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.