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Ellen Stewart
La Mama of Us All Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021
1. Ellen Stewart with playwrights Leonard Melfi, Paul Foster, Tom O’Horgan, and Kevin O’Connor at Brandeis University, 1967. (Courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive)
Cindy Rosenthal
Cindy Rosenthal is Associate Professor at Hofstra University where she teaches theatre, performance, and women’s studies. She is coeditor, with James Harding, of Restaging the Sixties: Radical Theatres and Their Legacies (University of Michigan Press, 2006). She has contributed two articles on NYC community gardeners’ activist performances to TDR; her work is also published in Women and Performance, Theatre Journal, and Radical Street Performance (Routledge, 1998).
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You let yourself become one of them and you use whatever skills you have to enhance what they have, what they do. This is my philosophy. Nobody tells me anything. —Ellen Stewart, 30 June 2003 Where to Begin? 30 September 2004, City University of New York Ellen Stewart, “La Mama,” founder/director of the La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, was honored at a symposium celebrating Off and Off-Off Broadway at the Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY. Stewart was accom- panied by La Mama “baby” performer/director/playwright Paul Zimet, who first worked at La Mama when the Open Theater performed there in 1967. Zimet begins by ringing the bell (laughter in the auditorium). If you’ve seen a show or two at La Mama at any time in the past 45 years, you probably recognize the bell. This is Stewart’s trademark and an impor- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 tant La Mama ritual. Before most performances—and there have been over 2,000 at her theatres since 1961—Stewart rings the bell, welcoming spectators into her performance space, transforming the disparate spectators into an audience: I’m glad you’re here. Pay attention. The magic is about to begin. STEWART: It’s not voodoo. It’s what I get from a person. This ( pointing to Zimet) is one of my kids. I’ve told him from the first he was a great artist. Who or what are La Mama’s “kids?” “They’re everybody here,” says Stewart, who meets with me in her apartment, up the four flights of stairs from the entrance of her theatre complex. “They’re the ones who will follow me, the ones who stay.” ZIMET: “Nurtured” is the most appropriate word to describe how it is, working at La Mama. I think of Ellen as family as well. She scolds me, she pushes me, she worries about me. Ellen sweeps her stage and the sidewalk outside her theatre because she has such respect for her artists, for her audience, for her theatre. She brought work from over 70 countries to La Mama. Particularly in this climate, where people are so fearful, she has created a world culture. We desperately need this now. This year, 2006, marks the 45th anniversary of the opening of Ellen Stewart’s first theatre in New York’s East Village. Stewart began with a tiny basement space on East Ninth Street in October 1961. The rent was $55 a month. Over the next 10 years the burgeoning alternative theatre scene coalesced around Stewart and her performance spaces. Stewart and playwright Paul Foster remem- ber that one of Stewart’s friends, Robert Paulson, came up with “La Mama” as a name for the the- atre, instead of just “Mama,” which was what Stewart’s friends called her. And so, from then on, each and every one of Stewart’s theatres became known as “La Mama.”1 Practically anyone who is anyone in downtown theatre and performance cut their teeth at La Mama, including many performers, composers, and writers who no longer work in alternative the- atre. Harold Pinter, Philip Glass, Robert de Niro, Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Andre De Shields, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Olympia Dukakis, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss, Wallace Shawn, and Nick Nolte are a few of the artists who performed or had their work performed there during La Mama’s first two decades. Along with Joe Cino of Caffe Cino and Al Carmines of Judson Poets’ Theater, Stewart is credited with founding Off-Off Broadway,2 giving a home to American playwrights, directors, and performers who could not get their work produced elsewhere. These included radical collectives such as the Open Theater (Viet Rock, 1966); director Tom O’Horgan
1. See the La Mama website for information on current performances and the online archive, which includes a list of all performances from 1961 to the present
2. References to Stewart, Cino, and Carmines as founders and originators of Off-Off Broadway can be found in The Off- Ellen Stewart Off Broadway Book: The Plays, People, Theatre, edited by Albert Poland and Bruce Mailman (1972:xii), and in David A. Crespy’s Off-Off Broadway Explosion (2003:67).
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(whose production of Hair, 1968, was a big Broadway hit and a signature of “the sixties”); and playwrights Harvey Fier- stein (International Stud, 1978; Safe Sex, 1987), Adrienne Kennedy (Rat’s Mass, 1969), and Rochelle Owens (Futz, 1967). Today Stewart owns buildings on East Fourth Street, East 1st Street, and a couple of blocks away on Great Jones Street. Her theatres have consistently been the mainstay of experimental and alternative theatre in downtown New York City. La Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Mama is the only surviving theatre of the four main venues of Off-Off Broadway (Caffe Cino, Theatre Genesis, and Jud- son Poets’ Theatre were the others).3 But Stewart’s impact and her real es- tate holdings extend far beyond the bor- ders of the East Village. She was one of the first to recognize the importance of international cultural exchange. So, while she created theatres that supported American artists in downtown New York City, she also extended her network to include artists from abroad, making it possible for performers, directors, musi- cians, choreographers, and playwrights 2. Publicity poster for the Open Theatre’s Ensemble from Western and Eastern Europe, Latin Improvisation, directed by Joseph Chaikin and Peter America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Feldman, poster designed by Ken Burgess, 1965. and Southeast Asia to present their work (Courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) at her NYC theatres. Among this group are Peter Brook, Andrei Serban, Ohno Kazuo (one of the first butoh artists to perform in this country, in 1981), and Tadeuz Kantor. At the same time, Stewart began to establish connections for her American artists, helping to get their work presented at La Mama “satellites.” The first of these kicked off in 1964, when La Mama Bogota opened with Paul Foster’s Hurray for the Bridge. Israeli playwright/director Mark Sadan worked at La Mama in 1963; in 1970 Stewart helped found La Mama Tel Aviv. Rina Yerushalmi, who worked at La Mama throughout the 1970s and ’80s, later became La Mama Tel Aviv’s Artistic Director. These “La Mama–affiliated” theatres, as Stewart calls them, sprang up across the globe, in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Toronto, Singapore, Belgrade, Prague, Serbia, Lebanon, Morocco, the Philip- pines, South Korea, and Uganda. Currently only a few theatres carry the La Mama name above their titles; besides La Mama Bogota and La Mama Tel Aviv, there are La Mama Melbourne, founded in 1967, and La Mama Umbria, an artists’ retreat and cultural center Stewart established in 1990. La Mama Tokyo, a jazz club in Shibuya, was started by a musician who worked with the Tokyo Kid Brothers, an experimental troupe that performed at La Mama in New York between 1970 and 1981. In addition to all this, Stewart has produced groundbreaking (sometimes literally) site-specific works around the world. To list just some of these: in 1972, the Andrei Serban–Liz Swados Medea played at ruins in Baalbek, Lebanon; Stewart directed Romeo and Juliet on the grounds of Leopold-
3. See Stephen J. Bottoms’s Playing Underground (2004) for an excellent overview on the artists and the theatres of this
Cindy Rosenthal period.
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skron Castle in Salzburg, Austria, in 1981; a year later she re-created R&J with a different cast outside two castles and on the streets of Montenegro, Uruguay; and much more recently, in 2004, Stewart staged Trojan Women at the ruins in Gardzienice, Poland. Company members constructed pathways, staircases, platforms, and bridges among trees, on rocky cliffs, and in archeological sites to mount these and other works. Productions produced or directed by Stewart in the 1970s drew on many cultures, combining Native American chants and drumming, Bulgarian har- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 monies, and elements of kathakali dance long before terms such as “cultural collage” and “multicultural,” “intercultural” and “transcultural” were the subjects of academic conferences and performance studies courses. In 1985, Stewart was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (the “Genius” grant) and she used the $300,000 ($60,000 over five years) to buy and reno- vate a former convent dating from the 14th century near Spoleto, Italy. By 1990, this complex in Umbria included housing, a rehearsal/work-in-progress stu- dio, a café, and a gallery. Each summer since 2000, Stewart’s cultural center at La Mama Umbria has 3. The White Whore and the Bit Player by been the site of a three-week International Sympo- Tom Eyen (1964), featuring Marie-Claire sium for directors, under Stewart’s leadership and Charba as the White Whore (on cross), Beverly coordinated by David Diamond. Teaching artists at Atkinson, Marilyn Roberts as the Nun, and the symposium have included Richard Schechner, Jacques Lynn Colton as the Bit Player. (Photo Rhodessa Jones, Anne Bogart, Joanne Akalaitis, by Conrad Ward; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The Ta naka Jun, and Wlodzimierz Staneiwski. La Mama Archive) Of course, I’ve known about Ellen Stewart for decades, but it was not until November 2002 that I met her in person when I started to research this article. Schechner, TDR’s editor, asked me to take on this project believing, as I did, that a major ar- ticle on Stewart–La Mama was long overdue. The last time Stewart appeared in TDR was in an arti- cle she wrote for the June 1980 “Women and Performance Issue” (T86). Stewart was born 7 November 1919. As of 2006, despite heart trouble and other medical prob- lems, she shows few signs of slowing down. Stewart still programs over 70 shows into her theatres herself, directs a new or revised work of her own every year, and leads her Great Jones Repertory Company on international tours. Stewart’s theatres at 74A East Fourth Street, the Annex space at 66 East Fourth Street, and the Galleria (art gallery) at 6 East First Street, have hosted a very broad range of companies and artists including Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret, John Vaccaro and the Play- house of the Ridiculous, Mabou Mines, Native American Theatre Ensemble, Theodora Skipitares, Tisa Chang and the Pan Asian Repertory, Meredith Monk, Ping Chong and Company, Gardzienice Theatre, Linda Mussman, John Jesurun, The Talking Band, Split Britches, Schechner’s East Coast Artists, and many, many others. The 74A East Fourth Street building encompasses two theatres (a 100-seat theatre and a flexible 75-person-capacity cabaret theatre called the Club, as well as a box office, administrative offices, an archive, and an apartment for Stewart on the top floor. The Annex includes a 299-seat flexible space theatre and, on an upper floor, a dormitory for visiting artists. Ellen Stewart Stewart’s theatre complex remains an excellent fit for experimental artists from New York and for those coming from elsewhere. Perks at La Mama include free rehearsal rooms at the six-story 47 Great Jones Street building and the dorm above the Annex.
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How does she do it? What, finally, is the whole story, “the Ellen Stewart and La Mama we never knew”? (as Schechner put it). What are the details of the labor and vision that keep this enterprise up and running after 45 years? Stewart is very careful with the telling of her own particular story. She is especially reticent about her early life. Her speech Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 is unusually accented, reminis- cent of Cajun or Creole. She was born in Alexandria, Louisiana, and was raised in Chicago and Detroit by her mother. She re- ports that an aunt and an uncle were in show business and that they worked at the Slim Jones nightclub in Detroit. Interview- ers who spoke with Stewart in the 1960s and ’70s wrote that as a young woman Stewart managed Boss Slim’s nightclub in Chicago where she hired performers such as Billie Holiday and Cab Cal- loway. Stewart denies this now.4 Although African American, Stewart does not want to be put in a “black woman box” as she describes it. Her own “mama,” she told me on one of the rare 4. Tom Paine by Paul Foster, directed by Tom O’Horgan (1967), occasions she talked about her including Marilyn Roberts (center), Victor Lapari (far left), Jacques personal life, looked like a “white Lynn Colton (right), Peter Craig (back). (Photo by Patrick Eagar; lady. She passed for white all the courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) time.” Stewart said one of the 5. Futz by Rochelle Owens, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed things her mother always told by the La Mama Troupe—including Victor Lapari (left), Beverly her was not to forget she “was Atkinson (center), Peter Craig (right)—in New York in March 1967 many different kinds of people, and also in London for their third European tour. (Photo by Conrad many colors, not one” (2005a). Ward; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) In our conversations, Stewart made it clear that she considers her personal life and La Mama’s history as very separate entities. She had a son who is deceased; she has a granddaughter and three great grandchildren; their pictures are in her apartment, but she does not want to talk about this part of her life. She is adamant that I write about her theatre’s history, and even more specific about whom I must talk to, making it clear which characters in her story she deems most important. To put it mildly, Stewart controls her world. The question driving my re- search on this stalwart of American theatre: Why hasn’t La Mama been the focus of much analysis or critique in TDR or elsewhere before now?
Cindy Rosenthal 4. I have thus far found no information on Boss Slim’s in Chicago or Slim Jones’s nightclub in Detroit.
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Ellen Stewart 17 to La New Unpossessed got a huge amount of touring work based on the La Mama
We and several other reviews in New York papers. [...] and several other reviews in New York La Mama. She has a trained staff but they’re trained specifically in their jobs and is e’d definitely like to do it here again. We’re talking to Ellen about it. We’re now working talking to Ellen about it. We’re e’d definitely like to do it here again. We’re had the right kind of support and we had the freedom to do what we wanted artistically. had the right kind of support and we had the
W There’s really not anything comparable in this country to La Mama. There are places in really not anything There’s Ellen The Master and Margarita. ork Times on Y performances. A lot of people came who wanted to show our work. too. There is a other countries. Gardzienice is similar to the way La Mama runs. Odin Teatret Not powerful figure in charge who helps you and who also understands that you’re an artist. allow rules to get in the way of the a businessperson, a client, or a servant. Ellen doesn’t about the worry work you’re doing. If you say you need more rehearsal time, she wouldn’t though 11 o’clock cutoff. She understands that you need to do your best in your work. Even that. A lot of theatres become institutionalized and they’re just old, she still understands she’s institutions. But Ellen creates an environment that is artistic—even do that doesn’t if she much an artist, in any case. [...] she’s art herself. But as a producer, is interested in bringing that power to the or nobody else who can bring that power, there’s a kind and yet she has made it possible for a certain kind of theatre to one of forefront. She’s She is irreplaceable. [...] A lot of us have had to make masks in order to fit exist in this country. in or to get ahead. She is really genuine in who she is. And that is something special. Ellen was extremely emotionally supportive and I feel like that’s what she does best—support, and I feel like that’s Ellen was extremely emotionally supportive a hard time for La Mama, in terms of getting It’s her. or give courage to the artists that work for in her life. think she has the support in her staff that she needs at this point audiences. I don’t think they have the size audiences anymore. I don’t really do everything by herself She can’t week we the second we had hardly anybody, they should have. The first week, for instance, our effort and because of people seeing our work, were almost sold out. That was because of Mama and expect to immediately have an audience. go to La word of mouth. But you can’t Eastern Europe to La Mama recently had the same Most of the groups I know who came from feature in the had a review and a worked really hard to get press. We experience. We Mama in 2004. experience for us. A perfect space for our art. KLEIN: Being at La Mama was a totally satisfying We Stacy Klein, director of Double Edge Theatre, brought her production of Stacy Klein, director of Double Edge Theatre, ictor Lapari, Ellen Stewart, Leonard Melfi, and Chin Yee, 1969. (Photo by Conrad Ward; courtesy of Ellen Ward; Conrad by 1969. (Photo Yee, and Chin Melfi, Leonard Stewart, ictor Lapari, Ellen tewart/The Archive) La Mama 6. The “playwrights round table” meeting in Ellen Stewart’s apartment, including (left to right) Wahundra, apartment, including (left to right) Stewart’s meeting in Ellen table” round The “playwrights 6. V S MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/06 3:24 PM Page 17 Page PM 3:24 4/26/06 MTDR190_11311_ch02 MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/063:24PMPage18 18 Cindy Rosenthal .Stewart isreferring toRichard Schechner’s essayin 5. Schechner (andothers) would liketopinher down or“categorize” her becomesmore entrenched. and her world hasevolvedanddeepened, her tobeing“known”in someofthe resistance ways ismarching on”(2005b).AsStewart’s“time tomeasanongoingwitnessher connection work 2003a, Schechner 2003). scribes thisastheir Schechner firstmeeting. says he doesn’t remember (Stewart any suchmeeting Moses.) Stewartsays she saw the work andtoldSchechner he shouldcometoNewYork. She de- 1965, Schechner wasoneofFST’s three directors producing alongwithJohn andGilbert O’Neal r ample, Stewarttellsmethat she firstmetSchechner when she went in1964at toNewOrleans his there are contradictions between Stewart’s andwhat I’veheard oralhistory others. from For ex- the and her volumesofinformation considering age)often be(especially detailscan for memory Stewart’s precise 1962.Thisistremendously despitehowuncannily useful,because La Mamasince ofthe accounting year plays, playwrights, composers,choreographers, anddirectors affiliated with Mama’s onlinearchive at
TDR Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 September 26 on guest by (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 from Downloaded MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/06 3:24 PM Page 19
Michael Sirotta is a resident composer and first worked at La Mama on Elizabeth Swados’s Jerusalem in 1983. SIROTTA: In 1985 we did Mythos Oedipus at a festival at Delphi, where the oracle was. That was my first experience seeing Ellen at work outside. In Delphi the festival was conducted in an outdoor stadium with a J-shaped seating area. Very long, a football field and a half. The au- dience was meant to be situated, according to how the festival had set it up, at the bottom of the J. Ellen told them no. She wanted to use the stone seats for our playing area. The audi- ence, she told them, would be down on the ground with us and we’d also be acting above. But they didn’t believe her. So they sat the audience in the seats in front of the stage they had cre- ated at the bottom of the J-shape. Ellen arrived and we started the music and now she yelled, “Why are they starting?” She started yelling at the audience: “You are sitting on our stage. You must come down here or we will not start the play.” And they started booing and chant- ing and Genji [Ito, one of La Mama’s resident composers at the time] turned to me and said,
“We are this far from a soccer riot.” They had come in their high heels and they were not go- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 ing to get down on the dusty ground. Several hundred of them left immediately. But those that remained, they came up to us and said, “they haven’t done Greek theatre like this in 2,000 years. This must be the way they used to do it.” When Oedipus climbed up to his exaltation at the end, he climbed a real mountain. And the stars were shining and the lights were on him and the music was singing him up. It was so overwhelmingly big it felt like you were in the movie. It was truly unforgettable. [...] Sometimes, even in a dress rehearsal or even during the run of a show, before a performance, Ellen will say to me, “Michael, you’re going to be mad at me. But we need a new song here.” And that means that in the middle of the show, or right before the show, I have to work out and teach somebody a new song! ROSENTHAL: But you keep saying yes? SIROTTA: Why not? It’s not hard. I understand it [...]. Whenever she yells, or gets mad, it only belongs to the work, to the world of the work. There isn’t a soul that doesn’t escape it. [...] Working at La Mama has been a love affair; it’s been a hate affair. I’m a creative person and music is in my core. This is the place where I can do what I want to do. I prefer this insanity to the insanity of the commercial world. It’s been fun, let’s put it that way.
What’s in a Name? Early on in the history of Stewart’s basement theatre/café at 321 East Ninth Street, coffee and cake were sold in an effort to satisfy the licensing bureau. The theatre opened on 21 October 1961, but the first documented production was not until 27 July 1962—Tennessee Williams’s One Arm, directed by Andy Milligan. The City of New York closed the theatre down in April 1963, citing a zoning problem (Stewart was told that cafés were prohibited in this area of the East Village, although this was later proven to be untrue). Ed Koch was the Democratic Party District Leader in Greenwich Village from 1963 to 1965 and, according to Stewart, he had a “clean-up campaign going before the New York World’s Fair [...] and he wanted especially to clean me up” (Stewart 2005c). Stewart chose to be a moving target and relocated her theatre to a second space at 82 Second Avenue on 28 June 1963. However, in March 1964, right after the run of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s The Allegation Impromptu, the theatre was closed by the fire department, and Stewart spent a night in jail. There were also numerous complaints from Stewart’s neighbors about a “bordello. What was that colored woman doing with all those young white men in her basement?” (Stewart 2002). On 12 March 1964, the café was officially renamed La Mama Experimental Theatre Club (La Mama E.T.C.). This was a further attempt to satisfy the licensing bureau and
other city authorities, by declaring La Mama a private club rather than a café. Nonetheless, the Ellen Stewart NYC fire department, health department, and licensing department closed down the second theatre. The third theatre opened at 122 Second Avenue on 11 November 1964, where La Mama remained until 1967. Although still a private club (there was no phone number or address given in the weekly listings for La Mama in the Village Voice) La Mama’s membership grew. Membership at
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La Mama and a membership card were automatically granted with the purchase of a ticket; the card was required for entrance at the club from that point forward. The nearly 3,000 members at the time paid $1 a week to belong. The week’s take, according to Stewart, was split among the actors. Stewart told me she paid the theatre’s rent and all operating expenses, from club costs such as coffee, lightbulbs, and toilet paper, to pro- duction costs such as fabric for costumes out of her own pocket (more on this later). Most of the costumes, props, and set pieces were Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 8. Jarboro Company, including Saundra McLain (left) found, borrowed, or stolen. Stewart says the and Basil Wallace (right), perform Black Terror by practice of passing the hat at each perfor- Richard E. Wesley, produced by La Mama for the mance for the actors ceased after the theatre Venice Biennial, 1972. (Venice Press Photo; courtesy of became a club with a membership in 1964 Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) (Stewart 2006).6 La Mama first incorporated on 22 Novem- ber 1965. On 30 August 1967 La Mama received “not-for-profit” or 501(c)3 status. In November 1967 La Mama received its first grant, a check for $25,000 from the Ford Foundation, which arrived a week after Stewart contacted W. McNeil Lowry at Ford and showed him the dilapidated building on East Fourth Street she hoped to purchase and renovate. The building dated from 1863, when it housed an arts society, and later was a sausage factory. La Mama was granted an additional $65,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation a month later, of which $15,000 was allocated for buying a perma- nent theatre building. The Ford and Rockefeller money was supplemented by $1,000 from the Doris Duke Foundation, which also went into the building fund. Pooling the grants (approximately $15,000 of the Ford money went for purchase, the remainder went toward renovations), Stewart purchased La Mama’s present multitheatre space at 74A East Fourth Street for $35,000. In 1968, while the building was being renovated, La Mama E.T.C. moved temporarily four blocks north to 9 Saint Marks Place. In 1969, Stewart moved her operation into 74A East Fourth Street.
Dario D’Ambrosi is a performer, director, playwright, and filmmaker and has worked with La Mama since 1980 when he first produced his play All Are Not Here (Tutti Non Ci Sonno) at La Mama.
D’AMBROSI: In some ways it seems as if Ellen comes from the street, like I come from the street. She looks at theatre in very, very simple ways. If you have no money, she would say, what costumes can we find? If we don’t have lights, we can perform during the day. She enjoys making theatre—almost like a little child. I love that childlike philosophy she has. She is always fresh with the work, enjoys it day after day. Now I am a father myself, I have two daughters. Now I fully understand what it is to be a parent. What she is to me is a mother, and that is what she was to me, from the very first. [...] It was amazing to watch Ellen as she watched Perseus in performance. Seeing the energy, feeling the energy coming from that wheelchair as she watched the performance. I think the energy of the director is most important and how you give your energy to your actors. When the actors came out onstage Ellen’s face was like a lamp—beautiful. It was almost as if she was saying, “Welcome to the stage, welcome to the stage.” This is the magic of her theatre.
6. Stephen Bottoms, in Playing Underground (2004), who interviewed Stewart about the café in 1995, had a different un- derstanding of how the financing worked, especially with regard to the payment of La Mama actors and staff. Accord-
Cindy Rosenthal ing to Bottoms, the “one-dollar entry charge [...] went straight into paying the building’s rent and overheads: nobody was paid anything, except from pass-the-hat takings” (95). 20 MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/06 3:24 PM Page 21 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021
9. Native American Theatre Ensemble in residence at La Mama, 1972. (Photo by Amnon Ben Nomis; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive)
Undaunted each time she was forced to relocate, Stewart would find a larger, more flexible per- forming space than the last. Each move benefited La Mama’s artists. In the 1960s and ’70s these artists were mainly playwrights or playwright-directors. This first group included Tom O’Horgan, Paul Foster, Tom Eyen, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Jean Claude van Itallie, Leonard Melfi, Megan Terry, Maria Irene Fornes, Adrienne Kennedy, and Julie Bovasso. At that time, when Stewart rang the opening bell, she proclaimed that La Mama “was dedicated to the playwright and all aspects of the theatre.” The playwright, not their plays, because as Stewart told me, she was not interested in plays; she didn’t read them. She was interested in people. She had first begun the theatre on East 9th Street because she wanted to support two playwrights—Paul Foster and Fred Lights—and “give them their dreams.” Despite all of the moves around the East Village, La Mama was firmly established by the mid- 1960s as a focal point of the Off-Off Broadway scene. La Mama and Caffe Cino won special citation Obie Awards for their contributions to Off-Off Broadway for the 1964/65 season. A less energetic theatre impresario would be satisfied maintaining a thriving downtown theatre. But by the mid- 1960s Stewart was also pursuing a unique and complex international project. Interested in establish- ing the credibility and legitimacy of her playwrights, Stewart tried to get the work of Foster and others published, but was told by agents and editors that this would be impossible without critical response and reviews (at this time New York’s mainstream critics were not interested in the plays at La Mama). But then something happened. A Colombian friend of Paul Foster’s, Edgar Negret, arranged for Foster’s play Hurrah for the Bridge to be translated into Spanish (Que Viva El Puente). Negret then produced it with students in Bogota in 1964. The production won a prize, which was the springboard to presenting the play at a festival in Erlangen, West Germany. Danish director Jens Okking saw the play in Germany, had it
translated into Danish, and staged it in Denmark at the Svalgangen Theatre. At approximately the Ellen Stewart same time, in May 1964, two La Mama actresses, Marie-Claire Charba and Jacques Lynn Colton, performed Tom Eyen’s The White Whore and the Bit Player at Shakespeare and Company, Paris’s leg- endary English Bookstore, to extremely positive response. This gave Stewart the idea that a Euro- pean tour might get the recognition and critical response her playwrights needed. With her own
21 MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/063:24PMPage22 22 Cindy Rosenthal always toldheryouhavetobeabledo how togetthingsdoneandthemyourway. Shealwayssays,hermother young, whoarenotinshape.[...]Ellen’s willissostrong,she’s justanincredibleexampleof want tosayaboutit,thisisdefinitelyunique.Thisnotperformanceforpeoplewhoare cause theyloveher. matterwhatyou Andyoudon’t seeanythinglikethisanywhereelse—no thededicationtheyhave.Theydoitbe- whattheyget—with can’t findacompany—getting them oncebecausemyheart’s inmythroat.You havetogive those kidssomuchcredit.You first timeinfrontofanaudience.Thesearenoteasyproductionstomount.Icanonlysee is hersandthere’s almostnowaythatyoucanhelpher. Theyhadtheirfirstrunthroughthe ginning oftheprocess,can’t youworkwithanassistantdirector?Shesaidno.Ellen’s process our doorsopen,althoughit’s taperingoffnow. about $300,000fromBlueManGroup(wesupportedthemearlyon),whichhashelpedkeep grants. Another$300,000or400,000fromtheboxofficeandplaywrightsroyalties,weget normal yearisamillionorpointtwo.We get$600,000inprivateorgovernment covered bythecountrythatinvitesus.Agoodyearisamillionandhalf.badorrather, Umbria, inthesummer, isseparate,aseparatebudget.Andthe international workwedois Mama betweenamillionandhalfdollars,SeptemberthroughJune;La is theyear because ourpeopleknowwhatthey’redoingineachofthespaces.Ourbudgetfor when othercompaniesuseourtechnicalstaffbecauseitkeepspeopleemployed,butalso keep trackofallthetechnicalhoursthathavegoneintoeachindividualshow. It’s betterforus also there’s alsotheClub[thecabaretspace],andapoetryseries, aplay-readingseries.I but it’s touchandgoeveryweek.Everythreeweekstheshowsin thetheatreschange,but stretch. Everybodyhopestomeettheirexpensesandwehopeoursbytheboxoffice penses togethere.Nobodyeverreallymakesanymoney;it’s not commercialtheatrebyany seas orfromCaliforniawegivethem60percentoftheboxofficebecausetheyhadextraex- Ifacompanycomesinfromover- into LaMama,wesplittheboxofficewiththem—fifty-fifty. who getswhat.EveryactorintheGreatJonesCompanypaid.Whenacompanycomes pay people,whattopeople.Tuesday ispayroll,thetimesheetscomeinandwefigureout topaypeople,when GREEN: Abigportionofmydayisspentonfiguringoutbills—how MamastagemanageraspartoftheCETA programintheearly1980s. La Gretchen GreenhasbeenLaMamaManagingDirectorsince1999.Shefirstworkedasa companies andtherereallyisn’t anotherplace likeit. about peopleinthisenvironment.I’veworkedmanydifferent placesandformanydifferent not justartisticallybutinanynumberofways.Itgoesbacktofamily. Peoplereallydocare able tomakeadifference.Thisisplacewhereyoucan a differenceinpeople’s lives— are hereisbecauseofEllen.Butit’s alsobecauseeverydaywhenyoucometoworkare people thatcameherehadnooneelse.IsaidthereasonI’m andthereasonmostpeople close tothistheatre.She’s buriedmanypeopleoutofherownpocketbecausealot but therearehundredsofthosestories.TheAIDSepidemictook somanypeoplethatwere her loftwhilehewasgettingtreatmentsforhiscancer. Shewouldbesurethathewasfed— treatment]. celed hertriptotheDirectingWorkshop inUmbria tobewithGreenthroughhersurgeryand lengths tohelppeopleinneed. staffasfamily. Truly. There’s seen hergotogreat her almostnothingshewouldn’t do—I’ve youthink Ellenispowerfulyoushouldhavemethermom.embracesartistsand if he visited,wasstayingintheloftbuildingwhereIlivedandusedtosayme, chance shecould.Ithinkhermomlivedintolatenineties.WhenEllen’s sonwasaliveand But IknewEllenwhenhermomwasstillaliveinChicago,andshe’dtraveloutthereevery me aboutherownlifeverylittle.Iwishcouldhavebeenalittleflyonthewallwaybackthen. else todoit.Shelivesthatway, andhasherwholelife.She’s beeninspirational[...]. Perseus One oftheTokyo KidBrotherswasveryillwhenhecame here andhestayedwithherin [A fewdaysafterthisinterview, Greenwasdiagnosedwithbreastcancer. Stewartcan- Ellen isreallycompassionate.Shelovestotalkyouaboutyourownlife.Butshetalks was ahardshowtodobecauseEllenwasn’t feelingsowell.Iaskedheratthebe- this yourself.You haveto. Don’t look
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money and donations from six actors’ parents, Stewart purchased $118 one-way student tickets and sent two companies of eight actors each to Europe in September 1965. One group, led by O’Hor- gan, went to Denmark; at the same time, the other, led by Ross Alexander, went to Paris. The 16 ac- tors—including Kevin O’Connor, Michael Warren Powell, Victor LiPari, Marie-Claire Charba, and Jacques Lynn Colton—went back and forth between the two cities by train, which Stewart paid for (Stewart 2006).7 La Mama benefactor/playwright Ruth Yorck put Stewart in touch with Danish critic Elsa Gress, who boarded the La Mama actors in her home during the Copenhagen run. Again directed by O’Horgan, the La Mama Troupe toured Western and Eastern Europe a second time in October 1966 and a third time during June to November 1967. During this period, Stewart began to bring international artists to La Mama. Through Eugenio Barba in 1965, Stewart made her initial contact with Jerzy Grotowski and was invited to meet with him in Poland. Stewart had already caught the attention of the Polish mission in Washington, DC, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 when she produced Polish playwright Tadeusz Rozeicz’s The Witness at La Mama that year (his work was still unknown outside Poland). The mission helped smooth the way for Grotowski and actor Ryszard Cieslak, and with additional institutional support from Theodore Hoffman at NYU, Stew- art helped bring Grotowski to New York where he and Cieslak ran a performance workshop at NYU in November 1967, the first such work in America by the Polish master and his theatre. In 1970, with a grant she procured from the Ford Foundation, and a passport she helped arrange, Stewart brought over Romanian director Andrei Serban—the beginning of a long and complex relationship. Stewart describes her efforts as “artistic support” for the artists. She tirelessly made phone calls on their behalf; Elizabeth Swados recalls that Stewart’s table was always covered with phone numbers on slips of paper (2005). Stewart was expert at solving travel and immigration problems, sometimes visiting the immigration bureau herself. In the case of Grotowski and Cieslak from the Polish Lab Theatre, NYU’s theatre program and TDR were cosponsors and Stewart was the liaison with personnel at the Polish mission. Grotowski, Cieslak, and Serban presented their work in New York at a time when cultural exchange between the U.S. and Eastern Europe was virtually nonexistent. In 1968, Stewart was invited to join the Third World Committee of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) where she was a feisty, impassioned advocate for international artists, says Martha Coigney, former director of ITI’s U.S. center (2005). Through ITI, Stewart met Philippine director and activist Cecile Guidote-Alvarez. From 1971 to 1987, with Stewart’s support, Guidote-Alvarez presented numerous TWITAS (Third World Institute Theatre Arts Studies) companies each year at La Mama, including artists from Chile, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ghana, Korea, and Zambia. Along with the influx of international companies, La Mama’s focus began to shift in the 1970s from the playwright to the director. This was most clear in Stewart’s “discovery” of and support for
7. The 16 actors on the first tour to Europe in alphabetical order were: Seth Allen, Marie-Claire Charba, Jacques Lynn Colton, Jerry DeLuise, Marjorie LiPari, Victor LiPari, Ken O’Connor, Michael Warren Powell, Shirley Stolyar, and Stefan Sztybel. At the American Center in Paris the schedule of performances was as follows: (With Ross Alexander as director) 3–4 October 1965—America Hurrah by Jean-Claude van Itallie, Rat’s Mass by Adrienne Kennedy, Little Mother by Ross Alexander; 17–18 October—Who Put the Blood on My Long-Stemmed Rose? by Mary Mitchell, Waiting Boy by Robert Sealey, Spies by Harvey Perr; 31 October–1 November—Lullabye for a Dying Man by Ruth Yorck, Home Free! by Lanford Wilson. (With Tom O’Horgan as director) 14–15 November—Hurrah for the Bridge by Paul Foster; 4H Club by Sam Shephard; 28–29 November—Miss Victoria by William Hoffman, Birdbath by Leonard Melfi, War by Jean-Claude van Itallie; 12–13 December—The Madness of Lady Bright by Lanford Wilson, Window by Jean Reavey; 19–20 December—Frustrata by Tom Eyen, My Orpheus by Harry Koutoukas. At the Aaso Skole Theatre in Copenhagen the schedule of performances was as follows: (With Tom O’Horgan as director) 8–10 October—America Hurrah, The Circus by Gerald Schoenwolf, Hurrah for the Bridge; 22–24 October—Miss Victoria, Birdbath, War;
5–7 November—The Recluse by Paul Foster, The Circle by Alex Civello, 4H Club. (With Ross Alexander as director) Ellen Stewart 12–14 November—After the Ball by Ross Alexander, Rat’s Mass, Little Mother; 25–28 November—Lullabye for a Dying Man, Waiting Boy; 10–12 December—Who Put the Blood on My Long Stemmed Rose?, Son of Fricka by Bruce Kessler, Spies.
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Andrei Serban, who was already well known in Romania. She had first seen his work at a theatre festival in Zagreb in 1966 where her company also performed. In 1970 under the auspices of the newly created La Mama Repertory Company, La Mama presented Serban’s first New York produc- tion, a double bill of Arden of Faversham and Ubu. Stewart was eager to show more of Serban’s epic works but needed a large and open indoor space. In 1974, with support from the Ford and the Mel- lon Foundations, Stewart added the Annex to her theatre complex. The former television soundstage was 48 by 100 feet and had 30-foot-high ceilings. The Annex opened in October 1974 with Serban’s production of Fragments of a Trilogy, music by Elizabeth Swados. Fragments exploded on the down- town scene, an enormous and instant hit. Even New York Times critics Clive Barnes and Mel Gussow raved.8 Working with Serban and acquiring the Annex was a turning point for Stewart. Serban had become La Mama’s “number one son,” says Theodora Skipitares, another longtime Stewart associ- ate (who, along with Elizabeth Swados, would qualify as a “number one daughter”). Skipatares de- scribes Serban’s Trilogy as a “cauldron moment” for Stewart (2003). Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Coigney believes that although Stewart never garnered the renown or the funding enjoyed by New York’s “Big Daddies”—Harvey Lichtenstein at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and Joe Papp of the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre—perhaps it was for the best because Stewart was never comfortable with being “an institution,” anyway (Coigney 2005). Stewart prefers to compare herself to her early benefactor, Papa Abraham Diamond, a Lower East Side shop owner who befriended her when she first came to New York in 1950. He gave her fabric with which to de- sign and make clothing for herself and called her his “daughter.” The lesson Stewart learned from Diamond was the importance of having “a pushcart.” Institutions tie people down; they are not Stewart’s thing. It was more important for her to move around, to keep pushing her cart into more corners of the globe. Instead of establishing La Mama as another BAM or Public Theatre, Stewart continues to be more interested and uniquely gifted in finding and helping to shape young people at their formative stages. She attends both to their artistic and their human needs. Larger institutions like BAM and the Public Theatre have always paid artists better, but they looked to La Mama for the next new thing. Coigney recalls that Stewart said of Lichtenstein and Papp, “Those two came down to my theatre and used it as if I was their supermarket!” (2005). Mama Courage When you meet Stewart, and especially when you see her in action at La Mama, you are struck by her centrality in all creative processes, by her mastery, and by the transformative power she has over La Mama-ites. This is counter to the more familiar image, which Shannon Jackson evokes, of the mother/maternal figure as enabler, who is excluded from the subject position in the performance process (2004:168–69). A uniquely compelling and charismatic older woman of color, Stewart seems to have tapped into the shaman’s power. Audience members experience it at every La Mama perfor- mance she attends. Her super-active presence—sensual, silver-braided, bright-eyed, bangled, beaded, and scarved—launches the performance, draws spectators in. It is no accident that she and the theatre space are inextricably bound together, sharing the legendary name.
8. Clive Barnes titled his article in the New York Times, “Serban’s Trilogy is an Event.” He wrote, “Serban’s trilogy of Greek plays is an event in a new theatre. [...] This musical-dramatic trilogy is beautiful and dedicatedly acted by its cast, who make it not only touching but also credible. Put the mind on hold [...]” (1974:64). Mel Gussow wrote: “This is an uncommon evening of primal theater” (1974:27).
10. Double Five Flower Grotto, performed by the Ling Chi Ma Theatre Company, written and directed by
Ching Yeh, 1972. (Photo by Amnon Ben Nomis; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) Ellen Stewart 11. Kitty Chen (left) and Lu Yu (right) in Return of the Phoenix, written and directed by Tisa Chang, 1973. (Photo by Amnon Ben Nomis; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) 12. Tokyo Kid Brothers in The City, written and directed by Higashi Yutaka, composer Itsuro Shimoda, 1974. (Photo by Amnon Ben Nomis; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive)
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This is evident when I climb the stairs to Stewart’s attic living space above La Mama’s theatres and offices. Is this a bohemian poet’s garret? a prop loft? a museum? a shrine? “Normal,” “mundane,” or “domestic” her space is not. Sitting among the colorful and pleasant clutter, Stewart holds court. On any given day the space is filled with an eclectic assortment of international “family” mem- bers passing through. This is a communal nest, and an “anti-domestic” one. Nowadays, Stewart’s medical equipment is added to the clutter. On the table where Stewart sets out Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 her meals, correspondence, photos, and re- search files, there is sometimes a blood pres- sure monitor. And the oxygen tank is never far away. There are days when Stewart must take oxygen via a breathing tube, taking lie- down breaks during her usually busy sched- ule. In 2003 Stewart spent an extended period at Mother Cabrini hospital, when she was “so ill [she] could not talk” (2003); dur- ing the run of Perseus (2005) she spent an- other week there.9 Sadly, on many days Stewart is virtually housebound in her fourth-floor apartment. Back in 1968 when the building was renovated no one thought it necessary to install an elevator. Now, because of her physical frailty Stewart is often unable 13. Marilyn Amaral in Cotton Club Gala, directed by to leave her home without the assistance of Ellen Stewart, choreographed by Larl Becham, and La Mama “kids” who must carry her down composed by Ray Tunia & The Harlem Flashes, 1975. three flights of stairs. A mechanical chair lift (Photo by Alain le Hors; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The operates only for the top (fourth) flight lead- La Mama Archive) ing to Stewart’s apartment. The La Mama “family,” comprised of artists who have worked or who presently work at La Mama, as well as the office and technical staff, is familial in an altogether different mode than I’ve observed as a participant, observer, or scholar/researcher of other theatre collectives. There is a unique, ongoing flow, flexibility, loyalty, and energy exchange among family members at La Mama. Sally Banes suggests that an alternative family structure was exactly what participants in the experimental theatre scene of the 1960s/’70s were seeking (1993:39, 49–51). Stewart is an exotic Mama without a Papa and at La Mama there is a defiant push away from normative notions of the family. Stewart and company have revisioned fa- milial power lines that somehow seem to work in this sprawling, yet insular community. It is implic- itly understood that in spite of the deep spirit of communality, a hierarchical structure exists and those who Stewart has “named” as daughters, sons, and granddaughters play the central roles in the process, in each project. Mia Yoo, Denise Greber, and Federico Restrepo are central or “intimate” La Mama family members; they are in Stewart’s innermost circle. Gretchen Green, an integral member of the La Mama family, runs the office and handles all budgetary/financial concerns for La
9. Ellen would not be more specific with me about her ailments, nor would anyone else I spoke with at La Mama, other than speaking about her “heart condition.” Cindy Rosenthal
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Wickham (Wicki) Boyle was Executive Director of La Mama from 1983 to 1991, and first worked at La Mama in 1969.
BOYLE: She always wanted to make the connection between one person and another. She gave that to me as a legacy. Who do we need to connect? I want her to see, to know, to relax, and to understand what she’s done. But perhaps it’s not her karma to know that. She’s good with the struggle. I remember when she was ill and I used to put her on planes and her doctors would say to me, “You’re going to kill her.” And I’d say, Here’s what you don’t get. She needs to be in a language she doesn’t understand, to create a crowd scene with people she doesn’t know in a place she’s never been. [...] You’ll see, I’d tell them. I’d put her on a plane to Pango Pango and all of a sudden she’d be saying, “Baby, it’s amazing here.” There you go! It’s sort of like Dracula’s coffin. You’d throw her in the coffin with dirt and she’d come out renewed. It would bounce her right back. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021
Mama. Her title has been Managing Director since 1999, but she started at La Mama in the early 1980s as a stage manager. In 2004 she also pitched in and designed some of the masks for Perseus.10 Although Stewart loves being everyone’s “mama” and thrives on the loyalty, affection, and energy of her “kids” and “babies,” who are of every color and ethnicity and hail from dozens of countries, Stewart resists the stereotypes ascribed to African American mothers as seen in popular culture or described by feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins. Stewart is no asexual “mammy,” no masculinized “matriarch” (Collins 2000:69–78). Stewart’s mothering of all her “kids” and the spaces she creates for them in the East Village and around the world can be fruitfully analyzed in light of psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s theories of mother and child development and the ways in which “maternal holding” enables a child to develop an identity, a movement, an “aliveness” that he/she could not experience without effort on the mother’s part (Winnicott 1971a:99–103). Winnicott describes the mother as having an unobtrusive presence—and some artists who have worked at La Mama over the years describe their experiences working with Stewart and at Stewart’s theatres in much the same way. Jean Claude van Itallie re- called his first meeting with Stewart at her theatre at 122 Second Avenue: I never could have expected the warmth of Ellen’s milk. She basically said to me, “Honey, you’re home. This space is for you to put on plays.” The combination of her kindness and her smile and the beauty of the space were overwhelming [...]. Ellen broadcast to the world that we were doing something important. We were her baby playwrights and she sat on us like eggs that would hatch. She told us what we were doing mattered, and we wouldn’t get confirmation of that anywhere else. (2003) Does this sound manipulative (“No one else will love you like I do”)? Is Mama’s hold too tight? No trace of resentment, past pain, or discomfort was evident in van Itallie’s delivery as he reported with great warmth on working with Stewart in the “old days.” In Winnicott’s view the mother provides a kind of human place or space in which the child is able to become whole. Mother and child may experience some pain in the process of separation as the child becomes stronger and more a subject in her/his own right, moving apart from the mother. But in healthy child/adult development, the feeling of holding, that physical/psychological core first experienced with the mother, remains a constant throughout the individual’s life (Winnicott 1971b: 107–10). The La Mama/“child” relationship doesn’t always play out smoothly, however. Some pain and discomfort in finding the boundaries—as well as fierce pride—were in evidence during my Ellen Stewart
10. The individuals who served as General Manager at La Mama were James (“Mr. Jim”) Moore, Regina Mone (Hoover), Wickham (Wicki) Boyle, Meryl Vladimir, and Gretchen Green.
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conversation with Mia Yoo about her experiences working with/at La Mama. Yoo has been a mem- ber of the Great Jones Company since 1995; her father is Korean director Duk Hyung Yoo, a “La Mama baby” since the early 1970s and still one of Stewart’s favorite “sons.” Mia Yoo is a de- voted “granddaughter,” Stewart’s constant helpmate and personal secretary whether at home on East Fourth Street or in Spoleto. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Yoo is also a brilliant, stunning leading actor in the Great Jones Repertory Company. She fea- tured prominently in Stewart’s SEVEN, the seven-part repertory of Greek plays that Stewart pre- sented in April–May 2004. The ambitious and critically lauded SEVEN included a revival of Fragments of a Trilogy (Medea, Elektra, Trojan Women) originally directed by Serban, as well as revivals of Stewart’s Mythos Oedi- 14. Neal Harris (above) and Charles Hayward performing on the side pus, Dionysus Filius Dei, and Seven of a mountain in Electra, Athens, 1975. (Photo by Yannis Demotsis; Against Thebes, along with her courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) new version of Antigone.11 Yoo played the title roles in Medea and Elektra as well as Jocasta in Seven Against Thebes. She spoke of the complexities, the contradic- tions she experiences in one of the central relationships in her life: Ellen doesn’t come to rehearsals and watch what you’re doing. The artist has a great sense of freedom. She will say this isn’t good, or this should be changed. But, she does let you fail. There are productions at La Mama that aren’t at the level they could be. But in general, artists have their inspired moments and then sometimes it doesn’t happen that way. The wonderful thing about Ellen is that she gives you that opportunity to either make that inspirational thing happen—you have the stroke of genius that The Trilogy was [Yoo is referring to the original Serban/Swados production]—or not. She nurtures and supports you through whatever it is. [...] Ellen has the ability to bring out strengths in people—to take away inhibitions. Whether it’s just in conversation or in the work. She will say you can do it. It’s the “mama” quality—she says “you’re my baby, so you’re going to do it.” She is very demanding in life—of people, of the space, of nature—and this can be very frustrating. She desires so much. That is the con- tradiction—she is so open and generous and allows you to be who you are and create yourself, but there is this other part of her that wants to shape you and shape you around her. Each of us as individuals working with her must find a balance with this. When I say yes, yes, I’ll try that, I’ll do that, I do this with the realization that through her vision and her desire I can dis- cover something I didn’t know, didn’t realize, couldn’t have figured out otherwise. (2003)
11. Dates of the original premieres of the SEVEN productions: Antigone (2004), Dionysus Filius Dei (1989), Elektra (1974), Medea (1972), Mythos Oedipus (1985), Seven Against Thebes (2001), Trojan Women (1974). Cindy Rosenthal
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Stewart clearly has extraordinary, almost supernatural gifts as a nurturer, providing a unique and powerfully creative “holding” en- vironment for her artists. But then there’s that “other part” that Yoo alludes to: Stew- art’s subjectivity, her desires, her need to shape, to craft—to maintain her power posi- tion, to protect and preserve her ultimate vi- sion. Stewart continues to spin a sticky web. Stewart works her kids hard, and with a globe full of La Mama offspring, this mother’s work is never done. That’s the way Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 she wants it. She gives and gives to the break- ing point, so it’s not surprising she clamps 15. Diane Lane and Priscilla Smith in Trojan Women, down, and wants to hold on tight to what Venice, Italy, 1975. (Photo by Mark E. Smith; courtesy she’s got. Stewart’s relationship with Serban of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) is a case in point. Although the exact details of their rift remain unclear at this writing, Serban severed his ties with the Great Jones Repertory Company prior to rehearsals for SEVEN in 2004. Swados told me she believes Serban will “come back”—she hopes so, at any rate (2005). Like Serban, not all the kids can or want to stay connected. Stewart has struggled with this give-and- take—and with arrivals and sometimes sudden departures—for a long time. Wickham (Wicki) Boyle, who first met Stewart in 1969 when she worked at La Mama as a “techie” on tour, came back after receiving an MBA from Yale and served as Executive Director of La Mama from 1983 to 1991. Her final departure from La Mama is a chapter no one wants to discuss in any detail. Boyle told me, “I said [to Stewart] I’d love to do this as partners, but that was naïve on my part because she’s really the star and that’s a cool thing. She is a star. It’s her baby, her place.” Boyle left, she says, to start her own company. Boyle “wanted to be able to commission stuff and do my own thing. [...] It’s just like a family. People have to leave their mother at some point. And sometimes people come back. Or not. That’s what it is. Nobody works their whole life in one place anymore” (2005). Stewart chose her words carefully when I asked about Boyle. She didn’t want to say anything bad, she told me, so she said she’d say something good: Wicki sent Bess Myerson to La Mama and that visit resulted in our being awarded a grant for two million dollars from the Department of Cultural Affairs to renovate the La Mama Annex
David Diamond has been coordinator for La Mama’s International Symposium for Directors in Umbria since 1999.
DIAMOND: I don’t work for La Mama throughout the year. The Director’s Workshop is a project I work on with La Mama. If it turns out that the income exceeds expenses, then I get a share of that. It really depends how good I am at budgeting. [...] I think I’m different here in Umbria, less guarded, more open than I am in New York. I think Ellen might be a little happier here too. I know she loves to see this place full of people. She loves to share the beauty of it with other people. My favorite moment of the whole sympo- sium is the first day. People arrive here after flying all night and usually they are pretty over- whelmed. When they get here it is a wonderful moment. Ellen is happiest when she is creating something. She is truly the most creative person I’ve ever met. As a mentor, an inspiration, she is the embodiment of the philosophy that anything is possible. That you can use your Ellen Stewart creativity and your willpower—she has a tremendous amount to do anything you want. To make things happen. She is unwilling to say you can’t do that. She won’t give up. That’s an inspiration.
29 MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/063:24PMPage30 30 Cindy Rosenthal blue smockasshe leftthe store, well-heeled ofher customers at inher sight Sakscaught self- when andthestereotypes Stewartremoved ofblackwomen. oppression On severaloccasions her provide” (Collins2000:100)—countering andsystemsauthorities the the frames “jump[ing] outside h quired towear. orat Atlunchtime, the endofthe day, Stewartwould remove her smock, revealing Diamond onOrchard Street) beneath the bluesmockthat the blackemployeesat Sakswere re- hid the hautecouture dress she herself had she for (thankstothe wasgivenbyPapa designed fabric porter. scenario,itwasn’t Butinthisfairy-tale aprincessballgownthat appeared. Stewart magically to findajob.She walkedacross the street toSaksFifth Avenue andwasinstantly hired, albeitasa to her account toSaint she Patrick’s paidavisit Cathedral soonaftershe arrivedinthe city, praying New York designer. andacareer in1950,seekinganeducation asafashion Chicago According from One ofthe legendsofLaMama’s describeswhat prehistory happenedwhen to Stewartfirstcame Black Ellen’s Cinderella, Boys, andaBed Stewart would say no more, but it was clear to me that the subject of Wicki Boylewasnotall“good.” subjectofWicki Stewart would say nomore, tomethat butitwasclear the er “real” butasyetunauthorizedidentity. repression at racial Stewartquietlyresisted Saksby raiser, inone. grantwriter, andadministratorinUmbria—all neighbor, EddaRutile,is“LaMama inUmbria”whenEllencan’t bethere,Ellensays.She isfund- The familyisnotpaidforthiswork; theydoitoutofloveforLaMama,Ellentellsme.Another silhouetted instonearchwaysthatframethebrightverdantlandscape. Whataspecialsanctuary! the steps,Iamstruckbyasuddencoolbreezeandperfectview: deepredflowersinclaypots sun. Behindher, theUmbrianhills,richgreen,sky, brilliantblue.Aswemakeourwaydown moving aroundintheheatisdifficult.We comeuponMiahanging laundrytodryonalineinthe of thehouse;insectsfreakherout.“I’mnotanoutdoorsygirl.” Shegetsmeaglassofwater, as cleaned theroominanticipationofmyarrival.Deniseisstillon edgeasshegivesthegrandtour theroomwhereIwassupposedtosleep.BothDeniseandMia(Yoo) were stungasthey in look. many bitsandpiecesofMama’s worldareondisplaywhereverI many, worn floortiles,therugs,puppets,masks,posters,photographs, paintings,rubbings—the tiful, asalways.Athomehere,surroundedbythewhite-washed walls,thedeepoldwood, noon rest.ButEllenactuallyseemsfairlywellrested,aswesit andtalk;shelooksstrikinglybeau- is especiallysoforEllen.IrepeatDenise’s commentsinthecaraboutEllen’s needforanafter- hot tosleeptherenow. We sitandshecatchesherbreath.Theheatisdifficultforeveryone,butit eyes, brilliantsmile.We hug.Sheinvitesmeintoherrooms,showslittleloftspace—too longsilverlocks,huge first,watchingmefromthetopofstairs.Thentheresheis—the at bedstead. Mama’s historicalline-upovertheyears.TheTom O’Horganroomhasasplendidpaintediron nearby, fartherupthemountain.SomebedroomsgobynamesofheavyhittersonLa years ago;therehearsal/workshoproom,namedforabenefactor, GeorgeKusar, whohasahome a Turkish directorwhoworkedatLaMamaNYCandwastragicallykilledinanaccidentafew the signsoverdoorways.Roomsarededicatedtofriendslivingordead:CaféHuyssen,for colorful instrumentsandotherbeautifulobjectsfromaroundtheworld.“LaMamaUmbria”read La Mama’s musicroom,which,likeEllen’s apartmentatLaMamaNYC,isfilledwithprecious, hillside. Thehigharched,cathedral-likewindowsofoneoldstonebuildingcatchthelight.Thisis cluster of buildingsona Umbria tothetinytownofBassanowhereLaMamaissituated—a Denise GreberpickedmeupatthetrainstationinSpoletoandwedroveintohillsof that was something very good Wicki did for us.(2005c) didfor goodWicki that wassomethingvery theatre. We finallyhad tosplitthe moneywiththe other tenants ofthe Annexbuilding. But Elisa Faggioli,alocalwoman,and herfamily, doallthecookingandmanagegardenhere. T Ellen iswaitingforme.Comingintothekitchen,outofbrightsunlight,Idon’t seeher onight IwillsharearoomwithDenise.Justfewhoursearlier awasps’nestwasfound A Visit to LaMamaUmbria
Cindy Rosenthal 23–26 July2003 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 September 26 on guest by (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 from Downloaded MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/06 3:24 PM Page 31
designed clothes and demanded that the store owner tell them where they could get the beautiful designer garb that “the colored model was wearing.” When Stewart revealed that she had designed the clothes, the department store rewarded her with a designer’s position and her own workroom of 15 seamstresses. These were mostly concentration camp survivors, recent immigrants to the U.S. According to Stewart, U.S.-born whites were unwilling to accept a black woman as a boss (Stewart 2003b). As she claimed her new identity—boss and designer—and attained a different level of status and power, Stewart sought a way to strike out on her own. “Self-reliance” and “possess[ing] the spirit of independence” were highly valued attributes passed down from mothers to daughters in the African American community (Collins 2000:116)—and Stewart is a prime example. Opening her own bou- tique seemed like a good idea. Although Stewart’s boutique never materialized, the income gener- ated by her success as a fashion designer (she continued to work freelance for women’s casual wear Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 and children’s clothing manufacturers until the early 1970s) enabled her to create a safe space for herself and her growing artistic family as she forged ahead, constructing a new, truly unique role of theatre impresario. Stewart declared then and declares now that she is not a theatre person; she doesn’t go to the the- atre. But when she felt what she calls a “click” or a “beep” while talking to playwrights Paul Foster
Denise takes me through the students’ rooms, the gallery space (entirely covered, floor to ceil- ing, with a colorful mural created by last year’s symposium participants), the music room, the kitchen (and outside, an immense 400-year-old stone oven), the dining room, rehearsal room, and the newest La Mama Umbria structure, a tiny church nestled on the hillside above the main house. I learn that everything hanging on the walls or from the ceiling—gifts and treasures from around the world—is carefully chosen, framed, placed by Ellen. Her eye and hand are every- where. As we are about to set off in a van for the nearby town of Spello, Ellen yells—and I’m scared by her sudden fury (at no one and everyone in particular)—“OH NO! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” Garbage bags left on the pathway. “The dogs will be at them before we’re halfway down the hill.” Frank (Carucci, president of La Mama’s board of directors) and I grab some bags; Denise and David (Diamond, symposium coordinator) hoist them into the back of the van for dumping later. And then...“The doors!!! Who left the damned doors open? That’s asking for trouble.” Denise is out of the van in an instant, looking for her keys, shutting doors. Frank says, “This place is all about keys.” Frank first directed at La Mama in 1978 (Coolest Cat in Town) and has been the President of the Board of Directors since 1995. “Ellen is unique,” he says. “After her, they broke the mold.” The next day, in conversation with Tisch Jones, a symposium participant and professor of the- atre from University of Iowa, told me: “This place is about opening doors. It’s so unlike academia where they tell you it’s okay to fail but the reality is that’s bullshit. Here it’s really okay to take risks.” She said Ellen offered her the cabaret space at La Mama to do a performance she had wanted to produce and direct in NYC in February 2004. [Jones presented Klub Ka: The Blues Leg- end at La Mama 5–8 February 2004.] Tisch also told me of an incident earlier in the summer when Ellen asked her to change rooms because her snoring was disturbing some of the women nearby. “It was so embarrassing and I felt so terrible,” Jones told me, “but Mama just kept saying not to worry, it was all going to be all right. So a few days later,” Jones continued, “when I was talking about my plans to rent the John Houseman Theatre in New York next winter, she turned to me and said, ‘Why do you want to spend that money on the Houseman? You can come to La Mama and do it for free.’ Later Mama told me, ‘Do you see how everything works out for the best? Good things always happen.’ Do you know what else is amazing?” Jones went on, “there are no
cliques here.” Ellen Stewart At dinner later with the entire group, Ellen leaned across the table and told me I can’t write about all the stories because “some of it is too painful.”
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and Fred Lights, who needed a place for their art, she knew she had found her calling. “It’s not voodoo. It’s what I get from the person. [...] You make beautiful love in the world [...] Playwrights knew if I could do their work I would do it” (2004b). Why did she do it? Because Lights was family; Stewart refers to him as her brother. He was not a blood relation, but was raised by her mother in Chicago. This “othermother” category is a well-known phenomenon in the culture of black families. As explained by Collins, othermothers, “women who assist blood Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 mothers by sharing mothering responsibili- ties—traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood” (178). Stewart, her mama’s daughter, or an “other- mama”-in-the-making, took on the role and its responsibilities, first in relation to African American Lights and white Foster and then for many more “kids” of many colors. But this success came at a price. Stewart’s complex, powerful image and the enormous productivity that marks her work in the the- atre seemed to threaten the male power base of the Black liberation struggle in the late 1960s, according to her own report. Stewart 16. Jamil Zakkai (left), Luisa Reyes (center), and has stated that blacks resent her for not fo- Cecile Guidote (kneeling) in Caucasian Chalk Circle, cusing on producing a theatre for blacks, a directed by Fritz Bennewitz, as part of the TWITAS black political theatre (Eng 2002:137–38, project, 1977. (Courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama 140–41). She told me she was a target of Archive) the Black Panthers while she toured interna- tionally in the late ’60s. Stewart says that W. McNeil Lowry of the Ford Foundation actually sought protection for her at that time. Collins suggests that the prevailing images of “Black women as dangerous, deviant, castrating mothers divided the black community at this critical period in the Black liberation struggle” (2000:77) and Stewart’s experience of feeling isolated from the community, vilified, and the object of suspicion and blame, supports this idea. Amiri Baraka, whose jazz opera Money was produced at La Mama in 1982, acknowledges that there was some resentment directed toward Stewart among mem- bers of the black community but that there were also plenty of African American theatre workers
Valois Mickens, a La Mama performer, has been a member of Great Jones Repertory Company since 1972.
MICKENS: When we first did the Trilogy Liz and Andrei worked with us in warm-ups on developing vocal muscles. The more you do, the stronger you get. With Andrei we would try and break a wall with our sound. Now the company comes from many different working methods, we work together as a family, but not in terms of the methods, techniques. With the old company we would work together for years on a play, every day, eight, nine hours a day. In those days we were paid $50 dollars a week and that was possible to live on. Now you can’t do it. People have responsibilities, people have families. In those days we didn’t have lots of
Cindy Rosenthal luggage to carry, we didn’t have much of anything.
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Ellen Stewart 33 Ellen was always the banker. We would sit would We banker. the Ellen was always 12 ould make the soup—andould make the kind of woman could make soup for nothing. [...] This is the she oster and director O’Horgan described these early years as “playing house.” Stewart housed early years house.” described these as “playing O’Horgan oster and director tion of incorporation on 22 November 1965; Stewart, however, believes La Mama incorporated in 1963; and Foster is incorporated in 1963; and Foster La Mama believes however, 1965; Stewart, tion of incorporation on 22 November 1962. convinced it happened by F were—a we Here of us—all group college of us had mat- didn’t (not Ellen, but that degrees ter)—smart young people—and and told wand around magician her waved Ellen was the that She was important. dream The Money was not important. could do our dream. us yes, we w it was gold, and you’d think it was say find a piece of shit, she’d street, go down the would that incorporated. already had gold [...] By 1962 we As legend has it, it all began with a bed. That was the only set piece Stewart had in her basement in her only set piece Stewart had was the As legend has it, it all began with a bed. That om Haar; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) La Mama Stewart/The courtesy of Ellen om Haar; igner who worked at La Mama in the beginning, soon “enlightened” them—“he beginning, soon “enlightened” be the La Mama in at igner who worked said let there 12. Accounts about when La Mama incorporated vary. Gretchen Green, the current Managing Director, has documenta- 12. Director, Managing the current Green, Gretchen incorporated vary. about when La Mama Accounts performance space on East Ninth Street, which she created originally for Foster and Lights. In an- originally for Foster created which she performance Street, space on East Ninth concur about and Foster she impresario, life as a theatre story beginning of Stewart’s other about the and de- a (lighting) gel was. Andy Milligan, a director a clue what had of them fact neither the that s use her would she plan was simple. day, During the 2003). Stewart’s was” (Foster light and there the see to it that designed. would clothing she night she At space as a boutique,basement selling the work. their got to present playwrights own could out of her she whatever and directors playwrights and paid her cooked for them, them, told me: Foster fashion in the working industry. made pocket, using money she the 17. Ellen Stewart in the La Mama theatre with Jun Matsumo, Kazuo Ohno, and Jun Maeda, 1981. (Photo by (Photo 1981. Maeda, and Jun Kazuo Ohno, Matsumo, with Jun theatre in the La Mama Stewart 17. Ellen T told me he thing,” Ellen’s agenda. “Politics a wholly different like him, who simply just wasn’t had (2005). MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/06 3:24 PM Page 33 Page PM 3:24 4/26/06 MTDR190_11311_ch02 MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/063:25PMPage34 34 Cindy Rosenthal S 19. Joe Chaiken in V 18. tewart/The LaMama Archive)tewart/The ezzuso; courtesy ofEllenezzuso; courtesy Stewart/The LaMama Archive) M oney: AJazz Opera U ncle Vanya, , writtenby Amiri Baraka atLaMama in1982.(Photo by andperformed Jerry
directed by Andrei Serban, 1983.(Photo by Jerry Vezzuso; ofEllen courtesy Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 September 26 on guest by (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 from Downloaded MTDR190_11311_ch02 4/26/06 3:25 PM Page 35
around her kitchen table late at night. She had her apart- ment on East Fifth Street and we would sift ideas as we ate dinner. Many of those origi- nal scripts had food on them. There was no formality to it. Tom [O’Horgan] moved in by this time, Jim Moore [known as “Mr. Jim,” La Mama’s busi- ness manager for almost 40 years, until he retired in 1999] already lived there. She would Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 give me two dollars for ex- penses a day. But I noticed she gave Tom three dollars a day. And I kept bugging her about 20. Paul Zimet and William Badgett in Talking Band’s Big Mouth, that, why’d he get three dol- written by Sidney Godfarb, directed by Tina Shepard, 1985. (Photo lars a day. And she told me, by Jerry Vezzuso; courtesy of Paul Zimet and The Talking Band) “Honey, he has a lot of laun- dry to do.” For some reason I accepted that. But in those days, on the Lower East Side, you could still buy a hamburger for 55 cents. Don’t ask me how we lived—but we all seemed to be pretty healthy and happy. It’s a big argument for socialism. (2003) How is this rehearsal process different from all other rehearsal processes? In 2004 and 2005 I had the opportunity to see Stewart and the Great Jones Repertory Company cre- ate two new productions: Antigone, the one premier in Stewart’s 2004 SEVEN marathon of Greek plays in repertory, and Perseus, produced during April–May 2005. Music for Antigone and Perseus was composed by Elizabeth Swados, with additional music from musical director Michael Sirotta and Stewart, as well as from Heather Pauuwe, Yukio Tsuji, and Bill Ruyle in 2004, and from Pauuwe, Tsuji, and Carlos Valdez in 2005. The works, according to the programs, were choreographed by the Great Jones Company. How is choreography built by committee? In most instances when dance movements or special stagings are needed, Stewart describes in simple, layperson’s language the re- sult she wants to achieve and one or more company members jump in to assist, improvise, and dem- onstrate. Stewart never uses the precise terminology of stage direction (i.e., upstage, downstage) or
Amiri Baraka—playwright, poet, director, activist—had his first play produced at La Mama in 1983, Money: A Jazz Opera.
BARAKA: Ellen was very very free and open, but at the same time, she was determined to do things her own way. It was an interesting contradiction. It gave people the sense that with Ellen they could do whatever came into their minds, as long as it wasn’t in conflict with what was in Ellen’s mind. She was unbelievably productive. She’d give you a space, tell you, “Now this is what I expect—go!” It wasn’t anarchy. With that nothing happens, except maybe Happenings. You have to set a form or a direction for the whole thing, and that’s what Ellen did. She was producing work from all over the world. There were misses and hits. Many things happened that no one found out about. She was all over the place. But this was a very positive thing. Broadway and Off-Broadway were like penitentiaries that depended on private Ellen Stewart money. Ellen depended on grants of course, but she always had a kind of personal integrity and a personal need to do what she had to do. I think it would be very very difficult for Ellen to start something up now, in this period of time. Back in the ’60s there was an opening up, a space for work that we don’t have today.
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21. John Bolger (left) and Harvey Fierstein in Safe Sex, written by Harvey Fierstein and directed by Eric Concklin, 1987. (Photo by Jerry Vezzuso; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/ The La Mama Archive) 22. Ellen Stewart with Andrei Serban during a rehearsal of Medea, 1987. (Photo by Jerry Vezzuso; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive)
choreographic terms; she was never schooled in these disciplines and chooses not to work this way. Sometimes company members with special skills bring in specific ideas and/or choreography to re- hearsal, as with Federico Restrepo’s puppet choreography for Antigone and for the Court Entertain- ment and Sea Monster sections in Perseus. Renouard Gee is credited with choreographing several other sections of Perseus, as was Chris Wild. Juliana Lau and Maureen Fleming each choreographed a section in Perseus, and are credited in the program. On several occasions I witnessed Denise Gre- ber, Restrepo, and Onni Johnson improvise solutions to the movement and dance challenges Stew- art posed in rehearsal. During one Perseus rehearsal (7 April 2004) Stewart called out to Restrepo to teach a group of dancers: “This is a waltz step,” she told him. “I need their two legs to come out here. Fix it for me. You see what I’m after. I want a strong movement—this way [Stewart gestured
Cindy Rosenthal with her arms] and this way.”
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Yukio Tsuji is a La Mama resident composer whose first show at La Mama was Tibetan Book of the Dead in 1983.
TSUJI: Regular musicians cannot work with Ellen. I’m a composer, and an arranger, and Michael Sirotta is too. She trusts us. She sings a melody, we write it down. Then everything after that is up to us. It can be anything we want to do. If it doesn’t work, she says (he yells) IT DOESN’T WORK!! Then we change it. She’s not a musician but when she sings she always sings on pitch. It’s amazing. We know what she wants. We adjust ourselves. She always has a story. We’ve been working with Ellen for a long time. Musicians have egos. She knows that she needs to find a certain kind of voice for the story. She doesn’t do auditions. She just finds people. [...] Ellen belongs to everywhere. She doesn’t do outdoor performance in New York. But internationally we are outdoors always. And we are moving, moving. After outdoor performances, nobody wants to come back in.
I think our performance in Poland of Trojan Women [2004] was the best one we ever did. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 And it was raining. We had many people who were new to the place, and new to the piece. It could have been a disaster. The actors could get hurt. But once we started nothing mattered anymore. The people were just into it. Ellen was there in the middle of it, walking around, ordering people, telling people what to do. Everyone worked so hard. No one left, even with the pouring rain. [...] Before I joined with Ellen, I didn’t know what experimental theatre was. She is a person who knows about color, she is full of color. No one can do what she can do. All countries, all languages, all colors come together. She makes something new, a mix of cultures. More Europeans understand this kind of work than Ameri- cans do. Here, it is much more conservative. I learned a lot from her. Skin color doesn’t matter; culture, where you come from doesn’t matter. It’s a blend. I can study one thing or another, but that stays in one place, doesn’t change. With Ellen it is always a new beginning.
Stewart’s first directorial credit is listed as The Cotton Club Gala in 1975. O’Horgan, as the head of the La Mama Troupe (1965–1969), served as La Mama’s first artistic director. He was followed by Wilford Leach, who with John Braswell directed the La Mama E.T.C. company, a separate group, beginning in January 1970 and continuing “until Joe Papp stole him” in the mid-1970s (Stewart 2005d). Another of La Mama’s “umbrella troupes,” as Stewart calls them, Joel Zwick’s La Mama Plexus, also produced actively at 74A East Fourth Street during this period (1971–1975). Serban took on a leadership role at La Mama in 1970, when he led the first European tour of the La Mama Repertory Company, yet another group, with his productions of Ubu and Arden of Favershsam. The La Mama Repertory Company was renamed the Great Jones Repertory Company by Serban in 1974.13 As Serban worked less at La Mama and more at the American Repertory Theatre in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, and at the Public Theatre, Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Stewart assumed the primary artistic directorial role of the company, notably in 1985 with her production of Mythos Oedipus. When Stewart began to conceive, adapt, and direct her own productions in the mid-1980s, she used the hands-on experience and knowledge she absorbed working with Serban and Swados. The Greek myths were her starting point. Her primary source materials continue to be the myths them- selves, rather than existing classical plays. “Why is Oedipus (or Antigone or Perseus) important?” is the question that drives the creation of each of her productions. Stewart creates her own versions of the Greek stories: “Why aren’t my interpretations as valid as Sophocles and Euripides?” she asks (2004a). Ozzie Rodriguez describes Stewart as “a gatherer” (2002). Stewart created the plotlines and librettos for Antigone and Perseus after referring to books, internet sources, and artworks (sculpture, vases, bas-reliefs) provided by translator Marina Kotzamani and research assistant Charles Allcroft for inspiration. Ellen Stewart
13. According to Stewart, when the Great Jones Repertory Company toured internationally, company members received room and board and pocket money on the road, but not salaries. During this period, when the company presented work in New York, each member received $50 a week.
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“I don’t cast my plays” she told me; instead, she “picks” people as they occur to her dur- ing the research process, and sometimes during rehearsals. Decisions other than casting— design, choreography, vocal scor- ing, and orchestrations—are also made in situ. Stewart’s interpre- tations and analyses of the myths and the serendipitous nature of Great Jones company rehearsals often lead to surprising, unusual Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 choices in her productions, espe- cially if one is familiar with Sophocles’ and Euripides’ plays. Stewart’s Antigone begins with the fatal battle between Eteokles 23. Drama within the wheel in Seven Against Thebes, directed by and Polyneikes—a thrilling Ellen Stewart, 2001. (Still from video by Mary Beth Ward; courtesy gymnastic rope-dance, which of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) was choreographed and per- formed in 2004 by Chris Wild and Billy Clark. In the aftermath of the brothers’ deaths, Creon appears with a new character, Eteokles’ wife. Including Eteokles’ wife in the production is an example of one of Stewart’s unusual, unexpected choices. This is also a striking example of the openness of Stewart’s creative, working environment. Stewart told me: [While doing research for Antigone] I found a drawing of Eteokles’ wife, but there is nothing written about her. Shawneeka Woodard was a student who came to watch our rehearsals from the Borough of Manhattan Community College. I knew her teacher. If she hadn’t come to us there wouldn’t have been an Eteokles’ wife. [...] I want every person [...] who is with me to feel as if they are entering into what we are doing—I want them to feel part of it—and I try to cre- ate situations where we can do that. (2004a)
In Stewart’s next scene, Creon sentences Antigone to death for burying her brother Polyneikes, a traitor to the state. Antigone is then imprisoned onstage as cast members carry on rocks that sur- round and “bury” her. Instead of following this scene with Antigone’s and Haemon’s deaths and end- ing the Antigone story as in Sophocles’ play, in Stewart’s version Haemon removes the stones and with Antigone, escapes from Thebes. Antigone gives birth to a son, Maeon, who grows up to wit- ness and later compete in a spectacular series of athletic games, much like an ancient version of the
Wlodzimierz Staniewski, Director of Gardzienice Theatre, presented his Elektra at La Mama in 2005.
STANIEWSKI: When she was in Gardzienice with the company last June [2004], doing Trojan Women, we had several hundred people in the audience who had come from all over Poland. It was very rainy, and she was running the whole performance with a stick. She looked like an incredible magician. She interacted with the audience—moved them from here to there—big crowds responding to the movement of her big stick. When some of the local women from the village came too close to the action it was as if she suddenly cast a spell on them and magically they would move to the proper place for the performance in a matter of seconds. It was an astonishing thing. Seeing a great artist in the act of creation. And she was totally wet, totally wet from the pouring rain. Many of the performers said it was the best performance
Cindy Rosenthal they had ever played.
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Olympics. These athletic demonstrations and Maeon’s glorious, winning feats in the competition are a high point of Stewart’s production. After the competition Creon orders his soldiers to kill Maeon and Haemon to kill Antigone. Al- though Maeon, Antigone, and Haemon die, Stewart inserts a deus ex machina: Dionysus flies in, and revives Antigone and Haemon. Stewart told me she Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 learned about Dionysus’s role in Antigone by studying Euripides’ fragments, where “Dionysus 24. Marchers following the puppet leader in Mythos Oedipus, came in and brought Antigone directed by Ellen Stewart at La Mama, 2004. (Photo Richard Greene; and Haemon back to life” courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) (2004a). The a cappella opening chorus Swados composed for Antigone had a birdlike quality. Haunted, ethereal, spiritual. I attended the rehearsal when Swados first taught it to the company. Stewart in- terrupted her at one point, declaring the music “needed more Hasid.” A few minutes later Stewart asked Swados to incorporate some Arabic melodies too. Swados nodded and began to try out a new vocal pattern. She chose Valois Mickens to sing the new “Arabic” part. “I can’t sing it loud—should I belt it?” asked Mickens. “That’s beautiful,” Swados said. “We have to do it two or three times,” Stew- art said. She turned to me, “That’s how I get my politics in there.” When I later asked Stewart where the idea for “Hasid” and “Arabic” came from and why she had asked Swados to combine the two she said, “It’s really about the music—why they fight each other, I don’t know. Those melodies are so perfectly balanced. The two sides can make such beautiful music together, as you see” (2004a). The fight, the conflict in the music, is exactly why it works so well. Stewart’s Antigone begins with the battle of the brothers—Eteocles and Polyneices—as different and similar as Arab and Hasid. In Perseus an overriding theme of Stewart’s production is the title character’s love and devotion to his mother, Danae. In Stewart’s version the epic tale continually circles back to Perseus’s struggle to care for and do right by his mother in the face of extraordinary odds and challenges. Throughout the opening performance of Perseus I was struck by the resonance of this theme in relation to the devotion of the Great Jones Company to Stewart, their “Mama.” “Do you think Ellen was happy?” a number of the performers asked me at the opening night party after the first performance. Beyond pleasing the audience or winning good reviews, those who work with Stewart want to win her ap- proval, want to make her happy. An important agenda for Stewart in this production was establish- ing that Perseus’s wife Andromeda (the daughter of the King of Ethiopia) was a dark-skinned, African woman, not fair, as she has been depicted in artists’ renderings throughout history. Stewart cast Prisca Ouya, a dark-skinned African American actress/dancer as Andromeda and Chris Wild, a golden haired white man, as Perseus. According to the family tree Stewart inserted in the Perseus program, Andromeda and Perseus had five children whose descendents included those who establish the great Persian civilization as well as the pivotal characters in Greek mythology and culture. Stew- art told me: Andromeda was an African princess. I think if humankind could begin to tell the truth—this history of Andromeda has been covered over. Can you imagine? All this time, no one ac- knowledged that she was Ethiopian, that she was black and her parents were black. (2005a) Ellen Stewart With Perseus Stewart wanted to draw attention to what she viewed as a long-held racial bias; in her onstage Epilogue, which included her multiracial company in procession around the Annex,
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Elizabeth Swados—composer, writer, director—first worked at La Mama in 1971 on the Jarboro Players’ production of La Celestina.
SWADOS: Something was pulling me in the direction of international work. Also, I hated the theatre. I had this feeling that the theatre was full of phonies, that plays were stupid...it didn’t mean anything. I wanted to be a folk singer. I wanted to be a political person. All of those disparate things came together at La Mama. There were political groups coming in, absurdist groups coming in. Incredible music was being done. When she took me to Tom O’Horgan’s apartment, I can’t even describe it to you. To a young composer—she opened the door for me—it was the beginning of my creative life. [...] She’s like a shaman. In other cultures shamans put on incredible acts to get people to cross the line to where they want to take them. It’s not that I don’t see through it. But it’s that I under- stand it. Whatever it is, it works. I mean, she’s traveled all over the world and you can find her
mopping the floors in the theatre’s bathroom—or rather, she used to. I think if she still could, she Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 would. [...] I always wanted her to be proud of me but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. You know, to be successful when you’re very young is very difficult. It’s not easy. You have to really challenge yourself to get out of what you’re used to. I probably did it awkwardly, but I had to do it. And I think she respects and understands that. She didn’t get mad at me for being less faithful to La Mama and doing a million other things. For working at BAM. She doesn’t like BAM a whole lot. I don’t blame her. It’s what she’s been doing her entire life and BAM gets two zillion dollars—why exactly? I’m sure that’s the question she’s been asking herself. So when I went off to do some big productions at BAM that had to be hard. I didn’t realize it until later. She’s never yelled at me—except once, when I was 18 and a hippie and she told me I had to wash my dirty feet. “Wash those feet!” She’s told me many times that things could be better. I remember when Trojan Women opened at Sarah Lawrence [1974] and she came up to Andrei and me and told us that this wasn’t our work. You’ve lost it. And he and I went back to my apart- ment together and cried. But we fixed it. She said we needed more balls. More passion. To be more grounded. My response was that it needed more drums; it needed to be more rhythmic, louder. [...] When Ellen comes in and directs the work we’ve collaborated on, it feels like she’s taking part in, leading, a family seder. The family knows what’s going on, fights like crazy about it, and ends up having a beautiful night. She’s the leader, but everyone’s with her. When this all first started, it was clear that Andrei was the leader. I was the composer, but it was his gig, and Ellen was behind Andrei. Behind the scenes, but she was there, whispering.
portraying the major characters in Greek mythology, she re-presented Western culture through a (more) multicultural, multiracial lens. There were differences between the 2004 Perseus process and production and earlier works by the Great Jones Repertory Company. For the first time, Stewart used blackouts, which she claims not to like. Because of the technical/scenic complexity of the piece—quick costume changes, several performers “flying” (somewhat precariously, or so it appeared), numerous complicated lighting ef- fects—and because Stewart’s foremost concern is always in preserving the integrity of the “stage pictures” she makes, she chose to go to black between scenes (Stewart 2005b). Perseus was also longer than any of the other productions she had directed at La Mama (over two hours) and hence, also for the first time, Perseus had an intermission (“I don’t like long shows. My work is too physical anyway” [Stewart 2003a]). Breaking with La Mama’s long-lived traditions shocked (and amused) some Great Jones company members. Performer and production coordinator Denise Greber laughed when she told me, “Maybe next year we’ll even have green costumes” (2005). Stewart is famously superstitious about using the color green. She will not allow green costumes, props, lights, or sets in her theatres (al- though she may not use it, of course others do). “It is bad luck,” she told me. “I learned this from Cindy Rosenthal
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And he listened. You don’t not listen. But then it got funky with me. With Trojan Women, An- drei and I were really equal in the work, but I didn’t get the credit for that. And Ellen didn’t do any- thing about that at first. And that was very hurtful. But I was so busy, with the death of my mother and figuring out my life, that I didn’t realize how hard that was. She’s made it up to me since then. Ellen has made a huge point of giving me credit now. [...] The [Joe] Papp phase for me may have come out of my sense that Andrei was getting what I wanted with Ellen—this attractive, charismatic male was at the center of her attention and Joe Papp recognized me for myself. [Swados’s first production at the Public Theatre was Agamem- non, which she conceived with Serban in 1977.] What a nightmare it was when he first hooked me up with Andrei too! But I must say that I think Andrei is one of the greatest directors in the world. I would never put up with any of this if I didn’t believe that. He was incredibly inspirational to me. No matter what, no matter what I’m doing, if Ellen’s doing one of her Greek shows, I’ve got to do the music. I can’t let anyone else do the music for her, I get really jealous. [...]
She is so unusual. When I think about the fact that she is in the last part of her life, even Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 though I’ve been there a lot of her life, I can’t bear the thought of this world without her. I can’t imagine La Mama continuing without her. There may be a place called La Mama that somebody brings good avantgarde international theatre to but it will not be La Mama. La Mama is her. All the people, all the places, it all connects back to her, it’s about her. Being a La Mama baby, you immediately have a kinship with a La Mama baby from another country that you wouldn’t have with another person. It’s true that there are techniques and a frame of reference with people that have worked with her—the vocabulary comes very fast. Very physical, very rhythmic, eclectic, ethnic, free, highly dramatic, highly visual, big sets, and environmental, site-specific theatre. In 1972 we did Medea on the ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon. There were ruins and Andrei and Ellen were looking around, running around these enormous ruins, trying to figure out where Medea was going to be, where was Jason going to come, where was the messenger going to come from with his enormous torch...where’s the Chorus, should they be up (no too dangerous) or down. And then at some point, the second night, Andre and Ellen decided that there should be a Medea II. After the performance I was supposed to make up music and Andrei was going to lead the audience through more ruins and Andrei had a story about what the next part of Medea would be. [...] Ellen never forgets a soul. She’s never abandoned a sick or dying person. And all those lives are inside of her. If she lived beyond me I would feel a lot better because I know that she would take care of my memory, the way she does with Genji [Ito] and others. I hope I can give that to her. But she may outlive me. She’s such a powerful, magical spirit.
people that went over to London in the vaudeville days. And on the few occasions when there has been some green onstage it has been disastrous” (2003a). Stewart will not be more specific than that. “She won’t even talk to you if you’re wearing green,” managing director Gretchen Green told me (2005). Raine Bode, a young director who has presented her work at La Mama, also helped out with Perseus. She “wore a shmattah as a techie during Perseus performances—when you’re running lights you have to be another performer in the show,” she told me: There’s too much going on to be in a booth somewhere—you’ve got to see everything. The white floor helps. We don’t have a stage manager to call cues. We call light and sound cues ourselves. It’s fun. Things change. Ellen is constantly giving notes—so the performances are changing and growing. She’s not one of those directors that stops coming to a show or work- ing on a show after opening night. At La Mama you have to go with the flow or you’re in
trouble. (2005) Ellen Stewart Perseus had one of the most complex, rich, and sophisticated vocal and instrumental scores I’ve heard at La Mama; critics concur that the score was one of the production’s strong points
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Theodora Skipitares, theatre artist and multimedia director, has been with La Mama since 1992, when her production of Underground was presented in the first-floor theatre.
SKIPITARES: Ellen maintains an incredible balance in her life, between creating all her shows, whenever she wants and in whatever country she wants, and running the theatre, and running Spoleto. It’s amazing. [...] She’s someone who has always traveled extensively and can fit into any culture. I remember one night when we were in Bangalore [1999] and somebody came by to listen to our rehearsal. He leaned over and said to me, “I can’t believe it. The music she’s created sounds exactly like Bangalore music.” Another time in Bangalore we were in a rickshaw and the driver was playing some kind of loud, pop song. She says to me, “That’s what the music’s going to sound like [in the show].” So she says to the driver, “I want your tape. How much do you want for your tape?” And he says, “I don’t know. Ten rupees.” And it’s some horrible Bollywood musical tape. When she played it for the musicians later, their eyes rolled back in their heads. That’s what she wants it to sound like? In the end, what she created for the performance was totally original music that used the instruments she heard on that driver’s tape. She always puts Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 people off in the beginning. But then, they end up loving her. She also gets the maximum use out of this Mama thing. Everyone gravitates toward and around that identity. [...] If you think of some of the amazingly high-end directors that go places to create stuff you’ll never find somebody who has done what Ellen has done. She can find access, go into any kind of community and make it work. No woman has done what she’d done. In Bangalore the dark- skinned people totally bonded with her. The same was true in Cambodia and Vietnam. [...] It took me a while to realize that she was teaching me things. Whether it was how to prop- erly wrap pantyhose around your crotch to hide the four thousand dollars that we needed to do the produc- tion—she taught me that. But I also learned how one boldly goes into a new community; she would go into and get hold of a situation. That was really great. Last year I went to Calcutta to do a show. This was one of the ones I wanted to do on my own. It was calmer, simpler that way. But I think so much of what I did there—including 25. Ellen Stewart and Theodora Skipitares in Cambodia on the Sea of my confidence—was based Milk tour, January 2002. (Photo by Perry Yung)
(see Chaudhuri 2005; Shaw 2005).14 Stewart has always collaborated with top-notch composers/ musicians/arrangers (see the Swados, Sirotta, and Tsuji boxes that accompany this article for these musicians’ accounts of working with Stewart over many years). The visual design for Perseus was a broad, crazy-quilt spectrum of styles and textures, ranging from the playful childlike simplicity of a three-ring circus (the whirling and beheading of the Gor-
14. Una Chaudhuri: A marvelous musical score, composed by Elizabeth Swados and others, played by an accomplished orchestra and sumptuously sung by members of the cast, deeply contradicts the naïve, handmade aesthetic used to conjure the story’s many scenes of magic and metamorphosis [...] (2005) Helen Shaw: Ms. Swados’s composition is compelling (if gong-heavy). She and Michael Sirotta score the two hours with juicy choral chanting, led by Benjamin Mercantoni’s spooky soprano. Despite the inexpert voices of the majority of the
Cindy Rosenthal cast, they combine in impressive force in the La Mama Annex’s echoing barn. (2005)
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on my apprenticeship with Ellen. ROSENTHAL: Does your relationship feel daughterly, or sisterly? SKIPITARES: Yes, both. I know she feels I yell at her a lot. Her favorite expression is, “Every girl for herself.” And whenever you ask her advice—if I tell her that in a work situation someone’s not treating me well and I want to get out of there—she’ll say, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 “Alright, make sure every- thing’s okay, all wound up and 26. Cambodian children performing in Sea of Milk tour, January then you can quit. Every girl 2002. (Photo by Theodora Skipitares; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The for herself.” She advises all La Mama Archive) the time on love life issues. She claims to know the status of everyone’s love life at La Mama. She’s usually very good at reading someone. ROSENTHAL: Has she ever been bothered by the fact that you do work elsewhere? Do you think she’s ever felt threatened by that? SKIPITARES: No, the answer’s no. For the past couple of years, since I’ve settled at La Mama, I haven’t really worked much anywhere else. She is supportive of my work. She’ll tell you honestly whether she likes one show less than another. She does do what a mother-type does in a large family. [...] Health-wise, she had a horrible spring [2003]. If she’s really, really sick she’ll say, “Please distract me. Let’s talk about this story I’m going to do.” And you’ll say, “Well you’re going to do the story of Aeneas, aren’t you? He leaves Troy, and eventually goes to found Rome...” And she’ll get better. She distracts herself with her work. She’ll get herself through a really painful part of her sick- ness. She can heal herself. That’s impressive. I’ve learned from that. The other day she was ob- sessing over a vase that a Greek woman had done research on for her. It showed Ismene being killed by one of the Seven against Thebes. I told her, “Ellen, you’re so prepared! This production [Antigone] isn’t going to happen until May.” She was in her pajamas and sick and she said to me “I’m bored.” At that time she was in pain 24 hours a day. And she hardly slept. She has a huge appetite for life. She really does. That’s the most appealing thing about her and that’s what keeps her going now.
gons, tightrope walking Hermes, and Perseus’s hair-raising flights) to exquisitely sensual and dreamlike images (Danae’s imprisonment in the tower and the transformation of the tower into a flower garden; the beautiful dancer Maureen Fleming and her choreography for the Nereids). Stewart describes Perseus as a dance opera. All of her Great Jones Repertory productions are al- most entirely danced and sung; the few words spoken are usually in Greek and/or Latin. Stewart’s roots as a fashion designer persist throughout her oeuvre, from the first to the last. Her productions are always rich with spectacle, using virtually every inch of the versatile Annex space. Her color palate ranges from vibrant primary colors and Vegas-glitter kitsch to understated elegance and opulence. The aural soundscape is as rich and variegated as the visual. The storyteller of Antigone and Perseus is Benjamin Marcantoni, a superb counter-tenor who joined the Great Jones company with Ellen Stewart SEVEN. Stewart’s choice of Marcantoni was brilliant; a sweet angel or bewitched devil, his sung narration had an otherworldly, transgendered quality.
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27. Frederico Restrepo (left on pedestal), Shigeko Suga (behind), George Drance (left stairs), Yasmine Soffer (right stairs), and Mia Yoo ( front stairs) in Mythos Oedipus, directed by Ellen Stewart at La Mama, 2004. (Photo by Richard Greene; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive)
When I have attended rehearsals, I’ve felt a high, focused energy at work. The actors in their multiple, multicultural pairings and groups have a visceral presence; they work hard to communicate the story Stewart has selected, adapted, and edited, as clearly as they can, with their bodies and voices. At the first Antigone rehearsal, Stewart sat at the side of the room, near the musicians, and told her story of Antigone to the company, explaining the sequence of scenes, songs, and dance sec- tions in the production. Swados was absent that evening and Stewart attempted to explain Swados’s written vocal score, which reflected Stewart’s and Swados’s choices, to Michael Sirotta, who planned to teach some of the choral material to the company that evening. Company members had copies of Stewart’s choral lyrics (in Greek, phonetically spelled) and Swados’s written score. Stewart corrected Sirotta as he began working with the cast, and sang some of the phrases the way she wanted them sung. George Drance (longtime company member and a Jesuit priest in “real life”), who played the role of Maeon’s mentor in Antigone, served as a kind of mentor to the cast; he interpolated some of Stewart’s suggestions and directions and mediated between Stewart and Sirotta, and also between Sirotta and the company. When Stewart raised her arms, raised her voice, and stopped the rehearsal, Drance frequently articulated what Stewart wanted and what would happen next—without her ever having to tell him. At one point he made the decision that a group of actors would continue to learn the choral section in Antigone with Sirotta, while another group would move to the first floor re- hearsal space to work on staging Mythos Oedipus with Federico Restrepo. Stewart was silent at the time, but seemingly in complete accord with Drance’s decision. She sat back, and was able to rest for a moment. At another point in rehearsal the costume designer, Catherine Shaw, came in. She wrapped her measuring tape around the belly of Billy Clark, who was playing a soldier in a sequence that Re- strepo was choreographing. Stewart told me later there are no costume sketches, no set designs. Shaw and resident set designer Jun Maeda make decisions in dialogue with Stewart, before and dur- ing the rehearsal period (2005c). If there are sketches or renderings of any kind, they are not shown
Cindy Rosenthal to Stewart or retained in the archive.
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Nearly two dozen nationali- ties are represented in the com- pany. The players in SEVEN and Perseus were mostly young and quite physically strong, although Valois Mickens and Onni John- son—both very fit and game— have been Great Jones company members since the premier of Fragments of a Trilogy in 1972. Out of a company of 67 (includ- ing musicians, technicians, and child performers) only 11 indi- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 viduals were new to the Great Jones Company with the SEVEN project in 2004. With Perseus in 2005 there were still fewer new- comers; only 4 out of the 42 people working on the show were new. New company mem- bers sometimes are invited to join a cast because they show up to watch rehearsal (as in Woodard’s case, above). As in any “family”-based structure, several generations from a family may work at La Mama (Yoo is an example). When Stewart needed to cast children for Medea and Trojan Women in SEVEN (2004), 28. Chris Wild flying in Perseus, directed by Ellen Stewart at La my nine-year-old daughter (with Mama, 2005. (Photo by Brian Dilg; coutesy of Ellen Stewart/The no acting experience) was con- La Mama Archive) sidered for a role. (Not comfort- able with the very visceral “sound and movement” warm-up exercises, she opted out after the first rehearsal.) Each company member is paid a set fee for rehearsals and performances of a Great Jones Repertory Company production. For Perseus company members were paid $850 for rehearsals and the run of the show (approximately three months work). In rehearsal, Stewart calls on individual performers to “make something happen” on the spot, and most of the time these improvisations bear fruit. During Perseus rehearsals I watched actors cre- ate and develop relationships between their archetypical characters (Zeus and Danae, Medusa and Poseidon) “in the moment,” using a variety of movement forms—sometimes involving ballet- inspired lifts (Arthur Adair and Kim Ima as Zeus and Danae), sometimes resembling contact-improv partnerings (Meredith Wright and Peter Case as Medusa and Poseidon)—supported by Swados’s interwoven vocal phrases and the percussive backbone of the other musicians. During Perseus rehearsals, no one took on the intermediary role George Drance played during SEVEN rehearsals. Sometimes Denise Greber would huddle next to Stewart for a conference, and Restrepo—who performs, choreographs, and designs, and builds puppets for the company—was al- ways on call as dance captain, teaching performers who were less skilled the more formal, technical,
balletic movements that Stewart was looking for. Although Stewart asked Restrepo, Maureen Flem- Ellen Stewart ing, Julian Lau, or Renouard Gee to choreograph certain group dance sections in Perseus, most of the performers “made their movements” themselves. These were often rough executions, sometimes exuberant and satisfying because of the raw-edge quality, but at other times clichéd, nostalgic, and amateurish. What carries the work along for performers and spectators alike is its familiar and
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La Mama’s Next Project On the Road (again) with Stewart and Skipitares Excerpts from Theodora Skipitares’s report on her brief research trip with Stewart to the south of Albania, 10 km from Greece in 2005.
The Road to Butrinti. Monday, 27 June—This is the American Embassy [in Tirana, Albania]. We get out of the cab [...;] it’s probably 95 degrees and we hobble together to the front gate. Ellen’s about to collapse. [...] Two women wait for us: Mirela and Roxanne. Ellen starts talking about her past adventures and even though she is kind of feverish, the two women are captivated. Mirela is already taking notes about a budget for the project in the ancient ruins of Butrinti. Ellen and I will make a piece about the life of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. One of the structures in Butrinti is a Temple of Asclepius. Tuesday, 28 June—We get up early to be ready for our ride at 8:30. The view is breathtaking Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 once we get onto the coast, but the roads are unbelievably bad. The sun is very hot, and falling on Ellen. We reach a small town on the beach, Himare. Ellen seems exhausted, like she’s suffer- ing, possibly from sunstroke. We speak by phone to Mary Ann, a nurse practitioner at the Ameri- can Embassy, who says she would send a helicopter, but it is too late in the day, the helicopter cannot fly in the dark. I tell a doctor who speaks Greek about Ellen’s history. He examines her. Her abdomen is swollen and she screams when he touches part of it, especially on the left. We agree on an ambulance. It is a rickety vehicle, with no special equipment inside. It is a rocky, bumpy, short ride to the hospital. Excruciating. We [Skipitares and two Albanians traveling with her] are in a near panic state, because we don’t know what’s wrong with Ellen or how sick she is. Wednesday, 29 June—Ellen wakes up, says she is much better and insists that we will con- tinue on the road to Butrini! I say no, the men will not drive you there. You are very sick. She says, I know it’s three against one, but I will win. When the men come, there is some arguing, and Ellen wins. She begs to go to Butrini, even if it kills her, she says. And they agree to take her. So we get into the car, get back on the terrible road. We try to keep her out of the sun. We put on Bob Marley and Ellen sings along. We imagine that she is miraculously better. [...] We finally arrive at the entrance, only to learn that we can’t drive the car inside. And of course, they don’t have a wheelchair [...] so, after all of this, Ellen cannot see Butrinti for herself. It’s incredibly hot [...;] we plant her on a bench under a tree near the entrance and engage a guide to walk with us along a path. [...] We see the remains of the Temple of Asclepius. It was originally built in the 3rd century B.C.E and rebuilt 2nd century C.E. in a Roman style. We walk to the right and find a small intimate theatre, originally for 2,500, but now with eleven rows of reconstructed seats for 1,000. [...] We go back to where Ellen is [...] She is a bit uncomfortable [...;] we have left her for an hour. [...] A red helicopter arrives to take us back to Tirana. [...] At a private hospital Dr. Charles Linderman, an American missionary and surgeon, examines Ellen. He says, “Mrs. Stewart, your abdomen is scary. Tell me what you’ve been doing.” We talked about the bumpy seven-hour drive. We tell him about the night in the little hospital. He asks if she has insurance for medical evacuation. We say no. How much does it cost? 25 thousand dollars, he says. Ellen screams no!! He says he thinks she has acute diverticulitis, that the terrible roads on the way south to Butrinti have possibly ruptured parts of her intestine. Depending on how bad the ruptures are the situation
familial pulse—the performers’ energetic, emotional commitment to the La Mama community, and spectators’ experience of Stewart’s living legacy in the wonderful Annex space, albeit a sensibility that resonates more with a mid-1970s avantgarde aesthetic than with today’s. “There is never enough time,” performers, musicians, and Stewart all have told me—but com- pared with rehearsing and performing seven shows in a tight repertory schedule in 2004, the Perseus rehearsal schedule in 2005 looked and felt almost luxurious. Restrepo, a favorite and valued “son” or “grandson” of Stewart’s, expressed some of his frustrations, the ups and downs of working with Stewart: One of the problems is that we never have enough time to do these really big shows. And that creates a tense and insecure feeling in everyone because you don’t have the time to develop what you’d like to do, the way you’d like to do it. The most important exercise we do with Ellen is creating the work very quickly. Something new must be created NOW, a new charac- Cindy Rosenthal
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could be fatal. The Albanian doctors want to operate—a terrifying thought—whereas Dr. Linder- man wants to proceed cautiously, taking her off food entirely, and giving her intravenous antibi- otics and prescribing several days of bed rest. He will protect Ellen [...;] nothing will happen to her that he doesn’t authorize. I am despondent. Ellen may die in Tirana; she almost died in a tiny town in the south. Can La Mama simply pay the money to evacuate her to New York? I call her office. Gretchen suggests that she be evacuated to Italy. Rome is only one-and-a-half hours away. She has many good friends there. It is a great idea. I go to bed, not sure if she will make it through the night. Thursday, 30 June—Next morning I arrive at the clinic and find her much better. She is starv- ing. I mention Italy and she goes crazy. “I’ve been in every major hospital in Italy, and they’re no good. I’m not going. I want to go back to New York.” Dr. Linderman looks her over and is very pleased. He continues on a course of no food. We devise the possible scenario of leaving in five days, and Ellen turning in her economy ticket for a business class seat.
Friday, 1 July—The two people from the Embassy come to visit Ellen. She is still crazed with Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 hunger but becomes very energized and starts talking about the project in Butrinti next year. Little did these people know they would be having a production meeting. Ellen makes Mirela pull out a pad of paper and starts dictating a complex budget. This meeting lasts more than an hour. Ellen says she expects to go back home with this detailed budget that shows the Embassy will commit funds to this project. Saturday, 2 July—We settle Ellen’s bill in cash at the clinic—$1,050. Dr. Linderman is very pleased with Ellen’s improvements. No solid food yet, just juice and broth. He takes us back to the hotel. Tuesday, 5 July—The short one-hour-20-minute trip to Budapest is on a small plane that has about 20 steps. This is torture for Ellen but she does it. We connect almost immediately to our flight to JFK. Ellen gets comfortable in business class for the nine-hour flight. She is still starving, obsessed with food she cannot have. I come to check on her periodically. At one point I find her sleeping with a dinner roll stuck on her upper chest like a brooch—something she can’t have but wants next to her body. [...] Three weeks later, she is much better and decides she is well enough to go to Spoleto, where her International Symposium of Directors is taking place. She is convinced that her trip to Albania was filled with mythological meaning. As the story goes, Hades, the ancient Greek god of the underworld, was angry at Asclepius, who was so good at healing the sick and raising the dead that he was interfering with Hades’ territory. So, he had Zeus kill Asclepius. Ellen feels that Hades was angry with her for coming to the sacred ground of Butrinti and trying to create a work that glorified Asclepius—so he made her very sick. She feels that the doctor that came to her and healed her, Dr. Linderman, was really Asclepius, come back to life to help her in her struggle with Hades. In 2006, the Butrinti project will go forward, with a rehearsal period in April and again in June, with the premiere scheduled for July.
ter, a new song, a new movement. Help me with this, she’ll say. And then we must help some- one else too to find the steps, to learn the movement, because she doesn’t have the time to think or to allow others to think. That state of mind is very difficult, but very strengthening too. She can get very upset if you repeat something—“You did that already,” she’ll say. It’s easy, of course, to do the same choreography with a different dress and you think she’ll never notice it but she does—right away. (2005) There was a significant difference during Perseus rehearsals, Michael Sirotta told me. For the first time, “Ellen never got off the couch.” During rehearsals every other year, he said, she may have spent time on the couch or in the wheelchair but at some point “she would get up and wiggle”—she Ellen Stewart would join the warm-up or she would demonstrate a dance movement. In 2005 that never happened (Sirotta 2005). At performances of Perseus that Stewart attended (she was hospitalized for over a week during the run) Stewart rang the bell from her wheelchair.
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I had an open invitation from Stewart to attend Perseus re- hearsals (March–April 2005), as I had for Antigone (February–April 2004). When I arrived at 7:15 P.M. on 31 March 2005, the third Perseus rehearsal was already un- derway in the first-floor space at 47 Great Jones Street. Looking around, I was surprised not to see Stewart. During Antigone re- hearsals the year before Stewart was always a powerful, palpable Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 presence in the room, even when she was silent, and even though she usually sat on the periphery of the space. Where was Ellen this evening? I began to worry about her absence, as she’d been quite ill in recent months. As I entered, Elizabeth Swados was working with the company, nearly two dozen performers, who sat in a circle on the floor, creating the opening chorus. “We’re going for something an- cient sexy,” Swados said. “It’s go- ing to clash, but it’s supposed to.” Seven or eight minutes passed, and suddenly a voice rose out of the pile of brightly colored fabrics draped over the couch in the corner of the room. It was Ellen! I was shocked, and fright- ened at first, to see her flat out on the couch, her silver ringlets spread across the pillow. But at 29. Maureen Flemming in Perseus at La Mama, 2005. (Photo by the first sound of her voice, as Brian Dilg; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama Archive) usual, everything and everyone 30. Mia Yoo in Electra, directed by Ellen Stewart at La Mama, 2004. stopped. Her intention was clear, (Photo by Richard Greene; courtesy of Ellen Stewart/The La Mama at least to Swados, right away. Archive) “I think we need some Meredith there,” said Stewart. (Meredith Wright, with her crystal-clear, classically trained soprano was a standout in SEVEN. She first worked with the Great Jones Company in 2001.) Swados instantly pulled a new vocal phrase out of the air for Wright. It was as if lightning had struck the stage when the addition was added to the chorus. Stewart was pleased. She called out to me. “Come over here, little one. Come by me.” I sat next to her on the divan. She handed me a cast list, synopsis, and full text, which she had prepared. “I just wrote this Epilogue,” she told me proudly. “Cary Gant will speak this in English.” (English sections were very unusual in Stewart’s Greek play productions.) “Who does ballet?” she called out to the young women in the company. “I’m making this up right now,” she told me. “Michael [Sirotta],” she yelled, “we need cymbals here!” “And in this place,” she went on, “the slowness in the music is about Cindy Rosenthal
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a sexual purpose.” “My feet are gone” (she pointed to her swollen feet and ankles) “but my brain is not.” Stewart sat up. She was smiling broadly now. She and Restrepo devised a way to move an im- portant prop, a treasure chest, across the room, transported on the rolling bodies of dancers on the floor, slowly, magically. “I’ll have to have a huge piece of cloth,” Stewart said. “OK, ladies, roll!” At the end of rehearsal Stewart beamed at all her babies around the room, although she grimaced and groaned as two young men in the company lifted her off the couch and into a wheelchair. Lifting Stewart out of the wheelchair and into the waiting van outside required four men. It was a chilly night. She couldn’t fit socks or shoes over her swollen feet. But she nodded brightly and with assur- ance as her helpers settled her into the car. “It was a good night, Cindy. And we’ve only had four days on this so far.”
References
Banes, Sally Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 1993 Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body. Durham: Duke Univer- sity Press. Baraka, Amiri 2005 Phone interview with author. 19 January. Barnes, Clive 1974 “Serban’s Trilogy Is an Event.” New York Times. 20 October:64. Bode, Raine 2005 Interview with author. New York, 27 May. Bottoms, Stephen J. 2004 Playing Underground. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Boyle, Wickham (Wicki) 2005 Phone interview with author. 2 June. Chaudhuri, Una 2005 “Stoned Love.” Village Voice. 11–17 May: C63. Coigney, Martha 2005 Interview with author. New York, 27 May. Collins, Patricia Hill 2000 Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge. Crespy, David A. 2003 Off-Off Broadway Explosion. New York: Back Stage Books. D’Ambrosi, Dario 2005 Phone interview with author. 6 June. Diamond, David 2003 Interview with author. Bassano, Italy, 25 July. Eng, Alvin 2002 “‘Some place to be somebody’: La Mama’s Ellen Stewart.” In The Color of Theatre: Race, Culture, and Contemporary Performance, edited by Roberta Uno, 135–44. London: Continuum. Finkle, David 2004 “Tragic Olympics.” Village Voice. 2–8 June:67. Foster, Paul
2003 Interview with author. New York, 13 August. Ellen Stewart Greber, Denise 2005 Interview with author. New York, 23 May.
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Green, Gretchen 2005 Interview with author. New York, 11 May. Gussow, Mel 1974 “The Stage: Fragments.” New York Times. 26 June:27. Hodge, Alison 2000 “Wlodzimierz Staniewski: Gardzienice and the Naturalized Actor.” In Twentieth Century Actor Training, edited by Allison Hodge, 224–44. London: Routledge. Jackson, Shannon 2004 Professing Performance: Theatre in the Academy from Philology to Performativity. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press. Jones, Tisch Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 2003 Conversation with author. Bassano, Italy, 24 July. Klein, Stacy 2005 Phone interview with author. 14 January. Kuser, George 2003 Interview with author. Bassano, Italy, 24 July. Mickens, Valois 2005 Conversation with author. New York, 6 May. O’Horgan, Tom 2003 Interview with author. New York, 1 July. Paraiso, Nicky 2005 Interview with author. New York, 27 May. Poland, Albert, and Bruce Mailman, eds. 1972 The Off-Off Broadway Book: The Plays, People, Theatre. New York: Bobbs Merrill. Restrepo, Federico 2005 Interview with author. New York, 23 May. Rodriguez, Ozzie 2002 Interview with author. New York, 13 November. Schechner, Richard 1981 “The Decline and Fall of the (American) Avant-garde.” Performing Arts Journal 5, 2 and 3. 2002 Conversation with author. New York. 2003 Conversation with author. New York. Serban, Andrei 2003 Interview with author. New York, 27 October. Shaw, Helen 2005 “Let’s Put the Pants Back in Pantheon.” New York Sun. 3 May. Sirotta, Michael 2005 Interview with author. New York, 30 May. Skipitares, Theodora 2003 Interview with author. New York, 30 June. 2005 Unpublished report on research trip with Stewart. Staniewski, Wlodzimierz 2005 Phone interview with author. 18 January. Cindy Rosenthal
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Stewart, Ellen 1966 “La Mama Experimental Theatre Club.” In Eight Plays from Off-Off Broadway, edited by Michael Smith and Nick Orzel. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. 1980 “Ellen Stewart and La Mama.” TDR 24, 2 (T86):11–22. 2002 Interview with author. New York, 1 November. 2003a Interview with author. New York, 30 June. 2003b Interview with author. Bassano, Italy, 24 July. 2004a Interview with author. New York, 4 June. 2004b Presentation at opening ceremonies for symposium on Off-Broadway at City University of New York, 30 September. 2005a Interview with author. New York, 23 May. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/50/2 (190)/12/1821778/dram.2006.50.2.12.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 2005b Interview with author. New York, 27 May. 2005c Interview with author. New York, 26 October. 2005d Interview with author. New York, 2 November. 2006 Interview with author. New York, 5 January. Swados, Elizabeth 2003 Interview with author. New York, 2 July. 2005 Interview with author. New York, 10 May. Tkacz, Virlana 2003 Interview with author. New York, 1 July. Tsuji, Yukio 2005 Interview with author. New York, 6 May. Van Itallie, Jean Claude 2003 Interview with author. Bassano, Italy, 24 July. Winnicott, D.W. 1971a [1967] “The Location of Cultural Experience.” In Playing and Reality, 95–103. New York: Basic Books. 1971b “The Place Where We Live.” In Playing and Reality, 104–110. New York: Basic Books. Yoo, Mia 2003 Interview with author. Bassano, Italy, 25 July. Zimet, Paul 2004 Remarks at opening ceremony of symposium on Off-Broadway, held at City University of New York, 30 September. Ellen Stewart
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