Charles Ludlam is the only other man to play Hedda Gabler, so far as I know. I want to know what he did. Quite wildly and coincidentally, Tracy (my director) knows his partner, Everett Quinton, who has himself been a force in the New York theater scene, particularly after the unfortunate death of Ludlam in the late 80's.
I wrote my JP on Ludlam, and the conclusion that I came to was that his work wasn't about gender politics. It was impossible to avoid for the reader and audience member (it is often the case of geniuses that their work is read best by a future audience), but he's dealing with things much larger, much more important than simply what concerns the queer caucus. His plays are about life and love, and he happens to be a man telling these stories, and he puts them in a vocabulary we understand. The point is that (so, for instance, he played Camille) we discover that Camille is not a play about transgender issues, but we learn (through his trans performance) that Camille is a play about everyone. That's what I hope to do with Hedda. By my doing it, I want to prove that it's a play about everyone, including me.
Because it is.
Ludlam's work will - no doubt - be a very important presence in mine. Here's his manifesto. It reads like nonsense until the fifth time through.
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~norm/manifesto.html
I wrote my JP on Ludlam, and the conclusion that I came to was that his work wasn't about gender politics. It was impossible to avoid for the reader and audience member (it is often the case of geniuses that their work is read best by a future audience), but he's dealing with things much larger, much more important than simply what concerns the queer caucus. His plays are about life and love, and he happens to be a man telling these stories, and he puts them in a vocabulary we understand. The point is that (so, for instance, he played Camille) we discover that Camille is not a play about transgender issues, but we learn (through his trans performance) that Camille is a play about everyone. That's what I hope to do with Hedda. By my doing it, I want to prove that it's a play about everyone, including me.
Because it is.
Ludlam's work will - no doubt - be a very important presence in mine. Here's his manifesto. It reads like nonsense until the fifth time through.
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~norm/manifesto.html
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