Scenes From an Execution
Apr. 22nd, 2005 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magid[This is not a Passover post! :-)]
Last week I went to a production of Scenes From an Execution (Howard Barker) staged at Brandeis. It's a challenging show, about the nature of art, and the tension between an artist's vision and a patron's desires.
The story follows Galactia, a painter commissioned by the Doge of Venice to paint a huge mural of their great victory at the battle of Lepanto. It's a recent event, and she talks to soldiers, prying into memories they'd tried to bury. And she paints what she understands of battle, the gore, the death, the inexplicability of it. Which is not what the Doge had wanted, of course; he wants a picture of glory, of honorable cause vindicated in victory. He commissions a different artist, her lover, to paint the picture he really wanted, but in the end, displays her picture as well. Throughout, there are arguments, about whether one can paint what one isn't (she is a harsh person, pursuing her craft, and what she paints is not gentle), about whether one should change one's art to fit external considerations (the first prominent woman painter, and so on), about the nature of obsession. Interesting stuff.
The staging was well done. The set had a lot of variations, without being cluttered. There was scaffolding, and a background painted with a Leonardo-like man (arms and legs spread), which slid open as needed. For a late scene, those doors were fully open, and just the bottom left corner of an enormous frame was visible, the canvas implied by the black backdrop. When in the Doge's palace, there was a fancy chair and a chandelier descended, and in Galactia's studio, there was a huge framed mirror that descended.
The lighting was mostly good, with 'stained glass' lights on the floor when in church, interesting spots, and so on. The one time the lights were a problem was a scene when she was up late painting, and had lots of candles in jars, which were obviously wired, since they all went on and off at the same time during the scene; very distracting.
And the costumes were excellent. Rivera, a critic, played by an older woman, had the most outstanding clothes, with absurd hats and heels, half over-skirts of lace, and so on. Galactia was mostly in a nightshirt, sometimes also jeans and workboots. Her lover had more range, from none at all (I heard someone behind me say "oh, my!") to painting clothes to suits.
In the program there's a quote from the playwright:
Which leaves me wondering why he wrote a play so focused on issues, on ideas. It feels a bit like a cop-out, though I still like the play.
Last week I went to a production of Scenes From an Execution (Howard Barker) staged at Brandeis. It's a challenging show, about the nature of art, and the tension between an artist's vision and a patron's desires.
The story follows Galactia, a painter commissioned by the Doge of Venice to paint a huge mural of their great victory at the battle of Lepanto. It's a recent event, and she talks to soldiers, prying into memories they'd tried to bury. And she paints what she understands of battle, the gore, the death, the inexplicability of it. Which is not what the Doge had wanted, of course; he wants a picture of glory, of honorable cause vindicated in victory. He commissions a different artist, her lover, to paint the picture he really wanted, but in the end, displays her picture as well. Throughout, there are arguments, about whether one can paint what one isn't (she is a harsh person, pursuing her craft, and what she paints is not gentle), about whether one should change one's art to fit external considerations (the first prominent woman painter, and so on), about the nature of obsession. Interesting stuff.
The staging was well done. The set had a lot of variations, without being cluttered. There was scaffolding, and a background painted with a Leonardo-like man (arms and legs spread), which slid open as needed. For a late scene, those doors were fully open, and just the bottom left corner of an enormous frame was visible, the canvas implied by the black backdrop. When in the Doge's palace, there was a fancy chair and a chandelier descended, and in Galactia's studio, there was a huge framed mirror that descended.
The lighting was mostly good, with 'stained glass' lights on the floor when in church, interesting spots, and so on. The one time the lights were a problem was a scene when she was up late painting, and had lots of candles in jars, which were obviously wired, since they all went on and off at the same time during the scene; very distracting.
And the costumes were excellent. Rivera, a critic, played by an older woman, had the most outstanding clothes, with absurd hats and heels, half over-skirts of lace, and so on. Galactia was mostly in a nightshirt, sometimes also jeans and workboots. Her lover had more range, from none at all (I heard someone behind me say "oh, my!") to painting clothes to suits.
In the program there's a quote from the playwright:
I never "say" anything in my work. I invent a wold. Let others decide what is being said. Nor do I claim to tell the truth or enlighten people. We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths.
Which leaves me wondering why he wrote a play so focused on issues, on ideas. It feels a bit like a cop-out, though I still like the play.