Ernst and Mee

Emily's insightful post on Ernst last week motivated me to research the work of this painter (Mee's dramaturg!) a bit more. I still do not know much about his work, but I feel that by looking at more of his paintings, I have started to understand a little better why Mee is interested in this type of work.

What caught my attention about Emily's post was her suggestion that the main difference between Ernst and Rauschenberg is that the work of the latter uses images that have a specific meaning attached to them (i.e. the Statue of Liberty, the American flag) while the former opts instead to use images that do not necessarily signify anything, but that are defined by the context of the collage. I've included bellow some pictures of some of Ernst's pieces in which I think this happens. Oedipus Rex (in part I chose this piece because of its clear relationship with Mee's remaking of Greek plays, although it is not a "collage" technically) presents us with a set of images ranging from a hand, birds, and a chestnut. Fruit of a Long Experience, more along the lines of a small assemblage, does the same with a set of tools.

I have selected these two images not only because I feel they support Emily's argument, but also because they complicate it as they suggest that instead of choosing discarded images (as Rauschenberg often does in his pieces), he uses things that are still of value, that are still alive, that are not garbage. Thus we can distinguish how the hand appears to be moving, we see life in the bird's eyes. More interestingly, Long Experience presents us actual tools that can be used for the construction of something, perhaps the Fruit of someone's work. On the other hand, Rauschenberg offers us old newspaper clippings, wood that he found in a dumpster, pieces of instruments that have been thrown out (check out the previous post on Rauschenberg . He wants to resurrect the garbage, the dirty, the wast, the low forms of art. Ernst points us towards what's still of use, what can help us build or produce something.

In an interview with Gideon Lester from the A.R.T. during their production of Orestes 2.0, Mee said: "I was certainly influenced by Max Ernst's "Fatagaga" collages, made at the end of the First World War, and by the work of Robert Rauschenberg, who took the stuff of the real world - the junk, the rejected material, the scattered shards - and put it together and said, "This is art." That appeals to me personally as well as aesthetically." The quote suggests that they were both two distinct influences on his work: one that taught him how to put together these assemblages that he calls plays and another that taught him how to take the garbage of everyday and use it as art.

To answer some of Emily's questions about Mee's work, the "neutrality" of the images he uses really depends on which play we examine. For instance, bobrauschenbergamerica is staged on an American flag, and characters come it with cups from McDonald's and such. All images that we have a clear connection to. In Big Love the sisters make reference to L'Oreal products, but then they violence they engage in feeds from completely neutral images (i.e. irons, knives, throwing themselves to the floor). I also think that Mee uses images that are signify something and then makes them neutral. In Big Love, he inverts a famous line from My Fair Lady and has the sisters yell out "Why can't a man be more like a woman?". I feel that with instances such as these, we are unable to really make the associations that are necessary to connect an image with a specific meaning and are able to process them as more neutral. This is what happens, I think, with "Howl" in our production: the reference (appropriation) is clear, but upon hearing Carl Solomon being called out, we don't necessarily associate it Ginsberg's poem and it becomes just another poem. This is how I feel that Mee approaches Ernst's fatagaga pieces.

I personally still think of Rauschenberg's work as a better model for us to think of Mee's playwriting. This may be a result of having studied his work more and actually having seen may of his pieces, something I hope to have the opportunity to do with Ernst too. Yet, the jaggedness of Rauschenberg's pieces is more reminiscent to me of the fragmentation of Mee's plays. Also, Bob's pieces appear to combine high and low forms of art in a way that is more compatible with Mee's writing. Yet, we can all arrive at different conclusions about which one of these two artists (or any other one!) is more useful to study in order to approach Mee's plays since, after all, that's what he wants us to do. For this reason, while Rauschenberg may have had a great influence on my adaptation of the script, it wasn't him or Ernst, but René Magritte who served as my dramaturg when I began directing this production.

Oedipus Rex

The Fruit of a Long Experience

Mee on the News

A professor of mine referred me to a short article aptly titled "Copying Rights" on the current issue of Newsweek (March 26, 2007) which makes mention of Charles Mee. The article is not particularly insightful and focuses mostly on listing artists who are are taking similar steps in sharing their work with their audiences. Yet, it does emphasize how "the idea that appropriation and influence are inherent to the artistic process" is being promoted by many rising and established writers, musicians, and such.

This article is mostly useful for our work when we think of it in relation to the NPR profile on Mee that I mentioned a couple of posts back. This idea that the public domain should be expanded to include most (if not all) of the works that are in publication, that we should create a "cultural commons" in which we can share, appropriate, and reuse each other's work appears to be gaining popularity in the current art scene. The Newsweek article mentions a website called Creative Commons that is taking the needed steps for this to happen legally. The name of the website itself is already reminiscent of some of the ideas that Mee promotes with his (re)making project. Is this the future of writing? Of art? Like Mee says: this is how Shakespeare and the Greeks created their works. This is how James Joyce wrote Ulysses and how Kathy Acker wrote, well, every single one of the novels. If this sharing, this creative commons, did not exist, our work on this production would not exist either. Are we, by participating in this practice of (legal) appropriation, insuring that the explore the possibility of how art is actually created as we reuse elements in our culture and/or a dramatic/literary tradition?

Ophelia's flowers

Today, Emily and I finished our rehearsal talking about Ophelia's final scene in Hamlet as a possible model for the Flower Seller's final scene in our play. Both characters finish up handing out flowers either to the royal family, or to the audience in our case. Giving away these flowers seems to indicate in both cases that the characters cannot convey everything that they want to say in their own words (that language has become useless for them, as Mark Lord suggested to me) and that they see the end quickly approaching. To study some of the less obvious connections between the two, I figured it would be a good idea to take a look at the moment in question of Act 4 Scene 5 of Shakespeare's Hamlet:

OPHELIA

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES

A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA

There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,--

For a more detailed study of what each flower means (and to whom does she hand it it), you can visit this website.

Emily, as we prepare for tomorrow's rehearsal and our work on S11, how can this background seeded in Shakespeare's play help us? Some of the things that occur to me from looking at the scene are that Ophelia knows the significance of each flower as she hands it out. What can does flowers signify for you? Moreover, there is something very funeral about the way Ophelia hands out these flowers. In a way, this relates to the idea that she sees the end (of her life, of Hamlet, of everyone) approaching. You similarly see the end of love coming soon. Does your speech then have a similar funeral quality to it? When we bury the dead, it is customary to to decorate the coffin with flowers. Are these the flowers you are using to decorate love's death? Is that what they represent when you hand them out? Is that the message you want to convey through them that you'll never be able to communicate through language/words, not even the ones that compose your speech?

These are all leading questions, I know. They have helped me, however, prepare for our meeting tomorrow. Perhaps you have ideas of your own that are different from these. If so, we'll compare notes soon. And maybe we'll get some feedback from some of our fellow bloggers!

More Thoughts on Ernst

Thanks for familiarizing us with another of Mee's influences, Jorge. I can see why Ernst's work might overlap with Mee's interests: it combines forms and bends limits, but at the same time it feels thematically coherent. A book excerpt available here mentions that Ernst's work is impressive, and lends credit to the movements he's associated with, partly because it uses its apparent randomness and doesn't just succumb to it. Check out this quotation:

"For all their independence from traditional artistic techniques and the imitation of nature, it is surprising how much stylistic unity these works evince. Thanks to his stylistic syntax Ernst created recognizable links between the works, which form a coherent sequence . . . Indeed, the effect of every Max Ernst image depends largely on the fact that it sets its own limits." (Werner Spies)

This "stylistic syntax" is, I think, a helpful thing to note in Mee's work as well. Despite grabbing bits and pieces from other people's work, myths, voices, and figures, Mee has an artistic style of his own. He chooses, arranges, juxtaposes, edits, punctuates, formats -- he consciously creates something out of the things he edits.

Spies sees in Ernst's work a "tension between a creative furore that nothing could contain and an extremely rigorous method based on almost incredible demands." It's probably easier than it should be to forget the incredible challenge of balancing that tension - reigning in the openness and playfulness that invites collage to exist while at the same time making particular choices and decisions so as to achieve a sense of unity and a certain level of accessibility.

Although I don't know enough about Ernst's work, or about Rauschenberg's place in art history and its various movements, to draw any reliable conclusions, my initial glances at their catalogues/bios make me think that maybe Ernst's work bridges together simplicity (or discipline) and creativity in a slightly more modest, more sophisticated way. Rauschenberg seems to rely on creativity a great deal in order to make themes apparent; although he stretches boundaries and plays with perspective in, for example, his American flag works, he nonetheless seems to place a great emphasis on the existing symbols/icons/themes associated with the flag. In other words, Rauschenberg seems to bend or alter existing things and therefore place his own spin on them. Ernst, in comparison, at least in the one or two things I've seen and based on the descriptions I've read, sounds like he has more interest in taking things that don't necessarily have existing associations and giving them a context. The article I linked above suggests that he purposely chooses "neutral" images, or sources, and combines them in unexpected ways in order to create all new symbols, themes, creations.

Mee's work isn't devoid of existing themes or associations (just look at the cultural attitudes in the "HOWL" section of "First Love" and at the familiarity the audience is expected to have with them), but it does seem to combine things more often in a subtle way than an extravagent one so that existing associations aren't necessarily obvious or important to the final product.

Of course, I have little substantial evidence to back up these musings; it's just interesting to think about what would interest Mee about different sorts of artists, whether or not these two in particular embody any two poles or form any reliable gradient.

FaTaGaGA

It is interesting how Mee has on numerous occasions, including in his mission statement on the (re)making project, referred to the work of Max Ernst, in particular his fatagaga pieces, to describe his own work. Yet, not that many critics have pursued this line of thought much more deeper than making this superficial connection between the two. What is it then about these works that make them so relevant to Mee's plays? Fratagaga has been defined as a "fabrication of paintings guaranteed to be gazometric". Indeed, they are collages composed from many outside sources. How are they distinct from the work of Robert Rauschenberg that we saw earlier on during our work on this production? Why does Mee appear to consider Ernst's fatagaga pieces to be more important in identifying his artistic vision than those of Rauschenberg?

I wasn't able to find too many websites with useful information about this type of topic, although I did come across this page featuring a fatagaga piece and an explanation of how Ernst originated these collages and assemblages. Take note of the connection with the DADA movement that this page establishes. I was also able to find one picture of a fatagaga piece by Ernst (notice the similarity it holds with the images featured on the home page of Mee's website...):

Coming soon to a lobby near you...

Remind everyone you invite that we only have 24 seats in the audience each night and that it is very important that they reserve their tickets if they want to see the show. Since shows are likely to sell out very quickly, there may not be any tickets available if they show up without reservations.

The Dramaturgy of Charles Mee

After a long break from posting on this blog, I want to share some of the most important articles written on the work of Charles Mee, which I have recently been working very closely with as I write my English senior essay. I should mention that Remaking American Theater: Charles Mee, Anne Bogart, and the SITI Company is by far the most comprehensive study of the work of the playwright. As you know, I have Swat's copy of the book, but there's another available through BMC's libraries. I really encourage you to take a more in-depth look at that work if you are really interested in Mee's work (and have the time!).

If you are short on time, as we all area all the time, at least take a look at the following websites, files, and articles. I've listed them in what I consider to be their relevance and importance to our own work.

Mee on Mee- Other than the Scott Cumming's book, this is the most important and useful look at the work of Charles Mee. The interview was conducted by Erin Mee, his daughter and a theater professor at Swat, who has directed a bunch of his plays, including the first production of First Love, as we have seen before. This article includes Mee's manifesto (very insightful!) and a short biography. I have found Erin Mee's introduction to the work of her father very helpful in my understanding of his vision of what theater should be. First Love is also mentioned in many occasions during their conversation, so keep an eye out for that!

NPR Profile- I've basically based my entire senior essay on one single expression/argument presented in this short NPR introduction to this playwright: "cultural commons". It is thanks to this cultural commons why we are performing my own adaptation and take on First Love instead of staging the play exactly as Mee published it in his website. It is thanks to this cultural commons how Shakespeare wrote R+J and Hamlet and Anthony and Cleopatra. How the Greeks used their own myths to write their plays. The defense of this "cultural commons" is at the very center of Mee's writing techniques and how he apparently hopes we will all write someday ... or accept that this is in fact how we have been writing all along!

The Theatre of History- If for no other reason, click on this link so you can check out the photo of Charles Mee that's featured on the first article of this essay. It was taken so long ago and he looks so young! For those of you interested in Brecht's theories on theater, this may prove a particularly useful reading. Towards the end of this interview, Mee talks about how the wants his readers and/or audience to be the ones to pass judgment over the characters in his plays and come up with their own conclusions about the pieces, rather than dictate them how to feel and react when reading/watching any given scene. This piece starts out as an interview of a historian who became a playwright and ends up in a fantastic discussion of Mee's take on political theater.

The Postmodern Dramaturgy of Charles Mee- Emily, this one's for you! Charles Mee mentions in numerous occasions that his work is inspired by Ernst's Fagata pieces and here the author of this article gives us an in-depth look at what he means by that. The essay focuses a lot on the production of Orestes, but her perspectives on how Mee's work fits within the model of postmodern literature are very much relevant to our understanding of his work.