Issue #14 – Storytelling
ISSUE #14: Storytelling
This week in MUSE I delve into the sister crafts of writing and storytelling.
CONTENTS:
• Emily and Me, part II
• Prisoners
• The Play’s The Thing
• Pliny’s Villa
NEWS AND NOTES:
Recommended: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R.W. Franklin, Belknap/Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London England, 1999.
Select reviews of favorite theatrical productions:
• ARCADIA
• MARAT/SADE
• SWEENEY TODD
• THE MOORS
• PETER AND WENDY
• THE FAIRYTALE LIVES OF RUSSIAN GIRLS
Credits:
Cover image: “Old Typewriter”, unattributed
Photos: Courtesy of Bruce Wujcik
Emily and Me, part II
The Emily Dickinson seminar – The Incredible Brightness of Being (given by Mark Scarbrough, at the Gunn Memorial Library in Washington, Connecticut) – is over now, and there is so much still to ponder, to appreciate and revel in. Bits and pieces of poems and background, philosophy and technique float through my every day since, sparking reflections, discussions, and work. The titles of Mark’s lectures tease a multitude of starting points: I -The Soul Selects Her Own Society;
Prisoners
Theater – as all the narrative arts do – realizes an outward existence of our internal dramas, enabling us to see them clearly, and to meaningfully experience the feelings we have about our own like struggles. The very purpose of original Greek dramatic form was to facilitate catharsis for the audience, an evocation of emotion which relied on resonance with the characters and their moral, existential trials. A cleansing purge allowed the lessons of the story to be received,
The Play’s The Thing
The epitome of storytelling genres is The Theater, where words, objects, persons, art, and music are fashioned into a sense-engulfing parade-display-embodiment of narrative, sign, symbol, and meaning. I find it always a delicious treat. At its most exalted theater is a soul-filling experience, an enrichment, transfiguring and mesmerizing. And of course, the perfect assemblage of all of my favorite pursuits – art and design congruent, coherent with metaphor, philosophy, words, and song.
My favorites (mostly seen on or off Broadway,
Pliny’s Villa
Playwrights give some direction regarding settings, accessories, and the placement and movement of people, but most of the visual nature of a play is left unsaid. Interpretation, and then realization of the physical aspects of a production are left to set designers, costumers, and prop departments. It is quite a creative challenge to evoke the world of a play from dialogue alone.
It can be a fun and challenging design exercise, too. My Scholar Garden (published in Issue 13 of MUSE) was invented from a description,
