Recently at Chautauqua I heard an interview with two young playwrights that contained many elements of what Mary Ellen is teaching us through this website. One was Kate Hamill, the playwright of the year in 2017, who adapts classic plays into brand new dramas that tell stories through a modern feminist lens. She noted that previous adaptations have relegated women to supporting roles even when they are the focus of the story. “Men have a millennium-long head start on owning the classics. I really want to reclaim these narratives for everyone, for all genders.”
The other was a young male,, who presented a natural counterpart to her. When asked about his muses, he mentioned famous women poets, including Maryanne Moore and Gertrude Stein. His debut play, “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” imagined Nora returning to her family years later as a feminist novelist seeking divorce.
Here are some highlights of Hamill’s comments:
“Theater is an old religious ritual where people gather for catharsis--the audience’s heartbeats even begin to beat in synchronization. In church when people gather, they share similar beliefs; in the theater, you don’t know who’s coming in. I wanted to create a little female-centered narrative similar to a religious experience. “
“I was tired of auditioning and seeing 400 women there all trying to be the next wife, girl friend or prostitute in the next production. No lead parts! One female for every 10 male roles. I love the classics, but in Shakespeare the ration is 1 to 16. So I thought…someone should write a female classic play, but no one will. Shoot, I’ll have to do it myself.” (This seems to me to illustrate the need for masculine energy to support the feminine. Pat)
“My adaptation is not cut and paste—it has to stand alone as a piece of art. Sense and Sensibility was my first play, so I had to ask, ‘What does it mean to me? What is the central question?’ I decided it was how to respond to social pressures--to along with the rules or break them. It’s a collaboration between me and a currently dead author. I read the play, take notes, research—I’m doing the Scarlett Letter now so I’m researching cults which the Puritans were. Then I write, weave in dialogue from the books—meet the author where they are.”
“I love the theatricality of acting. Put on a hat and be a different character—this happens in some of my staging. Let the audience’s imagination fill in the holes. I talk about ‘speed of thought’—I’m a fast speaker—I have characters talk at ‘the speed of thought.’ If you speak before you take time to think it over, ”
“It’s easy to be cynical these days, be prejudiced against viewpoints—e.g. ‘That Claudius is a real jerk’. But we can all be jerks—develop empathy, put yourself in someone else’s skin.”
Here’s a quote from and a link to an article about Kate. https://www.americantheatre.org/2017/11/20/kate-hamill-from-stage-to-page-and-back-again/
Creating dynamic female characters is the whole attraction of this new career for Hamill. “I started writing plays because I was so frustrated about the dearth of female-centric stories, and I was just seeing female artists drop out of the business all around me,” she laments. “Not only actors, but directors and designers.” She might have followed the same road before her Austen-spiration.
“I think some part of me was always waiting for permission or approval so that I could be designated that I could do this,” she admits. “Turns out, of course, women are conditioned to wait for permission—and we should just, like, not.”
Surely Jane would approve.