Myths on Stage: Unwanted Truths

"What is a myth? The oblique image of an unwanted truth, reverberating through time. And yet, the first, the Greek meaning of myth, is simply what is delivered by word of mouth, a myth is speech, public speech."
~ Timberlake Wertenbaker, The Love of the Nightingale

Red Tape Theatre held our Myths on Stage panel on May 16, 2010. Chicago artists who'd recently directed, dramaturged or adapted fresh adaptations of Greek myths shared their experience.

Gender politics were a common theme. Marti Lyons, dramaturge for The Love of the Nightingale, asked the audience to consider why some stories stay in our culture while others fade. Sociologists have suggested that destructive women like Medea, Electra and Phaedra are given more stage time today than victims of injustice like Iphigenia or Philomele. Timberlake Wertenbaker's script for Nightingale brings the sexual politics of the Philomele myth to the forefront as she and the women’s chorus repeatedly reject the men’s attempts to turn them into objects.

In a contrasting case Tim Speicher, Artistic Director of The State Theatre, combined the well remembered story of the martyr Antigone with the lesser known story of the fallen warrior Ajax. The stories were linked with the theme of burying the dead and what one does with the bodies of the disgraced. Dramaturge Sarah Sapperstein played the role of the Chorus in AjaxAntigone (pictured) as a single entity. In a time when Greek women were silent the Chorus was given the power to debate and challenge the political figures on stage.

The motive for retelling the myth was different for each panelist. For Thomas Murray's production of Living Quarters: After Hippolytus the myth was a gateway into a personal story of recovery from grief. For Cory Tamler the story of Iphigenia offered a lens onto a "What If" scenario" for contemporary US politics. For Tim Speicher there were universal truths to explore: "When audiences see characters who try to accomplish something they attach to them."

"But we cannot rephrase it for you. If we could, why would we trouble to show you the myth?"
~ Timberlake Wertenbaker, The Love of the Nightingale

The Love of the Nightingale is Jeff Recommended and runs through May 29.
Get your tickets through our website!

Myths on Stage: Time and Place

Red Tape Theatre held our "Myths on Stage" panel on May 16, 2010. Chicago artists who'd recently directed, dramaturged or adapted fresh adaptations of Greek myths shared their stories.

Jeremy Menekseoglu, Artistic Director of Dream Theatre, was relieved by the lack of "columns and togas" in the featured productions. Dream's Electra (running through June 6), the centerpiece of their Agon Trilogy, aims to break audience barriers the instant the door opens. A death-day party kicks off for the late king Agamemnon, with the king's head as a centerpeace. Jeremy added that audiences come to Greek tragedy's "knowing how it will end." Dream's adaptations find the surprises before the endings and examine the characters psychology through a modern lens.

Time and Place was universal for The State Theatre's mash-up of AjaxAntigone. They were very specific for Cory Tamler's Effie which set Iphigenia in a post-apocolyptic U.S.A. and for Thomas Murray's production of Bryan Friel's Living Quarters: after Hippolytus set in modern Ireland.

The State Theatre's dramaturge, Sarah Sapperstein, stated that Greek myths offer us countless ways to retell them for our own use and relevance. Tamler's Effie shifted the focus of Iphigenia from the father to the daughter. Friel's Living Quarters uses the Hippolytus myth as an entry point, focusing on the families attempts to heal in the aftermath. The same story can be told through a new perspective, whether to focus on politics, gender, family or passion.

Electra runs at Dream Theatre through June 6.

Red Tape's The Love of the Nightingale is Jeff Recommended.

We run through May 29.

Get your tickets through our website.

Myths on Stage: Meet Panelist Tim Speicher

Myths on Stage

Sunday, May 16

following the 3:00pm matinee of The Love of the Nightingale.

Paul G. Miller hosts a panel of Chicago artists who discuss the process of adapting Greek myths to the modern stage.

Panelists include:

Marti Lyons - Dramaturge, The Love of the Nightingale at Red Tape

Jeremy Menekseoglu - Artistic Director, Dream Theatre Company.

Thomas Murray - Director, Strangeloop Theatre.

Sarah Sapperstein - Dramaturge.

Cory Tamler - Playwright.

and:

Tim Speicher - Artistic Director, The State Theatre. Tim holds a B.A. in Theatre and Drama from Indiana University. He has directed A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Island (Indiana University) Immigrant Stories (Chicago Children's Theatre at Jane Addams Hull House), Moby Dick... Rehearsed and AjaxAntigone (The State Theatre), was Company Manager and appeared as Alonso in The African Tempest Project (Hexagon Theatre, Kwazula Natal, South Africa) and Assistant Directed The Red Kite Project (Chicago Children's Theatre). He has written Southern Hopitality, Crowbar, Thirty-Eight, Heat in the Kitchen and now AjaxAntigone. Tim had internships with Indiana Repertory Theatre and Goodman Theatre, a fellowship with American Theatre Company, and is currently employed as the Marketing Associtate for Chicago Children's Theatre.

The Love of the Nightingale is Jeff Recommended!

We run May 3-29.
Get your tickets through our website.

Myths on Stage: Meet Panelist Sarah Sapperstein

Myths on Stage
Sunday, May 16,

following the 3:00pm matinee of The Love of the Nightingale.

Paul G. Miller hosts a panel of Chicago directors and playwrights who discuss the process of adapting Greek myths to the modern stage.

Panelists include:
Marti Lyons - Dramaturge, The Love of the Nightingale at Red Tape

Jeremy Menekseoglu - Artistic Director, Dream Theatre Company

Thomas Murray - Director, Strangeloop Theatre

Tim Speicher – Artistic Director, State Theatre

Cory Tamler - Playwright

and:

Sarah Sapperstein, Dramaturge. Sarah holds a dual degree in musical theatre and Classicaland Near Eastern language, literature, and archaeology from the Univ.of Redlands, in southern California. Her academic focuses includecosmogony, archaeological representations of literary figures, comparative text analysis and translation bias, and contemporary retellings of Classical drama and epic. Since 2005, Sarah has been apart of over 30 theatre and musical theatre projects and premieresthroughout Chicagoland, and performed in Univ. of Detroit's productionof The Bacchae on their 2009 summer tour of Greece. In hernon-existent free time, Sarah enjoys road trips, culinary adventure,and healthcare advocacy.

Sarah will be discussing her work with AjaxAntigone at The State Theatre.

The Love of the Nightingale is Jeff Recommended!

It runs May 3-29.

Get your tickets through our website.

Myths on Stage: Meet Panelist Cory Tamler

Myths on Stage
Sunday, May 16


following the 3:00pm matinee of The Love of the Nightingale.





Paul G. Miller hosts a panel of Chicago directors and playwrights who discuss the process of adapting Greek myths to the modern stage.


Panelists include:
Marti Lyons - Dramaturge, The Love of the Nightingale at Red Tape

Jeremy Menekseoglu - Artistic Director, Dream Theatre Company


Thomas Murray - Director, Strangeloop Theatre

Sarah Sapperstein - Dramaturge

Tim Speicher – Artistic Director, State Theatre

and:
Cory Tamler. Cory Tamler has been Chicago-based since November 2009, where her playwriting projects include Eighty-Four in Collaboraction's Sketchbook X (coming in June!), Effie (a new ensemble-created adaptation of Iphigenia) with The Neapolitans, and the 2010 Fresh Eyes Project with Red Tape Theatre. She hails from Pittsburgh, where her produced work includes The Funeral, a one-act based on Euripides' The Trojan Women, with the Pittsburgh New Works Festival. Cory will be spending the summer in Maine working as the resident playwright on a collaboration between Open Waters Theatre Arts and three local farms, and will then head to Berlin for a year on a Fulbright scholarship to study the text/performance relationship in German theatre.

Effie, a retelling of Euripides' Iphigenia, runs April 22-May 9. What if peace could be guaranteed by the sacrifice of one human life? What if the life were yours?




Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays @ 7:30pm, Sundays @ 3:00pm at the EP Theater.


The Love of the Nightingale is Jeff Recommended!
It runs May 3-29.
Get your tickets through our website.

Myths on Stage: Meet Panelist Thomas Murray

Myths on Stage
Sunday, May 16,

following the 3:00pm matinee of The Love of the Nightingale.



Paul G. Miller hosts a panel of Chicago directors and playwrights who discuss the process of adapting Greek myths to the modern stage.



Panelists include:
Marti Lyons - Dramaturge, The Love of the Nightingale at Red Tape

Jeremy Menekseoglu - Artistic Director, Dream Theatre Company


Cory Tamler – Playwright

Sarah Sapperstein - Dramaturge

Tim Speicher – Artistic Director, State Theatre



and:
Thomas Murray. Thomas is a Chicago-based director and literary adaptor.
His directing has been featured at Strangeloop Theatre (Living Quarters, Welcome to the Moon, The El Stories), City Lit Theatre (The Wall-Reader), and the Minnetrista Cultural Center (Shedtown). He has assisted on productions with Next, Seanachai,The Gift, A Red Orchid, Noble Fool, and Steppenwolf.



Thomas has delivered research on the Emerging Scholars Panel at the Mid-America Theatre Conference and was selected by Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune to represent the Great Lakes region in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Critics’ Competition.
Original adaptations have included The El Stories, The Wall-Reader (finalist, Art of Adaptation Festival), Carpathia, and Cruel and Barbarous Treatment. His essays on theatre have been published by Steppenwolf Backstage magazine, Ball State Daily News, and the Kennedy Center-American College Theatre Festival.



Thomas will be discussing his work wiht Living Quarters after Hippolytus. First produced by Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1977, Living Quarters recasts the mythology of Theseus, Hippolytus, and Phaedra into an isolated Donegal homestead. Commandant Frank Butler returns home to Ireland as a hero after saving nine United Nations peacekeepers from enemy fire during a siege in the Middle East. But the revelation of secrets kept while Frank was away threatens to divide the Butler house forever.



The Love of the Nightingale runs May 3-29.


Get your tickets through our website.

Myths on Stage: Meet Panelist Jeremy Menekseoglu

Myths on Stage
Sunday, May 16

following the 3:00pm matinee of The Love of the Nightingale.

Paul G. Miller hosts a panel of Chicago directors and playwrights who discuss the process of adapting Greek myths to the modern stage.





Panelists include:
Marti Lyons - Dramaturge, The Love of the Nightingale at Red Tape

Thomas Murray – Director, Strangeloop Theatre


Cory Tamler – Playwright

Sarah Sapperstein - Dramaturge

Tim Speicher – Artistic Director, State Theatre



and:
Jeremy Menekseoglu. Jeremy is the Artistic Director of Dream Theatre Company and the playwright of eight Modern Greek plays: AGAMEMNON, ELECTRA, ORESTES, MEDEA, ANTIGONE, ISMENE, THE CLOUDS and LYSYSTRATA. Dream Theatre Company is currently in the midst of his AGON TRILOGY which covers Agamemnon, Electra and Orestes. It has already been called "a small, stunning portrait of power dynamics in a relationship that by turns echoes those between Edward Albee's George and Martha, Orson Welles's Charles and Susan Kane, and Sophocles's Antigone and Creon. Oh, and Jean Cocteau's Belle and Bete, too. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED" --Tony Adler, Chicago Reader. And “As a first installment, Agamemnon is a harbinger of good things to come. It will certainly be exciting to watch as Menekseoglu steers the Dream ensemble through the next two plays of his Agon Trilogy.” -Ian Epstein, Chicago Theatre Blog.



The Love of the Nightingale runs May 3-29.


Get your tickets through our website.