Silks and floorboards

Playhouse Creatures was such a good play last evening at Chichester Theatre on the Fly. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well acted I thought and humorous, it was great production on many levels for me. The history of women on stage, the start for Nell Gwynn, the natural comedy and the tragedy. The stage life and poverty at those times. And so on. All in a very minimal stage setting of the temporary stage built for this period in Chichester. It's such a vibrant City for creative culture. I like that. Lucky M being close by all of it and making good use of it. I'm sure I could make better use of the cultural events occurring locally. The thing is I live and work in different areas. And I'm always going off elsewhere. London for example.
London was busy, busy, busy yesterday.
Anyway back to what Playhouse Creatures has aroused in me this morning. A desire to know about the first female actresses and the story of Nell Gwynn. I'm glad to be inquisitive. As it has put a little into perspective for me of what were dribs and drabs of information. Suddenly it's more in perspective when there is something like this to hang it on and have my interest titillated.
So the play featured 5 women on a very bare set. A man, who remained with his back to us the entire show, was in costume, his only job was to change the scenery. This was on full show. The stage set up so that we could see all of the workings other than behind stage. Although the play involved us seeing them on stage and behind stage. But not the reality of behind this stage we were watching. I liked these layers. So they were acting about acting as well.
A really good and clever interpretation by the art director Michael Oakley. I applaud him.
April de Angelis was the author.
"April De Angelis (born c.1960) is a British dramatist of part Sicilian descent. She is a graduate of Sussex University who trained at East 15 Acting School.

De Angelis began her career in the 1980s as an actress with the Monstrous Regiment theatre company but in 1987 her play Breathless was a prize winner at the 1987 Second Wave Young Women's Writing Festival.

Her plays often feature historical figures. Playhouse Creatures and A Laughing Matter are set in the London theatrical milieu of the 17th and 18th centuries respectively. Wanderlustexamines Victorian colonialism and Ironmistress is a verse play exploring Lady Charlotte Guest's factory ownership.

As a librettist, De Angelis contributed to the opera The Silent Twins (2007), composed by Errollyn Wallen, which is based on the case of June and Jennifer Gibbons.

De Angelis tends to write to commission and several of her plays have been produced by Max Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint theatre company." (Wikipedia, 2012)

I wonder how much influence she had over the way it was directed and produced. And how much autonomy does a director have when staging their own production? Do they buy the play and then have a degree of freedom? How much does the stage itself dictate what is possible?

This Theatre on the Fly is such a good idea I think. I like the way the cultural lifestyle is so much part of Chichester. And I am delighted that M seeks these things out and invites me along. I can feel jealous that she does seem to find things and that I don't. I feel as if I'm not really the creative culture vulture just a hanger on. The reality is that I've always had an interest and been along to things but never really gone below the surface as I do now. And I am very grateful that there are people that introduce me to things. JB to film, AB (and since, others that I've met) to art, JB and others to music, mum and others to theatre and musicals, PD to opera, SH to photographers and vintage kitch. Writing? Well I've always written in some form or another. I've always wanted to be a writer but my mum told I could never be as I'm not eloquent enough. It's true I suppose, when I read badly written prose it doesn't grip me. I can read books that really entice me into the world and it's a wonderful journey along with them. I would like to have that talent. M is going about seeking it by undertaking her creative writing MA. I'm jealous but also not. I have diversity which means that I am never a master of anything. I have a deep interest in psychology and pursuing that as my career and then have arts and culture outside of that.

It's an interesting thing this feeling of jealousy and the associated thinking patters. I've always felt a fear of missing out on something. Way back from being a little girl I hated going to bed for a fear of missing out on something. Not to mention the scary things upstairs in the darkness and under my bed. The things that could get me if there was so much as a crack in the curtains. Then the witches would be able to see me and if they could see me they could get me. And if I trod on the floor the things under the bed could get me. I would lie in bed barely breathing. Oh and the crack in the slightly open door meant that I could be seen and got. More recently I have associated this with my dad spying on me. There were times when I caught him watching me through the crack in the door when I was in the bath. Or watching my reflection in the mirror from outside through the crack in the curtains. So it was real as well. I do wonder if that was the fear but explained it away as the witches and unknown things under the bed.

This does not deflect though from this fear of missing out. I would not go to the toilet because it would steal time away from what was going on. This became a real problem with proper consequences. But again I think there's something sinister behind it too. Maybe I am imagining that to take away from my irresponsibility. I would soil my pants rather than leave the situation. This is often associated with abuse though too. There are senses of things that happened when I was very young. Things that turn my stomach with fear and disgust but I often wonder if it's me imagining things. Even today after all the therapy in the world. C was quite surprised I think when I said I had been sexually abused. She said she wasn't expecting that. Hmmm just goes to show how practitioners shouldn't practice unless they are really ready to deal with whatever comes up. Thank goodness I have been learning and have supervision. There have been some real incredible things I've been faced with and needed to work through, such as murder, sexual abuse and paedophilia, neglect, deaths, physical abuse, trauma, psychosis, and more. Each time it is something for me to learn and support.

Back to the play. Nell Gwynn was a real tale of rages to riches. After the civil war resulting in the execution of King Charles I, in January 1649, King Charles II came to the throne. Apparently he was a lover of theatre and in 1660 or thereabouts lifted the ban of women being able to act. I suspect that he enjoyed seeing women and it seems to me that women on stage were suddenly an entertainment of the rather risque or naughty side. A more burlesque atmosphere rather than acting taken seriously. Maybe the women were serious an maybe there was appreciation for women playing women's roles. After all Shakespeare wrote great parts for women didn't he? I have often thought of them as great parts. He didn't seem to be a misogynist, more of a romantic I've felt.

King Charles II reign seems to be labelled as  the Restoration period. Capitalised. It's interesting how these periods are given names. Restoration, Renaissance, Pre-Raphaelite, Post-Modernism etc etc. Anyway thank goodness for Charles' Restoration. As women started to come to the forefront in the public eye. Not to forget of course that we had already had Queen Elizabeth I. How more feminist can a country be. And what a force of ingenuity and encouragement for growth was she. An empire was built in her reign.

It seems we know a lot about Nell through Samuel Pepys' writings. Thank goodness for his journals. We draw a lot from his writings I believe. But of course it was one man's views and also a view from a certain amount of space and time - what's that word? It's a common word and has escaped in the gap between my long term memory store and being brought into the consciousness again. Why does that happen to me? It's like something misfires within the memory neuronal connections. I know the word is there. I will have to look through my psychology books for the word.

Pepys details Nell as comical and called her "pretty, witty Nell". So it is easy to see how King Charles, clearly a womaniser, was beguiled by her beauty and wit. So a socialite she became. She took the opportunity. Good for her. Little is certain about Nell's early life. There are lots of claims but nothing solid. records in those days were not accurately kept of course. Not easy to keep tracks of people like it is today. If only information were purely for demographics.

It amused me slightly when talking about the first real psychopath I have known to encounter at work recently and the worry that he may some day do something bad. And then R saying what can be done about this? Well nothing unless we go down the route of the science fiction book by Philip K Dick, Minority Report. I haven't read the book but thought the film was a good story apart from the fact that Tom Cruise was the main part. I couldn't flipping well remember the title of the book although could remember it was by Philip. I would like to read more. There are so many things I'd like to do more of. There just isn't enough time for all the things I want to do. I want to write (and this takes time, lots of it). I want to sketch and that requires time and concentration and courage. I want to go to galleries and theatre and have art lessons including sculpture lessons. I want time with friends socialising and chatting. I want to study psychology. I need to work and want to do my job well and have training, I like to walk and visit places for interest. So many things I want and like and isn't that great that i have all of these interests in me. It never needs to be boring or lonely or obsessing about the bloody boss-lady. There isn't time.

LouLou needs a walk and annoyingly is nudging my laptop. I used to do that to people. Nudge their newspaper thinking it would get their attention and would wonder why they'd get annoyed. This is annoying me as LouLou is doing it an yet I know she needs the walk. OK off we go. Brief but fresh and good to be out there.

OK now I have to drag myself off to get petrol and to get food shopping. If I don't I have no veggies for lunch. I am looking for something different in my food and that's interesting too. My food is great just as it is. I am seeking external inspiration. I am fascinated by the learning I get through interactions and like the way it activates my mind and intrigue. Seeing this play and chatting about things and how the world through time and space all interacts. Nothing stands alone without each other. I marvel at this realisation. How powerful it all is. History is just as much a part of me today as it was back when it was occurring. The influences on people, places and things is invaluable in understanding more about me as an individual, about the community and society and the world as a whole. Marvellous.

More to write about the history of women on the stage when I get back if there's time before my AWOL. 

Oh and about the wonderful FA meeting yesterday

OK Back again. And the best laid plans .... I was intending to get to Lidl. It's the cheapest. But actually I was running out of time. My petrol tank was nearly empty so that was a priority and then I realised I could just get enough for today at Tesco and do the rest before I go for a walk with AB. Bloody hell petrol is £133.9 per litre again. It's crazy. And what a bargain. They must be wrongly priced. But I bought 4 just in case. Paul Newman's balsamic dressing 99p per bottle when usually it's been £1.79. Everything is way beyond my means really. I am eating minimally in some ways but it's more than adequate. And of course I do consider all the chemicals added to growing fresh products. I rarely wash anything though so if I'm consuming poisons I have some input in that. I'd love to be eating fresh veggies from the garden but I won't put in the effort (that would require even more time) and even with my little friends V input nothing has grown.

So yes the first female actresses before I have to go off and AWOL.

Joining the theatre at the age of 14, it seems that Thomas Killigrew took her on and he was linked with King Charles II. Being a pretty girl and and witty girl she clearly caught the King's eye. Lucky her huh. Tow illegitimate children by the King she was wily enough to get them recognised. She certainly had a way with the King it seems. It was open knowledge that she was the King's mistress in the end. It seems that she was too demanding to begin with. Like the play depicts the actresses were really fodder for prostitution. And also as depicted in the play the girls were little more than extra money earners, performing like the dancing bears that were housed in this particular playhouse before them. However, it was a move in the right direction. Women really have had to use every wily way and great strength to fight the force of male power and degradation. We have come up from below the ranks.

I loved these layers that De Angelis has cleverly captured and Michael Oakley has reproduced. De Angelis has captured the points of previous mistresses being paid off and of course the miserly life they had to lead when turfed out if pregnant. Of no more value than the bear that ravaged the master and was then left to die having ripped out every claw and pulled out every tooth. The desperation of the women, the one relying on her good looks and charms being usurped by the younger member and then being useless as an actress because pregnant, of no value. But the one who turned against the theatre director, wanting shares and speaking out, being put in danger through her own supposed beau and keeper being angry and turning against her. Women had to fight hard to have anything like a voice. Nell, on the otherhand, seems to have been far more powerful in her way. She had to yield to the men sense of power to become powerful herself.

Now with all the talk of this book 50 Shades of Grey I find this interesting. I had realised in my position as a salve just how much power I was gaining. I relished being cherished as a slave. I wanted to be a good girl and available for whatever my Master wanted. I was good for a while until he gave me too much room for manoeuvre. Then I wanted more and the more I tried to have the less I got. I lost the power. It was a very interesting power game.

However as I go forward I do not want that inequality. I wanted to be loved for the woman that I am and to be able to love the man. If that can't happen it is my hearts desire not to falter for less or meanness. Please be to God.

However, it is an interesting phenomena that yielding wields power. It's just the manipulation that can then ensue with that yield. It is important for me to acknowledge the weakness I have for sugar and flour and quantity. 

I need to call my AWOL now. Which as always was incredibly helpful. I really have got a better understanding, a real depth of understanding of Step one. It's amazing how this is working. I have listened and listened for years now and read too and even sat around a group as the therapist and never truly understood like I do now.

I have no doubts at all that I am a food addict. And that this addiction is physical, mental and spiritual. I need to find ways of expressing my illness, the disease of addiction because then I can impart my understanding back. I like to assimilate the information but there's often so much I forget what has been said.

I will try and write some notes later. First of all lunch.

You are getting a running commentary of my day. There are so many glorious experiences and thoughts to share though. How on earth can I have enough time to get this all down in writing?

OK so I am over all the excitement of the play last evening. I've talked it out. The Nell Gwynn story, the Restoration, King Charles II, etc. It was a great play and I would recommend seeing it if the chance is presented to you.
There is another play on in London by April De Angelis. Jumpy. I've no idea what it's about but I would be interested in seeing it. I wonder if I can afford it though. Bloody expenditure limitations. There isn't enough money or time to do everything I want to do. But hey isn't it wonderful that I have such a full life?
I think so.
Closer to the time the woman returns to work. I am not looking forward to her craziness. I would hope that her holiday has enabled her to calm right down. I do hope so. She was noisy and nasty before she left. Not a person I choose to be around.
I have to learn a way through this I suppose. Please God guide me. I would like your help please. I don't need anymore of the craziness but hey the lessons are not mine to choose. Over to you God. I know you will be nearby me.

Bliss
XX

Birthtime spendings

My friend's birthday day out in London ..............

Joan Miró's works come to London in the first major retrospective here for nearly 50 years. Renowned as one of the greatest Surrealist painters, filling his paintings with luxuriant colour, Miró worked in a rich variety of styles. This is a rare opportunity to enjoy more than 150 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from moments across the six decades of his extraordinary career.
Miró is among the most iconic of modern artists, using a language of symbols that reflects his personal vision, sense of freedom, and energy. The exhibition includes many of the key works that we know and love. It also shows that, behind the engaging innocence of his imagery, lies a profound concern for humanity and a sense of personal and national identity. Extraordinary works from different moments of his career celebrate his roots in his native Catalonia.

The exhibition also traces an anxious and politically engaged side to Miró’s work that reflects his passionate response to one of the most turbulent periods in European history. Working in Barcelona and Paris, Miró tracked the mood of the Spanish Civil War and the first months of the Second World War in France. Under the political restrictions of Franco's Spain, Miró remained a symbol of international culture, and his grand abstract paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s became a mark of resistance and integrity in the dying years of the regime. Telling the story of Miró's life and the time he witnessed reveals a darker intensity to many of his works.

(There is no mention of the influence on Miro by the Dutch Interiors - and nothing was featurred in the exhibition from the Rijks Museum - I wonder why??)

Franz Kafka
An explorer visits the penal colony, where an officer demonstrates to him the Harrow, an instrument used to inflict capital punishment. The Harrow is an extraordinarily elegant instrument: the condemned man lies face-down on a Bed, while a complex system of needles inscribes the commandment he has broken (e.g. HONOR THY SUPERIORS) on his back. The needles pierce deeper and deeper until the prisoner dies. In the process of dying, however, the condemned man finally understands the nature of justice and his punishment. His face is transfigured, a sight edifying to all those who watch. The officer begins to demonstrate the Harrow on a prisoner condemned to die because he was sleeping on duty.



The machine was conceived and developed by the former Commandant. It soon becomes clear that the explorer does not approve of the death-machine and that he feels morally bound to express this disapproval to the new Commandant, who is already known to have serious questions about using the Harrow as a method of punishment. Suddenly, the officer removes the condemned man from the Bed and takes his place. Before doing so, he adjusts the machine to inscribe "BE JUST." The Harrow begins its grisly work on the officer's back, but malfunctions

Bliss
xx

Legacy of Light and riding wild and free

I felt sure I wrote about this play that RY was acting in.

And my thoughts when I read a little about it - I hope it comes to the UK sometime

Wow! I have been reading a little about their love story. Voltaire and Emilie I mean - how passionate and exciting and difficult and committed. What a combination of minds meeting and exploring. I imagine it must have been quite special to be in the circle of friends. Of course I would have been lucky to have been the skivvy. I do not come from the upper classes. :)

I studied Candide at school but cannot remember a single thing about it. And at the time I was more hedonistic and less focused on things that today truly interest me. Oh well at least I am interested now.
Thank you for bringing their story to my attention.

It lead me onto read about Montesquieu and Leibniz too. All so very very fascinating.
I smile as I think I have all these big philosophical questions too that have been asked forever and are still being explored today. I am up there with the biggies he he.

Legacy of Light ....
Two brilliant women, centuries apart, push the boundaries of science while grappling with motherhood in San Jose Repertory Theatre's production of Legacy of Light, by Karen Zacarías. DC Theatre Scene calls this adventurous comedy "... an intellectual joyride ... a wonderful play, well worth seeing." Legacy of Light is directed by Kirsten Brandt, and will run at the San Jose Rep from March 24 through April 17, 2011. Pay What You Will Night is Thursday, March 24 at 8 p.m. Press Opening Night is Wednesday, March 30, at 8 p.m.
Tickets are available at the San Jose Rep Box Office at 101 Paseo de San Antonio or can be purchased online at www.SJRep.com or by calling 408.367.7255.
Physicist Émilie du Châtelet, a young poet and lover of famous French philosopher Voltaire, worries about her fate after she unexpectedly becomes pregnant. Driven by fear and ambition, she races to publish her theories based on Sir Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion. Meanwhile, 260 years in the future, accomplished astrophysicist Olivia and her husband Peter want to conceive but cannot. Olivia's attention turns to her new "child," a planet she's discovered in the midst of hiring a quirky and free-spirited surrogate. Two women, linked together by scientific legacy and maternal instincts, ask: Does the birth of a child ultimately mean as much to the world as the birth of an idea?
"I love plays that are not afraid to tackle the big existential questions, yet find wonderful new ways to entertain and tickle us at the same time," says San Jose Rep's Artistic Director Rick Lombardo. "But it's all too rare to find a new play that manages this difficult feat with the
elegance, wit and delight I found in Karen Zacarías' new play when I first read it. From the creation of human life to the creation of new planets and the universe, Karen keeps a dizzying number of plates spinning in the air. I am so pleased that San Jose Rep will be introducing this new work in its West Coast Premiere."
A new play by Zacarías, Legacy of Light had its premiere in Washington, D.C., in 2009. In her review of the play's premiere, Rosalind Lacy said: "I left the theater levitating, believing that even miracles are possible. Let's hope Zacarías keeps our local theaters alive and well, humming with the creative energy of her magical touch. Legacy of Light is a wonderful play, well worth seeing."
Legacy of Light juxtaposes two eras, each with its own beliefs and attitudes towards physical science and the function of woman in society. A Stanford University graduate, Zacarías lightens what could be a compare-and-contrast exercise with magical realism and a deft feel for emotional nuance. The play received the American Theatre Critics Association "Best New Play" Award in 2010.
Playwright Karen Zacarías had stumbled across a footnote referring to Émilie du Châtelet while researching Einstein Is a Dummy, a children's play premiered by the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Looking a little further into du Châtelet's life, Zacarías discovered that the French scientist had developed some of her most influential insights during a pregnancy late in life.
That fact seemed particularly resonant when Zacarías discovered she was pregnant with her third child. But just before giving birth, she received a commission from Arena Stage, a prestigious company in Washington, D.C., and she realized her creative life was not about to grind to a halt. Arena Stage presented the World Premiere of Legacy of Light in 2009.
The cast of Legacy of LightRachel Harker (ÉMILIE DU CHÂTELET) recently played Her Ladyship in San Jose Rep's production of The Dresser and Amanda in Rep on Tour's production of The Glass Menagerie. Off-Broadway, she was Lois Wilson in Bill W. and Dr. Bob. In the Boston area, Ms. Harker won the Elliot Norton and the IRNE awards for her portrayal of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire at New Repertory Theatre. She also won the IRNE for her work in Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes and The Lover at New Repertory Theatre, as well as The Cutting at Stoneham Theatre. Other productions include Lend Me a Tenor at Lyric Stage, Sherlock's Last Case at American Stage Festival and Amanda in Private Lives at The Public Theatre, Lewiston, Maine. Film work includes Disney's The Game Plan, The Invention of Lying, Don MacKay and The Legend of Lucy Keyes.

Carrie Paff (OLIVIA/WET NURSE) is thrilled to return to the Rep where she has also been seen in A Picasso, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (a co-production with Arizona Theatre Company) and The Haunting of Winchester. Other credits include Small Tragedy, Betrayal and the critically acclaimed premiere of Collapse at Aurora Theatre Company; A Streetcar Named Desire and Sunlight at Marin Theatre Company; After the War at A.C.T; Witness for the Prosecution and How the Other Half Loves at Center REP; and Joan Rivers: A Work In Progress at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and London's Leicester Square Theatre. Film work includes Presque Isle, Opal, This is Macbeth and This is Hamlet. She holds a master's degree in educational theatre from New York University and is the co-founder of StageWrite, Building Literacy through Theatre.
Mike Ryan (PETER/MONSIEUR DU CHÂTELET) is very pleased to make his debut with San Jose Rep. He has performed in more than 25 productions at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, most recently in Othello, Love's Labour's Lost and Shipwrecked! At Jewel Theatre Company, Mr. Ryan has played George in Of Mice and Men and Father Flynn in Doubt. He has also worked for the La Jolla Playhouse, the GeVa Theatre Center in New York, and Shakespeare Festivals in Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho and Oregon. Mr. Ryan received his B.F.A. from Southern Methodist University and his M.F.A. from the University of California, San Diego. From 2003 through 2009, he was a lecturer in the theatre arts department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Mr. Ryan is a proud member of the Actors' Equity Association.
Kathryn Tkel (MILLIE/PAULINE) is returning to San Jose Repertory Theatre, having made her San Jose Rep debut in Secret Order earlier this season. Other Bay Area theatre credits include Den of Thieves and The Story at the San Francisco Playhouse; The Kentucky Cycle at Willows Theatre Company; Steel Magnolias at California Conservatory Theatre; 1001 at Just Theater; and multiple productions with Boxcar Theatre, including Headspace, Animal Kingdom, Manners and Civility and Moon Fable. She has also worked with TheatreWorks, Shotgun Players, Second Wind Productions, Collegiate Players, Dreamweavers Theatre and Playwrights Foundation. Ms. Tkel is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine, and holds degrees in both drama and anthropology.
Miles Gaston Villanueva (SAINT-LAMBERT/LEWIS) returns to San Jose Repertory Theatre having made his debut with San Jose Rep in last season's production of Sonia Flew (Zak/Jose). He recently traveled to New Mexico where he performed with a new company, Duke City Repertory Theatre, in their inaugural production, Trust (Cody). Some Bay Area favorites include Sunsets and Margaritas (Jojo) at TheatreWorks; and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lysander) and Julius Ceasar (Octavius) with Shakespeare Santa Cruz. Other credits include The Heart's Desire (John Guerrero) at The Western Stage; Tecumseh! (Tecumseh) at Ohio's Sugarloaf Mountain Amphitheatre; and Othello (Iago) at the Woodward Shakespeare Festival. Mr. Villanueva received his B.A. in theatre arts at California State University, Fresno.
Robert Yacko (VOLTAIRE) was last seen at San Jose Rep as Older Saul in Splitting Infinity. He appeared on Broadway and in the National Tour of Fiddler on the Roof (Perchik and Fyedka) with Herschel Bernardi and director Jerome Robbins. In the Bay Area, Mr. Yacko was seen as Dad in TheatreWorks' production of Distracted. Regional credits include the Donmar Warehouse production of the Alfred Uhry/Jason Robert Brown epic, Parade, at the Mark Taper Forum; Nightmare Alley at the Geffen Playhouse; the Bernstein/Barrie Peter Pan (Hook/Mr. Darling) and The Real Thing (Henry) at The Santa Barbara Theater Company; Sylvia (Greg) with Cathy Rigby for Rigby/McCoy Productions; Can Can-Revised at Pasadena Playhouse; and Five Course Love at Sacramento Repertory Theater. He starred in the Los Angeles premiere of Sunday in the Park with George (George) and also appeared in Company (Paul) with Carol Burnett and Patrick Cassidy; Into the Woods (Baker) with Leslie Uggams; and Chess (Anatoly). He appeared in the West Coast premiere of Romance/Romance (Alfred/Sam) at The Old Globe, and in Marry Me A Little (Man) at South Coast Rep. Screen credits include Raising Helen, The Closer with Tom Selleck, General Hospital, Golden Girls and Get a Life.
Sara Luna (U/S MILLIE/PAULINE) is proud to be part of this production of Legacy of Light at San Jose Repertory Theatre. Her theatre credits include Private Eyes (Cory) with Dragon Productions Theatre Company, All This Intimacy (Becca) with Renegade Theatre Experiment, Perla (Mariposa) with Theatro Visión and Dinner (Ani) with Golden Thread Productions. Ms. Luna is a recent graduate of San Jose State University earning a B.A. in theatre arts. Her educational credits include Secret in the Wings (Princess Who Wouldn't Laugh), Death of a Salesman (The Woman) and Big Love (Adara). She was also privileged to perform in the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe Festival as Mother Courage in Mother Courage and Her Children
Kevin Wulf (U/S SAINT-LAMBERT/LEWIS) is a senior musical theatre major at San Jose State University. His previous work includes The Seagull (San Jose State University); Swing! and Jesus Christ Superstar (Cabrillo Stage); Of Corpse! (San Jose State Company One); Beauty and the Beast and Puss in Boots (Magic Carpet Theatre); and Urinetown (TRFT Independent).
Artistic Collaborators
Karen Zacarías' (PLAYWRIGHT) plays include Legacy of Light, Mariela in the Desert, The Book Club Play, The Sins of Sor Juana, the adaptation of the best-selling book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, and children's musicals Looking for Roberto Clemente, Einstein is a Dummy, Jane of the Jungle, Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans, Ferdinand the Bull and Frida Libre. Her plays have been produced at The Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, The Goodman Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Alliance Theater, Round House Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Arden Theatre Company, Cleveland Playhouse and many more. Her awards include the 2010 Steinberg Citation for Best New Play (Legacy of Light); the National Francesca Primus Prize (Mariela in the Desert); and the New Voices Award, the National Latino Play Award, the ATT/TCG First Stages Award, finalist for the Susan S. Blackburn Award and a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play (Sins of Sor Juana). In addition, she has commissions from South Coast Rep, Arena Stage, Denver Center Theatre Company and Arena Stage. Ms. Zacarías is the playwright-in-residence at Arena Stage and teaches playwriting at Georgetown University. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and three young children and is a graduate of Stanford University.
Kirsten Brandt (DIRECTOR) is enjoying her return to San Jose Rep, where she previously directed Groundswell, Splitting Infinity, This Wonderful Life and Rabbit Hole. Other directing credits include TheatreWorks, The Old Globe, San Diego Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, North Coast Repertory Theatre, Sierra Repertory Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, The Fritz Theater, Playwrights Project, New Dramatists and various universities. She was the artistic director of Sledgehammer Theatre from 1999-2005, where she produced 23 theatrical events, directed 15 productions and wrote The Frankenstein Project, NU: Parts I & III, and Berzerkergang. Her play, The Waves, received its world premiere at Vox Nova Theatre Company. She is the recipient of numerous KPBS awards, a BackStage West Garland Award and two San Diego Critics Circle awards.
William Bloodgood (SCENIC DESIGNER) last designed for San Jose Repertory Theatre in the 2005 production of The Haunting of Winchester. Additional designs for the Rep include ‘Art' and The Odd Couple. Well known in American regional theatres, Mr. Bloodgood's designs have been seen at many, including Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., Arizona Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Alley Theatre in Houston, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Intiman Theatre in Seattle, the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage, as well as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where he has designed the scenery for 150 productions. He is the recipient of many awards for his designs, including the Oregon Governor's Award for the Arts in 2002.
Brandin Barón (COSTUME DESIGNER) previously designed Splitting Infinity and This Wonderful Life for San Jose Repertory Theatre. His regional credits include: La Bête (Asolo Repertory Theatre); Cloud Tectonics, Dogeaters, Sweet Bird of Youth, and Our Town (La Jolla Playhouse); Imaginary Invalid, Uncle Vanya, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and The Illusion (San Diego Repertory Theatre); Dogeaters (NY Shakespeare Festival/The Public Theater); The Buddy Holly Story (Apollo Theater, Chicago);The Tempest, Endgame and Love's Labours Lost (Shakespeare Santa Cruz): American Hwangap; Monkey Room, and K of D (Magic Theatre); and Private Jokes, Public Places (Aurora Theatre). Mr. Barón is an associate professor of design at the University of California, Santa Cruz.David Lee Cuthbert (LIGHTING AND MEDIA DESIGNER) returns to San Jose Rep, having previously designed scenery and media for Secret Order and As You Like It, and lighting for The Dresser, Rabbit Hole, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Groundswell and The Kite Runner, for which he received the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for best lighting of a play. He lit Billy Crystal's Tony® Award-winning 700 Sundays on Broadway, as well as its international tours. Mr. Cuthbert's work has also been seen at Opera San Jose, Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, Intiman Theatre, San Diego Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theater and Arizona Theatre Company. This is his 40th collaboration with Director Kirsten Brandt. Mr. Cuthbert is the theater arts department chair and an associate professor of design at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Jeff Mockus (SOUND DESIGNER) marks his 70th production for San Jose Rep with Legacy of Light, having served as Resident Sound Designer from 1994-2007, and returning regularly as a guest artist. Among his favorites, Mr. Mockus includes The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, This Wonderful Life, The Haunting of Winchester, Rounding Third, Enter the Guardsman, Communicating Doors and Thunder Knocking on the Door. His work on Old Wicked Songs and Mary's Wedding earned Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle awards, while By the Bog of Cats, ‘ART' and Major Barbara received Dean Goodman Choice awards. Recent credits include Clybourne Park and War Music for A.C.T.; Superior Donuts for TheatreWorks; Mrs. Warren's Profession and Private Lives for Cal Shakes; Shipwrecked! for Shakespeare Santa Cruz; as well as The Woman in Black, Tuesdays with Morrie and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) for Utah Shakespearean Festival.
Dave Maier (FIGHT DIRECTOR) is an award-winning fight director whose work was seen in San Jose Rep's As You Like It. His talents have also been utilized at ACT, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Magic Theatre and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He is the resident fight director at Cal Shakes and a company member with the Shotgun Players in Berkeley. Recent performance credits include Ajax the Great in the Shotgun Players production of In the Wound and Swordsman in San Francisco Opera's production of Cyrano de Bergerac, where he served as fight double for Placido Domingo. Mr. Maier teaches theatrical combat at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre and is a founding member of Dueling Arts San Francisco.
San Jose Rep's next performance will be the World Premiere of Philip Kan Gotanda's Love in American Times. Sparks aren't the only things flying in this smart, sophisticated, romantic comedy. The age-old tradition of matchmaking takes a contemporary twist when the powerful, self-made, wealthy businessman, Jack Heller, meets the accomplished, sharp and extremely attractive, Scarlett Mori-Yang in an arranged meeting. Jack and Scarlett deliciously spar, test, probe and one-up each other in what could scarcely resemble a "date," as they evaluate one another's qualifications. With a pre-nuptial that looks more like articles of incorporation than a financial arrangement, the deal is sealed. But it isn't long before dysfunctional chaos breaks out when Jack's family and soon to be ex-wife enter the picture. Is there room for love with two intractable egos, single-minded practicality and no shortage of money or power?
Love in American Times will run from May 12 to June 5, 2011.
About the Rep:
San Jose Rep is the premier non-profit, professional theatre company in the South Bay, presenting six main stage productions each year. Now in its 30th year as a major contributor to the South Bay's cultural community, San Jose Rep's mission is to engage, entertain and inspire people. San Jose Rep produces innovative theatrical performances that offer fresh perspectives into the human condition, educational programs that promote life-long learning, and outreach initiatives that benefit our diverse community. For more information, visit www.SJRep.com.


Read more: http://sanfrancisco.broadwayworld.com/article/San_Jose_Rep_Presents_LEGACY_OF_LIGHT_324427_20110322_page2#ixzz1R4YW0Pl5


 

Kafka's Monkey - the yoke of humanness

Kathryn Hunter - her story in itself is so sad. She attempted suicide by jumping off a building. But survived, very badly injured. Her body remains badly contorted. As a part of her therapy she discovered a passion for acting and is now world renowned having won awards. SH knows her sister very well and had seen her perform Kafka's Monkey in 2009.
Rotpeter (Red Peter)

Thanks to SH's recommendation I am going to see this next Saturday. Adapted from Franz Kafka's short story A Report to an Academy.
I am just reading the short story now.
The first paragraph is talking about the move from ape to man and how the memories of being an ape are faded memories. My interpretation is the wonder of the ape evolving into man. And this is the story in one being, in one lifetime. What I think too is that I feel sad how the ape saw the evolving as a freedom from the "yoke" of being an ape and yet he was freer in my state of mind today as the ape. Humanness brings about a yoke of consciousness. Is it better to remain unconscious? I suppose if it is not bringing about misery to self or to anyone else then there is no need to change. Kafka's ape must have been needing change.
The translation brings about strong images ..
"To put it plainly, much as I like expressing myself in images, to put it plainly: your life as apes, gentlemen, insofar as something of that kind lies behind you, cannot be farther removed from you than mine is from me. Yet everyone on earth feels a tickling at the heels; the small chimpanzee and the great Achilles alike"
I like this reminder to the "gentleman of the Academy" that they too have an ape within them and the reference to Archilles' heel of course adopted today to express a deadly weakness. A little jibe at mankind? In my view if we could remember that we were animal and once more in tune with the Universe's energy there would be a whole lot less issues amongst us beings sharing this planet. Yet Kafka infers here that the ape man within is viewed as the deadly weakness. The supposed educated man's hidden secret.

Once the handshake meant frankness. IS this a fact? It is new information to me and makes sense. Yet everyone shakes hands these days without giving a though to the meaning. And the ape is now saying that he has words to communicate better his frankness. How man has distorted this and become devious and deceiving to manipulate personal gain. Ha! I laugh at frankness in a handshake but will consider this more next time someone offers me their hand to shake. I will be frank with my handshake. What does being frank mean? Completely honest.

I feel such sadness reading of the ape's capture and imprisonment. If only humans could think of this. I wonder if Pierre Boulle was in anyway inspired by Kafka's ape when he wrote La Planete des singes (1963). Later made into the Hollywood film the Planet of the Apes.

"Hopelessly sobbing, painfully hunting for fleas, apathetically licking a coconut, beating my skull against the locker, sticking out my tongue at anyone who came near me—that was how I filled in time at first in my new life."

Trapped by humans and trapped in a human now .... "Until then I had had so many ways out of everything, and now I had none. I was pinned down. Had I been nailed down, my right to free movement would not have been lessened. .... I had to stop being an ape. A fine, clear train of thought, which I must have constructed somehow with my belly, since apes think with their bellies."
So he gained a sort of freedom by losing his true self. The undermining of self as a compromise to his own freedom he let go of being an ape. A different sort of trapped freedom.
Forgiveness in ignorance or forgiveness? When he talks about his first captors, I read meanness and thoughtlessness. Yet he talks about thankfulness for them. Company? I feel so sad for the ape being confined and alone with no way to feel the freedom, the breeze in his fur.

Resignation or acceptance? He wanted out of this dreaful tight corner and found an inner calm as he perhaps resigned himself to his predicament, accepting that there is a compromise, a way out but that would mean letting go of hope for freedom. This is what I feel is my position. Resignation, accepting a different way forward but not the one I would have wanted. This leaves a sort of death of the soul? No? In my state of mind this is how it appears to me today. I am accepting half measures but I do not know what freredom looks like from within this human or if it possible to find the way back there. This is evolution of me within my lifetime. The path narrows yet I am promised more

"...without the most profound inward calm I could never have found my way out. And indeed perhaps I owe all that I have become to the calm that settled within..."

Again such sadness and utter despair as I read of teh ape mimicking his fellow travellers. Teaching him their ways with such joy. He emulating them and receiving their praise. I can remember overcoming the disgusting taste of rum to emulate my ideas of what seemed like grown-upness. This became my drink and disgust turned to emotional dependency. Oh to return to the freedom of childhood when being was all that mattered. Yet I was being shown distortions at a very young age. So painful and wicked.

" 

And so I learned things, gentlemen. Ah, one learns when one has to; one learns when one needs a way out; one learns at all costs. One stands over oneself with a whip; one flays oneself at the slightest opposition. My ape nature fled out of me, head over heels and away, so that my first teacher was almost himself turned into an ape by it, had soon to give up teaching and was taken away to a mental hospital. Fortunately he was soon let out again."

The bewildered look of the half trained ape that he sees in the eyes of others. I feel that myself. More conscious than ever before yet on a path to where? To what? Was it not perhaps better to have been left in blissful freedom. But someone changed that when I was very very young. I had no choice. My pathe from then on was a wobbly one and was suer to reach a point of ensnarement by my seeming choices, only to find that a bigger part had not been freewill. I was enslaved by circumstances at a time when I was wholly dependant and seized by a predetermined genetic dispostiion to addiction. So much to unpick and at times overwhelming. But acceptance is the key. I cannot change a thing. It is all out of my control and so the path of consciousness was brought to me. I am often bewildered, uncertain what to do with my hapf knowledge. It frightens me as there can at times seem only one way out. Not freedom as Rotpeter says. Merely a way out.

"for she has the insane look of the bewildered half-broken animal in her eye; no one else sees it, but I do, and I cannot bear it."

I too can despair at what I witness in human beings ..."It's quite all right. I can tell you what it was. Sometimes I'm overcome with such an aversion to human beings that I can barely refrain from retching. This, of course, has nothing to do with the individual human being, least of all with your charming presence. It concerns all human beings. There's nothing extraordinary about this. Suppose, for instance, that you were to live continuously with apes, you'd probably have similar attacks, however great your self-control. Actually, it's not the smell of human beings that repels me so much, it's the human smell which I have contracted and which mingles with the smell from my native land. Smell for yourself! Here on my chest! Put your nose deeper into the fur! Deeper, I say!"

Kafka was criticised for the state of hoplessness in his writing and compared with existentialist concepts. There is a gloominess for me in my state as I read it today. And yet Buddhists talk about enlightenment with a sense of joy and freedom as a result. Directly contradicting this loss of freedom as a result of awareness.

The reading of the story without exploring what I interpret and feel as a result is extraordinary. I am not sure of the circumstances in Germany at the time he was writing in his magical style. Here in the UK it was Victorian England and of course Albert was surely an influence in the ways of society. So probably it was not dissimilar. I will need to explore German history to have a better understanding. Kafka was Jewish and living in Czechoslavakia. This story gives an impression on a poor view of humanity so I imagine that amidst his middle class family and the societal influences he was trapped.

I will ask ML what she knows of him and also GB and AB. They will surely be able to enlighten me.

I am looking forward to the play at the Young Vic next Saturday. And glad that I am better informed.

Bliss

xxA Report to an Academy

---

Honored members of the Academy!

You have done me the honor of inviting me to give your Academy an account of the life I formerly led as an ape.

I regret that I cannot comply with your request to the extent you desire. It is now nearly five years since I was an ape, a short space of time, perhaps, according to the calendar, but an infinitely long time to gallop through at full speed, as I have done, more or less accompanied by excellent mentors, good advice, applause, and orchestral music, and yet essentially alone, since all my escorters, to keep the image, kept well off the course. I could never have achieved what I have done had I been stubbornly set on clinging to my origins, to the remembrances of my youth. In fact, to give up being stubborn was the supreme commandment I laid upon myself; free ape as I was, I submitted myself to that yoke. In revenge, however, my memory of the past has closed the door against me more and more. I could have returned at first, had human beings allowed it, through an archway as wide as the span of heaven over the earth, but as I spurred myself on in my forced career, the opening narrowed and shrank behind me; I felt more comfortable in the world of men and fitted it better; the strong wind that blew after me out of my past began to slacken; today it is only a gentle puff of air that plays around my heels; and the opening in the distance, through which it comes and through which I once came myself, has grown so small that, even if my strength and my willpower sufficed to get me back to it, I should have to scrape the very skin from my body to crawl through. To put it plainly, much as I like expressing myself in images, to put it plainly: your life as apes, gentlemen, insofar as something of that kind lies behind you, cannot be farther removed from you than mine is from me. Yet everyone on earth feels a tickling at the heels; the small chimpanzee and the great Achilles alike.

But to a lesser extent I can perhaps meet your demand, and indeed I do so with the greatest pleasure. The first thing I learned was to give a handshake; a handshake betokens frankness; well, today now that I stand at the very peak of my career, I hope to add frankness in words to the frankness of that first handshake. What I have to tell the Academy will contribute nothing essentially new, and will fall far behind what you have asked of me and what with the best will in the world I cannot communicate—nonetheless, it should indicate the line an erstwhile ape has had to follow in entering and establishing himself in the world of men. Yet I could not risk putting into words even such insignificant information as I am going to give you if I were not quite sure of myself and if my position on all the great variety stages of the civilized world had not become quite unassailable.

I belong to the Gold Coast. For the story of my capture I must depend on the evidence of others. A hunting expedition sent out by the firm of Hagenbeck—by the way, I have drunk many a bottle of good red wine since then with the leader of that expedition—had taken up its position in the bushes by the shore when I came down for a drink at evening among a troop of apes. They shot at us; I was the only one that was hit; I was hit in two places.

Once in the cheek; a slight wound; but it left a large, naked, red scar which earned me the name of Red Peter, a horrible name, utterly inappropriate, which only some ape could have thought of, as if the only difference between me and the performing ape Peter, who died not so long ago and had some small local reputation, were the red mark on my cheek. This by the way.

The second shot hit me below the hip. It was a severe wound, it is the cause of my limping a little to this day. I read an article recently by one of the ten thousand windbags who vent themselves concerning me in the newspapers, saying: my ape nature is not yet quite under control; the proof being that when visitors come to see me, I have a predilection for taking down my trousers to show them where the shot went in. The hand which wrote that should have its fingers shot away one by one. As for me, I can take my trousers down before anyone if I like; you would find nothing but a well-groomed fur and the scar made—let me be particular in the choice of a word for this particular purpose, to avoid misunderstanding—the scar made by a wanton shot. Everything is open and aboveboard; there is nothing to conceal; when the plain truth is in question, great minds discard the niceties of refinement. But if the writer of the article were to take down his trousers before a visitor, that would be quite another story, and I will let it stand to his credit that he does not do it. In return, let him leave me alone with his delicacy!

After these two shots I came to myself—and this is where my own memories gradually begin—between decks in the Hagenbeck steamer, inside a cage. It was not a four-sided barred cage; it was only a three-sided cage nailed to a locker; the locker made the fourth side of it. The whole construction was too low for me to stand up in and too narrow to sit down in. So I had to squat with my knees bent and trembling all the time, and also, since probably for a time I wished to see no one, and to stay in the dark, my face was turned toward the locker while the bars of the cage cut into my flesh behind. Such a method of confining wild beasts is supposed to have its advantages during the first days of captivity, and out of my own experiences I cannot deny that from the human point of view this is really the case.

But that did not occur to me then. For the first time in my life I could see no way out; at least no direct way out; directly in front of me was the locker, board fitted close to board. True, there was a gap running right through the boards which I greeted with the blissful howl of ignorance when I first discovered it, but the hole was not even wide enough to stick one's tail through and not all the strength of an ape could enlarge it.

I am supposed to have made uncommonly little noise, as I was later informed, from which the conclusion was drawn that I would either soon die or if I managed to survive the first critical period would be very amenable to training. I did survive this period. Hopelessly sobbing, painfully hunting for fleas, apathetically licking a coconut, beating my skull against the locker, sticking out my tongue at anyone who came near me—that was how I filled in time at first in my new life. But over and above it all only the one feeling: no way out. Of course what I felt then as an ape I can represent now only in human terms, and therefore I misrepresent it, but although I cannot reach back to the truth of the old ape life, there is no doubt that it lies somewhere in the direction I have indicated.

Until then I had had so many ways out of everything, and now I had none. I was pinned down. Had I been nailed down, my right to free movement would not have been lessened. Why so? Scratch your flesh raw between your toes, but you won't find the answer. Press yourself against the bar behind you till it nearly cuts you in two, you won't find the answer. I had no way out but I had to devise one, for without it I could not live. All the time facing that locker—I should certainly have perished. Yet as far as Hagenbeck was concerned, the place for apes was in front of a locker—well then, I had to stop being an ape. A fine, clear train of thought, which I must have constructed somehow with my belly, since apes think with their bellies.

I fear that perhaps you do not quite understand what I mean by "way out." I use the expression in its fullest and most popular sense—I deliberately do not use the word "freedom." I do not mean the spacious feeling of freedom on all sides. As an ape, perhaps, I knew that, and I have met men who yearn for it. But for my part I desired such freedom neither then nor now. In passing: may I say that all too often men are betrayed by the word freedom. And as freedom is counted among the most sublime feelings, so the corresponding disillusionment can be also sublime. In variety theaters I have often watched, before my turn came on, a couple of acrobats performing on trapezes high in the roof. They swung themselves, they rocked to and fro, they sprang into the air, they floated into each other's arms, one hung by the hair from the teeth of the other. "And that too is human freedom," I thought, "self-controlled movement." What a mockery of holy Mother Nature! Were the apes to see such a spectacle, no theater walls could stand the shock of their laughter.

No, freedom was not what I wanted. Only a way out; right or left, or in any direction; I made no other demand; even should the way out prove to be an illusion; the demand was a small one, the disappointment could be no bigger. To get out somewhere, to get out! Only not to stay motionless with raised arms, crushed against a wooden wall.

Today I can see it clearly; without the most profound inward calm I could never have found my way out. And indeed perhaps I owe all that I have become to the calm that settled within me after my first few days in the ship. And again for that calmness it vas the ship's crew I had to thank.

They were good creatures, in spite of everything. I find it still pleasant to remember the sound of their heavy footfalls which used to echo through my half-dreaming head. They had a habit of doing everything as slowly as possible. If one of them wanted to rub his eyes, he lifted a hand as if it were a drooping weight. Their jests were coarse, but hearty. Their laughter had always a gruff bark in it that sounded dangerous but meant nothing. They always had something in their mouths to spit out and did not care where they spat it. They always grumbled that they got fleas from me; yet they were not seriously angry about it, they knew that my fur fostered fleas, and that fleas jump; it was a simple matter of fact to them. When they were off duty some of them often used to sit down in a semicircle around me; they hardly spoke but only grunted to each other; smoked their pipes, stretched out on lockers; smacked their knees as soon as I made one slightest movement; and now and then one of them would take a stick and tickle me where I liked being tickled. If I were to be invited today to take a cruise on that ship I should certainly refuse the invitation, but just as certainly the memories I could recall between its decks would not all be hateful.

The calmness I acquired among these people kept me above all from trying to escape. As I look back now, it seems to me I must have had at least an inkling that I had to find a way out or die, but that my way out could not be reached through flight. I cannot tell now whether escape was possible, but I believe it must have been; for an ape it must always be possible. With my teeth as they are today I have to be careful even in simply cracking nuts, but at that time I could certainly have managed by degrees to bite through the lock of my cage. I did not do it. What good would it have done me? As soon as I had poked out my head I should have been caught again and put in a worse cage; or I might have slipped among the other animals without being noticed, among the pythons, say, who were opposite me, and so breathed out my life in their embrace; or supposing I had actually succeeded in sneaking out as far as the deck and leaping overboard I should have rocked for a little on the deep sea and then been drowned. Desperate remedies. I did not think it out in this human way, but under the influence of my surroundings I acted as if I had thought it out.

I did not think things out; but I observed everything quietly. I watched these men go to and fro, always the same faces, the same movements, often it seemed to me there was only the same man. So this man or these men walked about unimpeded. A lofty goal faintly dawned before me. No one promised me that if I became like them the bars of my cage would be taken away. Such promises for apparently impossible contingencies are not given. But if one achieves the impossible, the promises appear later retrospectively precisely where one had looked in vain for them before. Now, these men in themselves had no great attraction for me. Had I been devoted to the aforementioned idea of freedom, I should certainly have preferred the deep sea to the way out that suggested itself in the heavy faces of these men. At any rate, I watched them for a long time before I even thought of such things, indeed, it was only the mass weight of my observations that impelled me in the right direction.

It was so easy to imitate these people. I learned to spit in the very first days. We used to spit in each other's faces; the only difference was that I licked my face clean afterwards and they did not. I could soon smoke a pipe like an old hand; and if I also pressed my thumb into the bowl of the pipe, a roar of appreciation went up between decks; only it took me a very long time to understand the difference between a full pipe and an empty one.

My worst trouble came from the schnapps bottle. The smell of it revolted me; I forced myself to it as best I could; but it took weeks for me to master my repulsion. This inward conflict, strangely enough, was taken more seriously by the crew than anything else about me. I cannot distinguish the men from each other in my recollection, but there was one of them who came again and again, alone or with friends, by day, by night, at all kinds of hours; he would post himself before me with the bottle and give me instructions. He could not understand me, he wanted to solve the enigma of my being. He would slowly uncork the bottle and then look at me to see if I had followed him; I admit that I always watched him with wildly eager, too eager attention; such a student of humankind no human teacher ever found on earth. After the bottle was uncorked he lifted it to his mouth; I followed it with my eyes right up to his jaws; he would nod, pleased with me, and set the bottle to his lips; I, enchanted with my gradual enlightenment, squealed and scratched myself comprehensively wherever scratching was called for; he rejoiced, tilted the bottle, and took a drink; I, impatient and desperate to emulate him, befouled myself in my cage, which again gave him great satisfaction; and then, holding the bottle at arm's length and bringing it up with a swing, he would empty it at one draught, leaning back at an exaggerated angle for my better instruction. I, exhausted by too much effort, could follow him no farther and hung limply to the bars, while he ended his theoretical exposition by rubbing his belly and grinning.

After theory came practice. Was I not already quite exhausted by my theoretical instruction? Indeed I was; utterly exhausted. That was part of my destiny. And yet I would take hold of the proffered bottle as well as I was able; uncork it, trembling; this successful action would gradually inspire me with new energy; I would lift the bottle, already following my original model almost exactly; put it to my lips and—and then throw it down in disgust, utter disgust, although it was empty and filled only with the smell of the spirit, throw it down on the floor in disgust. To the sorrow of my teacher, to the greater sorrow of myself; neither of us being really comforted by the fact that I did not forget, even though I had thrown away the bottle, to rub my belly most admirably and to grin.

Far too often my lesson ended in that way. And to the credit of my teacher, he was not angry; sometimes indeed he would hold his burning pipe against my fur, until it began to smolder in some place I could not easily reach, but then he would himself extinguish it with his own kind, enormous hand; he was not angry with me, he perceived that we were both fighting on the same side against the nature of apes and that I had the more difficult task.

What a triumph it was then both for him and for me, when one evening before a large circle of spectators—perhaps there was a celebration of some kind, a gramophone was playing, an officer was circulating among the crew—when on this evening, just as no one was looking, I took hold of a schnapps bottle that had been carelessly left standing before my cage, uncorked it in the best style, while the company began to watch me with mounting attention, set it to my lips without hesitation, with no grimace, like a professional drinker, with rolling eyes and full throat, actually and truly drank it empty; then threw the bottle away, not this time in despair but as an artistic performer; forgot, indeed, to rub my belly; but instead of that, because I could not help it, because my senses were reeling, called a brief and unmistakable "Hallo!" breaking into human speech, and with this outburst broke into the human community, and felt its echo: "Listen, he's talking!" like a caress over the whole of my sweat-drenched body.

I repeat: there was no attraction for me in imitating human beings; I imitated them because I needed a way out, and for no other reason. And even that triumph of mine did not achieve much. I lost my human voice again at once; it did not come back for months; my aversion for the schnapps bottle returned again with even greater force. But the line I was to follow had in any case been decided, once for all.

When I was handed over to my first trainer in Hamburg I soon realized that there were two alternatives before me: the Zoological Gardens or the variety stage. I did not hesitate. I said to myself: do your utmost to get onto the variety stage; the Zoological Gardens means only a new cage; once there, you are done for.

And so I learned things, gentlemen. Ah, one learns when one has to; one learns when one needs a way out; one learns at all costs. One stands over oneself with a whip; one flays oneself at the slightest opposition. My ape nature fled out of me, head over heels and away, so that my first teacher was almost himself turned into an ape by it, had soon to give up teaching and was taken away to a mental hospital. Fortunately he was soon let out again.

But I used up many teachers, indeed, several teachers at once. As I became more confident of my abilities, as the public took an interest in my progress and my future began to look bright, I engaged teachers for myself, established them in five communicating rooms, and took lessons from them all at once by dint of leaping from one room to the other.

That progress of mine! How the rays of knowledge penetrated from all sides into my awakening brain! I do not deny it: I found it exhilarating. But I must also confess: I did not overestimate it, not even then, much less now. With an effort which up till now has never been repeated I managed to reach the cultural level of an average European. In itself that might be nothing to speak of, but it is something insofar as it has helped me out of my cage and opened a special way out for me, the way of humanity. There is an excellent idiom: to fight one's way through the thick of things; that is what I have done, I have fought through the thick of things. There was nothing else for me to do, provided always that freedom was not to be my choice.

As I look back over my development and survey what I have achieved so far, I do not complain, but I am not complacent either. With my hands in my trouser pockets, my bottle of wine on the table, I half lie and half sit in my rocking chair and gaze out of the window: if a visitor arrives, I receive him with propriety. My manager sits in the anteroom; when I ring, he comes and listens to what I have to say. Nearly every evening I give a performance, and I have a success that could hardly be increased. When I come home late at night from banquets, from scientific receptions, from social gatherings, there sits waiting for me a half-trained little chimpanzee and I take comfort from her as apes do. By day I cannot bear to see her; for she has the insane look of the bewildered half-broken animal in her eye; no one else sees it, but I do, and I cannot bear it. On the whole, at any rate, I have achieved what I set out to achieve. But do not tell me that it was not worth the trouble. In any case, I am not appealing for any man's verdict, I am only imparting knowledge, I am only making a report. To you also, honored Members of the Academy, I have only made a report.

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir.
Copyright Schocken Books Inc.

---

A Report to an Academy: Two Fragments

We all know Rotpeter [Red Peter], just as half the world knows him. But when he came to our town for a guest performance, I decided to get to know him personally. It is not difficult to be admitted. In big cities where everyone in the know clamors to watch celebrities breathe from as close as possible, great difficulties may be encountered; but in our town one is content to marvel at the marvelous from the pit. Thus I was the only one so far, as thc hotel servant told me, to have announced his visit. Herr Busenau, the impresario, received me with extreme courtesy. I had not expected to meet a man so modest, indeed almost timid. He was sitting in the anteroom of Rotpeter's apartment, eating an omelet. Although it was morning he already sat there in the evening clothes in which he appears at the performances. Hardly had he caught sight of me—me the unknown, the unimportant guest—when he, possessor of highly distinguished medals, king of trainers, honorary doctor of great universities, jumped up, shook me by both hands, urged me to sit down, wiped his spoon on the tablecloth, and amiably offered it to me so that I might finish his omelet. He would not accept my grateful refusal and promptly tried to feed me. I had some trouble calming him down and warding him off, as well as his spoon and plate.

"Very kind of you to have come," he said with a strong foreign accent. "Most kind. You've also come at the right time, for alas Rotpeter cannot always receive. Seeing people is often repugnant to him; on these occasions no one, it does not matter who he may be, is admitted; then I, even I can see him only on business, so to speak, on the stage. And immediately after the performance I have to disappear, he drives home alone, locks himself in his room, and usually remains like that until the following evening. He always has a big hamper of fruit in his bedroom, this is what he lives on at these times. But I, who of course dare not let him out of my sight, always rent the apartment opposite his and watch him from behind curtains."

---

When I sit opposite you like this, Rotpeter, listening to you talk, drinking your health, I really and truly forget—whether you take it as a compliment or not, it's the truth—that you are a chimpanzee. Only gradually, when I have forced myself out of my thoughts back to reality, do my eyes show me again whose guest I am.

Yes.

You're so silent suddenly, I wonder why? Just a moment ago you were pronouncing such astonishingly correct opinions about our town, and now you're so silent.

Silent?

Is something wrong? Shall I call the trainer? Perhaps you're in the habit of taking a meal at this hour?

No, no. It's quite all right. I can tell you what it was. Sometimes I'm overcome with such an aversion to human beings that I can barely refrain from retching. This, of course, has nothing to do with the individual human being, least of all with your charming presence. It concerns all human beings. There's nothing extraordinary about this. Suppose, for instance, that you were to live continuously with apes, you'd probably have similar attacks, however great your self-control. Actually, it's not the smell of human beings that repels me so much, it's the human smell which I have contracted and which mingles with the smell from my native land. Smell for yourself! Here on my chest! Put your nose deeper into the fur! Deeper, I say!

I'm sorry, but I can't smell anything special. Just the ordinary men of a well-groomed body, that's all. The nose of a city-dweller, of course, is no fair test. You, no doubt, can scent thousands of things that evade us.

Once upon a time, sir, once upon a time. That's over.

Since you brought it up yourself, I dare to ask: How long nave you actually been living among us?

Five years. On the fifth of April it will be five years.

Terrific achievement. To cast off apehood in five years and gallop through the whole evolution of mankind! Certainly no one has ever done that before! On this racecourse you have no rival.

It's a great deal, I know, and sometimes it surpasses even my understanding. In tranquil moments, however, I feel less exuberant about it. Do you know how I was caught?

I've read everything that's been printed about you. You were shot at and then caught.

Yes, I was hit twice, once here in the cheek—the wound of course was far larger than the scar you see—and the second time below the hip. I'll take my trousers down so you can see that scar, too. Here then was where the bullet entered; this was the severe, decisive wound. I fell from the tree and when I came to I was in a cage between decks.

In a cage! Between decks! It's one thing to read your story, and quite another to hear you tell it!

And yet another, sir, to have experienced it. Until then I had never known what it means to have no way out. It was not a four-sided barred cage, it had only three sides nailed to a locker, the locker forming the fourth side. The whole contrivance was so low that I could not stand upright, and so narrow that I could not even sit down. All I could do was squat there with bent knees. In my rage I refused to see anyone, and so remained facing the locker; for days and nights I squatted there with trembling knees while behind me the bars cut into my flesh. This manner of confining wild animals is considered to have its advantages during the first days of captivity, and from my experience I cannot deny that from the human point of view this actually is the case. But at that time I was not interested in the human point of view. I had the locker in front of me. Break the boards, bite a hole through them, squeeze yourself through an opening which in reality hardly allows you to see through it and which, when you first discover it, you greet with the blissful howl of ignorance! Where do you want to go? Beyond the boards the forest begins....

Translated by Tania and James Stern.
Copyright Schocken Books Inc.