| Northwestern
University Press Release About 'A Long Gay Book'
March
3, 2003
Galati-Flaherty
Musical To Premiere Here
EVANSTON,
Ill. --- The world premiere of “A Long Gay Book,” a chamber musical
based on the writings of avant-garde American writer Gertrude Stein
by the creative team behind the Broadway hit “Ragtime,” will be
performed May 9 to 18, at the Ethel M. Barber Theatre, 30 Arts Circle
Drive, on the Northwestern University Evanston campus.
Based
on Stein’s various texts, the new musical was adapted for the stage
by Northwestern performance studies faculty member Frank Galati.
Galati has been a member of Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf Theatre
ensemble and associate director of the Goodman Theatre since 1986.
Galati
will direct the University’s production of “A Long Gay Book,” which
features music by Stephen Flaherty, who was the recipient of a 1998
Tony Award for his original musical score for “Ragtime.”
Stein
(1874-1946), who wrote such memorable lines as “a rose is a rose
is a rose,” used repetition and extreme fragmentation and abstraction
in her writings.
“Some
say the way Gertrude Stein deals with language is very similar to
what Pablo Picasso was doing with visual landscape,” said Galati.
“They both were Cubists.”
Stein
moved to London and then to Paris with her older brother Leo. Her
Paris home was a salon for the leading artists and writers between
World Wars I and II.
Galati’s
interest in Stein’s texts began in the 1970s when he put together
an Evanston campus program for the Speech Communication Association
to feature what the University’s department of performance studies
is devoted to -- the study of literature through performance. Since
that time he has staged other off-campus productions based on Stein’s
texts including composer Virgil Thomson’s “The Mother of Us All”
and “Four Saints in Three Acts” for the Chicago Opera Theater and
“She Always Said, Pablo,” for the Goodman Theatre.
“’A Long
Gay Book’ encapsulates the joyous and passionate things that were
part of Stein’s art and life such as her deep love for her lifelong
companion Alice B. Toklas,” said Galati. “It conveys the domestic
relationship, the harmony, the accord, and the ardor that existed
between Stein and Toklas and her art. “
It also
explores the amplitude of human experience and psychology, something
Galati said Stein discovered when she was in college studying psychology
and philosophy, and that prompted him to connect the storyline with
a university setting.
Galati
described his and Flaherty’s new musical as “a play within a lecture”
that Stein delivered in 1934 at age 60 at the University of Chicago.
Galati uses that lecture as a springboard to give the audience glimpses
into Stein’s life.
“The
musical flashes back to Stein’s college days around the turn-of-the-century
and navigates through a number of her playful short stories and
autobiographical texts, culminating with Stein’s death in France
in the summer of 1946,” he said.
Galati
defined the term “chamber musical” as a musical theatre piece that
is small and contained on a stage. The characters and the six-member
orchestra are as much a part of the storytelling energy as the eight
actors who portray multiple roles in this production. Seven of the
actors are Northwestern students. Theatre faculty member Cindy Gold
portrays the elder Gertrude.
Flaherty’s
eclectic score reflects some of the musical modalities that were
part of Gertrude Stein’s world, said Galati. The musicians, who
will be seated in a makeshift pit, will play a variety of instruments
including a piano, an electronic keyboard, cello, guitar, clarinet,
saxophone, piccolo and flute. Brad Haak is the show’s musical director.
“There
are some lyrical Victorian parlor tunes, Vaudeville songs, dance
sequences, lyrical sequences, duets, trios, quartets and quintets,
and an ensemble of seven singers,” said Galati. “The music has a
pop idiom. Stein’s favorite song was ‘The Trail of the Lonesome
Pine’ and she was deeply in love with American vernaculars. She
loved Native American names, street signs, advertisements and the
way the American language changes itself and reflects the voices
of the people, and the poetry of popular song. Stephen is the perfect
composer for her poetic texts because he writes great show tunes
in the grand tradition of musical theatre.”
The costumes
worn by the young Gertrude and young Alice and their friends are
a silhouette of fashions found in 1907, while the older Gertrude
is set in 1934 when she visited the University of Chicago. Costume
designer Michelle Tesdall is a third-year master of fine arts graduate
student.
“’A Long
Gay Book’ is a tremendously kinetic piece which is played out on
a bare stage,” said Galati. “The choreography of Marc Robin is an
essential part of the production and that is expressed physically.”
Robin recently choreographed and directed the hit musical “Cats”
at the Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre.
“A Long
Gay Book” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. May 9 and May 10; 2 p.m.
May 11; 7:30 p.m. May 15, May 16 and May 17; and 2 p.m. May 18.
Ticket prices range from $11 to $24. For more information or to
order tickets by phone, call the Theatre and Interpretation Center
box office at (847) 491-7282. Online ticket sales for Northwestern
Mainstage productions are also available through TicketWeb.com by
going to the Northwestern Theatre and Interpretation Center Web
site at www.tic.northwestern.edu and clicking the TicketWeb icon.
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