Mee’s art highlights physicality
By Alex Wen
Jan. 21, 2004 9:00 p.m.
“If music be the food of love, play on!”
Shakespeare certainly knew what he was talking about when he
penned those immortal lines. The latest in a long line of would-be
inheritors to his playwriting throne, Charles Mee has seemingly
taken those words to heart. And to great effect.
Mee’s plays, four of which make up UCLA’s inaugural
Charles Mee Play Festival and run in repertory at Little Theatre in
Macgowan Hall from Jan. 21 to Feb. 7, feature characters exploding
into song and dance when dramatic dialogue can no longer contain
emotions struggling to burst forth.
“There’s a point in Charles Mee’s plays where
words cannot express the way people feel and it becomes
physical,” said Jules Willcox, a second-year graduate acting
student, who plays Tessa in Mee’s “Summertime,”
one of the festival’s four featured plays. “We throw
ourselves onto the ground, and we dance and sing and go through
these very physical things when the words simply aren’t
enough.”
Willcox’s fellow cast member, Gregory Myhre, plays her
father Frank in “Summertime,” in addition to the same
character in “Wintertime” (a sequel of sorts to the
former). Myhre elaborated on the physical aspect of Mee’s
plays, a recurring feature which sets the playwright apart from the
comparatively more conventional Arthur Millers and Neil Simons that
typify mainstream American theater.
“A lot of what makes us get to that point of throwing
ourselves around the ground is when communication breaks down and
we can no longer communicate in this thick dialogue that (Mee)
gives us,” said Myhre, a first-year graduate student in
acting. “In other words, what we try to express in words, a
lot of the time, is beautiful, and then sometimes, it’s
pathetic “¦ (Mee’s take) is a refreshing way to look at
not being able to express yourself.”
Still, to the uninitiated, a Mee play might sound like the
bastard child of a farce and an off-Broadway musical. Make no
mistake, Mee’s critical acclaim is well-earned; and his plays
are funny, serious and relevant, with all the requisite signs of
literary genius. However, it’s exceedingly difficult to pin
down a Mee play. Adjectives are needed ““ lots of them.
“Out there, outrageous, funny, sad and inventive”
are just some of the words UCLA theater professor, Mel Shapiro,
uses to describe Mee’s work. Shapiro, who directed a highly
lauded production of Mee’s “Big Love” at the
Pacific Residence Theatre in Venice last year, has been a prime
mover behind the inception of the Charles Mee Festival at UCLA.
This time around, he is helming both “Summertime” and
Wintertime,” two plays which form part of a yet-to-be
completed cycle of “seasonal” plays penned by Mee.
“With (“˜Summertime’ and
“˜Wintertime,’) I like to think of these two plays as
Chekhovian pieces,” Shapiro said. “They’re not
major epic world-shaking plays “¦ to a certain extent
they’re like chamber pieces rather than big-assed
symphonies.”
According to Brian Kite, who serves as co-director on all four
plays on the bill including “Orestes 2.0″ and
“True Love,” Mee often takes larger universal themes
like war and revenge ““ topics dealt with in Greek tragedy,
for instance ““ and makes them relevant and relatable to the
modern audience. Nevertheless, no two Mee plays are alike.
“It’s really another challenge and really exciting
to come to “˜Summertime,’ which is very light and airy
and quick and full of love and romance,” said Myhre of his
involvement in both plays. “But in “Wintertime,”
it’s low-lying and seething, and just a little more
dark.”
Elaborating on “Wintertime,” Tishuan Scott, a
first-year graduate acting student, praised the play’s set
design.
“It’s amazing to me that the set (for
“Wintertime”) is completely white, which gives you this
idea of calm and peace and serenity,” Scott said. “But
it’s like within the surrounding weather of winter and snow
there’s this red hot ball of chaos that’s going
on.”
According to Scott, who plays François in
“Wintertime,” his character is “in love with
love, and anything to do with love.”
“The play is all about emotions,” Scott added.
“Subjects like philosophy may try to answer questions like
“˜What is love?’ But this play goes beyond answering
what love is. It displays for you love.”
Or, depending on one’s point of view, the play displays
the physical act of love.
“(Mee) talks about sex in such an outrageous way ““
he has these set monologues that I have never heard before,”
Shapiro said, noting that no subject is taboo for Mee as long as
he’s able to find the humor in it, which more often than not
has proven to be the case. “I mean I would read these plays
and laugh and laugh, and my wife, who would be in the next room or
downstairs, would say: “˜I bet you’re reading a Charles
Mee play.'”
Shapiro has no doubts the upcoming festival will be an
eye-opener and a blast for audiences as they get acquainted with an
important playwright writing on the pulse of modern America in a
medium as old and timeless as classical Greece itself.
“I hope that for the audience, it’ll be a
mind-blowing, mind-expanding experience,” Shapiro said.
“It’s the perfect date play ““ bring a date, see
these plays and go make love afterwards.”
Shakespeare would approve.
