What of the Night?
SEPTEMBER 26–28, 2024
DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE
James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean
Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Carla L. Jackson, Assistant Dean Nancy Yao, Assistant Dean
PRESENTS
What of the Night?
By María Irene Fornés
Directed by Joan
MacIntosh
Creative Team
Choreographer
Jennifer Archibald
Production Dramaturg
Karoline Vielemeyer
Fight and Intimacy Directors
Kelsey Rainwater
Michael Rossmy
Stage Manager
Rethabile Headbush
Cast
NADINE
Nadine .............. Gretta Marston
Charlie Hiếu Ngọc Bùi
Pete Ariyan Kassam
Leah Mariah Copeland
Rainbow ........................... Sarah Lo
Birdie Rosie Victoria
SPRINGTIME
Rainbow ........................... Sarah Lo
Greta Rosie Victoria
Ray
Max Sheldon
LUST
Joseph ................ Ariyan Kassam
Helena Mariah Copeland
Ray Max Sheldon
Birdie Rosie Victoria
HUNGER
Charlie Hiếu Ngọc Bùi
Birdie Rosie Victoria
Ray .......................... Max Sheldon
Reba Gretta Marston
Angel Ariyan Kassam
Warehouse Residents ...... Mariah Copeland
Sarah Lo
“Sabor a mi” arrangement and vocals by Gretta Marston
Content Guidance
What of the Night? contains simulations of sexual and physical violence, psychological violence, sexual intimacy, and coarse language. One play also features a non-firing theatrical firearm prop.
There will be a 10-minute intermission.
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
Artistic
Assistant Director
Cindy De La Cruz
Assistant Stage Manager
Aura Michelle
Production
Technical Supervisor
Allie Posner
Associate Safety Advisors
Shannon Dodson
Gaby Rodriguez
Davon Williams
Associate Production Manager
Bryant Heatherly
Production Crew
Rea J. Brown
Xi (Zoey) Lin 林曦
Yung-Hung Sung 宋永鴻
Run Crew
Tricie Bergman
Rosemary Lisa Jones
Administration
Associate Managing Director
Mikayla Stanley
Assistant Managing Director
Mithra Seyedi
Management Assistant
Jazzmin Bonner
House Manager
Maura Boseman
Production Photographer
Maza Rey
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
Special Thanks
Hannah Louise Jones
Yale acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.
We also acknowledge the legacy of slavery in our region and the enslaved African people whose labor was exploited for generations to help establish the business of Yale University as well as the economy of Connecticut and the United States.
The Studio Projects are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes this process.
THE BENJAMIN MORDECAI III
PRODUCTION FUND , established by a graduate of the School, honors the memory of the Tony Award-winning producer who served as Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theatre, 1982–1993, and as Associate Dean and Chair of the Theater Management Program from 1993 until his death in 2005.
Cracks in the Dark
Nadine, Springtime, Lust, and Hunger—the four plays that make up María Irene Fornés’s What of the Night?—tell stories of people from an extended family who experience a myriad of hardships across a century of U.S. history. But no matter how dire their lives seem, there’s also something magical about these characters. Leonard Cohen once sang, “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” By exploring human brokenness in the world of these plays, Fornés creates space for profound love.
Nadine
The first play in the quartet takes place during the Great Depression, a period when the American economy was driving millions into joblessness, homelessness, and starvation. It is no coincidence, however, that the main character’s name is the French derivative of the Russian word “Nadezhda” meaning “Hope.” And while despair may scream loudly in dark times, hope is what carries people through the night. Fornés tells the story of a struggling family centered around its matriarch and plumbs the ugliest depths of human behavior that manifest when people have to fight for survival. But in this world even the most despicable acts are foremost symptoms of cracked hearts that yearn to find warmth and protection.
Springtime
During the second play, the standard of living in the US has significantly improved after the Second World War. In the 1950s, suburban bliss became possible: a white picket fence, a house, a car, and a TV for popular entertainment. But this life was reserved for the picture-perfect nuclear family. Instead, Fornés chooses to shed light on those who live on the fringe of a system
that leaves no room for them. In a time when the government saw queer people as a threat to society, she tells an intimate story of two women in love. For these characters, falling through the system’s cracks necessitates a quest for survival.
Lust
This play begins in 1968, a tumultuous year that changed the American landscape forever, and follows the characters through the rebellious 1970s. The decade was marked by a booming counterculture that protested shallow materialism, the Vietnam War, and a sexually inhibited society. But Fornés doesn‘t tell the story of a hippie love-in. Instead, her characters are part of a culturally repressed majority that privately explores hidden desires. Here, lust has seeped in through the cracks in their veneer of propriety, lurking and breathing in the dark corners of the human mind.
Hunger
The final play is set in a dystopian future that— despite the play’s being written more than 30 years ago—strikes a chord with contemporary angst about the climate crisis and the surge of authoritarian politics. A world that feels cold, deserted, and dangerous doesn’t seem to leave much room for heartfelt engagements or even the memory of a meaningful past. Here, hunger is both an existential threat and a craving to salvage lost connections. As grim as this setting may seem, Fornés reminds us: the darker the night, the more radiant the rays of light that shine through the cracks, and the more powerful the smallest acts of love.
—Karoline Vielemeyer, Production Dramaturg