DC Theater Arts

Tag: Buzzard Song

  • The Playwright’s Playground: Part 2 – ‘Process, Autobiography, and Responsibility: An Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winner, Suzan-Lori Parks’ By Sydney-Chanele Dawkins

    Female theatre artists make up more than 50 percent of those involved in the theatre, yet the number of female playwrights being produced is dramatically lower. Welcome back to the conversation, and The Playwright’s Playground – an in-depth Playwright interview series with female playwrights in the D.C. theatre community.

    Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by-Stephanie Diani.
    Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Stephanie Diani.

    This month it is my pleasure to share an interview with Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Topdog/Underdog, and writer of the adaptation of the 2012 Tony Award-winning Best Musical Revival, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Currently on a 14-city tour, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, is playing at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. until tomorrow, December 29th.

    In Part I: Suzan-Lori speaks candidly about her writing motivations and the changes made in her adaptation of Porgy and Bess, and shares details about her favorite song in the production.

    ________________________

    SUZAN-LORI PARKS

    “My writing all comes from listening. The more I listen, the more I can write.”

    One of the boldest, most thought-provoking voices in American theater today is Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Her writing style comes from listening, and that observant reflection has a deep resonance and influence on the rhythmic aesthetic and distinction of her writing. In addition to the Pulitzer win for her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog, Suzan-Lori Parks won a Tony Award in 2002 for the play, and was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grants” grant that same year.

    top_dog_underdog.large (1)Her numerous plays include Father Comes Home From the Wars, The Book of Grace, Topdog/Underdog (2002 Pulitzer Prize), In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Venus (1996 OBIE Award), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1990 OBIE Award for Best New American Play), and The America Play. In 2007 her 365 Plays/ 365 Days was produced in over 700 theaters worldwide, creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theater history. Her work is the subject of the PBS Film The Topdog Diaries, and is available on DVD and at Netflix.

    Suzan-Lori Parks first feature film was Girl 6 (1996) directed by Spike Lee, and in 2005 she adapted Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. Parks also wrote the book for Unchain My Heart, The Ray Charles Musical for Broadway in 2010.

    The reimagined musical version, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, directed by Diane Paulus (2013 Tony winner for Pippin) and adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks, won the Tony Award in 2012 for best musical revival. Conceived to bring the story to a broader audience beyond opera, Parks said she wanted to adapt the book so that it matched the music in importance. “We wanted to make it better.”

    Known for creating theater that uses rhythmic, poetic language, a core element of her writing style is repetition and revision, and her style is often highly metaphorical. She said the idea of repetition with revision means “looking back and stepping forward at the same time.”

    In the continuation of Part 1, it was immediately striking to me, how often this core philosophy was reflected in her thought process and conversation.
    ________________________

    Sydney-Chanele: When you approach your original work, do you start with a concept, idea, or a theme? What is your process?

    Suzan-Lori: As far as I know, I have yet to start out with a theme. I think I end up with themes but I don’t know really what they are. (She laughs). The audiences, the dramaturg, and maybe the director and actors can glean themes … but I’m not really that kind of writer. There is a lot of worth in that type of writer, that’s just not the type of writer I am.

    I pretty much start with characters. I’m pretty much a character-based writer or I might start with a title, or a string of words that I happen to enjoy. Topdog/Underdog was like that, although the play didn’t come from the title. I wrote the title-phrase down, and stuck it on a Post-It on my wall.

    Three years later I wrote the play. See what I mean. It wasn’t a theme. I wasn’t writing a Topdog/Underdog theme. I wasn’t thinking anything like that.

    Sometimes a word or phrase will just click as inspiration?

    Huh-hmm. More often than not the character is the inspiration.

    Interesting you say the character is the inspiration, but it all comes from within. Which of your original works would you say is the most autobiographical?

    None of them. No. Because how does one define oneself? So you say myself.

    But isn’t there a part of you in all of your work?

    Yes. But… I think all of my work is autobiographical. There! . . .even Porgy and Bess! I say this because of how I define self. My self is part of the greater face of human kind. That’s how I see myself. You know what I mean? So it’s all autobiographical.

    I write about Lincoln and Booth, and no, I’m not a man in one room living with my brother… (Topdog/ Underdog), of course not … I’m not Hester La Negrita who lives with her five children underneath a bridge. (In the Blood). I’m not Hester Smith who has a son in prison (Fucking A). Or, on and, and on … But I see them all as autobiographical because I see my Self (uppercase S, she says to clarify the punctuation specifics) as a part of the great mosaic. When I write, I see that as being true.

    So, what is the distinction between the upper and lowercase in self?

    The lowercase is – me, me, me, me … (The pace of her talking speeds up, and her tone becomes playful as she continues). I have a two-year-old, and ten times a day I have to wipe his behind. You know what I’m saying? In which case, I probably wouldn’t write about it, but I’d probably just wipe his behind.

    If I use the word ‘personal’ to replace ‘autobiographical’, would that be a better way of asking about what parts of your life have been directly reflected in your work?

    They’re all personal. They’re all personal. This is the thing. I am different from most writers. You know what I mean. I’m just different.

    They are all personal. All the feelings that all the characters feel in all the plays, and in my novel (Getting Mother’s Body: A Novel), and the movies that I’ve written (Girl 6, Their Eyes Were Watching God). I have felt all of those feelings.

    You know, Virginia Wolf, her character Lily, in To the Lighthouse, she was not inventing. She was merely unfolding something that she was given. She was saying something that she had been given, folded up long ago.

    These days we tend to be taught a very limited view of what an artist does – with the memoir or reality shows. There is a lot more there. I’m following in the tradition of some great writers. Shakespeare may well have been Queen Elizabeth. But he was also Queen Elizabeth, and King Lear, and Macbeth, and Richard III … He was all of those people.

    Speaking of Reality TV, and the view of art, I read a quote by your husband, that you have said is one of your favorites, ‘the concept of talent is very overrated.’ Does that statement reflect in some way the point that you’re making?

    Right. Well, I don’t know. I don’t really watch too much Reality TV… But, I think he was talking about so many people think you have to be – “Talent! Oh my God Talent!” (Her voice rises to a high pitch, enthusiastic shout) “Prodigy at three!’ to become an artist, you know.

    Or, yesterday, I was doing Watch Me Work, my performance show/free writing class that I do every week for the Public Theatre. Yesterday, we had 50 high school student in there. It was fantastic. And, one of the teachers afterwards said, “That one, do you think that kid right there has promise? Don’t you think? Don’t you think”’ This kid was bright, and shiny, and asked interesting questions. But, in my mind, they all have promise.

    The meaning of ‘The concept of talent is overrated’ is not that you’re a prodigy at age twelve… or you get picked by the NY Times Twenty Under Twenty. No. What is important is how much you love your craft and how much you work art it. You know what I mean. That’s what’s important.

    Understood. How important then is the winning and the achievement of the awards that you have won, like the Pulitizer Prize, The Obie Awards, The MacArthur Genuis Grant? And, how have those wins influenced the projectory of your career?

    I think it allows me to do things that perhaps I wouldn’t be allowed to do. It allows me to reach more people. I know I have. High school students read Topdog/Underdog. I’ve written things that have moved people, and (winning awards) has allowed me to, with greater ease, do more of that. So for that reason awards are important, you know.

    For me what do they mean…at the end of the day do they help me write? I don’t know, I’m going to ask my Pulitzer to get off the shelf and write something.

    I am completley honored and thrilled to win awards. It provides you time, and they are very generous. But the weird thing about those awards is that when you are ‘Prized,’ you are called upon to represent, and I enjoy doing that. I enjoy being a spokesmodel for what a Pulitzer Prize winner looks like and behaves like. I totally will do that, and will stand in front of the high school kids for free on my own time, you know. And it’s fun. I will give free writing classes at the Public Theatre. I feel that I have been called to represent. I represent – this is what we look like, this is what we do, this is how we might behave.

    Besides being a Pulitzer Prize winner, do you feel like you are representing being an African-American female?

    Sure. Sure, and as someone of my generation… and I’m representing being an American. The State Department has sent me to India, Myanmar, and Cambodia to represent the United States. I go all over Europe and represent the United States. I do this so kids – like yesterday – can look at me and go, ‘Wow. It’s not just some stuffy person who we can’t relate to, or someone with a message that doesn’t really mean anything.’

    You’re making it more accessible.

    It’s not the least common denominator though – it’s not dummying it down. It’s keeping it real. (Her voice becomes animated) “We’re not lowering our standards, so that more people can understand us. I’m actually raising the bar, and telling those gathered – Leap! Because that’s who we are,” she says with excited enthusiasm. That’s who we are!

    That is who we are. It doesn’t really seem real or possible, until you’ve experienced the possibility in some real way for yourself.

    Exactly. Exactly. That’s it, exactly. That goes for kids growing up today, young audiences, and it goes for your audiences. So, I think the prizes allow me to go out there and represent what it means to be a working artist, given some prizes. It’s wonderful for people.

    Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Todd France/Corbis.
    Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Todd France/Corbis.

    What’s next on your plate? I know you’re doing Father Comes Home from the Wars.

    Yes! Father Comes Home from the Wars is going into rehearsal in February. That will be at the New York Public Theatre, and Watch Me Work, we do every week at the Public Theatre. So you all should check that out.

    Is it a full length play?

    It’s a performance piece that I do every week; I’ve been doing it for several years in the lobby of the Public Theatre. It’s a performance piece and also a free writing class and it live streams. You can actually join us online, and tweet in your writing questions about your working process and we will answer them live with the people gathered in the lobby of the Public Theatre!

    The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess plays through this Sunday, December 29, 2013 at The National Theatre – 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC. For tickets, (800) 514-3849, or purchase them online.

    LINKS

    Suzan-Lori Parks website.

    Playwright’s Playground by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins:

    ‘The Playwright’s Playground Series’: Jacqueline E. Lawton-Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins.

    ‘The Playwright’s Playground’: Allyson Currin – Part 1 and Part 2 by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins.



    Watch the entire Otto Preminger directed 1959 film version of Porgy and Bess:
    https://youtu.be/5daT-MSf09I

  • The Playwright’s Playground: Part I: ‘Adapting Porgy and Bess: An Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winner Suzan-Lori Parks’ by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins

    Female theatre artists make up more than 50 percent of those involved in the theatre, yet the number of female playwrights being produced is dramatically lower. Welcome back to the conversation, and The Playwright’s Playground – an in-depth Playwright interview series with female playwrights in the D.C. theatre community.

    Suzan-Lori Parks.
    Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Todd France/Corbis.

    In this continuing Series, I will interview and introduce DCMetroTheaterArts’ readers to the many talented playwrights in the DC/MD/VA area to learn about their writing process, their inspirations, their motivations, and struggles to write and produce their art. This month it is my pleasure to share an interview with Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Topdog/Underdog, and writer of the adaptation of the 2012 Tony Award-winning Best Revival of a Musical The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Currently on a 14-state tour, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, is playing in Washington, D.C. at the National Theatre until this Sunday, December 29th.

    In Part I: Suzan-Lori speaks candidly about her writing motivations and the changes made in her adaptation of Porgy and Bess, and shares details about her favorite song in the production.

    ________

    SUZAN-LORI PARKS

    “My writing all comes from listening. The more I listen, the more I can write.”

    Suzan-Lori Parks.
    Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo courtesy of Intimate Excellent-the Fountain Theatre blog.

    One of the boldest, most thought-provoking voices in American theater today is Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Her writing style comes from listening, and that observant reflection has a deep resonance and influence on the rhythmic aesthetic and distinction of her writing. In addition to the Pulitzer win for her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog, Suzan-Lori Parks won a Tony Award in 2002 for the play, and was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grants” grant that same year.

    Porgy and Bess is an iconic American opera masterpiece. The reimagined musical version, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, directed by Diane Paulus (Tony winner for Pippin this year) and adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks, won the Tony Award in 2012 for Best Musical Revival. Conceived to bring the story to a broader audience beyond opera, Parks said she wanted to adapt the book so that it matched the music in importance. Songs don’t lie, and Porgy and Bess boasts some of the most beloved tunes from the Great American Songbook, including “Summertime,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “I Got Plenty of Nothing.”

    Known for creating theater that uses rhythmic, poetic language, a core element of her writing style is repetition and revision, and her style is often highly metaphorical. She said the idea of repetition with revision means “looking back and stepping forward at the same time.”

    In our interview exchange, it was immediately striking to me, how often this core
    philosophy was reflected in her thought process and conversation.

    ______

    Sydney-Chanele: How did the characters in Porgy and Bess speak to you as you were writing the adaptation? What did you listen to and hear during your writing process?

    Suzan-Lori : With Porgy and Bess, writing comes from listening… and listening to the music. So many of my ideas come from deepening the characters and their character’s relationships, and deepen their truth in the plot, are really achieved by the music. The epic scope of the music, the beautiful recurring motifs, as I listened and listened, and relistened to the music I allowed it to inform the adaptation that I did with the book. The best example of listening, is listening to a particular thing, and that’s how it helped greatly with Porgy and Bess. Porgy and Bess has that mythic, epic scope of the music, and now I feel like with the book that it also has that same mythic and epic sweep.

    For example, when Crown comes back to the final confrontation with Porgy, and he says, “I’ve come back to get you Porgy.” And Porgy says, “No, you’ve come to meet your God.” That kind of epic type of huge sweep was totally, totally informed by the music that the Gershwins wrote.

    What voice do you hear, and /or what type of listening do you do when it comes to writing your own work?

    It comes from listening to that small, still voice from within. There are lots of playwrights who have ideas and concepts that they want to communicate. And, I’m more – I listen within. I can’t explain it. It’s like meditation – you have to listen to the small, still voice within and you allow that voice to guide your life. It’s like a meditation practice, and I’ve allowed that to guide my writing.

    Let’s talk about your adaptation of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Many critics originally thought of the African-Americans in Porgy and Bess as a racist portrayal. So, I have two questions: Do you still think of the story as controversial? And, how do you want the new adaptation to be discovered by this new generation of viewers?

    Well, for the record, I didn’t read anything about what people thought about Porgy and Bess going into it. All I did was listen to the music, and I read the book (libretto – the text of the opera) as the music was playing. I followed along. Then, of course I read the novel and did the research necessary to [Dubose] Heyward’s and [George] Gershwin’s experience working on the show and all that.

    The cast of The 'Gershwins' Porgy and Bess.' Photo credit by Michel J. Lutch.
    The cast of The ‘Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.’ Photo credit by Michel J. Lutch.

    Was that your first introduction to Porgy and Bess, when you were asked to adapt it?

    I had seen about ten minutes of it, as a child, on the late, late show – the movie version.

    So you’ve seen the film directed by Otto Preminger? It’s rare to find a copy now.

    I wasn’t familiar with the story. I was familiar with some of the songs of course, but no, I wasn’t familiar with it before then. And just listen to the music and read the book, the libretto.

    What was your reaction after you read it?

    I thought it was something that needed adaptation. Lucky for me, because they hired me. I didn’t find it controversial because… I just found it needing an adaptation. And this is where people get it wrong, not to make it ‘right, or make it politically correct.’ [Her voice heightens and her voice takes on a nasal vocal tone].

    Come on, gives us a break already. We wanted to make it better. Better… A more perfect union … (she sings joyously, as her voice trails off). Hello. Like amending the constitution, we want a better country. It’s not politically correct… so the people get all the hair on the back of their neck up. It’s not about that. It’s about making it better.

    The music is Sooo great. Let us make the story just as great, if we possibly can.

    Did you take out any songs, and tell me more about your job as the libretto adapter?

    Yes, yes. The “Buzzard Song” has been cut and others … One – some songs have been cut purposely? (“Question mark,” she says out loud.) And two – vocally, it’s a big deal. Back in the day, it was an opera – too many songs for Porgy – you know what I mean. You have to think of these actors working and what they are being required to do. So it was the dramaturg and architectural type of things. It’s an architectural job. It became political because people got worried that we were trying to make it PC. If anybody knows anything about my work they know it’s not that!

    How did you transform and make the characters well-rounded, three-dimensional characters?

    Characters! Characters! Characters! You listen to that music and you listen to Porgy sing, ‘You are my woman.’ That’s not an archetype. It’s a man, right? (Parks says excitedly, describing her writing process.) So, it’s coming right out of the music. I just followed the music. That’s I how I found additional, brand-new words to put in, to change some of those songs. I listened. Not taking words from the songs – no. I’m listening to that spirit that was drumming in that piece. The song, “I Got Plenty of Nothing,” which hundreds of people from all over the country told me before they saw a production, that it was a ‘cringe worthy’ moment in the show. Why – because basically Porgy was singing about how happy he was. He was a ‘po’ happy black man,’ and black people, and white people, and Asian people, and Hispanic people found that cringe-worthy. Hello, the 99%. What! OK. OK.

    Listening to it and living the lives of these characters, inviting them into my writer brain, I heard one day – Oh, I know what it needs…he’s talking about. There’s a bit of dialogue before the song now and in the middle of the song there’s a bit of dialogue that we added, so now he’s singin’ about love. He’s not singing about being ‘po.’ It’s a love song!

    It’s a love song.

    He walks out of his cabin, Bess walks by and they share an embrace. [Her voice changes as she animates, playing the different roles.] He says, ‘Good mornin’ everybody.’ And somebody says, “You’re looking better than good Porgy. Look at the smile on your face. Whatcha been up to lately?” And Porgy says, ‘Nothin.’ And the guys go, “NOTHIN’?” Because of course they know he’s been gettin’ it with Bess! That’s the story. And then he launches into “I Got Plenty of Nothing”…talking about love and relations with a person of his choosing. You know what I’m saying.

    What is your favorite song in Porgy and Bess?

    Oh, I don’t know. I think the one that we did, we really sorta changed the framing and the meaning -‘I Got Plenty of Nothing’ – so that’s the song. I’m really proud of that song. Everybody can enjoy Porgy and Bess. We’re not lowering it; we’re actually raising the bar.

    When they sing, “Bess, You is My Woman Now” and the whole bit of scene work that I wrote to create this moment … and then when he sings that song, it’s like, “Wuh! Oh my God! They’re really in love!”

    You’re deepening the interpretation.

    Yeah, we added story and took story and recut the thing. There was so much work involved and we had such a great team: Diane Paulus (Director), Deidre Murray (Obie Award-winning composer), and the wonderful cast … and we have now with the touring company. This brilliant cast of actors, sing like birds and dance like angels. It’s really kind of amazing!

    Alicia Hall Moran as Bess and Nathaniel Stampley as Porgy. Photo by Michael J. Lutch.
    Alicia Hall Moran as Bess and Nathaniel Stampley as Porgy. Photo by Michael J. Lutch.

    _____

    Tomorrow in Part II: Suzan-Lori discuss her writing process and inspirations, the autobiographical elements in her original works, and the responsibility and influence of winning major awards, like the Pulitzer Prize.

    The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess plays through this Sunday, December 29, 2013 at The National Theatre – 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC. For tickets, (800) 514-3849, or purchase them online.

    LINK
    Suzan-Lori Parks’ website.

    Playwright’s Playground by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins:
    ‘The Playwright’s Playground Series’: Jacqueline E. Lawton-Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins.

    ‘The Playwright’s Playground’: Allyson Currin-Part 1 and Part 2 by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins.


    Watch the entire Otto Preminger directed 1959 film version of Porgy and Bess:
    https://youtu.be/5daT-MSf09I