Love Is The Highest Law: An Exploration of Charles Mee's BIG LOVE at Signature Theatre.

"In this play what begins or appears idyllic, simple, uncomplicated becomes imperfect, messy, complicated. This is the way love is. Especially big love. As the saying goes 'Life is messy. Love is messier.  --Tina Landau, Director of Big Love

Charles Mee and the Birth of Big Love Legacy Playwright Charles Mee returns to Signature with his play Big Love, directed by longtime collaborator Tina Landau. Mee was Signature’s Playwright-In-Residence from 2007-2008, a season that saw the New York Premiere of Iphigenia 2.0 (directed by Landau), the World Premiere of Queens Boulevard (the musical) (dir. Davis McCallum), and the World Premiere of Paradise Park (dir. Daniel Fish). Mee’s season highlighted his distinctive interest in adapting classical works and his collage-like method of writing that incorporates music, text, and movement. Mee freely mixes styles and genres in his extensive body of work, and he often assembles his dialogue from existing texts – Big Love alone is inspired by ancient Greek plays, self-help books, travel novels, and the writings of war veterans, among other sources.  

Big Love was originally written in 2000 as a commission for the Actors Theatre of Louisville to celebrate the Millennium. In order to welcome this new age, Mee went back to one of the oldest surviving plays in the western world, Aeschylus’ The Danaids, in which fifty brides flee the fifty bridegrooms they have been forced to marry, to see what the same story would look like if it was written in the modern day. The play has since been produced throughout the country many times over, and won Mee his second OBIE Award when it premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in 2000. Big Love marks Mee’s first production at Signature in the Legacy program.

The Danaids by Aeschylus Big Love was inspired by the trilogy The Danaids by Aeschylus, one of the earliest surviving Greek dramas, dating circa 490 B.C. The first play of the trilogy, The Suppliant Women, is the only surviving section; the other two plays are lost and only known to us from secondhand sources. In The Suppliant Women, the fifty daughters of Danaus have fled their native Egypt to the Greek city of Argos because they are betrothed to marry their fifty cousins against their will. Only scattered notes on the plots of the second and third parts of the trilogy remain. Charles Mee took this opportunity to imagine what might have been lost and what story it might have looked like in the 21st century.  

Charles Mee and Tina Landau Playwright Charles Mee and director Tina Landau began working together in 1992 when Landau directed a workshop production of Mee’s Orestes 2.0 at American Repertory Theatre’s Institute for Advanced Theatre Training. Landau later directed Orestes 2.0 in 1993 with the New York-based, site-specific theatre company En Garde Arts. The two collaborated again on Mee’s Trojan Women a Love Story, produced by En Garde Arts in 1996. Landau also directed the world premieres of Mee’s Time to Burn (1997) and The Berlin Circle (1998) at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where Landau has been an ensemble member since 1997. Their 2007 production of Iphigenia 2.0 marked their first collaboration at Signature, and Big Love celebrates their second.

Charles Mee and Tina Landau. Photos by Erik Carter.  Big Love  is now playing at The Pershing Square Signature Center through March 15, 2015. Find out more information at signaturetheatre.org.

Check out the latest production photos from Charles Mee's BIG LOVE, directed by Tina Landau at the Pershing Square Signature Center. It's not too late to buy tickets! Visit signaturetheater.org for more information. 

Take a look inside the rehearsal room for Naomi Wallace's The Liquid Plain, directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah. The Liquid Plain begins performances February 17 at Signature Theatre. More information: http://bit.ly/1zGk6Rs Photos by Gregory Costanzo.

Take a behind-the-scenes look at the Meet and Greet for Charles Mee's Big Love, directed by Tina Landau. BIG LOVE begins performances February 3 at The Pershing Square Signature Center. Photos by Erik Carter. 

Signature Explores A PARTICLE OF DREAD (OEDIPUS VARIATIONS): Field Day Theatre Company and Northern Ireland’s “The Troubles”

More than a modern re-telling of Oedipus Rex, Sam Shepard’s A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) is reflective of a dark period in history for Northern Ireland.  Learn more about the play’s origins at Ireland’s renowned  Field Day Theatre Company and the early 20th century political conflict known as “The Troubles” that inspired the production.

Courtesy of Ciarán Deane, Field Day Theatre Company:

Signature Theatre and Field Day Theatre Company Signature is presenting Sam Shepard’s A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) with Field Day, a renowned theatre and publishing company that was founded in 1980 in the then war-torn city of Derry, Northern Ireland, by Academy Award Nominee Stephen Rea and Tony Award-winning playwright Brian Friel for the purposes of staging Friel’s play Translations. 

Stephen Rea and Brian Friel, 1980. Photo courtesy of Field Day Theatre Company.

Following the huge success of that play, Field Day quickly grew to incorporate Irish intellectuals of international stature and outlook, including the late poet and Nobel Prize Winner Seamus Heaney, author and critic Seamus Deane, poet Tom Paulin, musician and filmmaker Davy Hammond, and playwright Tom Kilroy. Field Day sought to make a cultural intervention into the political and cultural discourse in Ireland and was particularly motivated by the breakdown of the society in Northern Ireland.

Derry, Northern Ireland.

Friel has declared that political conflict is “all about language.” Thus, from the outset, and for over thirty years, Field Day has sought to present an alternative analysis of Irish cultural history that highlights the shortcomings of the official narrative. The company has maintained a two-pronged approach to its cultural redefinition of Ireland, comprising theatre and publishing. It is a mission without end, and though the focus is on Ireland, the implication is global.  As the schoolmaster Hugh says in Friel’s Translations: “It is not the literal past, the ‘facts’ of history, that shake us, but images of the past embodied in language… we must never cease renewing those images; because once we do, we fossilize.

Northern Ireland: The Troubles

Between 1969 and 1998, in Northern Ireland cities like Derry/Londonderry and Belfast were frequently racked by riots, bombings, and assassinations.  At the heart of this conflict, known as “The Troubles,” lies the disputed constitutional status of Northern Ireland.

The outcome of the 1920 Irish War of Independence was that the new state of Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, while the rest of Ireland became independent. The purpose of Northern Ireland was to preserve the political and economic dominance of Britain’s carefully delineated pro-Union, largely Protestant, majority. This was achieved by denying civil rights and full political representation to its Catholic citizens (largely anti-Union), a substantial and growing minority. 

A mural commemorating “The Troubles” in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Political deadlock and violent clashes claimed over 3,600 lives between 1969 and 1998. Several attempts to find a political solution failed until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which restored self-government to Northern Ireland and brought an official end to the Troubles. The principal difference between 1968 and 1998 is that the governments and organizations pursuing these rival futures eventually found a political formula that allowed them to do so through peaceful and democratic means.

A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) is playing at The Pershing Square Signature Center through January 4, 2015. Find out more information at signaturetheatre.org

Explore the set of A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) with director Nancy Meckler.

Learn more about the show on our website.

Meet the cast of A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations)! 

Learn more about the show at signaturetheatre.org.

Signature Cafe: The Story Behind Kibeho Coffee

In conjunction with Our Lady Of Kibeho, Signature has proudly partnered with Sustainable Harvest® Rwanda, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which trains and assists low-income female farmers in harvesting coffee from crop to cup.

To learn more about Sustainable Harvest's® mission, visit their website, or read the short statement below.

"Sustainable Harvest® is training groups of women enrolled in Women for Women International’s programs as well as women in coffee growing cooperatives. Training covers agronomic practice as well as coffee processing to ensure that quality coffee can be integrated into Sustainable Harvest’s® Relationship Coffee supply chain. To date, Sustainable Harvest® is working with two women’s cooperatives in the Nyaruguru district of Rwanda, conducting baseline surveys and training modules

Over a three-year period, this project will improve the livelihoods of 3,500 low-income women farmers through training that creates the basis for more transparent trade, improved quality and higher prices. Women farmers will grow more from their small plots of land, have access to international buyers, reduce their exposure to financial commodity market risk, and improve the environmental sustainability of their communities.

A major component of the project will focus on using a collaborative group model and relationship-business approach to help the women export high quality specialty coffee with improved systems and skills."

You can stop by the Signature Cafe and try Kibeho Coffee today! Our cafe hours are Tuesday - Sunday: Noon - Midnight. 

Katori Hall's Our Lady of Kibeho is now playing at Signature Theatre through December 14! For more information, visit signaturetheatre.org.

Signature Explores OUR LADY OF KIEBHO: Hutus and Tutsis

Katori Hall’s Our Lady of Kibeho highlights the tension between the Hutu and Tutsi people of Rwanda, which resulted in the mass Tutsi genocide of 1994. Read below to learn more about the two ethnic groups and how the cultural divide began.

There are theories that Hutus are a Bantu people who settled in Rwanda first, coming from the south, and that Tutsis are a Nilotic (from the Nile Valley) people who migrated from the north. But these theories draw more on legend than on fact. Hutus and Tutsis spoke the same language, followed the same religion, and intermarried without territorial distinctions.

Through marriage, Hutus could become hereditary Tutsis, and Tutsis could become hereditary Hutus. Ethnographers have come to agree that Hutus and Tutsis cannot be called distinct ethnic groups, but still, the names Hutu and Tutsi stuck. They had meaning, and though there is no agreement about what word best describes that meaning—class, caste, rank—the source of the distinction is undisputed: Hutus were farmers, and Tutsis were herdsmen. This was the original inequality: cattle are a more valuable asset than produce, so the word Tutsi became synonymous with the socioeconomic elite.

The cast of OUR LADY OF KIBEHO. Photo by Joan Marcus.

By the time the League of Nations turned Rwanda over to Belgium as a spoil of WWI, the terms Hutu and Tutsi had become clearly defined as opposing ethnic identities, and the Belgians made this polarization the cornerstone of their colonial policy. Indeed, they sought out those features of the existing civilization that fit their own ideas of mastery and subjugation and bent them to fit their purposes. The Belgians dispatched scientists to Rwanda, who went about weighing Rwandans, measuring Rwandan cranial capacities, and conducting comparative analyses of the relative protuberance of Rwandan noses.

Our Lady of Kibeho is now playing at The Pershing Square Signature Center through December 14. Find out more information at signaturetheatre.org.

Signature Explores A PARTICLE OF DREAD (OEDIPUS VARIATIONS): The Myth of Oedipus

In A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations), Legacy playwright Sam Shepard excavates timeless themes of identity, inheritance, and violence from the ancient myth of the tragic king Oedipus. Brush up on the classic Greek tale below.

Laius, King of Thebes, and his wife Jocasta were warned by an oracle that their infant son Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother.  To avoid this fate, the royal couple left Oedipus on a mountain to die of exposure to the elements, but a sympathetic shepherd rescued the boy and delivered him to the childless king and queen of Corinth.

Aidan Redmond plays Laius / Larry / Langos in A PARTICLE OF DREAD (OEDIPUS VARIATIONS). Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Years later, a similar prophecy was related to the grown Oedipus, who then fled Corinth, unaware of his true parentage. On the road, he struck and killed a man (who he could not have known was Laius himself) in self-defense before arriving in Thebes, delivering the city from the mythical sphinx—part woman, part lion, part bird—that had been terrorizing the local population with a deadly riddle. As thanks, the citizenry proclaimed Oedipus king, marrying him to the recently-widowed Jocasta.

Brid Brennan plays Jocasta / Jocelyn in A PARTICLE OF DREAD (OEDIPUS VARIATIONS). Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Oedipus oversaw peace and prosperity for a number of years, fathering several children by Jocasta. But when a terrible plague struck the city, brought on by the gods to avenge the unsolved murder of Laius, Oedipus was compelled to act. He set out to uncover the killer and bring him to justice—in the process discovering his own identity and his terrible, inescapable fate. 

Stephen Rea plays Oedipus / Otto in A PARTICLE OF DREAD (OEDIPUS VARIATIONS). Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Today, many scholars recognize in this classic story echoes of a bloody, prehistoric past. In A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations), Shepard asks whether we’re ever truly free of such primeval violence, or whether it continues to haunt us to this day.

A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) is now playing at The Pershing Square Signature Center through January 4, 2015. Find out more information at signaturetheatre.org.

Signature Explores OUR LADY OF KIBEHO: The Visionaries

The Three Visionaries of Kibeho.

Katori Hall's Our Lady of Kibeho is based on the true story of three young girls in the Rwandan village of Kibeho who claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary. Learn more about the visionaries and explore the actual recorded messages received by the girls below. 

THE VISIONARIES The Marian apparitions of Kibeho, Rwanda began in November 1981 when six young girls and one boy claimed to see the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus. Only the visions of the first three - 16-year-old Alphonsine, 17-year-old Anathalie, and 21-year-old Marie-Claire - were approved by the local Bishop. As in the apparitions of Lourdes, Fátima, and Akita, the Virgin Mary warned of impending bloodshed, and as in the apparitions of Medjugorje, they took place in the very region where that bloodshed would occur. When he met with Rwandan bishops in 2014, Pope Francis made reference to the apparitions of Kibeho: “I sincerely hope that the Shrine of Kibeho might radiate even more the love of Mary for her children, especially the poorest and most injured, and be for the Church in Rwanda, and beyond, a call to turn with confidence to Our Lady of Sorrows."

Below are the messages on record that were given to the three characters in Our Lady of Kibeho, Aplphonsine, Marie-Claire and Anathalie.

TO ALPHONSINE The first apparition to Alphonsine took place on November 28, 1981, the last exactly eight years later on November 28, 1989. She became a nun in 2004 and was given the name “Alphonsine of the Glorious Cross.” She lives in Italy. 

Alphonsine: “Who are you?” Mary: “I am the Mother of the Word. Of the religions, what do you like?” Alphonsine: “I love God and His Mother who have given us Their Son who has saved us.” Mary: “It is true. I have come to assure you of this. I have heard your prayers. I would like it if your companions had more faith because some of them do not believe enough.” – November 28, 1981

Mary: “My Child, I love you. Never be afraid of me; in fact, play with me! I love children who will play with me because it shows me their love and trust. Be as a little child with me, for I love to pet my children. No child should fear his or her mother, and I am your mother. You should never be afraid of me; you should always love me as I love you.”

TO MARIE-CLAIRE The first apparition to Marie-Claire took place on March 2, 1982, the last on September 15, 1982. Witnesses say that Marie-Claire was killed during the genocide of 1994, while attempting to defend her husband.

Mary: “When I show myself to someone and talk to them, I want to turn to the whole world. If I am turning to the parish of Kibeho, it does not mean that I am concerned only for Kibeho or for the Diocese of Butare or for Rwanda, or for the whole of Africa. I am concerned with and turning to the whole world. The world is evil and rushes towards its ruin. It is about to fall in its abyss. The world is in rebellion against God. Many sins are being committed. There is no love and no peace. If you do not repent and convert your hearts, you will all fall into an abyss.” – March 27, 1982

Mary: “I have come to remind the world- and especially you here in Rwanda, where I still can find humble souls and people who are not attached to money or wealth- to hear my words with open hearts. Pray my Seven Sorrows rosary to find repentance.”

TO ANATHALIE The first apparition to Anathalie took place on January 12, 1982, the last on December 3, 1983. Anathalie still lives and works in Kibeho to this day.

Mary: “My child, I am sad because I have sent a message and no one will listen to my words as I desire…you must pray, for the world is in a horrible way; people have turned from God and the love of my son, Jesus… So many souls are running to ruin that I need your help to turn them back to my son. As long as you are on Earth, you have to contribute to the salvation of souls. If you will work with me, I shall give you a mission."

Our Lady of Kibeho is now playing at The Pershing Square Signature Center through December 14! Find out more information at signaturetheatre.org.

Sam Shepard's A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) is playing at The Pershing Square Signature Center through January 4!

Katori Hall's Our Lady of Kibeho is now extended through December 14!