Today, they had the stumble through of Act 2 and they are doing quite well.

The initial image of this dance is inspired from a Turkish burial ritual where the women prepare to bury the dead by digging the graves with their hands. The movements of their robes create a pulsating movement.

After the dance, one of the actors said the experience felt like a possession.

For me, the movements corresponded to yesterday’s chanting music they created. This wailing sound which was so primal and pulsating.

First of all, we were introduced to the creative team we will be working with: Director Eda Holmes, Assistant Director Severn Thompson, Designer Vikki Anderson, and Costume Designer Lina Falomkina.

We spent 3 days working on the latest, revised script of Laius, which we begin rehearsing tomorrow! Ned has expanded the character of Phebe in the past few months, including her presence in the previous plays. In order to catch up on this history, we launched the workshop by reading the latest draft of Pentheus. We then immediately moved into a reading of Laius.

In our post-read discussion, many of my classmates shared how exciting it was to see changes in the script based on the previous workshops we had done on the piece. Overall, us women were pleased to see how much the female characters have grown since the first draft of this piece – they are more involved in the action, richer, edgier, and more realistic.

Over the course of the next two days, we experimented with double and triple casting (of which there is lots!), continued to work on creating a distinction between the worlds of Cadmea and Elis, explored the overt nature of the relationship between Firewood and Water, finding where the Unnamed disagree with each other, and when they change their minds, and finally, Ned expanded – and even further heightened, I would say – Pelops’ invocation of the Gods at the very end of the play.

Some interesting oppositions that Brian mentioned that we keep in mind while reading (in order to help create dramatic tension) might be useful for all of you:
triumph vs. defeat
men vs. women
public vs. private
outside vs. inside
unnamed vs. named
youth vs. experience
stategy vs. chance

We culminated our 3 day workshop with a public reading of the first scene of Laius. Fantastically generous and supportive donors, industry professionals, faculty, and community members were there. We celebrated a very exciting read with wine!

It seems like we are going to be creating a lot of ensemble sound and music – and Eda has asked us to check out some music by the Pogues before we begin rehearsals. She has also asked us to consider the following questions from our own and character(s)’s perspectives: What is a city? What is a bloodline? What is leadership? What is truth?

Photos have been posted on the City of Wine facebook page, and more “action” shots will be up as soon as rehearsals are on their way.

Compliment: I love the way the writing in the public/political speeches builds step-by-step so naturally to a passionate, commanding climax.
Strongest image: The description of Dirce’s death on the bull horns.
Question: Mrs. M’s journey is still unclear to me … I’m not sure what she wants from Meneceus in the first section – it take it they have some sort of ongoing disagreement because she wants him to be king, but I think that relationship could use more history (in her first scene, she seems a bit like a 2-dimensional nagging wife to me).

Q#1) What is the significance of the Unnamed being different in Thebes than in Elis?

R#1) In act 2, scene 2, of Ned Dickens’ play Laius, the Unnamed remain essentially the same characters in Elis as in Thebes, although they are specifically marked by Ned as “not the same as those back home” (71), with “home” referring to Thebes. The Unnamed in Elis do appear more innocent as those in Thebes as they invite Chryssipus and Laius, disguised as a stranger, into their midst, yet the Elisian Unnamed have not been hardened by the same chaos and destruction that the Theban Unnamed have experienced. Besides this mild divergence, the two groups still represent the same archetypical characters as before, as both groups share drinks and stories around the campfire together and even the drinking locale in Elis is noted as “The slaughterhouse that honours Thebes” (122) by Pelops, thus strengthening the parallel; as well, Ned notates on the character list, “The UnNamed of Act 1, in Cadmea, wile similar are NOT the same people as the UnNamed in Act 2, in Elis. i.e. every town has a group much like this one” (2). The significance of this strong parallel between the two groups of the Unnamed outlines one of the sharp focuses in Ned’s plays: the people, or essence, of the city. In City of Wine, the progress through the plays steadily removes the presence of the gods and places more of a focus on the Unnamed, or people of the city, who exist continuously through the play cycle with their archetypical roles. The typically ignored townsfolk in the classic Greek tragedies are placed more in the limelight here, as the Unnamed are shown to be the characters that fill the town with life and its energy. They are the crucial element to create a city. Whether in Thebes or Elis, the Unnamed are the people who experience and pass on the stories, possibly around a campfire, and ensure its historical survival. Without a city and its constituents, such as its people, all the heroes and gods in these ancient stories wouldn’t exist as their purpose and significance would cease to be.

Q#4) What is the journey of Water or Blood from Harmonia through to the end of Laius?

R#4) From Harmonia through to the end of Laius, Water retains basically the same characteristics and mild persona. In the shift from Harmonia to Pentheus however, Water stops being the father to Glass and husband to Firewood and becomes a female who is sister to Parent and Firewood and aunt to Glass. Water remains a female in Laius as well, but it isn’t as distinctly marked as in Pentheus, but her mild remarks and inconsequential questions still merely serve as a small catalyst to the dialogue. The light trace of wisdom and calmness of Water persists though, as in Laius, when the tavern crowd is bombarding Zethus with questions, Water redirects the dialogue to Zethus with a reassuring, “We are all listening, go on” (11). Overall, the development of Water, besides the gender shift, is minute as Water still acts mainly as a filler and lacks any grandiose, memorable statements.

Q#1) What is the significance of the Unnamed being different in Thebes than in Elis?

R#1) In act 2, scene 2, of Ned Dickens’ play Laius, the Unnamed remain essentially the same characters in Elis as in Thebes, although they are specifically marked by Ned as “not the same as those back home” (71), with “home” referring to Thebes. The Unnamed in Elis do appear more innocent as those in Thebes as they invite Chryssipus and Laius, disguised as a stranger, into their midst, yet the Elisian Unnamed have not been hardened by the same chaos and destruction that the Theban Unnamed have experienced. Besides this mild divergence, the two groups still represent the same archetypical characters as before, as both groups share drinks and stories around the campfire together and even the drinking locale in Elis is noted as “The slaughterhouse that honours Thebes” (122) by Pelops, thus strengthening the parallel; as well, Ned notates on the character list, “The UnNamed of Act 1, in Cadmea, wile similar are NOT the same people as the UnNamed in Act 2, in Elis. i.e. every town has a group much like this one” (2). The significance of this strong parallel between the two groups of the Unnamed outlines one of the sharp focuses in Ned’s plays: the people, or essence, of the city. In City of Wine, the progress through the plays steadily removes the presence of the gods and places more of a focus on the Unnamed, or people of the city, who exist continuously through the play cycle with their archetypical roles. The typically ignored townsfolk in the classic Greek tragedies are placed more in the limelight here, as the Unnamed are shown to be the characters that fill the town with life and its energy. They are the crucial element to create a city. Whether in Thebes or Elis, the Unnamed are the people who experience and pass on the stories, possibly around a campfire, and ensure its historical survival. Without a city and its constituents, such as its people, all the heroes and gods in these ancient stories wouldn’t exist as their purpose and significance would cease to be.

Q#4) What is the journey of Water or Blood from Harmonia through to the end of Laius?

R#4) From Harmonia through to the end of Laius, Water retains basically the same characteristics and mild persona. In the shift from Harmonia to Pentheus however, Water stops being the father to Glass and husband to Firewood and becomes a female who is sister to Parent and Firewood and aunt to Glass. Water remains a female in Laius as well, but it isn’t as distinctly marked as in Pentheus, but her mild remarks and inconsequential questions still merely serve as a small catalyst to the dialogue. The light trace of wisdom and calmness of Water persists though, as in Laius, when the tavern crowd is bombarding Zethus with questions, Water redirects the dialogue to Zethus with a reassuring, “We are all listening, go on” (11). Overall, the development of Water, besides the gender shift, is minute as Water still acts mainly as a filler and lacks any grandiose, memorial statements.

Perhaps it is because throughout the reading of the plays in City of Wine I have always read for Bowl, but he seems to always be one of my favourites. In Laius he had a more important role than any of the unNamed; he showed the progression of time by aging. Not only did he serve as a tool to show the change in time, his archetypal character of “town drunk” consistently entertains me and helps to lighten the mood in this play which, because of its events and stories, is often quite heavy to read. I also like Bowl’s character because he is the only unNamed who is truly outspoken and concerns himself less with the ramifications of saying what he is thinking without filter. Oh alcohol. You truly are a gift from the gods.

How does time work in this play?

The most obvious progression of time happens between the first and second acts. It is written right in the stage directions that the second act is “20 yrs after Act I”. This increment in time is self-explaining if the audience is a reader thumbing through the script. An audience watching a stage production may not as quickly pick up on the exactitude of the passage of time, though once Bowl and Laius were seen in an aged form, this would quickly clarify. The other passage of time that I found interesting happened at the beginning of the play. After arriving in Thebes, it seemed to take Amphion and Zethus very little time to convince Laius to kill Lycus. Once the murder was carried out, there was a flurry of action which made the time from the murder to the intermission also seem very condensed. The feeling of brevity that the first act gives me may simply be to do with the fact that it is significantly shorter than the second.

Time seems to pass normally in the first act and in a linear fashion. Between the first and second act of the play 20 years have passed. I am very interested to know how the director of this play would make this apparent to the audience when the play is staged. In the second act time seems to pass just as normally as in the first act. It is just very intriguing to ponder upon the huge gap between the two acts.