Shipwrecked! an Entertainment the Amazing Adventures of Louis De Rougemont (As Told by Himself)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
44th Season • 420th Production JULIANNE ARGYROS STAGE / SEPTEMBER 23 - OCTOBER 14, 2007 David Emmes Martin Benson PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR presents the world premiere of SHIPWRECKED! AN ENTERTAINMENT THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LOUIS DE ROUGEMONT (AS TOLD BY HIMSELF) BY Donald Margulies Keith E. Mitchell Candice Cain Rand Ryan Steven Cahill SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN ORIGINAL MUSIC/SOUND DESIGN Christine Marie John Glore Jeff Gifford Erin Nelson* SHADOW SCENIC DESIGN DRAMATURG PRODUCTION MANAGER STAGE MANAGER DIRECTED BY Bart DeLorenzo Laurie Smits Staude, HONORARY PRODUCER This play was commissioned and developed by South Coast Repertory. Shipwrecked! An Entertainment • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P1 CAST OF CHARACTERS (In order of appearance) Louis de Rougemont .................................................................... Gregory Itzin* Player 1 .......................................................................................... Melody Butiu* Player 2 ....................................................................... Michael Daniel Cassady* LENGTH Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Casting .................................................................................. Joanne DeNaut Production Assistant ........................................................ Jennifer Sherman Dialect Coach ........................................................................... David Nevell Assistant to the Director ......................................................... Eric Czuleger Stage Management Intern ................................................... Lesley Wheland Assistant Lighting Designer .............................................. Christopher Kuhl Assistant to the Costume Designer .......................................... Katie Wilson Please refrain from text messaging, unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons. The use of cameras and recorders in the theatre is prohibited. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre. Cellular phones, beepers and watch alarms should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers. Media Partner Official Airline Media Partner P2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • Shipwrecked! An Entertainment Dreams of Adventure and Deeds of Empire BY JOHN GLORE he historical Louis de Rougemont ow when I was a little chap I had a (1847-1921) returned to England in the passion for maps. I would look for hours waning days of the Victorian era with a at South America, or Africa, or Australia, story that briefly made him a superstar Nand lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At among a long line of adventurers both actual that time there were many blank spaces on the and fictional. This must have delighted earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly de Rougemont, who had been weaned, like most inviting on a map… I would put my finger on it and Tboys in 19th-century England, on stories of heroic say, When I grow up I will go there. sailors, fortune seekers and geographical and scien- – Joseph Conrad tific explorers who traveled to the far corners of the British Empire to pursue their dreams. In fact the his fateful region of both treasure and danger very notion of empire among the Victorian British [the “zone unknown” of adventure] may be vari- was embodied in those intrepid travelers who ously represented: as a distant land, a forest, a T risked their lives to stretch territorial bound- kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or aries, establish new outposts and bring above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountain- home the spoils of their explorations. top, or profound dream state; but it is al- Adventure and travel writing prolifer- ways a place of strangely fluid and poly- ated with the expansion of the morphous beings, unimaginable tor- empire, and if anything it seemed ments, superhuman deeds, and impossi- to escalate when that empire ble delight. began to decline. – Joseph Campbell In an 1891 essay, critic Andrew Lang wrote: “There has, tories are powerful. They are a indeed, arisen a taste for exotic lit- journey and a joining. In a tale we erature: people have become alive meet new places, new people, new to the strangeness and fascination of ideas.S And they become our places, our the world beyond the bounds of people, our ideas. Europe and the United States. But that – Jane Yolen is only because men of imagination and lit- erary skill have been the new conquerors — the right is the ring of words Corteses and Balboas of India, Africa, Australia, When the right man rings them Japan, and the isles of the Southern Seas. All Fair the fall of songs such conquerors… have seen new worlds for BWhen the singer sings them themselves; have gone out of the streets of the Still they are caroled and said - over-populated lands into the open air; have On wings they are carried - sailed and ridden, walked and hunted; have After the singer is dead escaped from the fog and smoke of towns. New And the maker buried strength has come from fresher air into their – Robert Louis Stevenson brains and blood, hence the novelty and buoyancy of the stories which they tell.” There’s an almost plaintive quality to Lang’s commentary, a sense … ecause the story of our life that England’s urbanization has weakened it, and Bbecomes our life … that perhaps only the fresh air of faraway climes –from “Why We Tell Stories,” can save it from its own slow degeneration. by Lisel Muelle Above, Louis de Rougemont. Shipwrecked! An Entertainment •SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P3 That fresh air found its way to the average Briton footnotes and meticulous descriptive detail, they strove by way of the fictions of such authors as Daniel Defoe, for an unprecedented level of authenticity; while non- Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling, as well as fiction narratives were “shaped in large part by official non-fiction accounts epitomized by the journals of Cap- thought and prevailing ideologies,” according to critic tain James Cook. Their writing has stood the test of Andrea White, “and in turn shaped the attitudes of read- time, with Defoe’s novel, Robinson Crusoe, serving as ers towards the English presence in the outposts of “the single most famous, representative and influential Empire.” The distinction adventure story of the time,” between reality and according to scholar realism became slip- Richard Phillips. Originally pery, then, as fiction published in 1719, Defoe’s claimed the objectivity story of the castaway of truth and non-fiction Crusoe was adapted, acquired the burnished abridged, simplified, ren- sheen of romanticized dered into verse and other- myth. wise reissued throughout None of this is the 19th century and likely to have mat- remains popular to the tered much to the present day. Defoe wide-eyed men and inspired many lesser women, boys and authors who enjoyed girls who devoured extraordinary popularity in these accounts of their time, even if their lit- journeys to terra erary reputations have not incognita. As long as endured. One scholar the illusion of truth has compiled a list of (or the truth of the more than 500 “desert illusion) was main- island” stories published tained, they thrilled in England between 1788 to each new story and 1910; and the adven- and eagerly awaited ture books of such popu- the next. lar writers as R.M. Ballan- Nowadays we tyne, H. Rider Haggard are fed a steady diet of and G.A. Henty were the stories about the best-sellers of their time, escapades of celebu- with sales reaching into tantes, the exploits of the millions. sports heroes (and More than mere anti-heroes) and the escapist entertainments, amazing accomplish- such books (and similar ments of actual people stories in serialized publi- eating actual insects on cations like Wide World an actual island on real- Magazine) celebrated ity TV: perhaps one qualities of character long more reason to look back held to be essential to the British identity: pluck, forti- with nostalgia on a time when it was tude, good humor, curiosity, and benevolence to all still possible to dream the dreams of true adventurers, (but especially to those “noble savages” who had not facing dangers and wonders in the farthest reaches of had the advantage of a British upbringing). Reaffirming the real world. such ideals became increasingly important as the empire felt itself beginning to ebb. The title of this article is borrowed from a book by Martin Because Victorian travel and adventure writing Green. found favor in both fiction and non-fiction forms, the boundary between the two blurred. Novels were often Map illustration showing Robert Louis Stevenson’s presented as factual accounts and, by employing maps, Treasure Island (1883). P4 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • Shipwrecked! An Entertainment Artist Biographies MELODY BUTIU* New Play Festival; The Seagull, Gross Indecency: The Player 1 Three Trials of Oscar Wilde at E.C. Mabie Theatre; Aloha Say the Pretty Girls, Agamemnon and appeared at SCR previously in Marat/Sade at David Thayer Theatre. Comedy credits The Intelligent Design of Jenny include Comedy Death Ray, The Idiots and Before Chow, the Hispanic Playwrights They Were Giants at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Project reading of The Adven- He can be seen performing comedy, rock and roll and tures of Barrio Grrrl! and the Pa- other entertainments regularly at many venues in Los cific Playwrights Festival readings Angeles including