Authenticity Digiturgy
What is DRAMATURGY?
It's an in-depth look at the background and inner workings of a play
in order to give the audience context and a better lens
into the story played out on stage.
Put it online and you have DIGITURGY.
AUTHENTICITY
By John Morogiello
from an idea by Jackob G. Hofmann & John Morogiello
Theatre in the Raw: The Lucille Lortel Festival of New Plays
Theatre Fairfield inaugurated Theatre in the Raw,
our bi-annual Festival of New Plays, in 2011, in conjunction with an exhibition curated by our producer, Dr. Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco, celebrating actor/producer Lucille Lortel (1900-1999). Lortel dedicated her career to nurturing new plays and launching or reviving the careers of playwrights, both at her eponymous theatre in New York City and here in Connecticut where, in 1947, she founded the White Barn Theatre as a laboratory for developing plays that dared to be different from the usual commercial fare. Playwrights could see their work performed as staged readings before a discriminating audience, who would critique the play and make recommendations for further development. Edward Albee, Athol Fugard, Langston Hughes, Eugene Ionesco, Terrence McNally, Sean O’Casey, Tennessee Williams, and Lanford Wilson are just a few of the hundreds of writers Lortel invited to the White Barn. In its 54 years, the White Barn premiered over 180 American and foreign plays and afforded many playwrights their first professional productions anywhere. Theatre in the Raw
is dedicated to Ms. Lortel, who generously left Theatre Fairfield a bequest to carry on her pioneering work developing new American plays and playwrights.
A Happy Collaboration: The Genesis of Authenticity
Dramaturgy Production Intern Fallon Sullivan interviewed Director/Dramaturg Jackob G. Hofmann and Playwright John Morogiello about their newest collaboration, Authenticity. Here are excerpts from their conversation:
In February 2019, Jake Hofmann was hired as Director/Dramaturg for Theatre Fairfield’s 2019 Theatre in the Raw: The Lucille Festival of New Plays. Knowing that our season focused on Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus) and recent interpretations of Shakespeare (Fortinbras), he thought this year’s Raw might also carry a Shakespeare theme. He called up his friend and playwright partner, John Morogiello, to pitch an idea for a new play centering on George Peele, the university wit who scholars posit may actually have written portions of Titus Andronicus, a play attributed to William Shakespeare. John, not knowing too much about Peele, agreed to see if there was a story in that idea. Before they knew it, Authenticity
was born.
John tries to write rough drafts of a script as quickly as he can. With the outline in front of him, he likes to spew out everything he can and resists editing until a whole script is on paper. Jake periodically took trips to visit John in Baltimore, so that they could work together on rewrites. They would read every page of the script aloud so that together they could decipher what sounded right, and what did not; what was true, and what was not true; and where it didn’t make sense. As a director, Jake wanted to also make sure that the character’s wants were clear. What was the character’s purpose in the plot? What did the characters want or need for themselves, or from the other characters?
John is an assiduous researcher who looks for logical connections in structuring script and characters. He talks about philosophy, history, literature, and other big, intellectual ideas. Jake, on the other hand, has a very grounded way of creating and directing. Jake is always asking John “who are these characters and what is it that they want from each other?” which helps guide and develop John’s ideas as he writes. They described their work together as an equal partnership. Even when they might disagree with one another, which John admitted was rare to happen, they are willing to listen, try out, and grow from each other’s ideas. It’s that honest, natural, give-and-take mentality that keeps their partnership strong.
Authenticity
is a script that bounces between the 1590s and 2019. This decision was made for a few reasons, but chiefly, it was so women could be involved in the story. A storyline that primarily takes place in the 16th century means that there is going to be a slim number of roles for women to play since women of that time (with the notable exception of Queen Elizabeth I) did not have a role in society except as caretaker of home and children. They discovered that George Peele had a daughter Alice and although little is known of her historically, they reinvented her to become the foundation of the 16th century portion of the story. That meant that there would be one female role to three male characters. John, being big on gender parity, believes that if a script is going to have three men in it, it is going to have three women as well. Also, Jake knew that Theatre Fairfield had lots of talented actresses ready to play in a new show. So, the two of them put their heads together to come up with a plotline for three present-day characters, two women and one man, evening out the male/female ratio of the script.
There is no good representation of a strong mother-daughter relationship in any of the 36 plays in William Shakespeare’s canon. One could argue that in Romeo and Juliet, Lady Montague has a relationship with her daughter, Juliet. However, the scene between Juliet and her mother is facilitated through Juliet’s nurse, who acts more like a mother to Juliet than her biological mother does. Mothers are often mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays but are rarely seen. Jake and John recognized this while they were writing their play, and thus, the characters of Kristin and Maggie have become a representation of a mother and her daughter that we’ve been missing from Shakespeare’s plays all along. Their relationship, with all its ups and downs, has become the heart of Authenticity. As John and Jake continued to edit and revise their script, their play became delightfully feminist in a unique and beautiful way.
Having characters in the present also helped bring the major plot points and twists of their fanciful imagining of who really wrote Titus Andronicus
to a modern time period. Kristin and Maggie were able to comment on the works of Shakespeare, Alice, and George in an intellectual way, but also in a human way, which John felt was important to do when commenting on the authenticity of Titus Andronicus.
Throughout their writing process, Jake and John continued to receive feedback from our faculty, Dr. Marti LoMonaco and Lynne Porter, which was instrumental in making sure the show was comprehensible and compelling to the college students who would soon be performing the script. There was also a student reading of the script held on campus in late September, which helped guide Jake and John a few steps further in their journey. For John, having his script read out loud is an instrumental step in his writing process, because he doesn’t know what works until he can hear an audiences’ genuine reaction to the play. The partners received wonderful feedback from all of the students, which launched them into their third draft of the script. Park Lytle, ’21, who read the part of George Peele at the first reading (and who is currently playing George), made a helpful suggestion about the journey of George and Alice which clarified their father-daughter relationship for John.
Authenticity
is a fun and funny story about the search for truth with a “swash-buckling sword fight” that is bound to be a good time for anyone who comes to see the show. The production will open in the Wien Experimental Blackbox Theatre at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts on Thursday, December 5th at 8 pm, with additional performances Saturday, December 7the at 8 pm and Sunday, December 8th at 2 pm. All shows will feature an audience talkback with special guests leading the discussion and refreshments for all to enjoy. Jake and John will lead the Saturday night talkback, where they will continue the discussion started here. Tickets are currently on sale, so get them while they last, so you can be a part of the world premiere of Authenticity!
