Lilies, 2 silk (art)

Habotai silk, acrylic, and metallic guttas and dye; 9.5" silk hoops. These were probably painted during the summer.

see also
Lilies, silk (art)
Cyclamens silk (art)
Celtic beasties on silk (art)
Celtic beasties on silk 2 (art)

Celtic beasties on silk 2 (art)

After 9/11/2001, I must've designed 50 Celtic hoops. Few were painted in with dye as the acrylic gutta I was using didn't sink through the silk (it's like a batik barrier), so I had to also re-gutta the back, It proved to be too tedious. So, few made it to the color stage: 9.5" hoops. Habotai silk, acrylic gutta and dye.

Nasturtiums silk (art)

Lilies, silk (art)

Lilies, 2 silk (art)

Cyclamens silk (art)

Celtic beasties on silk (art)

Facebook photo album: Mo's silk painting (photos, art)

Neil’s uncontrollable rage

12/23 no year given. Possibly 2002. It was undated, and with a whole bunch of other notes on plays, I was studying and taking notes for writing plays.

Neil‘s rage is becoming unpredictable; any time, I don’t second-guess his wishes and needs, or if I question his presumptions, he flies into a rage where the usual outcome is that I need to move out, or, am evicted. 

I cannot reach him when he gets this way; it is an explosive, unpredictable rage. There is no rationale behind his statements, but he says, in essence, that I’m not offering support, therefore I don’t care for him. 

His methodology is becoming pathological. He doesn’t talk to me, doesn’t give me the larger picture and expects me to know what is going on. He sees no value in my time choices, or that I might have other plans. He assumes that I should guess his needs and clear everything in order to meet them when clearly, if the tables were turned, he’d not be offering me any support, and certainly not unconditional support. 

Why is he always so angry with me? He doesn’t see the cause-and-effect. Every time it happens I retreat more and more. Soon there will be nothing left but ambivalence. His unpredictable rage leaves me shaking and scared. It’s as damaging as physical violence. There’s a pathology present, and I don’t think I can handle this any longer, because it’s increasing in frequency and happening over things that don’t warrant this kind of behavioral reaction. 

The world never sees this side of Neil. The Jekyll hidden behind the jolly façade. Today’s episode revolved around a tooth extraction. He didn’t ask me to drive him, I had to ask him if he needed a ride, as I was going to run a few errands, get a printer for his classroom, etc. While he was in surgery, he exploded and blamed me for not anticipating his needs. He wants me to sit and wait in the waiting room rather than to come back in an hour. The rage was palpable. 

He’s created a series of complex responses, and a tight defense from which there is no winning the argument. If he had said, I want you to sit and wait for me in the waiting room, then I could’ve brought something to do, and made other plans with the printer. Since there was a possibility of work attached to this contact, now I look bad for not showing up on time. 

His needs are always greater than mine. That is the message I’m getting. I tried to reach him before he went in, that he needs to tell me, and that I can’t second-guess the minutia. If I had an asked him if he needed a ride, what would he have done then? 

I’m living with a madman, and I don’t know if I can deal with it any longer. He is scraped raw, and his methodology is to blow up when he feels I’ve slighted him. The thing is, it’s not rational. He deliberately inflicts pain in a retaliatory manner. Reason is not at all present. 

I try hard not to use the accusative language, to be calm and reasonable. But he’s off and running. I never threatened him with leaving, etc., I try to stay within the moment and deal or resolve the problem present problem, but it’s no use. He is unreachable. I tried to tell him that I needed a little more information from him. 

I think part of the problem is that he doesn’t anticipate his own needs and he is angry because he perceives that I don’t “support” him in a time of need. I am trying to take care of other business whenever I can. 

The drama conflict has a similar MO to that of alcoholism. I kept asking him if he needed help, if he needed me to come in, and if he had only answered me, I would have offered full support unquestionably but because I asked, instead of assumed I’d be going in with him, it pushed his buttons. 

Again, it comes down to his not telling me his needs or expectations, and my having to second-guess them. Having to second-guess his needs is similar to the role of a child coping with alcoholic parents. He should be able to calmly and nicely articulate his needs. 

Instead, he uses it as a platform to show his rage. Of course, he blamed me for it, another trait. I’m always to blame for his rage for his lack of clarity, or ability to ask or articulate his needs. This pushes a button on his danger scale. I should not be in this position of coping, or having to second-guess his needs. 

He is amazingly self-absorbed and can’t seem to see that his behavior is questionable, at best. Too easy for him to make me the scapegoat. Gaslighting. He has built it up in his mind a series of false cases. He says that I’m not supportive that I abandon him when things get tough, which I’ve never done. I’ve been amazingly present for him. My crime is that I won’t be manipulated, nor will I take this abusive behavior.

Added 12/24/2023 After a few of these psychotic episodes, I told him that he ever threatened me with eviction again that I would leave. In 2001, right after 911, I was scheduled to go to the Azores with my aunt and cousin. He completely lost it even though I told him I was going. He wouldn’t even say goodbye to me, nor go with me to the airport. I found a postcard that referred to it.  I think we had another big episode in 2015. And when he did it again big time, in 2018, I left. It took me nearly 20 years to reach the melting point.

I found some other notes as well, which may have come out of this experience.

I was treated badly, I lived rent free, though I was paying $200 a month. The cycle is like a knife. Betrayal, inner burn internal war. Finances, school. I was five points of pressure. My wantoness, that totally doesn’t make sense. I was never a wanton woman. lol.

More notes: stress I started looking outside the self. My list included these thoughts. We need to apologize to each other, you need to apologize for your actions. You need to find a way to cope with stress that works. Take your brain chemistry seriously. Take your meds. Write a mood journal for one month. Things I can say (positive language vs. accusative language): I’ve noticed you’re under less stress when you sleep and eat well. You’ve created this stress in your own mind and you’re making it your reality. You’re not making it easy for me to help you. If I wasn’t here to help, you would have lost your job. You keep thinking negative thoughts. You have to learn to deal with your anger. Get stress under control, not quitting, not getting rid of it completely. Stop bullying me. It’s domestic abuse. Threatening to evict me in retaliation is not rational. If he wants to be successful at his job, he has to find a way to deal with stress. Breath, meditation, Meditation – lithium? Low energy over the weekend meaning he was out of meds. He thinks that the ashram and meditation will replace his meds. He needs to mellow out. He has control issues. He’s afraid to relax. He doesn’t trust that things will work out, or that the universe is conspiring against him. Anger is unresolved desire. What if at work every few weeks, the boss said you’re fired, then changed his mind. That’s what I’m living under. 

Thespians on the Town

 Clearly, we've left the pub. Or the theatre. Or both. Or not. Thespians, all. Irish, at that. Either we're in San Francisco, at ACT, or in Piedmont—ca. Xmas 2002.

Kate said: that is me in the back row after a game of pool!

I don't remember a game of pool... Who is taking the photo? Lucy Faulknor?

Clearly, we're all introverts, shy as wallflowers, as well. 

Johnny Mac and Kate Perry both moved back to Ireland. 
We lost touch with Joe Hakik and Owen Murphy.

 
Back row, left: Joe Hakik, Owen Murphy, Kate Perry, Maureen Hurley,
front row: Neil O'Neill, Johnny Mac

added 4/2016

Short Plays angst emails to Roy Conboy

EMAIL FROM ROY CONBOY

Great class once again last night.  There's been so

much excellent work in this class.  Best part of my

working week.  Thanks.

MY SULLEN CRAFT, OR PURSUING MADNESS

MY SULLEN CRAFT, OR PURSUING MADNESS
. . great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art...... the only trustworthy one is the last.
—John Ruskin

Maureen Hurley
CW 881, Chernoff
Poetics of Indeterminacy
Dec. 9, 2002 (this was not the final draft I turned in, 'tis lost.)

It is safe to say that I am obsessed, driven by my craft, and because of my avocation, that much of that time I am at war with myself. If I am lucky, the muses line up like so many planets and the basis for a work of art is produced. Then the agony of revision begins. The obsession that requires my undivided attention to polish it into art is more than the sum total of the act of creation.

I was ten when I first heard the muse—either that, or I was displaying early signs of madness. I prefer the Graeco-Roman tradition where madness and inspiration are linked to direct contact with the gods rather than with modern scientific explanations. I was gazing west, daydreaming some small pre-Joycean Epiphany in late summer. I don’t know why, it was as if time itself was suspended from a thread of sky. Then, out of the blue, a voice like Hamlet’s father’s ghost, announced: “Remember. Remember everything about your childhood—because someday you’ll need to remember, because you’re going to be a writer.”

“Oh?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Not a being, except for my cat Winky who wandered up to greet me; surely he didn't suggest that I become a famous writer. Besides, he was a soprano, and though brilliant with diphthong vowels, he had trouble articulating fricative and plosive consonants. The resonant voice immediately amended that statement: “Well, maybe not exactly famous, of course, but well-known...” and then it mumbled something under its breath about “maybe in small, but important circles. I felt insulted: I was going to be famous, why was this friggin’ disembodied voice reneging? I tried to ask it: “Important to whom?” But I was holding audience with a puzzled cat in a landscape of long ridges articulated by ravines of dark oaks and bay trees, iron dust, horse manure and dry summer grasses seething in late afternoon. Panic and guilt set in because at a tender age—somewhere in that eternity that stretched between the ages of three-and-a-half and four—I had promised myself to become a visual artist just like my mother.

One of my earliest memories is of watching my mother make black India-ink lines on creamy paper that magically transforming into a three-dimensional object even I could recognize: a broken Christmas ornament, a guilty cat. Much to her annoyance, I literally drooled on her drawings, I was hooked on illusion. All through school I declared myself to be an artist—even though I was informed that one didn't major in a given field until college—as my school counselor so aptly pointed out. It took nearly twenty years before the prophesy of the pen took root, and another twenty years to hone my craft.

HOUSE OF MEMORY, CISSY SPEAKS:

HOUSE OF MEMORY, CISSY SPEAKS:

                        —With thanks to Sebastian Barry’s Steward of Christendom.

Sure, the old man, he was out walking the lunatic meadow again

after telling me you mustn’t be talking to shadows.

Conversing with himself, the trees, and God Almighty.

And the ginger cat followed him like a dog,

her tail in a question mark, listenin’ to every word he said,

stopping to sniff the flowers like a large hairy bee. Silly creature!

She must’ve said something because soon enough he quieted down like a lamb.

And all the birds were madly singing by the hunter’s moon.

Him out there walking like mad Sweeney himself,

morning, noon and night, talking to the birds and the trees.

I couldn’t bear it, seeing his arms raised up to the night sky,

the watery stars weeping. And him keening like Absolom.

It went all wrong when the birds flew into the house.

Or maybe it was the Kiltegan curse taking root after all.

The field belonged to that witch was next door to theirs, you know,

and her washing the milk buckets in the well made us all queasy.

Uisht! Who is it busy walking on my grave, now?

Him and the cat paraded around that meadow until I was dizzy with grief.

Even the small fingers of sunlight couldn’t banish all that fear

rising up from the dark eye of the well.

Funny how the mind plays tricks. Even now.

I kept thinking of Hamlet chatting up his dead father.

No, I said, Thomas, you come in from the cold.

Willie, he’s not coming back. The Great War is over. Sleep.

Sure, it’s your nightshirt all covered with dew, I said.

Sleep, that’s the ticket. But the grief came anew each time

as if it was the first time he’d heard of it.

He just turned his face to the wall. Then, the awful silence. 

Talking to shadows he was. I don’t blame him. Willie’s gone.

But I do blame the hawthorn he slept under all the day,

the bees breaking their hearts over closed flowers in late afternoon.

I was so afraid, I wanted to bring him some tea, but it was no use.

I said to myself, if only we could catch the honeyed words.

Put them in a jar for some creature comfort later.

Ach, I could kill for a good cup of tea, Annie.

Make it strong enough for the mice to skitter across.

Give the cat a fightin’ chance to earn her keep.

Scald the pot! Oh for godsakes, child, that’s a poor way to be making tea!

You’d think you were brought up wrong, but then you had no mother—

or father, for that matter, after he went off in the head.

Do you remember what they say about sleeping under the hawthorn?

I’m sure that’s how it all began. His mind wandered to all sorts of strange places.

Once he said he was with Hannibal crossing the Alps. Imagine that! 

Poor lummoxing beasts climbing mountain passes

with no more understanding of snow than the man in the moon.

And him worried about elephants trembling at the sight of snow.

Wanting me to knit elephant sweaters! Imagine that!

I thought to humor him but then I’d never hear the end of it in the Hereafter.

Should I use the popcorn stitch or a cable stitch like the Aran sweaters?

They were dogtags, you know, for the lost fishermen,

in case the sea returned our treasures.

Sure, I didn’t know what to make of it.

There he was, ranting through the ages,

a fine white snow covering him.

Petals drifting down on him from the hawthorn

until he was blanketed white as snow.

I blamed the hawthorn, I did.

We were told never to pick it or invite trouble into the house.

Thorns into the bed. Or a changeling.

And that he was. A changeling, after they let him go.

Annie, your father was like Hannibal all alone in Abyssinia.

He was leaderless after he turned over Dublin Castle to them.

A loyal servant of Ireland and to the Crown, he was. 

The Crown was good to us. The King, when he came to visit,

it was after Queen Victoria died....

your father called her the Flower of Christendom, he did....

the King, he praised my hair.

Blue-black as the barrel of a rifle it was.

I was wearing a new polka-dotted dress.

And all the little tea cakes staring up at us like Christmas presents.

I wanted to dance. But your father, he stood

like a great tree in the middle of the dance floor.

I was afraid he’s take root right there.

They began to whisper and laugh.

Shame upon us bright as Brigit’s cloak over the land.

I had to coax him off the floor with tea cakes.

And them all laughing at us.

Annie, don’t be so hard on your father.

Was a time he was a different man, he wore invincibility like a cloak,

but after he turned Dublin Castle over to Collins and the like,

he was a changed man. After that, he was dreaming candlelight into song.

He admired Michael Collins, he did. But they called him a traitor.

Blamed him for Larkin’s death. And the others.

He never even carried a gun. Just the billy club was enough.

He kept Dublin orderly and safe. It was his job. Annie, he did it well.

They gave him trouble with his pension, the new government,

and him, Chief Constable working for Ireland and the Crown 45 long years!

And they called him a traitor. It broke his mind, it did.

There’s always betrayal at the heart of it.

They should look to themselves.

Who was it gave the order to kill the Big Fella?

Themselves alone. How he wept when Collins died.

There was real hope for the Big Fella, you see.

Not for “King” de Valera,

him with the stone heart of a mathematician

leading us back into slavery

with rings through our noses like cattle to Rome.

Dev, the called him. More like devolution.

Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

Soldiers of destiny they called themselves.

All it brought was more civil war.

As if there wasn’t enough bloodshed already.

It all began with your brother Willie’s death,

it unsettled your father something terrible, it did.

You know, he was never quite right in the head after that.

I remember when he saw God in the face of his newborn son.

That settled him down right enough.

But why is it fathers and sons never see eye to eye until it’s too late?

Poor Willie! All he wanted was a kind word.

And your father, like a big lump of a stone.

Poor tyke. He was only six

when I was with Dolly in the childbed,

my own blood racing to meet Lough Derg.

Such a long night it was.

And I couldn’t stop it, for the life of me.

To let the birds in was to let death come into the house.

When the candle failed, the birds began to sing,

it was my father came to me, but it was so queer,

he was my husband wearin’ my father’s face.

I didn’t know who I was talking to.

He began to keen. Hush, I said.

But the candle guttered.

Him, crying like his heart would break.

’Tis a pity I never got to hold Dolly.

My arms and breasts still ache to hold her.

Where is she now? America? And your sister Maud?

She never comes home. Only you.

Why do you keep returning to this house, empty of memory

with no family of your own to fill it? Poor Annie.

Your back curving like a riverbend of hammered pewter at dusk

that no man would ever set sail on.

Pour us another cup of tea dear, you’ll feel right as rain.

Will this cursed rain never stop? It’s driving me mad.

Poor Willie. In what foreign field does he lie in?

He was so proud to be in the Rifles, he was. Caught in the crossfire.

But you can’t lose a son without blaming yourself, your father said.

You can’t fight a battle without spilling some blood, I said.

They said it was a whole generation Irish blood—not English—

that fed the fallow fields of the Somme. Fodder for the Crown.

That’s all we were good for. Fodder, that’s what your father said.

They say there’s guns and war medals enough rusting on uniforms

in shadowed cupboards of every country of the world.

Willie, he was our own Finn MacCool.

We called him William after your Gran’Da.

But the others, they thought it was King Billy we were referring to.

And they shunned us at the market. Painting the door orange.

Calling your Da a spy for the Crown. We were good Catholics, we were.

Sure, it was the Crown who put the food on our table during the Troubles

when there was little else to be had. What else could we do?

They were jealously counting all our Sunday roasts stacking up into eternity.

Accusing us of putting a little something aside for purgatory.

But jealousy is ever the traitor’s mistress.

The Have Nots hungering after the hard-earned good fortune of others.

I told him it was enough to make any man crazy serving two mistresses:

Catholic Ireland and Anglican England.

But he couldn’t hear me.

Not a single thing I said.

’T’was a pity I was only talking to the shadows.

’T’is such a pity the old man went off his mind like that,

waving that sword and babbling in the grasses

like a babby wanting his mother.

Annie, I swear he wouldn’t harm a hair on your head.

’T’was only his wounded pride speaking in the graveyards of betrayal.

The sword was a symbol of the power he’d lost.

And the crows diving at him like banshees.

When the candlelight fails,

when they’ve killed the heroes,

and the potential of the father’s only son

lies buried in the cold clay,

when that stony love slips down their cheeks

into the glittering face of the well,

what loyalty was left for there to crown?

This coffinship of a house is adrift in a sea of memory

and here I am, talking to shadows.

Sure, it’s a false quiet after a storm.

There’s a good girl now, Annie.

Put the kettle on the hob and we’ll all have tea.

11/30/02

House of Memory (Cissy Speaks), monologue rev.
House of Memory (Play) 

Christmas Tree (Monologue)

THE CHRISTMAS WE HAD TWO TREES (Monologue)


I remember the Christmas my grandma dragged home a madrone tree from up the hill instead of a real Christmas tree, and I thought the world was gonna end. As it was, I was having some trouble picturing Santa Claus squeezing his belly down the stove pipe in our new house. Besides, it was a sin NOT to have a real Christmas tree. We could get in trouble for it.

The Christmas before last, my Santa logic was seriously shaken when I saw all those Santas ringing bells over black cauldrons all over the City. Then, one of the Santas dragged me onto his lap. He asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I could see his beard was fake, there was this little bit of white elastic around his ears—like on my underwear, so I peed my pants and cried. Then they took my photo and laughed and put it on the mantle next to the angel.

Early Christmas morning, I tripped down the stairs, my head bouncing on each step did funny things to my vision. But when I rounded the corner and saw the Christmas tree with its glass bulbs and icicles blazing, it was like the sun on our diamond-rainbow glass cabinet, I forgot to cry. Huge piles of presents! All the little presents are mine, ’cause I’m the smallest. But why did Santa give me all these key rings? There must be some mistake. Was he still mad at me ’cause I peed my pants?

After that New Year, we moved, my grandma closed up the house with its diamond-rainbow glass cabinets where the Blue Willow bird bowls lived—I loved eating my cereal out of those bowls—and all the hidey-holes with old shoes and dust. I also loved how the fireplaces in every room whispered—sometimes you could hear cars driving in them.

We moved to the country, Grandma said it was our summer home. But it had a firebox attached to the stove—and it was our only heat. No more fireplace chimneys whispering, only a stovepipe the size of my grandma’s leg.

I remember I was newly five and my momma said I was on temporary loan to my grandmother to keep her company. When we moved, it broke up the family. Only the two of us. The aunts and uncles were all gone. I missed the dogs. Towser was all mine, and Mickey was my aunt Toddy’s. They were boxers. Grandma said that my parents were divorcing, and I knew both my uncle Myles and my grandpa were dead of cancer. But they always whispered that part.

I remember my grandpa standing at the front door, a suitcase in his hand, and he was saying goodbye. I wanted to know exactly where he was going ’cause Uncle Myles went away the same way too and he didn’t return from the hospital, they said that he would never return. I remember how his freckles looked like cereal flecks on his skin—it was all orangy-yellow like my crayons.

My grandpa’s voice was different, it was rough like the cat’s tongue. I don’t remember when it changed. Sometimes he’d whisper. Said his throat hurt too much. Was it the cigars? They made my throat hurt and my eyes too. He whispered, “To the hospital.”

And then I wanted to know when he’d be back. I was not ready for the answer of “heaven,” so I asked where else it was beside in the painted dome of the Star of the Sea church where I was baptized. Grandpa pointed up to the clouds in the blue sky and said something about angels. Sometimes they called me an angel, but mostly I was a little monster; did he find another angel he liked better? Was it ’cause I stamped my foot at him?

Of course I wanted to go too; he’d need someone to blow out his cigar matches there too, I said. They laughed and shuffled their feet nervously. I was born on his birthday, a whole month before Christmas, they said I was Grandpa’s little monster. They said I’d also learned some nasty habits from him—to cuss, and drink stale beer. I remember that I liked the taste of cigarette butts and licking the saltiness off the new red match heads.

I hid in a forest of legs watching the stained glass window spill its red and green light onto the black & white tile floor. If I went with my grandpa, would I see the rest of my family again? Why was everybody leaving? I was relieved when he didn’t ask me along with him. I just wrapped my arms around my grandma’s leg.

I don’t remember my grandpa returning home from the hospital, but they said he did—only to die again on New Year’s Eve. I don’t remember that part either but I do remember the doctor coming over and taking a bit of meat out of the big hole in his stomach. It looked like what they fed the dogs. Or bits of tuna. They said the whole family all returned home from their parties early. No one could exactly say why. Was heaven in the room, in the bed he died in?



Our first Christmas on our own in the country, I was mad ’cause Grandma sneaked out of the house without meearly in the morning before the fire was lit. She hiked up the top of the hill with the saw. I remember when she came home she was wearin’ lots of sweaters, and baggy black pants over her longjohns. She was dragging a bare madrone tree, the only leaves were in her hair—it always smelled of Wildroot—she put it on after every hairwash.

We have to heat water in a big tub, we don't have a hot water heater so she didn’t wash her hair very often. Sometimes she trimmed it herself with small scissors in front of the bureau mirror, with pictures of Jesus and Mary watching on, and there was a crucifix over a small crowd of perfume bottles—unused Christmas gifts. She said she liked the Bushmills better, dabbing it behind her ears.

I just wasn’t ready to let go of the Christmas Tree, so I trudged up the ridge in a drizzle on ly tiny five-year-old legs and dragged home my own tree that I cut down myself—it was a fir that was more sprout than tree. We made another cross for the base and the two trees stood tied side by side, my tree was too weak to hold ornaments or lights, and the one angel we had kept doing swan-dives off the top. But the red-skinned madrone tree, with its lights, silver glass balls and songbirds, was strong enough to hold up the Christmas angel. So I climbed up the ladder and placed her at the crown of Grandma’s tree.

Her madrone tree was beautiful, but at the time, it just didn’t feel right. I remember she told me the story of Rhiannon’s Birds, how their song could make the dead come alive and the living to forget everything. But I didn’t forget. She said we were building a new life, starting with the bones of the tree. And the red-skinned madrone, peeling from the heat of the firebox, showed us the heartwood under it—green with the promise of life to come in spring.



© 2002 Maureen Hurley for Roy Conboy's monologue class. Well, Grandma never said that last part, she didn't articulate feelings like that, she was more private, but it needed an ending...

Stanislavsky and Chekhov: A Collaboration

STANISLAVSKY AND CHEKHOV: A COLLABORATION

One of ten children, Konstantin Semiyonivich was born in 1863 to Semiyon and Elizavetta Alexeiev of Moscow. Semiyon was the son of a successful textile merchant who made gold and silver thread for the clergy and nobility. Family folklore has it that Stanislavsky’s grandfather was a serf who made enough money selling peas (or money) to buy his freedom, and by age 22, he was wealthy man. Elizavetta was the indiscretion of a nobleman and an actress of little talent and less intellect. Though tempestuous and neurotic, she lavished attention on all her children and they were all encouraged to develop their particular talents. Konstantin, or Kostiya, as he was affectionately known, didn’t display any particular talent, overshadowed by the talented tribe of Alexeiev painters, writers, dancers and musicians.

The Alexeievs were avid theater-goers and Kostiya was a particular fan of the circus and ballet. His favorite ballerina was Stanislavskayia. Their nanny developed pantomime skits with the children in the small family theater and Kostiya began to show considerable talent in his roles. When he was six, one role he variously refers to in his dairies was of Grandfather Frost, where instead of pretending to light a small fire, he really lit one, nearly burning down the house. Thus the roots of theatrical realism and Method Acting were born. The Alexeiev Circle produced several theatrical productions (as well as notebooks) a year for family and an extensive circle of friends and business associates.

In 1886, the Alexeiev Circle came to a close; siblings married or moved on; Konstantin Alexeiev was involved with several amateur theater companies. He joined the Moscow Amateur Music and Drama Circle where he received favorable notice in Gogol’s Inspector General. Billed as Mr. K A v for his family’s sake, and not to upset their business connections, he resisted becoming a professional actor because of the negative social stigma associated with professional acting. However, he was so badly bitten by the stage bug, he appeared in dicey vaudeville and burlesque productions as well as the State Theater, the Mali—this, after his father spotted him in an unsavory play and gave him an ultimatum: that if he must act, to at least pick reputable theaters. During this time, the State had a monopoly on professional theaters and imposed severe censorship restrictions. There was little more freedom to be had in amateur theatrical circles.

Play outline notes from Roy Conboy

Hi all,

I'm writing to offer some clarification about this  week's assignment.
As I announced in class, the assignment is to write a one-paragraph summation of your project. This isn't an easy thing to do, but it's a useful exercise. Use it to try and clarify for yourself the dramatic nature of your project.

SACRIFICE

SACRIFICE

The river of cars on 580 slowed to a trickle
not the raging current of the workweek 

and there it was, the song of the broody pullet 

growing stronger each morning 

on the apartment balcony 

my wake up call, familiar out of childhood, 

a crooning hen as she tried out her new song
from her perch on third story balcony

incongruous pastorality in the neighborhood
both waked and soothed us
and kept us anchored to the rhythms of the past.
But when the woman began to sing on the balcony
the chicken’s song rose to terror pitch
as I watched the shadow on the wall.
The woman sang, raising her left hand
then her right with the chicken in it
three times to the east, a quick twist,
then, a vast silence.

10/2/02


the motion hypnotized the chicken
(rest of text is missing)

My cousin and I call our aunts “bags”; but we’re bags in training.... so I can relate to the handbag... after all, the ubiquitous backpack (this is where I usually break out into a rousing chorus of broody chicken calls to the consternation of my neighbors.)

Did I mention the Eretreans have taken to slaughtering chickens every Sunday from a balcony in downtown Oakland? You can tell when the drums begin to pulse.

SACRIFICE (draft—missing text—no hard copy)

SACRIFICE 

there it was, the song 

of the broody pullet 

growing stronger each morning 

from the apartment balcony 

my wake up call, 

familiar out of childhood,

crooning hen

as she tried out her song

from her perch on third story 

an incongruous pastorality 

in the neighborhood

both waked and soothed us 

and kept us anchored t

o the rhythms of the past

But when the woman

began to sing on the balcony

the chicken’s song rose to terror pitch

as I watched the shadow on the wall

the woman sang raising her left hand

then her right with the chicken in it 

three times to the east

then silence. The motion 

hypnotized the chicken....

10/21/02

This is one of those ASCII swallowed poems. I was able to save this much, but not the ending.  I don't think I have a hard copy either. 

more ASCII orphans

My cousin and I call our aunts “bags”; we’re bags in training....so I can relate to the handbag...after all, the ubiquitous backpack (this is where I usually break out into o a rousing chorus of broody chicken calls to the consternation of my neighbors...

did I mention the Eretreans have taken to slaughtering chickens every Sunday from a balcony in downtown Oakland? You can tell when the drums begin to pulse.)

The river of cars on 580 slowed to a trickle

not the raging current of the workweek

House of Memory (Cissy Speaks), monologue rev.

HOUSE OF MEMORY, rev.

Note Bene: This monologue is an offshoot based on the original play, “The Steward of Christendom,” by Sebastian Barry (1995), a story is about a Dublin Castle policeman Thomas Dunne who is going senile; his wife and son are ghosts. Two of his three daughters have abandoned him. Only Annie, whose back is deformed by polio, visits him. The play is set in Baltinglas, County Wicklow, Ireland, circa 1930. Barry recounts the story from Thomas’ point of view. The main conflict is that Thomas, a Catholic, was a chief constable for Dublin Castle, was considered to be a traitor to the Catholics because he worked for the Crown. The poetry of the script resonated within me. But I kept thinking about the poor wife Cissy who died in childbirth ca. 1904.

This monologue which came from a small poem I wrote while attending the play reading in Sept. at the Irish Historical Society. I imagined another version of the story his dead wife might speak from the grave. I wrote a lament, and later went back to glean scant biographical material from the play, there wasn’t much. Then, asynchronous time became an issue for revision. Cissy’s story stops in 1904. The play takes place in 1922 and 1932. How much does a ghost know? How does it learn new material after death? Hamlet’s ghost is cognizant and seems to be able to learn new material after death. Then I found out that this is based on a true story—Barry’s family—and that there are a couple of books out on it. So that complicates things a bit. I didn’t know whether to jettison it or adhere to what little biographical facts I do know. So I felt I had to rewrite it to fit the facts as Barry’s still very much alive. I’m at that stage where I wonder if it’s wise to continue with this character or to move onto fresh territory. But I can hear her speaking to me. She won’t shut her gob. However, the actor who read Dunne’s part, knows Barry, so I’ll try and get the books, do some research and see if this is something worth pursuing. For a possible rewrite, I thought Annie could also be present with the mother talking to her, but Annie, not hearing her, has her own monologue about life treating her unfairly, being a spinster, wanting a family, feeling abandoned, feeling guilty about committing her father to the asylum...

The events recounted are of W.W.I. Willie is their dead soldier son. Dunne’s wife, Cissy, inn a cottage in the Wicklow Hills, is speaking to Annie’s photograph.

CISSY: (Seated at the kitchen table, she is talking to her daughter’s photograph.) Ach! Annie-girl, your father, he was out walking again in the lunatic meadow after telling me you mustn’t be talking to shadows... and there he was conversing with himself, the trees, and God Almighty—for all I know. The ginger cat was following him like a dog, her tail curled in a question mark, as if she attended to every word he was saying. Stopping to sniff the flowers like a large hairy bee with whiskers and mewing as if to answer. Silly creature. I wonder what she said to him because soon enough he quieted down like a lamb. And the birds singing by the hunter’s moon. It was all wrong I tell you. What were they saying I wonder and when did we forget the language of birds? Was a time we knew, you know.

I don’t blame you for committing your father to the hospital. Really I don’t. Imagine him brandishing a sword over your head like that. You’re absolutely right. Something had to be done. It scared the living daylights out of me and I felt so helpless because I couldn’t even comfort you. What use are these arms? All I could do was watch. My penance, for I don’t know what, reduced to nothing but a shadow myself I am, ’tween worlds. I couldn’t bear it seeing his arms raised up to the night sky and the watery stars weeping. And him keening like Absalom. Thing is, as he railed and ranted, I swear the moon coyly paused behind a cloud as if to listen.

Maybe it was the Kiltegan witch’s curse taking root after all. Took a long time ripening. A sad harvest. That field belonged to the witch was next door to theirs, you know, and her washing the milk buckets in the same well always made them a bit queasy. A sudden chill. Again! Uisht! Do you hear it? Sure, I shivered. And who was busy walking on my grave? There’s been enough of that lately. And the way they paraded round and round that meadow until I was dizzy with grief. Even the small fingers of sunlight couldn’t banish all the fear rising up from the dark eye of the well.

Funny how the mind plays tricks. Even now. I kept thinking of Hamlet chatting up his dead father like that. No, I said, Thomas, you come in from the cold. Willie’s not coming back. He’s dead. Sure it’s your nightshirt all wet from the dew, I said. Sleep, that’s the ticket. But the grief began anew each time as if it was the first time he heard of it. He turned his face to the wall. Then the awful silence. No. I don’t want to hear that speech. To sleep no more...

Talking to shadows he was. I don’t blame him. But I do blame the hawthorn he slept beneath all the next day, and the bees breaking their hearts over the closed flowers in the stillness of that late afternoon. And I was so afraid. I wanted to bring him some tea but it was no use. I thought to myself, if only we could catch the honeyed words. Put them in a jar for some creature comfort later. Ach, I could kill for a good cup of tea. Make it strong enough for the mice to skitter across it. Give the cat something to do to earn her keep.

You remember what they say about sleeping under the hawthorn? I’m sure that’s how it all began. His mind wandered to all sorts of strange and fantastical places. Once he said he was with Hannibal crossing the Alps. Imagine that! Poor lummoxing beasts climbing mountain passes with no more understanding of snow than the man in the moon. Him worried about the elephants trembling at the sight of snowflakes. Wanting me to knit them all sweaters! Imagine that! Me, a knitter of elephant sweaters for creatures more ‘un 2000 thousand years dead. I thought to humor him but I’d never hear the end of it in the Hereafter. Should I use the popcorn stitch or a cable stitch like Aran sweaters, dogtags for the drowned fishermen lost at sea.

Sure, I didn’t know what to make of it. There he was, ranting through the ages, a fine white snow covering him. Petals drifting down on him from the hawthorn until he was blanketed white as snow. I blamed the hawthorn, I did. We were told never to pick it or invite trouble into the house. Thorns into the bed. Or a changeling. And that he was. A changeling.

Annie, your father was like Hannibal all alone in Abyssinia, he was leaderless after he turned over Dublin Castle to them. A loyal servant of Ireland and the Crown he was. The Crown was good to us. I remember when the king came to visit. It was after Queen Victoria died. Your father called her the Flower of Christendom, he did.

Did you know that King Edward he praised my beautiful hair? Blue-black as the barrel of a rifle it was. It was 1903. I wore a polka-dotted dress. All the little teacakes staring up at us like Christmas presents. Oh! How I loved to dance. But your father, he stood like a great tree in the middle of the dance floor. I was afraid he’s take root right there. They began to whisper and laugh. Shame spread like Brigid’s red cloak. I had to coax him off the floor with the teacakes. And them laughing.

Annie, don’t be so hard on your father. There was a time when he was a different man, he wore his invincibility like a cloak but after he turned Dublin Castle over to Collins and the like, he was a different man. After that, he was always after dreaming candlelight into song and questing for distant horizons. The glory of Rome. He admired Michael Collins, you know. But they called him a traitor. Blamed him for Larkin’s death. And the others. He never even carried a gun. Just the billy club was enough. He kept Dublin orderly and safe. It was his job. Ach, it was terrible the way they treated your father. There was some trouble with his pension, with the new government, and him chief constable of Dublin working for Ireland and the Crown 45 long years! And they called him a traitor.

There’s always betrayal at the heart of it. They should look to themselves. And who was it gave the order to kill the Big Fella? Themselves alone. How he wept when Collins died. There was real hope for the Big Fella, you see. Not for “King” de Valera, him with the stone heart of a mathematician leading us back into slavery with rings through our noses like cattle to Rome. Dev, the called him, more like devolution. Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. Soldiers of destiny they called themselves. All it brought was more civil war. As if there wasn’t enough bloodshed.

It all began with your brother Willie’s death, it unsettled your father something terrible. You know, he was never quite right in the head after that. I swear he saw God in the face of his newborn son. That settled him down right enough. But why is it fathers and sons never see eye to eye until it’s too late? Poor Willie! All he wanted was a kind word. And your father like a big lump of a stone. Poor tyke. He was only six when I was with Dolly in the childbed, my own blood racing to meet Lough Derg. Such a long night it was. And I couldn’t stop it for the life of me. When the candle failed, the birds began to sing, it was my father came to me, but it was so queer, he was my husband with my father’s face. I didn’t know who I was talking to. He began to keen. Hush, I said. But the candle guttered. Him crying like his heart would break.

’Tis a pity I never got to hold Dolly. My arms and breasts ache for her. Where is she now? America? And your sister Maud? She never comes home. Only you. Why do you keep returning to this house empty of memory with no family of your own to fill it? Poor Annie. Your poor back curving like a riverbend of hammered pewter at dusk that no man would ever set sail on.

Poor Willie. He gave his young life to save Europe, so proud to be in the Rifles. Caught in the crossfire. But you can’t lose a son without blaming yourself, your father said. You can’t fight a battle without spilling some blood. They said it was a whole generation Irish blood—not English—that fed the fallow fields of the Somme. Fodder for the Crown. That’s all they were good for. Fodder, that’s what your father said. They say there’s guns and war medals enough rusting on uniforms in the shadowed back rooms in every country of the world. But in Ireland even more so.

Willie. Named after a heroic warrior, Willie he was our only Finn MacCool. We called him William after your Gran’Da. But the others, they thought it was King Billy we were referring to. And they shunned us at the market. Painting the door orange. Calling your Da a spy for the Crown. We were good Catholics, we were. Sure it was the Crown who put the food on our table during the Troubles when there was little to be had. What else could we do? They were jealously counting all our Sunday roasts stacking up into eternity like a leaning tower of Pisa. Accusing us of putting a little something aside for purgatory. But jealousy is ever the traitor’s mistress. The Have Nots hungering after the hard-earned good fortune of others. I told him it was enough to make any man crazy serving two mistresses, Catholic Ireland and Anglican England. But he couldn’t hear me. Not a single thing I said. ’T’was a pity I was only talking to the shadows.

‘T’is such a pity the old man completely went off his mind babbling in the waving grasses like a babby wanting his mother. Annie, I swear he wouldn’t have harmed a hair on your head. The sword was a symbol of the power he’d lost. ’T’was the grief of only his wounded pride speaking in the graveyards of betrayal. The crows diving at him like banshees. When the candlelight fails, when they’ve killed the heroes, and the potential of the father’s only sons lies buried in the cold clay, when that stony love slips down their cheeks into the glittering face of the well, what loyalty was left for there to crown? There’s a good girl now Annie, put the kettle on the hob for some tea?

Oct. 17, 2002

HOUSE OF MEMORY, CISSY SPEAKS:
House of Memory (Play)

Stoppard’s “Night and Day” Marginalia

STOPPARD’S “NIGHT AND DAY” MARGINALIA 

First read of “Night and Day” was tedious and I thought it dated and insubstantial. A big name like Stoppard, and he wrote this? Not his best work I presume. I liked the play's opening with a dream. Confusing the audience early on makes them vulnerable, and more receptive to accept the world of the playwright. 

Guthrie, the photojournalist is a “type” I recognize from hanging out with paparazzi. I was earning my living as a photojournalist (and poet) in rural Sonoma County, but a poet friend Carolyn Forché said, don’t just write about guerrilla warfare, bear witness. And so I went to Latin America and the USSR, documenting whatever I could. I know Guthrie’s egocentric world of by lines, getting the news, and then getting it out, telexes, I was in the USSR right before the fall, and before email and had to get news out via carrier pigeons… 

Opening Ruth’s scene with drums clues us in that there’s a war going on (or the natives are restless), and it sets the scene. Dry humor: is he asleep or dead? Followed by tea, so very civilized...dichotomy of drums and tea. Neo-colonialism. Mad dogs and Englishmen under an African sun. Interesting overstepping of bounds, boundaries, territories—the English in Africa, Guthrie in Carson’s house, the Africans with each other. 

Interesting use of “Ruth” surreally spouting off what would never be uttered in company, polite or otherwise. Makes it farcical, and breaks the 4th wall nicely. We know we'll be hearing from her: when the two Ruths collide, something will happen. Red Alert. Ruth’s very outspoken, an issue of class, sparring with Guthrie about cultural sensitivity as in “boy” vs. Francis....but Francis is still a slave. Ironic. But he'll run off and join Col. Shimbu's ALF commies at the end. 

“Proper drink.” Propriety will be maintained. Which means the crux of the story will use a breakdown of “proper” form. Stoppard is giving us all the germinal bits of the story in the opening lines. Territorial squaring off between Ruth and Guthrie. The barely concealed venom beneath velvet gauntlets. 

“Ruth” resorting to The Beatles' “Help” is funny. Wag-ner Vagner jokes (The Neiblunglings are evoked—more disaster threatening in the wings). I always pay attention to character's names...clues are buried. Ruth-less...without mercy. Guthrie: a good tough guy name. Let George do it. Milne? Gawd: not Winnie-the-Pooh? But Milne has a bit of that in his character. Carson: I think Carson City, comstock mines...lo and behold he's a miner! So we've got the miner wanting to protect his investments. Guthrie: Did you clock the telex? The thirty-somethings aren't gonna get this very specific reference. It carries a lot of weight. Pre Marshall McLuhan global village. It means you can litera(ri)lly get the news in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Even the hotel doesn't have one. How backwards is this place? An urgent message for Stanley (Mr. Livingston, I presume?). 

GOBs (Good old boys) trading “war” stories a la Hemingway. Guthrie's speech about the neophyte getting the best shot. Front page scoop envy and newspaper rivalry. I found the free press versus closed shop scene a bit hard to follow on the page (I was glazing over and not retaining the information—didacticism at work) but when I saw the play, it worked well. Red Alert: The playwright's political message: scabs vs freelance...a microcosm of this war? Newspapers listed in order of importance. Miss the deadline, kill a story. Milne's naivitŽe is excruciating, the naive opportunists get the scoop, but the penalty is that they'll die young: Milne and the Groupie. (Parallel structure foreshadowed.) 

Curious that Ruth, who has suffered at the has of sensational journalism in the scandal sheets, would have had a fling with Wagner, then Milne. Of course, journalists are hierarchical, these guys aren't in the yellow tabloid business. Subplot of love triangle, er, quadrangle is vaguely humorous, but not necessary to the plot. It give Ruth something to do on-stage (if tedious). Did playwright run out of steam? She obsesses on her easy virtue (such as it is) and the trivial realm because women have been marginalized so, but she too wants to retain her power, all the characters are fighting for petty kingdoms on one front or another, whether it be Guthrie, Wagner and Milne; Carson, Shimbu, or Mageeba. 

I like Ruth's warning: to watch out for President Mageeba's laugh but Wagner misses the connection and we are given a taste of real brutality in the midst of a farce. As the tension mounts, Wagner gets his exclusive interview and spar with Mageeba on the relative merits of the free press, but Wagner's beating is the turning point of the play; it will be tragedy from here on out. Milne's death is a necessary martyrdom, part of the story of journalists living on the edge, a tribe apart. Mageeba is a dangerous leopard revealed as Caliban after all. Propriety fails, the white handkerchief of truce ignored, Milne shot. I am reminded that All's fair in love and war... 

Skillful storyline. The course of action in the play takes place on one afternoon and into the wee hours of the next day. The Potteresque musical use of “Night and Day” to close the play brings us back to Ruth's farce: “That’s why the lady..is a tramp.” And the grim realization that they're all whores, every last one of them. 

Oct. 4, 2002 

CW 810, Thorstenson 

Assignment #4