Week #15 : 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' by Nora and Delia Ephron

Five women dressed all in classic and well fitting black dresses sitting on a stage in front of music stands.  Doesn't really sound like an interesting play does it... but as the stories in 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' unfold, we hear from 20 different characters (and some others to help tell their story) about the importance of memory in clothing.  These characters deliver moving and hilarious monologues based on pieces of clothing from their past that have remained imprinted in their memory for one reason or another.

Each actor plays 5-7 characters telling their stories or love, loss, heartache and embarrassment (and one very torturous story about rape).  
The main character, kind of like a narrator (but kind of not, at the same time) 'Gingy' is the only character for that actress and is the centre of the plot who sets the tone for each section of the play (based on Ilene Beckerman and her book of the same name).  Her stories are numerous and she has a more detailed plot line than the rest of the characters.
Each of the other characters delivers a shortish 3-5 minute monologue about the importance of a specific piece of clothing, like a tuxedo or Eggplant coloured dress (my personal favourite story in the whole play!) or a pair of boots, a bathrobe that holds infinite memories or a pale blue and white chiffon prom dress.  

The stories are set out in semi tonal waves, each slightly pertaining and responding to 'Gingy's' last clothing story.

Cast from 2009: Tyne Daly, Rosie O’Donnell,
Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.

The most hilarious tale is about the uselessness of the handbag - One item that every woman has and an item that every woman dreads, which is directly from Nora Ephron's collection of acerbic essays "I feel bad about my neck." - "I hate my purse.  I absolutely hate it.  If you're one of those women who think there's something great about purses, don't even bother listening because I have nothing to say to you."
The saddest is the tale of the olive green boots - "I thought my boots gave me a kind of mysterious, Bohemian charisma, tough but tender, rugged but sensuous, poetic but unself-conscious, like Joni Mitchell."
Some of the other tales encompass the decision to wear heels or be able to function properly in society - 'I started wearing heels again.  Oh the pain, I can't think.  but I look gorgeous.  I had to choose - heels or think.  I chose heels."
The blunders of fashion 'There was, for a very brief moment in time, the paper dress.  And I had one." 
The trials of finding the right clothes for your body shape - "My mother as the most competent human being alive but she gave up on me clothes-wise.  She would send me off alone in a taxi to a store called Jane Engel on the southeast corner of 79th and Madison, and they'd bring me clothes and I'd try them on.  There was a dressing room with three mirrors, and no matter which way I looked, there I was, as big as a house.  There has never been a good time to be fat, but this was a particularly bad time on account of Audrey Hepburn.".

The monologues are intermingled with 'clothesline' mini tales.  Each one about a poignant clothing moments in every females life: 'What my mother said', 'The Bra', 'Madonna', 'The dressing room', 'The closet' and the importance of 'Black'.

The 'Madonna Clothesline'

  However you see the monologues, there is going to be at least one tale that each woman can respond to in some way.  Be it just the memory of the way a particular dress made you feel, the memory of a non-descript outfit you were wearing when you heard elating (or devastating) news, or that all important choice of a wedding dress.
These all encompass happy, shocked or terrified moments in every woman's life.

Playwright Nora Ephron (and co-wrote by her sister Delia Ephron) bought us perfect romantic/comedy films as: 'When Harry Met Sally', 'You've Got Mail', 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'Julie and Julia' (she also directed the last three on this list).  Also an accomplished Essayist, Nora Ephron wrote heartfelt female stories of love and loss and the ways in-between.  This play is no different. 

'Love, Loss and What I Wore'  was first officially staged at the Westside Theatre in  New York for Off-Broadway (there were numerous readings of the play on Off-Off Broadway at the D2 Theatre) in 2009, it has increased in popularity ever since.  

The cast consisted of Tyne Daly, Rosie O'Donnell, Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.  It soon became a revolving cast including stars of stage and screen (and the comedy circuit): Joy Behar ('The View'), America Ferrera ('Ugly Betty'), Blyth Danner, Rita Wilson, Barbra Feldon (Agent 99 in 'Get Smart'), Kirsten Wiig (SNL and 'Bridsesmaids'), Kristin Chenoweth (Broadway star - Glinda in 'Wicked'),  Jane Lynch, Kathy Najimi (Sister Act 1 & 2), Janeane Gafofalo, Melissa Joan Hart ('Sabrina the Teenage Witch') and Rhea Perlman.

An interview with Nora and Delia Ephron about the play gives you an understanding into the creation of some of these stories.  There are real life stories from the playwrights themselves, stories from Ilene Beckerman's book as well as stories from friends and relatives of the author and playwrights.  We see glimpses of how Nora and Delia, in conjunction with Ilene Beckerman's book, designed the elements and the importance of the moments in the play - each punctuated by the 'closeline' moments.

Nora Ephron passed away in June of 2012 from pneumonia aggravated by myelodysplastic syndrome which is a pre-leukemic condition.  Only close friends and family knew of this and it was not made public until her death.

This play has something for every female in the world and also allows males to catch a fleeting glimpse of what it is like to be a female.  Hopefully this play will help men to understand why females can take so long to choose a dress/shoes/handbag for certain situations!!

Next Week : 'The Frogs' by Aristophanes

Week #1 : 'Miss Julie' by August Strindberg

Miss Julie..... Mistress Julie...... Mademoiselle Julie....... Oh, how your prestigious birthright belies you...

August Strindberg wrote a gripping tale of a society woman bent on seducing her fathers porter into a sexual experience to prove that she still has power over men of any status after her disastrous engagement that has just ended. The events that follow allow herself to be wrapped in his tangling web of seductions all to be humiliated, belittled and ultimately manipulated into sacrificing herself in the end.

Written in 1888, 'Miss Julie' was so controversial, it was not produced in Swedish theatres for over 14 years. This seminal text of the Naturalism period, that Strindberg himself described as a "modern psychological drama", has been depicted as volatile, psychologically turbulent and captivating. 

Strindberg influenced such writers as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and Ingmar Bergman (to name just a few) with his intellectual thoughts on morals and class structures all wrapped up in characters that were multidimensional and contained within a plot that was not fabricated. 

'Miss Julie' is all this and so much more!

                    

The action happens across the span of a single night where societal status is challenged and crumbled beneath the weight of seductions from both Julie and John. Both try to best each other with desperate actions that would shake the morals of any human being, yet John takes it in his stride and cuttingly overhands the dangerously enticing situation to manipulate and ruin Julie for his own gratifications.

The script allows a man and a woman to create a growing psychological tension on stage that not only covers sexual attraction and eventual domination, but the mechanisms of polarised upbringings of the upper and lower classes of society and their desperate layers of control.

          "Why do you go about in livery on a holiday evening? Take it off at once." (Julie to John when in the company of his fiancée - the kitchenmaid)

John, who will not be bested in any situation, seemingly plays right into Julie's flirtations and enables the situation to grown beyond her power. As the night spins beyond anyones control, the status of men and women, class distinction and the strong and the weak are put to the test.  John clearly sets the tone and in one fowl swoop, cheapens Julie's actions and a forces a flow of abuse onto her:

          "No one in my station of life could have made herself so cheap as the way you carried on tonight, my girl... Have you ever seen a girl in my position offer herself in the way you did?" 

Strindberg was quite specific about the way in which he wanted his play to be seen: a small stage, the single setting of a small working kitchen and fireplace, with a glass door leading to the garden. Other items on stage reveal a large bell and a horn for the residents of the upper house to contact their staff. (Later on also Julie's pet canary and large knife...)

The dialectic of class conflict is delivered through the only openings to other parts of the household: the staff quarters on one side of the stage and the opulent gardens on the other. The kitchen then becomes the intermediary between both worlds. The very personalised relationship display between Julie and John in this middle ground forces the tension out in the open where the themes of love, desire and control in a world with rigid class conventions override any visceral perceptions. 

Strindberg's stage directions are almost stifling in specificity in parts, but kept relatively open when the dialogue becomes overwrought with dramatics and emotions. Writing around the same time as Ibsen, whom also heavily focused on the specificity of the actors movements; Strindberg knew exactly how he wanted his writings to be imagined on stage and did so in these directions to whomever tackled his script. (Oh,and painted  backdrops were definitely not allowed on a Strindberg production!) 

In 2012, Yael Farber re-imagined Strindberg's play to post-apartheid era with tremendous success, winning the Carol Tambour Best of Edinburgh Award. Claire Simpson reviewed the performance for Fringe Reviews: "One of those rare exceptional productions where all the elements - writing, direction performance and technical direction - combine to become more than the sum of its parts, this powerful Mies Julie lets out a cry of anguish for today's South Africa that won't be easily forgotten." Rory Eddington also commented on the performance: "While individually giving exhilarating performances, the chemistry between Bongile Mantsai and Hilda Cronje is torrid, creating a perspiration drenched eroticism. Yet perhaps the most enduring image is that of John clutching both shovel and scythe at the play’s denouement as if to ask one simple question: is this the only way? Sexy, dangerous and riveting."

     

Not so successful was the French adaptation in 2011 staring Juliette Binoche, however more for the bold minimalist modern setting rather than the performances. The reviews for this show focus on the design rather than the acting, which is disappointing considering Juliette Binoche is renowned for creating deep and often beguiling female characters. One comment made by Michael Billington for 'The Guardian' concluded that "In the end, the production makes little sense. Strindberg dreamed of a 'small stage and a small auditorium' where the entire focus would be on the situation's emotional reality. Instead the play is presented as a pictorial spectacle with the emphasis on a mood of debauched glamour and where either the glass screens or the lighting render the actors' faces semi-visible."

     

I feel that I could easily write a thesis discussing the psychological complexities of this play, let alone the numerous adaptations of the text. However, I think I may have to stop here as I draw alarmingly close to the 1,000 word mark.....

I chose this play to be my first as it will be on at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney in August/Sept with aussie actor Brendan Cowell as John.  I had the chance to work with Letitia Cáceres at MTC and I am really interested to see how she will tackle this with Simon Stone's adaptation of the original text.

http://belvoir.com.au/productions/miss-julie/

Next week: 'The League of Youth' by Henrik Ibsen