Wicca as a Mutant Religion

 culture, Stage  3 Responses »
Feb 112012
 

With so much renewed interest in Gerald Gardner, I would like to offer the hypothesis that Wicca be considered a sort of Mutant Religion: meaning that I believe that Wicca demonstrably consists of the Magickal Traditions found in England in the late medieval period- but synthesized into a new, distinctly modern, form.

Let us consider that Wicca comprises two sets of procedures: (1) what we call the Consecration of the Circle, followed by (2) the ceremony known as “Raising Energy” (described by Gardner in Witchcraft Today). Both have evident histories in English culture, as shown by the varieties of “Magick-User” plays plainly popular in the late 1500s-early 1600s- the “Wizard” Play and the “Witch” Play.

In the Wizard Plays (Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II; Marlowe’s Faustus; and Barnes’ The Devil’s Charter), we observe what is recognizable to us as the performance of Ceremonial Magick, as preserved and presented in the medieval Grimoire traditions, and consisting of Purifying the Space; Casting the Circle; and calling in Elementals and helpful Spirits to Charm and Empower the working. In the performance of these plays, we see that these rituals conform to what we describe as Consecrating the Circle.

Now, the Witches’ Plays are of a different nature altogether. Although they too depend upon the creation of a Charmed Space, their methods for achieving this objective are much more improvisational and intuitive; as we might expect of an oral culture tradition, there is no set script or prescribed formula to follow (as in the ritualized Wizards’ Traditions). Plays such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Jonson’s The Sad Shepherd and The Masque of Queens, and Middleton’s The Witch show Witches dancing in circles (English Witches, like English Faeries, are often engaged in round-dancing, and the demonological writers of medieval anti-Witch books frequently ascribe frenzied dance to Witch-customs; Jonson adds much description of Witches’ dances as notes to Masque of Queens); these ceremonies are (in my opinion) best understood through Gardner’s descriptions of “Energy-Raising,” sometimes accompanied by language strongly suggestive of an energy-raising objective: the Fourth Charm of the hags in Masque of Queens, with its reference to forming a “Blue Drake,” or something akin to a comet or a shooting star, is as good an example of a seventeenth century expression for Raising Energy as one might wish to come across, except for perhaps the Witches in Macbeth’s judgement that their “Charm” has been sufficiently “wound up.”

Reconsidering what Gerald Gardner described as the process of his initiation into “Wicca,” or the survival of ancient British Witchcraft: he claimed to have been exposed to a type of Magickal practice that- while fascinating- was an intangible sort of something, that one had to develop an appreciation and understanding for. In order to provide a framework for this mysterious practice of “Witchcraft” (intertwined as it was with the strange concept of Witches “raising” an Energy from their bodies that they believed to be beneficial to Magick), Gardner borrowed the structure of Circle-Casting from the Grimoire traditions (as demonstrated conclusively by Aidan A. Kelly), in order to create a formalized ritual for the creation, protection, and shaping of the energy-raising portion of the Magickal ritual.

Two different approaches; two separate traditions: one the elite legacy of the male-oriented Magickal intelligentsia of the Middle Ages; the other, the preserved wisdom of a (primarily female) Oral Culture folklore. These two types of ritual had probably never been performed together: consecrating the Magickal Circle in the formal manner of Ceremonial medieval Magick, in order to house and protect the intuitively felt and realized Energy-Raising Witchcrafts of English Witches.

Although both traditions are obviously valid and attested to in period literature (to borrow Hamlet’s phrase, the Play’s the Thing), I don’t think they had been performed in conjunction before, medieval mages being too Upper Class and dignified to lower themselves to the rambunctious, energy-raising, dancing activities of village Witches, while illiterate village-level Witches will pass on their traditions in oral culture form, eschewing the written formularies of the literate classes. Merging the two together (as it seems to me that Gardner did) results in a sort of Mutant Religion, comprised of marrying the protective male Magicks of Circle-Consecration, in order to enshrine the creative female energy-raising Magicks of Witchcraft: marrying in a Sacred Rite the Female and Male Magickal Mysteries of the Middle Ages into a 20th and 21st century synthesis: the Two joined as One, to create the Wonder of the New Thing.

With focus being applied to the possibility that evidence can be found arguing Wicca’s veracity beyond Gardner (as Philip Heselton does in his books, pondering whether there was a coven of Witches practicing in the New Forest area prior to Gardner, which would move the impetus for Wicca’s origin from Gardner to themselves), it seems to me useful to consider where else in English Witch-Culture an understanding, or an articulation, of Energy-Raising might be found.

If it is depicted in the popular drama of the Elizabethan/ Jacobean stage, doesn’t this suggest that it was a feature of Witchcraft universally understood throughout the period? As Hamlet says, the purpose of play-acting is to hold the mirror up to Nature, to show the present Age its form and impression: the purpose of acting and play-writing is to show the Time its own Image.

If the Time and Image of Jacobean Witch Plays associates Witches with activities that can arguably be best interpreted in terms of Gerald Gardner’s definition of Energy-Raising in Witchcraft Today- does that not suggest that Energy-Raising was understood as an integral feature of 16th/ 17th century English Witchcraft? In which case, is it out of the question that it survived in English Folk-Culture Consciousness until the early 20th century, when Gerald Gardner came across it, and was so enthralled that he was inspired to write about it?

 

 Posted by zan at 1:45 am  Tagged with:

Nicol Williamson, and Macbeth

 Stage  No Responses »
Jan 272012
 

The death of Scots actor Nicol Williamson was reported on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. As described by Bruce Weber in the New York Times, “Nicol Williamson, a Mercurial Actor, Is Dead at 75” (Obituaries, p. A29), Mr. Williamson could be difficult to work with; I remember his performing I Hate Hamlet in the early ’90s, with it being the rare experience of the performer’s conduct overshadowing the show. Nonetheless, as Jason points out on the Wild Hunt, Williamson was Merlin in arguably the finest “King Arthur” film, and- as Mr. Weber considers, “perhaps because his aggrieved Scottish temperament seemed so suitable”- he played Macbeth more than once, notably in the BBC Shakespeare series. The YouTube clip that shows Macbeth’s pivotal meeting with the Witches (IV.i) demonstrates Williamson’s ferocious concentration as an actor: watch as the scene (and camera) basically settle onto his face, and admire as he holds the scene with his expressions, his thoughts, and his actor’s will. The depiction of the Witches is unique: more so than any other production that I have seen, this presents the Witches as village Wise-Women, positioning them against the Callanish Stones to reinforce their identities as ancient Forces upon the British Isles. (This is perhaps the most benign interpretation of the Three Witches that you are likely to come across.) But check out how this scene becomes about nothing but Mr. Williamson’s face, and his actor’s commitment to his part.

 Posted by zan at 4:46 am  Tagged with: ,

Magick Circles

 culture, Stage  1 Response »
Jan 262012
 

With so much interesting research emerging attesting to Magick-Workers in Early America, it seems undeniable that the Magickal Traditions of the Old World made their way into America through the immigration of European settlers. While such people may not have exerted monstrous amounts of influence in the settling of the New World (preferring, apparently, to seek out relatively unpopulated places such as the Appalachian mountains, or the mountains of the American Northeast, or at least in one case- to judge from the “Joshua Gordon Witchcraft Book” held at the University of South Carolina- the 1600s Southern frontier), it is noteworthy that we- meaning, Magickally-minded Folks, inclined towards the Old Ways- have had our place in America (hidden, secret, living “on the down-low”), but there, and hence, here.

Fascinating as that is, what really intrigues me is the extent to which early American Magick-Use reflects back upon the Europe of the late 1500s/ early 1600s- still the Age of Magick, with the Burning Times still going on (the 1600s, the first period of settlement in the New World, is also the last century of the Witch-Burnings). Early American Magick-Use provides another prism through which to judge the Magickal beliefs and practices of the Old World; what is most intriguing is the degree to which these beliefs and practices appear to involve Circle-Casting, or the Formation of a Magickal Circle-Space.

For instance, in The Silver Bullet and Other American Witch Stories, we learned of Magickal Folk-Beliefs carried into the Appalachian mountains by Irish, English, Scots, and German settlers- which apparently were preserved long enough to be recorded in the stories found in this book, which were generated in the 1930s. Another book, Signs, Cures, & Witchery, also finds copious amounts of Old World Magick-Belief transported into Appalachia- this time, specifically looking at the activities of German pioneers. What is especially interesting (to my mind) is the number of times that someone in The Silver Bullet describes casting a Magick Circle in order to perform Magick: casting a Magick Circle exactly as we are accustomed to casting Circles, but described in the context of Depression Era mountaintop Folk-Magick.

However, not surprising: if one considers the evidence that Circle-Casting was widely associated with Magick-Work in England during the Elizabethan Age of the late 1500s and the Jacobean Age of the early 1600s.

Circle-Casting- or Circle-Formation, as perhaps the case may be- divides in the Time into two categories: (1) the Grimoire-Tradition, carried in medieval grimoires innumerable issued throughout the Middle Ages; these will be the Traditions that seem to us most like those of the Gardnerians, the Alexandrians, and all those influenced by the writings of Gardner, Valiente, Crowther, the Sanders, the Farrars (et al), and which will be reflected by the learned elite of the medieval period, able to read said written occult-works, the Grimoires (2) as well as the Oral-Folk Culture Traditions carried by Oral-Folk Culture practitioners such as village Wise-Women and Cunning-Men; these are reflected in the “Witch” Plays (as opposed to the “Wizard” Plays, inspired by the educated Grimoire-Tradition), and are based upon the sometimes-raucous, often improvisational Tradition that we associate with “Energy-Raising.”

Perhaps the most famous example of the Elizabethan Grimoire-derived (Ceremonial-Traditional) Circle-Casting known to us is that presented to us by Marlowe in Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), in Act I, scene iii, lines 8-24: Faustus formally charges into being the Circle that he has transcribed on his floor (as per the illustration attached to the printed play, seen above). Being of the Christian Magick variety, this Circle is particularly “anagrammatized” with the Name of Jehovah, as well as laid out by the “figures of every adjunct to the Heavens, and characters of signs and erring stars”- that is, it has been made to resemble in miniature an outline of the Astrological Heavens themselves, in a very Microcosm/ Macrocosm, “As Above, So Below” sort of deal. This Circle is further empowered by calling in the Spirits of the Four Elements.

Caveat: as the Wikipedia entry on the play will tell you, Marlowe’s play was published in two versions, known as the Text A and the Text B versions: the Text A is thought to resemble more closely Marlowe’s original script, with Text B representing an “improved-upon” version of the play reworked after Marlowe’s untimely death. As the Wikipedia entry notes, there are differences between the two versions of the play- but as the Wikipedia entry fails to point out, in Text B (the text most often reproduced, as people tend to play it safe by putting into print the greatest possible number of words potentially committed by Marlowe to paper), the Names of only three of the Four Elements are called (“Earth” is omitted). Text A calls in all Four Elements- which makes the most sense- and demonstrates to us a genuine late 1500s Tradition of Consecrating a Magick-Circle by Calling In all Four of the Mystical Elements of Life. (The reason for “Earth’s” absence is surely as simple as, the type-setter blanked. Maybe it was getting close to lunchtime, and he was hungry and distracted.)

Another caveat: in the interest of being totally responsible in the transmission of Magickal Knowledge- Dr. Faustus’ Legend comes to us as the Supreme Example of the Perils of Trafficking with the Forces of Darkness. The Middle Ages took such things strenuously seriously, and so we have the cautionary Tale of Faustus: who was Fool enough to believe that he could contract with the Forces of [Christian] Hell and live to tell the tale.

In short, Faust represents the ultimate in Christian Theology cautioning one against Magickal Practicing. But you know what? Here’s how I look at it: Faustus actually ASKS the Devil to come into his Circle (the Devil being represented as the reptilian sort-of creature in the picture next to Faust, just outside of his Magickally Protective Circle). Never mind the Pagan Thealogical Question: Do we as Pagans even give credence to the Thought-Form of the Devil? (I, for one, do not, and therefore- it seems to me- avoid the obvious pratfall of Faust by Calling In only such Deities as Whom I judge to be Honorable and Just, and with Whom I feel comfortable that I have established a fair Working-Relationship.)

Another example of Circle-Casting in a play whose Cultural influence is extremely difficult to question, is that presented by Shakespeare in The Tempest (c. 1610). Although explained merely by a stage-direction- following Line 57, Act V, scene i: “They all enter the Circle which Prospero had made, and there stand charmed”- Prospero’s famous speech “Ye Elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves” is meant to be understood as a Circle-Invocation inspired by Ovid’s account of Medea’s Invocation to the Spirits of Nature in Metamorphoses. As represented in Julie Taymor’s 2010 movie-version starring (in a status-changing gender-bending performance) Helen Mirren as the Female Wizard Prospera, the speech is every bit a Circle-Invocation as much as that presented by Shakespeare’s contemporary Marlowe- but oriented from a very Nature-driven perspective. It demonstrates to us that- at least for Shakespeare, in the early 1600s- Circle-Casting could be thought effective if engaged purely from an orientation towards Nature, rather than from a strictly Ceremonial Traditional point-of-view. (It might be, if you watch enough productions of The Tempest, that you don’t see many examples of Prospero or Prospera actually Casting a Circle during this speech; I believe that is because so many people nowadays simply do not know what to make of the stage-direction “the Circle that Prospero had made,” having no cultural context through which to formulate the Magick-Circle. In short, I don’t think many theater-folk today understand a “Magick Circle,” and so, have no idea how to stage this segment of The Tempest.)

And then there is the Circle-Casting found in singular form in the “Witch-Plays” of the late 1500s-early 1600s: whereas the Grimoire-Traditions are preserved in written manuscripts read by the educated and the literate, the Ways of Witchcraft must have been maintained through oral Folk-Culture. Apparently there was, at least in England, a coherent system identified as “Witchcraft : the Witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Jonson’s The Sad Shepherd and The Masque of Queens, and Middleton’s The Witch all do the same thing as “Witchcraft” in all four plays, what we would consider to be the most significant Witch-Plays of the early 1600s. This involves forming a Magickal Circle- but unlike the Ceremonial Magicians, who enact recorded ritual in a dignified manner, the Witches generate their mystical Spaces through intention, rhythm, movement, music, and excitement: very much what we would term “Raising Energy.” So much folklore surrounds the idea that Witches (like Faeries) danced in Circles, that we should not be surprised to find Circle-Dancing associated with all these Jacobean Witches: the Witches in Macbeth (c. 1605), for instance, dance “hand in hand” in order to “wind up their Charm” in Act One, scene iii; similarly, in Act Four, scene i, they dance around their Cauldron (which will cause one to dance in a Circle) in order to “set the stage” for the Thane of Glamis and for the Spirits that they will raise for him, ending the scene by performing a last “antic Round,” or excited Circle-Dance.

The male Ceremonial Traditions of the late Middle Ages are driven by the performance of prescribed ritual; the female Witchcraft Traditions of Jacobean England are set in motion through “Energy-Raising” spectacles (as we would think of them); yet both Traditions depend upon an understanding of an enchanted, specialized (Circular) Magickal Space.

Far from being held super-secret, however, Magickal Traditions appear to have been openly embraced in England during the time of Elizabeth: there was a flourishing business of printing and selling pamphlet-edition Spell-Books and “How to” Magickal manuals, with George Lyman Kittredge providing many examples of “grass-roots” Magickal experimentation in Witchcraft in Old and New England. The fact that plays which deal with Magickal matters are clearly popular is an indication of the Elizabethan/ Jacobean interest in Magick, and the fact that Magickal Ceremonies are performed in Magickal Plays presented as popular theater plainly indicates all by itself a means of transmission of this knowledge.

Assuming that Circle-Casting is indeed well-established as late 1500s/ early 1600s English Magickal custom, we would imagine English settlers in the New World to transport faith in Magickal Circle-Casting with them into America: exactly as we seem to find in early 20th century Appalachia.

All of this might be understood as cultural encouragement to consider Circle-Casting as primary in the performance of the Magickal Arts.

 Posted by zan at 6:10 pm  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Ben Jonson’s Life

 books, culture, Stage  1 Response »
Jan 242012
 

A significant new biography upon Ben Jonson- Ian Donaldson’s Ben Jonson: A Life (Oxford University Press)- was reviewed Sunday last in the New York Times Book Review (Jan. 22, 2012, p. 1); all the more remarkable, as no one writes biographies of Ben Jonson, who would otherwise be considered the Supreme Writer for the Elizabethan/ Jacobean stage- were it not that he had William Shakespeare for a contemporary: William Shakespeare, who so dominates the Stage-Scene of the era as to render virtually invisible any of his fellows. This new work (praised by the NY Times) represents an invaluable opportunity for Pagan readers of the Juggler to acquaint themselves with Mr. Jonson’s works.

And why, exactly, should Pagan readers of the Juggler wish to acquaint themselves with the works of Mr. Ben Jonson, Play-Writer of the late 1500s-early 1600s, you might ask?

Why, for the simple reason that Pagans might well wish to acquaint themselves with the works of Mr. Jonson’s overshadowing contemporary, Mr. William Shakespeare- because they both are writing in England during the last Great Age of Witchcraft, and so (as any good biography of William Shakespeare will make a point to tell you, and as I expect this biography of Mr. Jonson by Mr. Donaldson will): they are writing from the point-of-view of a cultural milieu that accepts totally the belief in Witches and the Powers of Witchcraft.

Therefore, what Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Jonson have to say about Witches and Witchcraft is presumably going to be instructive, as it emanates from the Last Period in which Witchcraft was accepted as part of English Life and English Culture.

Having read Ben Jonson: A Life, the Juggler Reader will be well-acquainted (I am sure; I haven’t actually read this book yet, which I was unaware of until yesterday) the Juggler will then be well-familiar with the events and context of Ben Jonson’s life: and can then go on to read The Alchemist (Jonson’s satire on the Magick-practicing ways of the London of his time); The Sad Shepherd (a wonderfully elegiac Paganistic Forest-Fable, that features a Witch united in a Spiritual Union with a Pagan Forest-Deity); and The Masque of Queens (basically, a Witches’ Energy-Raising ceremony).

Having then read Donaldson’s biography and these works of Jonson’s: perhaps the Juggler will agree with me, that the best explanation for what the Witches in both The Sad Shepherd and The Masque of Queens are doing is: they are Raising Energy, as defined by Gerald Gardner in Witchcraft Today (once one has read Gerald Gardner’s description of Energy-Raising in Witchcraft Today, I don’t see how certain major Witch-Works of the late 1500s-early 1600s, including probably the most famous Witch-Work of all time, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, can be read NOT seeing the Energy-Raising dynamic at work).

If one is going to take seriously the idea that Gerald Gardner genuinely did inherit an ancient tradition of native English Witchcraft (as say, Philip Heselton does, in his important revisionary research): one might well look around, to ask- is there anywhere else in English culture that I can see such a thing as Witchcraft Energy-Raising?

The answer, I believe, is actually, yes: and I think it is found in the Witchcraft-Plays of the Elizabethan/ Jacobean Periods- leading me to believe that Energy-Raising is indeed the “Secret” to English Witchcraft (well, hardly secret to the Elizabethans and Jacobeans, who incorporated it into their Witch-Plays- but grown so secret in time that, had it not been for Mr. Gardner and his initiation into a surviving tradition of English Witchcraft, we might never have known of it, and modern Wicca might never have been).

It starts with reading the Witch-Plays of the late Elizabethan/ early Jacobean, and then asking yourself, are these Witches raising Energy or not? If not, what are they doing?

If yes: then what does that mean, to find Witches in works whose provence cannot be questioned- performing Witchcraft through acts of Energy-Raising, exactly as Gerald Gardner claimed all along?

It all begins by reading about Jonson (and Shakespeare) and understanding the cultural context in which they wrote about Witches.

 

 Posted by zan at 2:33 am  Tagged with: ,

Olympia Dukakis’ Tempest

 Stage  2 Responses »
Jan 162012
 

I believe that I predicted, a year ago, when Helen Mirren’s film of The Tempest came out (reinterpreting Prospero the Magician as a female), that this would become a hot trend in Shakespearean circles (especially as it is unusual, 400 years later, to come upon a truly revolutionary reinterpretation of a part, and as it discovers- yea, like unto the New World- a fascinating new Gender-Dimension to a Major Shakespeare Play, as well as suddenly making available to accomplished actresses of a certain age a Major Shakespearean Role, hitherto played exclusively by men). Apparently so, as today’s “Arts, Briefly,” in the New York Times, compiled by Adam W. Kepler (Mon., Jan. 16, 2012, p. C2) announces that Olympia Dukakis will play [Prospera] this summer, at Shakespeare & Co, in Lenox, Mass. In another interesting casting move, her own brother, Apollo Dukakis, will play Prospera’s usurping brother (it’s rare to have actual siblings in the roles). Considering that Vanessa Redgrave started this actress-trend by first playing The Wizard of Shakespeare’s canon in 2000, at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, in London- she performed it as a man, but still- this brings to 3 the number of notable actresses to play the part. (And I so hope that someone films the Divine Ms. Redgrave in the role, if only in a filmed stage-version such as Christopher Plummer’s.) All this means, for Pagans: we see a reinvigorated interest in the one Shakespearean character to represent the Magickal Traditions of Elizabethan England- down to the Casting of an Elizabethan Magick-Circle.

 Posted by zan at 5:35 pm  Tagged with: , ,

The Laramie Project: A Healing Journey

 culture, Stage  1 Response »
Jan 142012
 

­­One of the reasons we face our own darkness is to heal.  Unpleasant though it is, we cannot heal our physical or emotional wounds without acknowledging that they exist.  If one has cancer, looking away and pretending that lump in their breast is harmless will not heal the problem.  Marriage counselors dig into the heart of a couple’s emotional troubles, often uncovering long-hidden sources of pain that both partners would prefer to ignore.  They treat the root rather than the symptoms so that the marriage can be mended.  Shamanic practitioners guide you down to meet your shadow, helping you heal the sources of your own problems.

In 1998, Laramie, Wyoming was in desperate need of healing.  The brutal torture and murder of 21-year old Matthew Shepard, motivated by homophobia, had cast the entire town into a pit of darkness.  Where locals would once have said that their town was full of good people who “live and let live,” that they “don’t grow children like that,” they now had incontrovertible evidence that they were wrong and that something malignant was living in their town.

Into this fragile town came a big city writing team led by Moises Kaufman.  The team interviewed just about everyone in Laramie, from Shepard’s close friends to the local Baptist minister.  Their story became The Laramie Project, currently running at Mysterium Theater.

Very few plays are as grippingly honest as Laramie.  The idea was to tell the story of the town, not the story of Matthew Shepard.  The result is documentary-like.  It does not re-enact the events.  It presents the interviews with the residents and the commentary of the writers, woven together to tell a heart-wrenching story of destruction, soul searching, and resurrection.

The weaving is very important to the pacing and power of the play as the actors must switch effortlessly from character to character as the show moves forward.  Director Stephen John accomplishes this masterfully, getting the most out of his brilliant cast while maintaining the urgency and mood throughout.

This play is extremely demanding on the performers.  Each one spends the majority of the time onstage, exiting only for lightning-fast costume changes.  Each one plays multiple roles, switching in an eye blink from one to the next.  Each one must hold up the flow and channel the overwhelming river of emotion that gushes through the piece.  John has assembled a cast who is adept at just that.

It is such an ensemble piece that it almost seems wrong to mention individual actors.  Jeff Lowe is excellent in each of his roles, from Doc the oddly philosophical limousine driver to Russell Henderson, one of the murderers, and even the disgusting Fred Phelps. Gregory Cesena shines as a local theater student, but plays all of his roles with conviction.

Theodore Lance does a wonderful job, particularly as the young man who found Shepard tied to the fence.  He also gives appropriate grace to the part of the local Catholic priest.  Tiffany Berg is very memorable, giving especially poignant notes as Reggie, the officer who responded to the emergency.  Probably the single most challenged member of the community, Berg’s portrayal showcases Reggie’s incredible kindness in a situation in which most of us would have lashed out in anger.

Jessica S. Runde’s portrayal of Reggie’s sassy mother is close to perfection and she excels in her other roles as well.  Joe Parrish handles his roles with incredible sensitivity.  The cast is rounded out by Jill Cary Martin and Meghan McCarthy, both of whom are riveting and honest in their roles.

In the end, the Laramie Project turned out to be just as transformative for the authors as it was for the town.  They healed each other.  The writers guided the locals through their pain, helped them face their shadow in a safe and supportive way, and brought them back to a place of healing.  Although they were resistant at first, the residents learned to trust these srangers, learned new things about themselves, and came to resolutions that helped the city move on with dignity.

Kaufman and his fellow project members also were healed.  They begin by making fun of the rural town, mocking the less-than-perfect grammar of the state’s welcome sign, and proudly announcing to a waitress that they are just passing through.  However, after many trips to Laramie and hundreds of interviews, they learn to love the place.  They see their own shadows while talking to these simple, honest people.  They confront and change their own assumptions. They are redeemed every bit as much as the town is.

Although Laramie centers around one specific incident and could easily become dated, the story is universal.  It is a rarity of theater: a play about real, living people attacking a real problem and finding wholeness by the end.  Its power is undeniable, and even sitting in the audience can be a healing experience.

 

 

 

 Posted by Tim at 7:33 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Into the Woods: the Movie

 culture, film, Stage  1 Response »
Jan 132012
 

The “Arts, Briefly” section of yesterday’s New York Times, compiled by Dave Itzkoff (Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, p. C3), announced that Rob Marshall (Oscar-nominated director for the film-version of Chicago) has signed a deal with Disney Studios to bring Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant musical send-up of classic Faerie-Tales Into the Woods to the big screen (James Lapine, Mr. Sondheim’s collaborator, is working on a script). Definitely among the best suited of the Sondheim oeuvre for screen-adaptation, Into the Woods was very prescient back in the ’80s, for looking forward to the Faerey-Tale Renaissance that we see today, both in television shows and in movie-treatments of well-loved Faerie-Stories. The show is both very cheeky and funny- as well as poignantly sad, and in the end, through the way of good theater- transcendent, in that it causes one to think about life differently. (The show seems a particular favorite of Tim’s, who has written about it here at the Juggler, most memorably in a piece relating 9/11 with the show’s lessons about the need to accept both loss and sorrow, with joy and hope, in Into the Woods on a Fateful Day). Done well, this could be a fantastic movie; no word yet on casting, although if Matthew Morrison is smart, his agent is already on this, because he would be really good as the Baker, and I expect that Catherine Zeta-Jones (Velma, from Mr. Marshall’s Chicago) would be very exciting as the Witch. For those who can’t wait for the movie-version, the original Broadway show was broadcast in 1991, preserving its many delights (not the least of which is Bernadette Peters’ slyly delicious performance as the Witch), making this treasure of a production available for viewing.

 Posted by zan at 6:55 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Twelfth Night

 culture, Stage  No Responses »
Jan 052012
 

No, cause seriously- back in the Old School Pagan Day, we would just be coming off the Twelve Days (or Nights) of the Christmas Season (or I guess, the Twelve Nights of the Solstice Season, as I guess they must have been known, in Days of Old): which originally were celebrated from Dec. 25 until Jan. 5- the Evening of which (the Twelfth Night) precedes the Twelfth Day- the Day of the Epiphany (or so you know, the Christian Folk would have it). Anyway, this was understood as such as period of merriment, and- more to the point- MISRULE (a specifically Pagan concept that means, to Turn the Accepted Norms UPSIDE-DOWN): thus the title of what some will argue counts as Mr. William Shakespeare’s finest comedy: Twelfth Night (which otherwise has no connection with the festival Holiday Twelfth Night- which concluded the Midwinter Celebration Season- other than its- supposed- performance date on Twelfth Night [c. 1601]).

Twelfth Night is unique of Shakespeare’s Canon- which in itself is unique in Elizabethan Literature for its fascination with Gender-Bending- for its Seriously Transgressive Take on the Fluidity of Gender-Identity, within any society. A shipwreck strands- in different spots- Twins Viola and her brother Sebastian (Twelfth Night is, like Comedy of Errors, one of Shakespeare’s Confusion-caused-by-Identical-Twins plays) on the Sea-Coast of Illyria, on the Eastern Adriatic. Viola, to protect herself, dresses herself as a boy- and therefore looks exactly like her twin-brother Sebastian, generating much Confusion and Merriment.

Participating in this Merry Confusion is Antonio, a Sea-Captain encountered on the “Sea-Coast,” who has rescued the beautiful young man Sebastian and is aggrieved to see him go in [Act 2, scene i]: “Will you stay no longer? Nor will you not that I go with you?- I do adore thee so, that danger shall seem sport, and I will go! [to Count Orsino's court, to seek news of Viola]” The moment when Antonio observes and pleads to Sebastian, “If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant” (1) reflects the kind-of curious way that Elizabethan men have of talking about their relationships with each other in terms of “love,” and (2) is really suggestive, if you consider that Elizabethan Sexual-Slang can encompass “murder me for my love” as “let me achieve orgasm, I am so hot for you.” For whatever reason (and the most modern take tends to be, Antonio is so Homoerotically, as in Brokeback Mountain-levels, Hot-Mad-in-Love-for Sebastian), he spends the rest of the play following him around in order to protect him, and in fact- resourceful guy whom one would wish on one’s side in an emergency- intervenes in a significant moment to assist Viola (disguised as a boy, therefore causing Antonio to believe that she is Sebastian).

Viola (in the meanwhile, disguised as a boy) has gotten herself taken on as a page in the court of Count Orsino- towards whom she begins to experience sexual desire- which perception he begins to signal back- making it all the more complicated that he believes that she is a male- giving their scenes a kicky Homoeroticism.

However: Count Orsino is also sending his new “page-boy” to woo, on his behalf, the beautiful Lady Olivia: who also finds herself drawn to, attracted by, desiring more of, this beguilingly gender-ambidexterous youth; Twelfth Night is a seriously Gay play, people, jumping from Male-for-Male Homoeroticism to Lesbian-Overtoned Homoeroticism, from one scene to the next. In any era, it would be remarkable for its appreciation of the wide range of Erotic Desires, and for its understanding of the Constructed Nature of Gender: never mind, for the Elizabethan.

Twelfth Night is also really significant for the Folklorist, and for the English Culture Pagan, for its reference (right on the cusp of the seventeenth century) to the English Wise-Woman tradition. Fearing that Malvolio, Lady Olivia’s butler (what we would call), is mad, Lady Olivia’s servant Fabian advises, “Carry his water to the Wise-Woman,” (Act 3, scene iv, line 114) meaning, Best carry his urine ["water," easily collected and transported in a chamber pot] to the local Wise-Woman: who was considered able to diagnose Bewitchment or Insanity from the condition of the subject’s urine.

Make of it What You Will (Shakespeare-joke, as the sub-title to Twelfth Night is What You Will): the play demonstrates the c. 1600 English Wise-Woman Tradition; gender-bending in Elizabethan Comedy; and the festive Merriment of the End of the Midwinter Celebration Season.

 

 Posted by zan at 1:48 am  Tagged with: ,

Pagans on Broadway:Dancing at Lughnasa

 culture, film, Stage  No Responses »
Dec 072011
 

“[I remember when my family got our first wireless radio in 1936] Because it arrived as August was about to begin, my Aunt Maggie- she was the joker of the family- she suggested we give it a name. She wanted to call it Lugh, after the old Celtic God of the Harvest. Because in the old days, August the First was La Lughnasa, the feast day of the pagan god, Lugh; and the days and weeks of harvesting that followed were called the Festival of Lughnasa. But Aunt Kate- she was a national schoolteacher and a very proper woman- she said it would be sinful to christen an inanimate object with any kind of name, not to talk of a pagan god. So we just called it Marconi because that was the name emblazoned on the set.”

Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa (which opened on Broadway in 1992, after playing in Ireland; the Irish Repertory Theater has revived it for the show’s first New York production since the Broadway run, performing it through Jan. 15, 2012) is perhaps the most important “Pagan” theater work of the twentieth century. Like a good play, Dancing is concerned on the surface with the very trivial in life- but ultimately is all about the tensions and exuberance of Life itself. In this case, life as it is lived by the five sisters of the Mundy family, outside of Ballybeg, County Donegal, Ireland, their Irish lives a pull between the strictures of Catholic piety and the wilder nature of their nation’s Celtic [Pagan] past. This sorority is led by elder sister Kate, who is something like the Mother Superior of the small “convent”: when Chris contemplates that she might start wearing lipstick, her sister Agnes cautions, “As long as Kate’s not around. ‘Do you want to make a pagan of yourself’?” “Pagan” in this work is everything banished by Catholic doctrine and decorum- specifically identified as dancing. When Maggie and Rose begin to jig in the kitchen, Agnes remarks dryly, “A right pair of pagans, the two of you.”

“Pagan” is also the wilder, more forbidden Festival of Lughnasa, celebrated in the back hills. “First they light a bonfire beside a spring well. Then they dance round it. Then they drive their cattle through the flames to banish the devil out of them.” However, when Agnes and Rose want to go to the dances of Lughnasa (“I want to dance, Kate. It’s the Festival of Lughnasa. I’m only thirty-five. I want to dance”), Kate will hear none of it. “They’re savages! I know those people from the back hills! I’ve taught them! Savages- that’s what they are! And what pagan practices they have are no concern of ours- none whatever! It’s a sorry day to hear talk like that in a Christian home, a Catholic home! All I can say is that I’m shocked and disappointed to hear you speaking rubbish like that, Rose!”

Dancing is something potentially dangerous; the play’s narrator is the out-of-wedlock child of Chris, who fell to passion with his father after they discovered that they danced well together, and there is talk of “the Sweeney boy,” who was so drunk at the Pagan revelry of Lughnasa that he fell into the fire and was badly burned. Yet dancing represents such primal passion, Maggie is compelled at one point to spread a white mask of flour over her face and break out into a defiantly exuberant Irish jig (I saw the Broadway production in ’92 and remember the startling effect of this vivid moment).

That the “Pagan” is something that goes beyond Celtic-Catholic Irish culture is shown by the sisters’ brother Jack, a missionary priest who has returned from working with the “Pagans” of Uganda. He has so much trouble re-assimilating, he finds himself grasping for English words he should know well, and gradually begins to reveal that perhaps he was returned home because he became a little too assimilated to the Indigenous practices of the Ugandans; he talks about the “ceremonies” they would perform, offering sacrifice to Obi, “our Great Goddess of the Earth, so that the crops will flourish.” He describes “getting in touch” with the departed ancestors, the spirits of the tribe, and the Festivals of the New Yam and the Sweet Casava, both dedicated to the Goddess Obi. “Then the incantation- a chant, really- that expresses our gratitude and that also acts as a rhythm or a percussion for the ritual dance. And then, when the thanksgiving is over, the dance continues. And the interesting thing is that it grows naturally into a secular celebration; so that almost imperceptibly the religious ceremony ends and the community celebration takes over. We light fires around the periphery of the circle; and we paint our faces with colored powders; and then we dance- and dance- and dance.”

However, because these are not “Christian ceremonies,” Kate is horrified by her brother. Although she comes to determine that he is on his “own distinctive spiritual search” (and are not we all each on our “own distinctive spiritual search”?), she demands that such talk never go beyond their home. “Leaping around a fire and offering a little hen to Oka or Ito or whoever is not religion as I was taught it or indeed know it.”

Yet the urge towards primal passion, towards dancing at Lughnasa, towards the Pagan- remains so strong that the narrator (looking back upon this Irish summer of 1936) recalls his family as dancing: “Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement- as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary.”

If you lack opportunity to see this work on the stage, Dancing at Lughnasa was made into a movie in 1998 with Meryl Streep.

 Posted by zan at 7:01 pm  Tagged with: , ,

The Spirit of A Christmas Carol

 books, culture, Stage  1 Response »
Dec 052011
 

Here in southern California, we have a Tony award-winning regional theater called South Coast Repertory.  SCR has been around since 1963 and has been the strongest force in local theater for almost as long.  They seem to have found the perfect balance of performing crowd-pleasing classics while also developing experimental theater, young writers, and children’s theater.

 

But there is one thing that SCR is known for above all others – even more than the Tony statue on display in the lobby.  SCR has been mounting a brilliant and moving adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for 32 years.  While stage and film adaptations of Scrooge’s journey are a dime a dozen, there really is something truly special about this one.  Generations of children have come to see the show, and they are now sharing the experience with their own children.  For many local families, the Holiday season does not begin until they see the show.

 

Much has changed over the years, as it should.  Various actors offer different interpretations of their characters, new sequences are added while old ones are removed, and new technical effects give more life to the story.  However, the heart of the play has never changed.  The same actor has been playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge for the past 32 years (Hal Landon, Jr., who you may know as Ted’s father in the Bill and Ted movies).  He has had exactly one director the entire time.

 

In the past, SCR’s show had to compete with the The Glory of Christmas, a lavish Nativity musical performed at the Crystal Cathedral.  It involved live camels and flying angels, all in the church’s opulent sanctuary.  Now, the Crystal Cathedral is bankrupt and A Christmas Carol is still going strong.

 

What keeps people coming back?  With all the bright lights and distractions of the season, with live theater less and less a part of community life, what brings audiences back to this classic tale of redemption year after year?  Perhaps it is the same reason many Pagans continue to celebrate on the 25th:  Christmas is not just a day in December.  Christmas is not just a Christian holiday.  Christmas is a living, breathing spirit.

There is nothing about the birth of Christ in this Christmas classic.  True to Dickens’ style, it is a story of people living difficult lives. We see charwomen selling their stolen goods on the streets. We see families huddled together desperately against the cold threatened with eviction.  We see poor Bob Cratchit, working himself to the bone while he struggles to feed his children.  In counterpoint, there is Scrooge – one who has everything but hoards it, a man who has lost his heart and is in jeopardy of losing soul along with it.  Dickens’ London is teeming with what he later calls humanity’s two greatest evils: Want and Ignorance.  Not exactly what the little kid behind me expected from a Christmas show.

 

But as Scrooge faces his shadow and slowly transforms into a kind, generous soul, we learn where he went wrong.  We see the times in his life where transformation occurred.  With the help of his spirit guides, we watch as he travels into the darkness and into the light.  His guides help him see where he lost his spirit and help him rekindle it.

 

Scrooge finds that there is more to the holiday he so despises than money and gifts.  There is a shared camaraderie, a connection to humanity, a joy in life that he never had despite his wealth.  What good is money, he realizes, if it just sits around helping no one.  Conversely, he finds that the poorest people have more in life than he does.

 

Society seems to be in a search for meaning this time of year.  Commercials pound the need to spend into our heads; shopping malls beckon with their twinkly lights and promise happiness in a box.  We complain about these things every year, but still get lured to Black Fridays that start on Thursday.  Deal-crazed consumers pepper spray fellow customers just to get to whatever trinket they need this year.  This search will never end until, as a society, we learn what Scrooge learns: gifts come from the heart, not the wallet.

 

Here’s an example.  Another of our local institutions is the “Charlie Brown House.”  For 40 years, owner Jim Jordan brought love, joy, and holiday cheer to families all over the area.  He created an annual Christmas display of beautifully crafted, whimsical Charlie Brown-themed sets.  All around the front of the corner home were moving scenes of a Peanuts band, Woodstock skiing, characters throwing snowballs at each other, Charlie and Lucy ice skating (with hapless Charlie Brown tripping halfway through), and teams of Woodstock-like birds playing hockey.  On the other side of the home were humorous scenes of elves making toys and reindeer preparing for their big flight.

 

Throughout December, crowds gathered nightly around the home.  A live Santa came each night to a waiting throng of children who stood patiently in line to get their lap time. The guest book included signatures and messages from the same people going back for decades, all of which described the joy they get by coming back every year.

 

Last Tuesday, Wells Fargo foreclosed on the house.  The set pieces were too big to be moved, so they may have to just be dumped.

 

First Act Scrooge would be happy that his riches kept him from the same fate.  He would say that if the owner spent less time with foolishness and more time with business, he would still have his home.  Second Act Scrooge realizes that Jordan’s 40 years of bringing cheer to the hearts of both children and adults makes him the richer man by far.  This is the spirit of A Christmas Carol.  I think this is what people are searching for.

 

I think that’s why people come back.  They want to be reminded of the spirit of the season, separate from religion and consumerism.  They want a break from the consumer madness.  Pagans may even need a break from the “my god was born before your god” debate.  They want the heart of the season, unattached to its baggage of churches and department stores.  This season, let’s cast off Marley’s chain (and his pepper spray) and enjoy the spirit of the season.

 Posted by Tim at 1:16 am  Tagged with: , , ,
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