A great thing

Five years ago, our artistic director had an idea for a project. I thought, "Well, that could be a thing. Sure, lets try it." We put together a series of three plays to share staged readings of at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester. We wanted plays that were directly related to works in the Currier's collection or to special exhibitions at the museum. We invited Dr. Landis K. Magnuson, professor of theatre at Saint Anselm College, to lead a discussion with the audience after the play was read.

Sure, I like reading plays. That's what I have been doing all weekend. Reading plays that stimulate thought and conversation. I know it's a good play when I tell my husband he needs to read it when I am only at the end of the first act because I want to talk to someone about it. But who else likes reading plays as much as I do?

The first season we read Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still because the Currier had mounted an exhibition of Vietnam War photography. We read Edward Albee's The American Dream because the Currier had acquired a screen print by Robert Indiana, so named after he saw the premiere of that play. We read John Logan's Red because a 1967 painting (Untitled, Red Over Brown) by Mark Rothko is a favorite in the Currier's permanent collection. Each play was followed by a discussion with the audience. We launched the program and thought, "Will anyone else come?"

We're in our fifth season now of the ARTiculate Playreading Series, and it is always an absolute joy to have as many as 75 people join us in the auditorium at the Currier on a Sunday afternoon to listen to a play, to talk about the ideas in it, and to look at art. Doing a script as a reading really harnesses our focus (and the audience's) on the words of the playwright, and on the stories and ideas in the plays. It's funny, because stripping away design and the visual element of theatre (sets, lights, costumes) seems antithetical in a setting which celebrates the visual. An audience member told me recently that the play readings have become her favorite program at the Currier, and provide her a new lens through which to look at the art.

We'll be back at the Currier again this month to read Sight Unseen, another play by Donald Margulies. Among other things, the script raises questions about the value of art, the definition of art and who can be an artist, questions of cultural appropriation and gender politics, and truth/memory/ownership/identity. It is not uncommon to have to cut off the conversation after a reading because the galleries are about to close but folks are still talking. Now that's just a great thing, isn't it?

~ Carey Cahoon

Making Art?

In 1934 – back when socialism still seemed possible, before Mrs. Thatcher closed the mines, and before Labour turned itself into a pale imitation of Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party – a group of miners in Ashington, England picked up paintbrushes and began making pictures of their lives.

Over the next several years, these untutored working men emerged as a significant force in British Art.  Known as the Ashington Group, these miners – pitmen, they’d call themselves – turned out hundreds of works chronicling daily life in the coal country. Their paintings, though, went beyond simple representational chronicles – the best of them have powerful political and spiritual dimensions; and the very best of them can be – to say it simply –  stunningly beautiful. In other words, the “pitmen painters” produced some powerful, enduring works of art.

Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters dramatizes the journeys of the individual Ashington Group members as they grope their ways toward creating their particular works of art.  In doing so, the playwright raises a number of difficult questions.  Some are aesthetic: what is art, anyways; do works of art have meanings; does a painting “mean” what its painter intended? Or do the meaning, value and beauty of a painting exist only in the person looking at it?  Some are political: what’s the implication of a bunch of working stiffs producing artworks to the class structure of pre-War and Wartime England?  Some are downright spiritual: what is an artist?  What does it take to create something that lasts, that is beautiful, that “means” something to the world?  And one is completely unanswerable: what do you do when it turns out that the most beautiful art in the world isn’t enough to redeem disappointment, failure, mortality? 

Needless to say, The Pitmen Painters is a comedy.

Really. For all the intense issues addressed in this play, one enduring fact is that it is continually, sometimes wryly and sometimes uproariously, funny. Frankly, if it’s about pitmen, it has to be.  Men who live in the mines, whose lives are dust-filled and always dangerous, tend to wield humor as a weapon against the constant darkness.  It’s an acerbic humor, a humor of jabs and insults, that I recognize from my Irish grandparents who were contemporaries with the Ashington Group painters, and shared with them, if not the mines (my grandparents were shoe workers), then the same irascible attitudes born of poverty and the daily struggle not just make do, but to make their lives enjoyable and occasionally beautiful and – every once in a while – filled with meaning.  Their bruising jokes were the only kind that death would understand.

You’ll recognize both the humor and the soul of this play if you’ve ever seen Billy Elliot – which 

Lee Hall also wrote.  Like that movie, The Pitmen Painters looks at the way that art – painting here, the ballet in Billy Elliot – can reach in and transform the harshest lives. In Billy Elliot, of course, the boy escapes – he makes it to the Royal Academy.  The Pitmen Painters, on the other hand, don’t, won’t or can’t all leave Ashington. Or the mines.  So the transformation for them – if you can call it that – is more constrained, more centered in the small facts of daily life.  They have to find the beauty in the depiction of a union hall at night, men fighting against a wind, a boy in a soldier’s uniform getting married, the simple truth of a Bedlington Terrier.

And it’s not a tragedy if all these things don’t in the end transform their lives; it’s a triumph that putting these things on canvas – making them into art – so very nearly does.

~ Walter Maroney

tKAPOW presents a reading of The Pitmen Painters on Sunday, January 8, 2017 at 2 pm at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH.

The Rock Star Power of a Book

A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting of the Arts Presenters of Northern New England, a consortium of approximately 40 arts organizations from NH, VT, and ME. The meeting was held at Middlebury College and there were almost 30 people in attendance (a larger than usual crowd for one of these meetings especially since many had a long drive). So, what was on the agenda that day that had the membership so excited? Well it happens that the meeting was scheduled at the same time that Shakespeare’s First Folio was on display at the museum on campus.

Following a bit of business during which many an arts presenter sat fidgeting in his or her seat awaiting an encounter with the Bard, we were ushered down to the museum. We met with the Chief Curator, Emmie Donadio, who spoke with us in the lobby for a few minutes about the museum’s mission and its collection. About 5 minutes into her remarks, however, she stopped and said, “but that’s not why you are all here.” We all knew that about 100 feet from where we stood, but just out of sight, sat one of the most important books we’d ever lay eyes on in person. Emmie released us like a group of school kids on the last day of school and we, distinguished professionals that we are, all practiced our best fast walk/almost run/you’re in a museum so be respectful.

At the end of the main hall was a huge sign in the shape of an open book and to its right, sat the First Folio propped up on a pedestal and under glass. Like so many people observe when they see the Mona Lisa, the folio is smaller than the reputation that preceeds it so we, very gently but very eagerly, encircled the book in such a way that we could all get a look at it. The book sat open to Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1 and there on the right page almost at the very bottom of the page and just an inch or so from the fold in the spine were printed the words “To be, or not to be, that is the Question.” Reading those words was a moment that quickened the pulse for sure. Emmie felt that, having relieved our craving to be in the presence of the book, it was safe to spend a few minutes speaking about it and about its importance not only as storehouse of some of the most important English literature, but also as an object that represents an important period in printing. Her expertise is in rare books and it was fascinating to see how excited she was about it as a book while many of us seemed more excited about the book’s contents. If you have never done so and ever get the opportunity, I strongly encourage you to take part in a curator lead tour of an exhibition. You’ll learn more about art than you ever thought you could know.

What I found most exciting about the day, however, was the enthusiasm that all of these arts presenters had for this book under glass. I’m a theatre guy so to me it represents so much of the past, present, and future of the field about which I am most passionate. To music people, this was the book that inspired Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky. To fine art people this book provides context for appreciating Sargent’s Lady M and Millais’ Ophelia. Opera aficionados find in the book the muse of Verdi and Wagner. It’s a great unifier. Mostly, I was so thrilled to see how giddy this book made my colleagues.

So, by now, you’ve probably figured out why I share this story.  This morning, two days earlier than the scheduled open date; the exhibition First Folio: The Book the Gave us Shakespeare became available for public viewing at the Currier Museum of Art. theatre KAPOW is thrilled to have been a part of bringing the folio to NH and we are really looking forward to taking part in many of the events scheduled around its visit. Our involvement with this project dates back over a year now.  tKAPOW took part in the application process to bring the folio to NH and took a lead role in organizing programming to accompany the visit. Now, here we are and over the course of the next few weeks you will have the chance to not only see this amazing book in person, but also geek out with us in a month long celebration of the bard. 

tKAPOW’s first public event in conjunction with the folio’s visit will take place Monday, April 11th at 7:30pm at the Derry Public Library. Carey has put together a special presentation entitled “Women and Love in Shakespeare.” This intimate evening will feature readings from several of Shakespeare’s most famous heroines. Carey will reprise two roles near and dear to her heart with passages from Beatrice and Lady Macbeth. It is perhaps a little known fact that Carey and I started dating while playing opposite each other in Much Ado About Nothing in college.  My Benedict was passable but her Beatrice totally stole the show. On April 21st at the Currier, tKAPOW will present staged readings of two scenes from Shakespeare’s plays-within-the play. First we’ll tackle the murder of Gonzago from Hamlet followed by Pyramus and Thisbe from Midsummer’s Night Dream. We look forward to taking over the Currier’s Winter Garden with this fun and high-spirited selection. On April 23rd, tKAPOW is taking part in a daylong conference of teacher workshops revolving around teaching Shakespeare in the classroom. And, pay close attention because when you go to the museum, you will hear the familiar voices of some tKAPOW regulars leading the audio tour of the exhibition. 

It’s going to be a great month with Shakespeare themed events taking place throughout the state.  I hope that you’ll take part in as much of this celebration as you can. This book that has moved the hearts and minds of artists throughout history is now sitting here in our state and still working its magic on us.

~ Matt Cahoon