at the end of this week. The ending is premature, in my opinion, not to delve too deeply into Czech politics. I can say that during her tenure here she has been a great ambassador for the Czech people and a great friend to theater, and I will be sorry to see her leave her post.

Halka (it seems awkward for me to say Ms. Kaiserova, for I feel over time we have become friends) took her post shortly before the Havel Festival, and she was, from the very beginning, an enthusiastic and active advocate for our festival. She has reason to be attached to Havel--she is an old member of his administration and she was a participant, from the very beginning, in the protests that led to the Velvet Revolution. She is also knowledgeable and experienced in theater. We could not have asked for a better match.

She arranged the launch party for the festival on Havel's birthday. It was the first major use of the Bohemian National Hall, which will officially open, finally, this October. The trek to open the building has been a long and hard one, but that first day was greatly celebratory and a wonderful way to begin the Havel Festival. She provided Czech food and a space and we provided what entertainment we could - music, video, and some live performance. Czech television came and broadcast the event on primetime. It was an amazing introduction to the Czech community, which continued to be supportive throughout.

Once Havel had arrived, she scheduled his appearances at the theater and accompanied him each time (he came on nine occasions). She also attended on her own, sometimes with her husband Petr Kaiser, who works at the United Nations and has been a great support throughout as well. I still remember the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution where she, Havel, Madeleine Albright, Ambassador Martin Palous, and many others crowded into the tiny Brick Theater to see a production of Temptation, directed by Ian W. Hill. Afterwards they all stayed, drank with us, and made speeches. Halka translated for me as Havel declared that there was no place he would rather spend the anniversary of the Revolution. It was the highlight of the whole festival, for me. I have included a photo of Havel and Trey Kay, the leader of the band playing...Halka is not seen, of course. Her work was most always behind the scenes.

Since the time of the festival, Halka has consistently advocated for us, and we in turn have been excited to continue to explore Czech theater. It has been her welcoming spirit, in part, that has really encouraged the company to concentrate on promoting the Czech Republic here in New York. I love the Czechs, but when I say that I mean of course I love those Czechs I have met like Halka, who have warm, generous spirits and open hearts. Who have great intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm for the arts.

Halka is not the only one I have met to have these qualities, far from it, but she is one of the outstanding examples. I wish her luck in her future pursuits, and I am sure that wherever she is posted she will continue to bring her intelligence, energy, and heart.

Robert Lepage, 400th anniversary of Quebec

I just returned from a week away in Maine and Canada, and one of the major highlights of the trip was seeing Robert Lepage's installation, Moulin a Images (The Image Mill), projected onto the grain elevators of Quebec City's grain elevators in honor of its 400th anniversary (Do most people in the U. S. even know that the city is 400 years old this year? I didn't, to my embarrassment).

Robert Lepage has been one of my favorite theater directors for years. One of the most amazing pieces of theater I have ever seen is his Far Side of the Moon, which he later made into an (inferior) movie.

I say inferior because I don't know if it is possible to translate Lepage's stage magic into film. Lepage runs a company called Ex Machina, and they specialize in modern technology and special effects for theater. But Lepage's effects are not special because of technology alone. The most effective are often the most simple--I think of him lying on the stage floor , covered with projections of stars and just moving on the ground while seeming like he was floating in space. Simple but brilliant.

In film, of course, special effects like that are almost more commonplace. Tricks of post production can produce effects far more elaborate, and thus much less amazing.

Of course, Lepage's work is not trickery alone. It is trickery which is first and foremost in service of telling a great story, filled with emotion.

Moulin a Images reminded me of many animated films I have seen, and in a way that's exactly what it was--a huge animated film projected on grain elevators, with a couple of special effect tricks thrown in. Lepage divided the history into the four elements (an Age of Water, an Age of Fire, etc), and that one concept was useful as a framework of the whole.

What struck me, watching it. was the similarity of all history of the last 400 years. In some ways, the story of Quebec City could be any North American city's story (though none are so long-lived). In others, the story of a walled city that has served as the center of French-English controversies for centuries is a very unique one, especially for North America.

Was it the same as seeing a live performance of a Lepage piece? How could it be. But it was something I was glad to see, nonetheless. Outside, watching Lepage's work with awe, were many native residents of Quebec. I couldn't help envy a little the awe in which a stage director from outside the U. S. can be held in his own country.

Connect to the links above for some glances, if you like. There are some good images on his web page and the official 400th anniversary web site.

Ozma Sees Herself

Okay, so I have no regular schedule for excerpts. And today's excerpt is sort of an old one, except that I am theoretically working on a new book of short stories that will include this story. I say theoretically, because my time available to work on it has been short. It would be a book not only of Oz related stories, but also a few inspired by other books - an Alice Story, a Pinnochio story, and one based on Edith Nesbit's books (my favorite, at a certain age).

But I was just talking about this story, which was on my mind partly because it was what first drew me to write for children. I wrote it for Oz Story 3, a publication of Hungry Tiger Press, which went on to publish my Oz books (and will publish my book of short stories, should I ever finish it...

Anyway, this one was inspired by an incident I always found odd as a child...when the boy Tip was transformed into the princess Ozma and hardly blinked an eye...to I wrote a story about the transitionary period

Here's the beginning of it:

Ozma was up in a tree. Her white dress was covered with twigs and leaves and small rips caused by the branches. She looked down at the Emerald City below her, feeling rebellious, as search parties scoured the city looking for her.

Ever since she had learned her true identity, there had been endless days of court procedures and formal banquets and meetings with foreign dignitaries, and she was frankly sick of it. Today she was supposed to meet the King and Queen of Ev, but she had snuck out of the palace to go tree climbing. There was a tree just outside the palace that was her favorite, and she intended to stay there all day.

When she had first become Princess, she thought it would all be luxurious fun. Indeed, she was given a beautiful suite of rooms, even if it was all done up in pink, her least favorite color. She was given expensive clothes to wear, even if they were all clumsy dresses. Most impressively, she was given a large staff to respond to her every need, even if they did spend half the day dressing her up and fussing with her hair.

Their excuse for spending all that time on her hair was that she refused to so much as comb it herself. That was because, ever since she had changed into a Princess, the thought of looking in a mirror made her uncomfortable, and she absolutely refused to do so. Even when she passed by a reflective surface, she quickly looked away. But even so, she couldn't believe her attendants had to take so long to do her hair. When she was merely Tip, she had combed her own hair every day, and it had taken about thirty seconds.

But the worst part about being Princess was the confinement. No one wanted to let her out of their sight, for fear that she would be abducted again. So they tried to occupy her time, when she wasn't at a boring banquet or entertaining another tedious dignitary, with sedentary indoor pursuits, like sewing. Ozma hated sewing. She would constantly prick her finger, and what she made always looked dreadful anyway. At least when she had lived with horrible old Mombi, she was able to sneak away during the day and climb trees or whittle branches or splash in the stream. Now she was stuck indoors all day long, and she hated it.