Cuban Theater Digital Archive

Notes:

There are two essays in this section: Harrison Hill's "The Season: Promotional Materials," and Maurya Scanlon's "Overview of the Signature Season Dedicated to María Irene Fornés."

The Season: Promotional Materials

(This essay was composed by Harrison Hill as part of an advanced seminar on Maria Irene Fornes held in the Department of Drama, New York University, Spring 2008.)

     In keeping with its vision of the centrality of the playwright, Signature put Fornes in main focus for virtually all of the advertising and promotional materials surrounding the three productions. Window cards, fliers, pamphlets, and programs all used the same picture of Fornes—a somewhat eerie close-up—as the background for all text and information. Depending on the ad, the picture profiled one side of her face, or from just below her nose to her forehead. Her dark, shiny eyes are clearly the focus. They are at once piercing and detached; focused and observant.

     Materials printed in color evoke Fornes’ Cuban heritage in shades of tropical green. The bold, all caps text advertising a play or the season sits either between Fornes’ eyes, or just to the left of the shot. The effect of this campaign—big letters, green hues, furtive eyes—is one of foreboding and mystery. The plays in store might not be cheery, they seem to say, but are you willing to risk something and go there?

     Most materials make it a point to extol the quality of Fornes’ writing, perhaps out of a need to convince potential playgoers that this writer should be seen, even if she is less well known. The quotes are remarkably fervent: “Fornes is awe-inspiring,” (Wall Street Journal); “Irene Fornes can write circles around most playwrights working today. She is the real deal, believe you me!” (Sam Shepard); “The truest poet of the American Theatre” (Village Voice); “America has produced no dramatist of greater importance than Maria Irene Fornes” (Tony Kushner).

     The Fall 1999 printing of “Signature Edition,” one of the theater’s publications, introduces Fornes to its audience. A short bio and an overview of her work fill the front page, and Artistic Director James Houghton justifies his choice of Fornes by explaining that she is an “extremely important writer who has been neglected to a certain degree—an important American voice that has been unacknowledged.” It is an explanation representative of Signature’s entire campaign, a campaign centered around the mystery in Fornes’ writing, and the mystery of Fornes herself. 

Overview of the Signature Season Dedicated to María Irene Fornés 

(This essay was composed by Maurya Scanlon as part of an advanced seminar on María Irene Fornés

held in the Department of Drama, New York University, Spring 2008.) 

     The Signature is renowned for dedicating each of its seasons to one American playwright. This institution has staged seasons focusing on the work of Edward Albee, Sam Shepard and Arthur Miller and others -- mostly mainstream playwrights. When asked how the company chose María Irene Fornés for the 1999-2000 season, dramaturge Beth Whitaker stated, “traditionally Signature has featured the work of an established playwright with an extensive body of work for each season, and so Irene is definitely one of those people.” She went onto explain that Irene was chosen “in the hopes of exposing her work to people who may not know it already” (Whitaker interview; click for complete transcript). The Signature chose to focus on Fornés’ later work from the 1980s and 1990s. When questioned about the particular play choices, Whitaker added: 

Part of our mission and tradition at Signature [which] is to not necessarily do the best known plays of a particular writer...[but to]…add to the audience’s knowledge. In the case of Irene, since her work was not necessarily as well known to some of the audiences that we might be reaching, we picked ‘Mud’ as kind of a quintessential play of hers, if such a thing exists…And the play “Drowning,” which is a one act play, that we did as sort of a companion piece...“Mud” is about an hour long and so it’s not totally a full evening, and so we felt like it would be nice to have something else and that was a chance to show another aspect of her work. 

     “Mud,” focuses on the insular lives of one woman and two men: Mae, Lloyd and Henry. They live in an earthy, dirty room; Fornés ingrains them with only the most primal human needs. There are only mentions of the outside world in the dialogue. Mae wishes to better herself by learning to read and as a result is seduced by Henry, who is barely literate. He replaces Lloyd as Mae’s bedfellow. Lloyd is indeed pushed aside with the arrival of Henry, yet the three remain living together, even after Henry has a stroke leaving both of them completely dependent on Mae. In the Signature’s production, directed by David Esbjornson with detailed “in-put” by Fornés, Mae (played by Diedre O’Connell), Lloyd (played by Paul Lazar), and Henry (played by John Seitz) live in a world described by Paul Lazar as “intentionally left…as a suggestion of a room” (Lazar interview). Such a set, created by Christine Jones, is characteristic of some of Fornés’ other work – it is rough and blunt. “Mud,” with its simple dialogue is a prime example of sparseness in her writing. Through such sparseness, she introduces monumental themes such as that which opens the play: a conversation on education. Lloyd opens the play questioning the purpose of education: 

Lloyd: You think you learn a lot at school? 

Mae: I do. 

Lloyd: What do you learn? 

Mae: Subjects. 

Lloyd: What is subjects? 

Mae: Different things… 

Lloyd: Don’t talk back to me. I’ll kick your ass. 

Mae: Fuck you, Lloyd. I’m telling you about arithmetic and you talk to me like that? You’re a moron. I won’t tell you anything. (Mud 17, MIFP). 

     Paul Lazar says of this opening dialogue, “I know what was hard. That was one of the few times when I really talk about an abstract thing like school learning. It’s usually about “get me this,” or “I can’t do that.” “I want this.” On the page, Lloyd opens talking about something abstract, something that does not really involve him, but as the play continues his worries and impulses get to be more basic and self-centered. Paul Lazar goes on to describe his character as, “the goofball. He’s [Mae’s] husband, but he’s a… syphilitic, semi-crazy, sort of retarded, charming, charming guy.” 

     Ultimately, Mae’s only escape from the dirty, unsatisfying life she’s leading is through her own death. The grotesque circumstances under which Mae lives and dies won “Mud” its slot as the “quintessential Fornés play” at the Signature. For the most part, it was well received (see Hill, “Mud” and “Drowning”: The Critical Response). Peter Marks of the New York Times titled his review, “An Adventure in Following One Writer’s Work” (1999) and stated that “[t]he crumbling world in which [Mae] slaves… is the nightmare domain of martyred women everywhere.” Such a review views her failure to survive through a prism of feminism. Fornés, notorious for despising categorizing her plays, would most likely say no and yes to the plays feminist content and has done so at different times. What is ultimately important, I believe, are the personal reactions to the material and what each individual takes away from that experience. Knowing the play intimately and Irene’s aversion to categorizing “Mud,” Lazar reflects on the meaning of the play to him: “Mae has a right to anything she wants, so I can see how Irene would be very reluctant to call it feminist because it limits the scope of the play…I think it’s more universal than that.” 

     Sharing the bill with “Mud” was “Drowning:” a 20-minute play to complete the night of theatre. “Drowning,” written in 1985, is the story of two grotesque figures, who according to Marks, look like “tuskless walruses,” (1999) named Pea and Roe. They sit at a table talking. Through their conversation, we discover that Pea falls in love with a picture of a woman in the newspaper and has his heart broken when she rejects him in disgust due to his “oily, splotchy skin, which undulates in massive folds around [his jaw] and shoulders” (Marks). Reviews of this play vary. In Michael Feingold’s article “Entertainment Centering” in the October 12, 1999 issue of The Village Voice, he states, “The disquiet at the end [of ‘Drowning’] comes from an effect achieved by author and director in harmony.” His review is foiled by John Simon’s article “Upstairs, Downstairs” published in New York Magazine just a day before which says, “Drowning is very short, totally nonsensical, and certifiably affectless.” In my research, this has been the only negative review of this show. Most supported Fornés for carrying her bizarre theatre from the 60s Off-Off Broadway movement into the present. And while “Drowning” was written in the 80s, it still carries the spirit of alienation and fascination that is characteristic of Fornés’ work. When asked for her reaction to Simon’s article, Whitaker states, “I would agree that it’s short, and I would agree that it’s certainly nonsensical, not completely nonsensical, but I found it, and I know many other people did as well, incredibly affecting, almost devastatingly so.” Part of Irene’s genius is that her work creates a dialogue. 

     If “Mud” is in fact a quintessential play of Fornés’ what does “Drowning” have to gain by being paired with it? How does the pairing increase our understanding of both? “Mud” is the story of three humans trapped in their circumstances, whereas “Drowning” is the story of the heartbreak of a non-human, gelatinous blob. Perhaps in both we see heartbreak in the absence of the fulfillment of a basic need for love. 

     The second production of Fornés’ at the Signature was “Enter the Night,” which ran from November 23 – December 19, 1999, under the direction of Sonja Moser. “Enter the Night,” is a story of three people: two women and one man. Tressa is a nurse to the elderly (played by Rebecca Harris), Jack is a young gay playwright (played by Dallas Roberts), and Paula is their friend suffering from heart complications (played by Barbara Tarbuck). The play takes place in Tressa’s loft. It consists of Tressa and Paula trying to convince Jack that he did not infect and kill his lover with HIV/AIDS, because he is clean. Also, Paula admits her financial problems are affecting her farm. In the play, they reenact a scene from “Broken Blossoms,” and the soundtrack from “Lost Horizon” is heard. Jack gets angry, leaves and returns beat-up for the ending tableau reminiscent of the Pieta. 

     Fortunately, I was able to review many versions of the script, dating back to 1993, courtesy of Eduardo Machado and INTAR. While the plot may be more linear than much of Fornés’ work, I found it fascinating that the Signature would stage a play that was not as easily accessible as the others. Fortunately, Beth Whitaker had worked closely on “Enter the Night,” and she was able to provide some clarity on this choice: “‘Enter the Night,’” she said, “was a play that was wildly different from “Mud” and was also something that [Fornés]… was still interested in working on some more, and I don’t think it had ever been done in New York at the time” (Scanlon and Hill interview). If the Signature’s purpose was to present an array of Fornés’ work, and thereby demonstrate her versatility, they certainly accomplished this goal with “Enter the Night”. 

     The fascination I felt with Irene’s work and its formal reception paled in comparison to witnessing a recorded version of the Signature’s final production “Letters from Cuba.” In the advertisements for “Letters from Cuba,” the play was referred to as “The World Premier.” (Ephemera and documentation is available at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.) It did not yet have a title. Beth Whitaker explained why: “Our hope is to always do a new play by our writers, and so we basically said, ‘Write us a new play’ for the new slot.” In writing this play for the Signature, Fornés used her “found object” method that served her well in the past. For “Letters,” she used letters from her brother who remained in Cuba when she and her mother immigrated to the United States in 1945. According to Whitaker, she “[combined] these letters from her brother with her own experience of when she was first living in New York in the 60s and finding her way as an artist and the people that were around her.” 

     Having seen the production on tape, it is easy to sense the sentimental value of the show. The staging is fascinating. The roof of a house in Cuba is over the apartment where the three roommates live (one of whom corresponds with her brother who remains “upstairs” in Cuba). It is as if her brother is literally on top of her mind, or is always looking over her. The set up adds more feeling to the dialogue, which basically makes “Letters” the most obviously personal play that Irene has written and directed. Yet if someone had been exposed to “Letters” before having read any of her earlier things, not only would they not fully grasp Irene’s genius, but they also would get a distorted preview of what the rest of her body of work is like. Its critical reception suggested that ultimately Fornés received mainstream recognition for her unwavering sense of art. In conclusion, the Signature maintained the purity of her work, approached it without judgment and provided a gift to the theatre-going public. 

Works Cited 

Bruckner, D.J.R.. “Mortality Without Morbidity; [Review]” The New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast). New York, N.Y.: Dec. 13, 1999. Pg. E.5 

Feingold, Michael. “Entertainment centering.” Rev. of “Mud” by María Irene Fornés. The Signature Theatre. The Village Voice [New York] 12 Oct. 1999, Iss. 40, Vol. 44. American Drama. 

Fornés, María Irene. "Mud." In María Irene Fornés Plays. Eds. Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dasgupta. New York City: PAJ Publications, 1986. 17-40. 

---. Enter the Night. INTAR, New York, NY, 1993. N. p. 

---. “Enter the Night.” In What of the Night?: Selected Plays, edited by Bonnie Marranca. New York City: PAJ Publications, 2008. 

---. "Letters From Cuba." In Letters from Cuba and Other Plays. New York City: PAJ Publications, 2007. 8-34. 

Hill, William Harrison. “‘Mud’ and ‘Drowning’: The Critical Response.” 

Lazar, Paul. Interview with William Harrison Hill. Rec. 2 May 2008, New York. 

“Letters from Cuba.” Video recording and production ephemera. Billy Rose Collection, New York Public Library. 

Marks, Peter. “An Adventure in Following One Writer’s Work; [Review].” The New York Times [New York] 27 Sep. 1999, pg. E.5. American Drama. 

Solomon, Alisa. “Mud and desire.” The Village Voice [New York] 21 Sep. 1999, Vol. 44, Iss. 37. Pg. 51. American Drama. 

Whitaker, Beth. Interview with William Harrison Hill and Maurya Scanlon. 9 May 2008. 

Productions: +

	Title	Director	Venue	Date range
	Drowning (Mud and)	David Esbjornson	The Peter Norton Space (United States)	2000
	Letters from Cuba	María Irene Fornés	The Peter Norton Space (United States)	February 8, 2000 - March 5, 2000
	Mud and Drowning	David Esbjornson	The Peter Norton Space (United States)	September 14, 1999 - October 10, 1999

Venues: +

	Title	City	Country
	The Peter Norton Space	New York, New York	United States