Though the theater calendar has room for everything from musicals to one-woman shows, a theme seems to be developing this fall: contemporary American playwright Charles Mee.
Kicking off the Second Stage season this weekend, Jess Chayes ’07 and Lily Whitsitt ’06 will perform in and direct Mee’s “Chaing Kai-Shek,” a play by Charles L. Mee. Another play by Mee, “Vienna Lusthaus,” will go up November 11-19, directed by Meredith Steinberg ’06.
Chayes said that Mee’s works specifically lend themselves to the Wesleyan theater community.
“The emphasis in Wesleyan theater is on creation,” she said. “Not just putting on a show that’s the director’s vision, but putting on something that’s a total collaboration. Charles Mee’s plays are meant to be collaborative.”
Although originally a one-man show, Whitsitt was interested in “Chaing Kai-Shek” because of its “collages of text, which is relevant to the way I think,” she said.
She originally planned to direct the piece herself, but ultimately decided to co-direct and star with Chayes.
“It just sort of happened,” Whitsitt said.
Whitsitt and Chayes both acknowledged the difficulty of directing and acting simultaneously throughout the process.
“There’s no one to tell us what’s good or bad,” Chayes said. “It’s scary, but it’s a good feeling when we both realize something’s working. Recently, I’ve only directed, so this is an important change for me. It’s really helped my confidence as an actor and an artist.”
Whitsitt agreed that the project had allowed her to try on different hats.
“Acting brings out a different part of me than directing does,” she said. “This is really hard, but we’ve had a lot of success in working together and directing each other.”
“Chaing Kai-Shek” opens the Second Stage season earlier than usual, since directors are not typically ready to preview their work until October. The time constraint on Chayes and Whitsitt figures into the direction of their piece.
“I like control over projects, but we only [had] three weeks with this,” Whitsitt said. “We were forced to adopt the mentality of, ‘Let’s just do it; it could fail or be really successful.’ We just had to jump in.”
In addition to the time crunch, Whitsitt and Chayes faced the challenge of being virtual strangers before they began the production.
“We’ve never worked together before this,” Whitsitt said. “In fact we hardly knew each other!”
Steinberg’s “Vienna Lusthaus” has only begun rehearsals, but it will feature a similar collaborative process. Cast and crew are expanding Mee’s eight-page text into a full-bodied piece that incorporates not only acting but dance, as well as the art of 1900’s Vienna, where they play is set.
“The play is only eight pages long but it’s going to end up being quite a bit longer than it would just take to read it because it’s going to be a lot of movement stuff,” said Anna Moench ’06, who is Steinberg’s assistant director. “Meredith’s two majors are dance and theater and she really wanted to combine the two in one project.”
Though Steinberg’s 11-member cast is quite larger than the team of Whitsitt and Chayes, “Lusthaus” is also turning into a group effort.
“Since it’s a collaborative piece the cast has a lot of input into what’s happening,” Moench said. “I don’t think I’ve seen any collaborative piece at Wesleyan, certainly not one that blends dance and theater like this one will. It’s going to be something new for Wesleyan theater as far as I know.”
As for the content of her play, Whitsitt described it as “a type of performance art.”
“We had to construct our own story,” she said. “The play runs at a dream-like pace, sort of like Jess and I are remembering through a collage. It comes together through our individual interpretations.”
Chayes extended the power of interpretation to the audience as well.
“Audiences leave some shows with a firm sense of the moral or meaning of the piece,” she said. “Our show isn’t like that; we worked very hard to allow the script to give meaning to us, and we hope the audience finds their own meaning as well.
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