Heterogenous Spectacles
Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1960s
my father
Charles R. Lyons
in Shakespeare’s Love Labour’s Lost
for Farm Players at Stanford University
mid 1960s
Throwback: The Revenger’s Tragedy
Throwback: A site specific theater production of Cyril Tourneur / Thomas Middleton Revenger’s Tragedy, Stanford Old Union Stanford Theater and Performance Studies
“The world’s divided into knaves and fools”
The Revenger’s Tragedy
Old Union, Stanford, 2000
Location Work: Love’s Labour’s Lost
Site Specific Location Work / Exploring for Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Love is a familiar; Love is a devil:
there is no evil angel but Love.
Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1.2
Wild Rumpus: An Index of Metals
Contemporary chamber ensemble Wild Rumpus perform Fausto Romitelli’s 2003 video opera An Index of Metals at Freight and Salavage in Berkeley.
Nathaniel Berman conductor…
Performers Under Stress: Cage, A Deadly Farce
Tar Gracesdóttir Cage, A Deadly Farce.
Performers Under Stress present a zookeeper, a docent, an animal behaviorist, and a mental health professional clash over the proper protocol for a conflicted anteater.
Euripides #91, Slacker Hill
Marin Headlands Performance: Love is The Fullest Education. A site specific theatre piece using fragments of one of the lost tragedies of Euripides on top of Slacker Hill in the Marin Headlands. This work is part of a larger project called IOTA that brings to life the remaining fragments of the lost plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
At 6:57 a.m. on April 7th, 2016, Muriel Maffre, Ryan Tacata and myself performed a site specific production of an unattributed fragment of Euripides on Slacker Hill in the Marin Headlands based on the myth of Zeus’ seduction of Io in the form of a cloud. The weather was partly cloudy with a temperature of 59℉ and winds between 20mph and 30mph. The duration of the performance was six and a half minutes, for an audience of 0.
Pre Performance, Slacker’s Hill
Speculation on Slacker’s Hill, Marin Headlands: Muriel and Ryan “backstage” before the performance of the Euripides Fragment Love is the Fullest Education
You lethargic, waiting upon me,
waiting for the fire and I
attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty
Shaken by your beauty
Shaken.
William Carlos Williams, Paterson
Hunters Point Field Trip
Hunters Point Field Trip: American Association of Geographers visit to Hunters Point, San Francisco lead by Lindsey Dillon
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
James Baldwin
“No Name in the Street,” The Price Of The Ticket, 1985
follow truth
Speculation: Rehearsing Sophocles #116. Fantastic rehearsal/experimentation/playing/imagining with amazing people at sunrise under a full moon… for Sophocles Savage Blasts.
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.
The Letters
Fighting Chance: 3 New Plays at SAFEhouse ARTS
SAFEhouse ARTS Fighting Chance: 3 New Plays. Medusa’s Reflection by Amy Claussen; The Float by Adam Schwartz; Lucky Break by Eli Ryder
Lucky Break by Eli Ryder
The Float by Adam Schwartz
Medusa’s Reflection by Amy Claussen
Directed by Lauren Dunagen
Assistant Director: Jamie Freebury
Cast: Jen Fenten, Ben Friesen, Gorkem Ozbek, Helen Porter, Christine Rhoades, Laurel Scotland-Stewart, Val Sinckler, and Will Trichon
Anna Halprin Sensory Walk
The body is living art.
Your movement through time and space is art.
A painter has brushes.
You have your body.
Anna Halprin
Anna Halprin Sensory Walk
Anna Halprin lead a participatory sensory walk performance from the California Historical Society at Mission St. and 3rd St. to the Museum of Performance + Design at Folsom and 5th St in celebration of MP+D’s exhibition opening of Mapping Dance: The Scores of Anna Halprin. A series of musical sensory experiences across the Yerba Buena Gardens area were imagined and cued by Anna Halprin. Co-hosted by California Historical Society and Museum of Performance + Design
Sunrise Work
Sunrise Work: Rehearsing IOTA’s Sophocles #116
It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
William Carlos Williams
Artist Weather, Pray For Rain Pulgas Water Temple
A site specific theatre performance by the gathering Artist Weather at the Pulgas Water Temple: Pray For Rain.
Are the days of winter sunshine
just as sad for you, too?
When it is misty,
in the evenings,
and I am out walking by myself,
it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart
and causing it to crumble into ruins.
Gustave Flaubert
India Basin, Hunter’s Point
Anderson and Cristofani was the survivor of a group of shipbuilders who built San Francisco Bay scows between the early 1870s and the mid-1930s
in a row of yards along Innes Avenue in the India Basin at Hunter’s Point.
Henry P. Anderson, a shipwright, arrived there from Denmark in 1893 and bought Dircks’ yard on Innes Avenue. He was building Jack London’s The Snark in 1906 when the earthquake hit.
Anderson was joined by Alf Cristofani in 1926 and the name of the shipyard changed. The yard was sold to property speculators in the 1980s but the North part of the yard was acquired by the City in 1989 for the development of the India Basin Shoreline Park
“Spare no money,” I said to Roscoe. “Let everything on the Snark be of the best. And never mind decoration. Plain pine boards is good enough finishing for me. But put the money into the construction. Let the Snark be as staunch and strong as any boat afloat. Never mind what it costs to make her staunch and strong; you see that she is made staunch and strong, and I’ll go on writing and earning the money to pay for it.”
And I did . . . as well as I could; for the Snark ate up money faster than I could earn it. In fact, every little while I had to borrow money with which to supplement my earnings. Now I borrowed one thousand dollars, now I borrowed two thousand dollars, and now I borrowed five thousand dollars. And all the time I went on working every day and sinking the earnings in the venture. I worked Sundays as well, and I took no holidays. But it was worth it. Every time I thought of the Snark I knew she was worth it.
For know, gentle reader, the staunchness of the Snark. She is forty-five feet long on the waterline. Her garboard strake is three inches thick; her planking two and one-half inches thick; her deck-planking two inches thick and in all her planking there are no butts. I know, for I ordered that planking especially from Puget Sound. Then the Snark has four water-tight compartments, which is to say that her length is broken by three water-tight bulkheads. Thus, no matter how large a leak the Snark may spring, Only one compartment can fill with water. The other three compartments will keep her afloat, anyway, and, besides, will enable us to mend the leak. There is another virtue in these bulkheads. The last compartment of all, in the very stern, contains six tanks that carry over one thousand gallons of gasolene. Now gasolene is a very dangerous article to carry in bulk on a small craft far out on the wide ocean. But when the six tanks that do not leak are themselves contained in a compartment hermetically sealed off from the rest of the boat, the danger will be seen to be very small indeed.
The Snark is a sail-boat. She was built primarily to sail. But incidentally, as an auxiliary, a seventy-horse-power engine was installed. This is a good, strong engine. I ought to know. I paid for it to come out all the way from New York City. Then, on deck, above the engine, is a windlass. It is a magnificent affair. It weighs several hundred pounds and takes up no end of deck-room. You see, it is ridiculous to hoist up anchor by hand-power when there is a seventy-horse-power engine on board. So we installed the windlass, transmitting power to it from the engine by means of a gear and castings specially made in a San Francisco foundry.
The Snark was made for comfort, and no expense was spared in this regard. There is the bath-room, for instance, small and compact, it is true, but containing all the conveniences of any bath-room upon land. The bath-room is a beautiful dream of schemes and devices, pumps, and levers, and sea-valves. Why, in the course of its building, I used to lie awake nights thinking about that bath-room. And next to the bath-room come the life-boat and the launch. They are carried on deck, and they take up what little space might have been left us for exercise. But then, they beat life insurance; and the prudent man, even if he has built as staunch and strong a craft as the Snark, will see to it that he has a good life-boat as well. And ours is a good one. It is a dandy. It was stipulated to cost one hundred and fifty dollars, and when I came to pay the bill, it turned out to be three hundred and ninety-five dollars. That shows how good a life-boat it is.
I could go on at great length relating the various virtues and excellences of the Snark, but I refrain. I have bragged enough as it is, and I have bragged to a purpose, as will be seen before my tale is ended. And please remember its title, “The Inconceivable and Monstrous.” It was planned that the Snark should sail on October 1, 1906. That she did not so sail was inconceivable and monstrous. There was no valid reason for not sailing except that she was not ready to sail, and there was no conceivable reason why she was not ready. She was promised on November first, on November fifteenth, on December first; and yet she was never ready. On December first Charmian and I left the sweet, clean Sonoma country and came down to live in the stifling city—but not for long, oh, no, only for two weeks, for we would sail on December fifteenth. And I guess we ought to know, for Roscoe said so, and it was on his advice that we came to the city to stay two weeks. Alas, the two weeks went by, four weeks went by, six weeks went by, eight weeks went by, and we were farther away from sailing than ever. Explain it? Who?—me? I can’t. It is the one thing in all my life that I have backed down on. There is no explaining it; if there were, I’d do it. I, who am an artisan of speech, confess my inability to explain why the Snark was not ready. As I have said, and as I must repeat, it was inconceivable and monstrous.
Jack London, The Cruise of The Snark
Wild Rumpus
Wild Rumpus is a contemporary chamber music ensemble dedicated to performing the music of the present. Artistic Director: Nathaniel Berman.
The trombone and side-drums in the chamber music of Stravinsky will do well enough in a very smart house-party where all the conversation is carried on in an esoteric family slang and the guests are expected to enjoy booby-traps. Very different is the outlook of some of our younger masters such as Hindemith, Jarnach, and others, whose renunciation of beauty was in itself a youthfully romantic gesture, and was accompanied by endless pains in securing adequate performance. The work of masterly performers can indeed alone save the new ideas from being swamped in a universal dullness which no external smartness can long distinguish from that commemorated in the Dunciad.
contemporary chamber music
Chocolate Heads Rehearsal
Chocolate Heads develop a site specific dance in the Windhover Contemplative Center that was designed by Aidlin Darling Design architects to house Nathan Oliveira’s Windhover paintings.
You’re sitting there with your muse
and your muse is telling you something
and you’re following it,
and you end up the next day
looking at it
and thinking
“what the hell was the muse saying to me?”
Nathan Oliveira
The Iota’s E.91 (Io) rehearsal
Marin Headlands rehearsal: a Site specific theater rehearsal of Euripides fragment #91 with Muriel Maffre and Ryan Tacata, in the Marin Headlands overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.
