Hello Literary Ladies! I hope you all had memorable Thanksgiving holidays with very little unnecessary family drama. I was home with the flu (and missed Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's on Long Island) while the rest of my sisters and their families celebrated in Chicago. I have so far heard one sister's account of the weekend and the various little dramas that occurred, many of which she instigated. (Politics! Driving skills! Appropriate container size for leftovers!) I can't wait to hear from the others. Life really is the stuff of drama. It's going to be a veritable Rashomon!
And what a perfect segue talk of family gatherings is for Joanna's topic for our meeting this Wednesday, as she will be presenting on playwright Richard Nelson. Since there have been more Literature Club firsts in the past few years than we can count, I wouldn't put it past Joanna to have us all prepare a meal as she presents!
Once again, we will be meeting in the Orr Room of the Hastings-on-Hudson Public Library at 12:30 PM, with curtain at 1 PM. For all who wish to join us on Zoom, please let us know you will be tuning in, so we know to simulcast the presentation.
Hoping I'll be joining you in person on Wednesday! -cough-cough-sniffle-sniffle-Jacquie
Christine's Minutes
Ten members of the Literature Club gathered in the Orr Room, where we had an excellent view of the pouring rain. We were joined again by Kathy Sullivan, as a guest. President Constance Stewart rang the sacred bell at 1 PM. Due to the recording secretary’s dereliction of duty, there were no minutes read. Due to the treasurer’s absence, there was no treasury report.
We were all pleased that Gita was able to join us via Zoom. Jacquie suggested that her emails announcing each upcoming meeting, should contain a link to the minutes. We discussed, not for the first time, what should be our Covid-careful protocol over the winter. Whatever we do, it was agreed that there will be no lunches served. Obviously, this remains a very sad thing.
The first words from the day’s presenter, Joanna Reisman, were: “I am not dressed like a schlump.” In fact, she was, untypically, dressed rather schlumpily. But this, she explained, was in homage to several characters in the Rhinebeck plays of Richard Nelson, her subject.
Richard Nelson was born in Chicago in 1950. His family moved a lot. Among his 45 listed plays, ten were produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the first in 1975. From 2005 to 2008 he was chair of the playwrighting department at the Yale School of Drama. Working with Russian translators, he has translated and produced several works of Chekhov. Nelson has won several awards. He has also written screenplays. Since the 1980’s he has lived in Rhinebeck. We could just walk down the hill and get on a train and visit him this very afternoon.
Joanna’s presentation focused on the Rhinebeck plays, known as the Rhinebeck Panorama. There are four plays about the Apple family, three plays about the Gabriels, and another 3 pandemic plays, written to be performed on the Zoom medium, revisiting the Apples, and then two plays about the Michaels. Nelson’s style of theater has deep roots in Chekhov. He strives for what he calls verisimilitude. All the plays are staged in the round, in a kitchen, and sometimes a dining room. There is lots of cooking and eating. Real food. A real refrigerator door opens and closes. There are adults, who could be you or me, speaking naturally, about personal experiences, politics, very current politics.
Each play begins with a dark, bare stage. Then the actors enter, bringing in the furniture and props, and setting the stage while the audience looks on.
In Nelson’s plays, there is minimal conflict; his characters do not try to impose their views; there are no great ‘reveals”. The characters already know everything – the drama exists in the audience becoming aware.
Nelson generally works with the same actors, to the extent that they feel like a ‘troupe”. Most notably, MaryAnn Plunkett and Jay Sanders, who are married in real life, appear variously as siblings, or as in-laws.
The actors wear no makeup (or if they do it is damn hard to tell), and they wear casual, often sloppy clothes, – hence we have Joanna’s un-characteristically schlumpy attire today.
The plays require a special very sensitive sound system, involving lots of tiny dangling microphones, so the actors can speak in normal voices.
Members read from Oscar Eustis’s insightful introduction to a collection of the plays.
(Meanwhile, in contrast to the warmth of cooking food in the Apple kitchen, outside the Orr room, the bare branches are whipping in the wind, and the flagpole is issuing an eerie screech in sync with each gust.)
Then, Joanna introduced us to the cast of characters in the first Apple Play: Richard Apple, a lawyer in Albany, his three sisters, Barbara, a teacher in Rhinebeck, Marian, also a teacher, Jane, a writer from the city, Tim, Jane’s boyfriend, an actor slash waiter, and Uncle Benjamin, who was formerly a well-known actor, but recently has had suffered a heart attack and has memory loss.
Members read from scene one, which opens on November 2, 2010, and is called “That Hopey-Changey Thing”.
Scene two is “Acting and Forgetting”. Scene three is called “American Manners.” The last scene ends with Uncle Benjamin reading a Walt Whitman poem, The Wound Dresser.
The third Apple play, called Sorry, occurs on the November 2012 elections. Barbara and Marian, now living together, are taking their Uncle Benjamin to the nursing home because they are unable to care for him any longer.
Members read a short scene.
(Meanwhile, the wind outside is still wailing for her demon lover…)
We also read from the fourth Apple play, Regular Singing. This one is set on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of JFK, November 22, 2013. We learn that Marian’s husband, Adam, from whom she separated after the tragic death of their daughter, is now dying, somewhere in the house. He remains offstage.
Then Joanna turned to the Gabriel family; these plays take place only months apart. But as in all the Apple plays, each play takes place in a single day. Again, members read a passage from Oskar Eustis’s introduction to the plays. Then we read sections from Boxes, and The Buzzards.
Following the Apple plays came the pandemic Zoom plays, and then the “modest” two-part drama about the Michaels.
Joanna ended her presentation with the program notes from the Apple plays. After which we all had to leave the warm upstate kitchen, and return to the blustery day in Hastings.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner
Recording Secretary
We were all pleased that Gita was able to join us via Zoom. Jacquie suggested that her emails announcing each upcoming meeting, should contain a link to the minutes. We discussed, not for the first time, what should be our Covid-careful protocol over the winter. Whatever we do, it was agreed that there will be no lunches served. Obviously, this remains a very sad thing.
The first words from the day’s presenter, Joanna Reisman, were: “I am not dressed like a schlump.” In fact, she was, untypically, dressed rather schlumpily. But this, she explained, was in homage to several characters in the Rhinebeck plays of Richard Nelson, her subject.
Richard Nelson was born in Chicago in 1950. His family moved a lot. Among his 45 listed plays, ten were produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the first in 1975. From 2005 to 2008 he was chair of the playwrighting department at the Yale School of Drama. Working with Russian translators, he has translated and produced several works of Chekhov. Nelson has won several awards. He has also written screenplays. Since the 1980’s he has lived in Rhinebeck. We could just walk down the hill and get on a train and visit him this very afternoon.
Joanna’s presentation focused on the Rhinebeck plays, known as the Rhinebeck Panorama. There are four plays about the Apple family, three plays about the Gabriels, and another 3 pandemic plays, written to be performed on the Zoom medium, revisiting the Apples, and then two plays about the Michaels. Nelson’s style of theater has deep roots in Chekhov. He strives for what he calls verisimilitude. All the plays are staged in the round, in a kitchen, and sometimes a dining room. There is lots of cooking and eating. Real food. A real refrigerator door opens and closes. There are adults, who could be you or me, speaking naturally, about personal experiences, politics, very current politics.
Each play begins with a dark, bare stage. Then the actors enter, bringing in the furniture and props, and setting the stage while the audience looks on.
In Nelson’s plays, there is minimal conflict; his characters do not try to impose their views; there are no great ‘reveals”. The characters already know everything – the drama exists in the audience becoming aware.
Nelson generally works with the same actors, to the extent that they feel like a ‘troupe”. Most notably, MaryAnn Plunkett and Jay Sanders, who are married in real life, appear variously as siblings, or as in-laws.
The actors wear no makeup (or if they do it is damn hard to tell), and they wear casual, often sloppy clothes, – hence we have Joanna’s un-characteristically schlumpy attire today.
The plays require a special very sensitive sound system, involving lots of tiny dangling microphones, so the actors can speak in normal voices.
Members read from Oscar Eustis’s insightful introduction to a collection of the plays.
(Meanwhile, in contrast to the warmth of cooking food in the Apple kitchen, outside the Orr room, the bare branches are whipping in the wind, and the flagpole is issuing an eerie screech in sync with each gust.)
Then, Joanna introduced us to the cast of characters in the first Apple Play: Richard Apple, a lawyer in Albany, his three sisters, Barbara, a teacher in Rhinebeck, Marian, also a teacher, Jane, a writer from the city, Tim, Jane’s boyfriend, an actor slash waiter, and Uncle Benjamin, who was formerly a well-known actor, but recently has had suffered a heart attack and has memory loss.
Members read from scene one, which opens on November 2, 2010, and is called “That Hopey-Changey Thing”.
Scene two is “Acting and Forgetting”. Scene three is called “American Manners.” The last scene ends with Uncle Benjamin reading a Walt Whitman poem, The Wound Dresser.
The third Apple play, called Sorry, occurs on the November 2012 elections. Barbara and Marian, now living together, are taking their Uncle Benjamin to the nursing home because they are unable to care for him any longer.
Members read a short scene.
(Meanwhile, the wind outside is still wailing for her demon lover…)
We also read from the fourth Apple play, Regular Singing. This one is set on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of JFK, November 22, 2013. We learn that Marian’s husband, Adam, from whom she separated after the tragic death of their daughter, is now dying, somewhere in the house. He remains offstage.
Then Joanna turned to the Gabriel family; these plays take place only months apart. But as in all the Apple plays, each play takes place in a single day. Again, members read a passage from Oskar Eustis’s introduction to the plays. Then we read sections from Boxes, and The Buzzards.
Following the Apple plays came the pandemic Zoom plays, and then the “modest” two-part drama about the Michaels.
Joanna ended her presentation with the program notes from the Apple plays. After which we all had to leave the warm upstate kitchen, and return to the blustery day in Hastings.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner
Recording Secretary
