Yale School of Drama
The Season in Review
CYMBELINE
LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ ’12 DIRECTS DOCTOR FAUSTUS LIGHTS THE LIGHTS
I always thought Gertrude Stein was intriguing. Her plays are captivating, non-linear, aurally alive landscapes, and I had no idea how to direct them . . . which was exciting to me. How do you direct Gertrude Stein??? When it came time to choose my thesis, I realized I wasn’t interested in directing a conventional play. I wanted to create something new. However, because of the thesis production schedule, devising an entirely new piece was impossible. Then I found Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, a libretto for an opera that Stein wrote on the cusp of World War II. Yes! Of course! An opera! Stein wrote a lot about the present. She wrote, “The business of Art is to live in the actual present, that is the complete actual present, and to completely express that complete actual present.” It’s such an exciting idea to me, because I think that is precisely what can make theatre incredible. PRESENCE. WE ARE HERE RIGHT NOW. TOGETHER. Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights invited a particularly open-ended collaboration with the composer, the designers, and the company of actors that helped to create it, and that task of BEING PRESENT and EXPRESSING the present is what made this piece both challenging and thrilling to work on. All of Gertrude Stein’s papers are at the Beinecke Library at Yale. I hope to visit them again soon!!
DOCTOR FAUSTUS
William DeMeritt ’12, Adina Verson ’12, and Joshua Bermudez ’13 in Cymbeline by William Shakespeare, directed by Louisa Proske ’12, photo by T. Charles Erickson LOUISA PROSKE ’12 DIRECTS CYMBELINE
At the center of Cymbeline stands the idea of forgiveness, of redemption. How can a crime, historical or personal, be purged and forgiven? How can Posthumus and Imogen, who belong to each other but have been torn apart by circumstance, keep their faith in each other, and what happens when one of them falters and his love turns into murderous jealousy? In Cymbeline, life is portrayed as a spiritual journey from blindness to seeing, from inexperience to knowledge, from crime to forgiveness and grace. Consequently it is a play full of journeys, both physical and spiritual, in which the self is constantly in motion, constantly dying and being reborn. Posthumus and Imogen have to go through many lives and identities before they can finally meet each other again and hope for a deeper union that overcomes their catastrophic crisis. For me, Cymbeline is a profoundly important play because it deals with the question of healing a broken world in such a holistic way, by linking the need for redemption on the political and historical plane to the level of shattered relationships between people, and also to the level of the self. I believe that in our age of violence and division on every level of existence, it is a deep necessity to make theatre about grace and healing and forgiveness and about how these things can occur even after heinous crimes have been committed and ethical principles violated.
Chris Henry ’12, Seamus Mulcahy ’12, Hallie Cooper-Novack ’12, and Lupita Nyong’o ’12 in Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights by Gertrude Stein, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz ’12, photo by T. Charles Erickson