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November 22, 2002
Curtain
Rises on Anton in Show Business December 5
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Photo: Fred LeBlanc
Director
Holger Teschke (left) with members of the Anton in Show
Business cast
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Shifting
easily between his homes in Germany and the United States and
international work as a prizewinning author, director, and translator,
Holger Teschke is nothing if not flexible. Perhaps it's not surprising
that after a decade of presenting what he calls "dark, heavy"
theatre as director and dramaturge with Brecht's Berliner Ensemble,
Teschke has experimented with a wide range of productions at Mount
Holyoke, where he has been teaching and directing since 1996.
Last fall, he and four students directed Emily's Night Out,
a five-hour tribute to Emily Dickinson performed by students from
the theatre, dance, and art departments at sites across campus.
Teschke shifts gears again for the 2002–2003 theatre season,
directing Jane Martin's acerbic comedy Anton in Show Business
in MHC's Rooke Theatre December 5–7 at 8 pm and December
7–8 at 2 pm.
Teschke first encountered
Martin's work in 1990 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL)
Humana Festival of New American Plays, where he was asked to discuss
the future of theatre in former Iron Curtain countries. Attending
that festival, which has premiered the Pulitzer–winning plays
The Gin Game, Crimes of the Heart, and Dinner with Friends, became
a favorite annual tradition for Teschke, and Martin, his favorite
playwright of American comedy. "Whenever I made the trip
to Louisville from Berlin to see one of her plays in the Humana
Festival," writes Teschke, "I knew I was in for another
night of intelligent entertainment and social satire that would
make me understand America better than a library of cultural studies."
Winner of the 2001
American Theatre Critic's Association's Steinberg New Play Award,
Anton in Show Business is a play within a play that pokes
fun at American theatre while sympathizing with the struggles
of those who love the stage. It focuses on three women who are
cast for a production of Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters in
San Antonio, Texas: Holly is a TV celebrity made glamorous by
seventeen plastic surgeries; plain-faced Casey is a veteran of
off-off-Broadway shows who loves acting despite the poverty and
family disapproval it brings; and naïve, enthusiastic Lisabette
was a third-grade teacher until "the Lord himself" called
her back to the stage in a dream.
Like the Prozorov
sisters of Chekhov's play, who endure a dull, provincial existence
outside Moscow and hope for a better life, Holly, Casey, and Lisabette
struggle to maintain self-esteem and hope in a circuslike production
that ultimately falls apart when sponsor Albert & Sons Tobacco
shifts its focus and funding overseas, "where they just plain
old like a good smoke" and "life expectancy is so low
that we don't really constitute a health hazard."
"This play is
interested in the fact that it's hard to feel valuable in this
culture if you're an artist because the economics and politics
of the theatre shape who artists think they are," suggests
Jon Jory, former producing director of ATL, which débuted
the play in 2000. "This is a comedy about what people in
the process confront, and it asks the question, what can the artist
do in a culture that doesn't value her?"
Anton in Show Business
presents several challenges to Mount Holyoke's actors, says Teschke.
"As a comedy it requires precise timing and constant interaction
on stage. The actors can't do solo stand-up routines. They need
to connect with and observe one another all the time, constantly
helping each other build up the situation." The play also
challenges its actors to present a serious issue, namely theatre's
value in a culture, says Teschke. "Despite an unbelievable
wealth of talent, actors can't make it in America because theatre
is not as valued as it is in countries like Germany and Austria,
where it is considered extremely important and supported by government
subsidies. This play isn't a slapstick or roller-coaster comedy
but shows both sides of the coin, the sad and funny moments of
theatre. From it, we can become more realistic about theatre and
learn that humor becomes a lifesaver even in the worst situations."
Theatre arts major
Laura Zingle '03, who will play Lisabette, describes the comedy
as "funny without being ‘fluffy' " and believes
it will have wide appeal. "It deals with the trouble of producing
plays regionally today, and may open the audience's eyes to what
goes on behind the scenes in the theatre. The theatre people will
chuckle at the in-jokes, and others will have a chance to see
a rather farcical representation of putting on a play," she
said. Zingle notes the challenge of portraying a stereotype while
maintaining three-dimensionality. "Lisabette may be ditzy
but shouldn't just be dismissed as a flake; she is passionate
and eager and every once in a while says something profound."
Not discouraged by the troubles her character faces, Zingle plans
to find a yearlong theatre apprenticeship in Philadelphia, Chicago,
New York, Minneapolis, or Berkeley after she graduates. "I
hope to have a well-rounded career in theatre—stage managing,
performing, whatever they'll let me do!"
The Mystery of
Jane Martin
Although Jane
Martin has been the most produced playwright of the Actors Theatre
of Louisville Humana Festival of New American Plays, she has never
made a public appearance, not even to receive awards from the
American Theatre Critics Association for Anton in Show Business,
Talking with, Jack and Jill, and Keely and Du. Nor
has she made herself available for comment. When Holger Teschke
translated Anton in Show Business into German in 2001,
he directed his questions not to Martin but to her manager, Alexander
Speer. As a result, many critics speculate that the secretive
Martin is actually Jon Jory, ATL producing director from 1969
to 2000. Others, who note that Martin explores issues of interest
to women and creates series of monologues by female characters,
propose that Martin is a pseudonym for Jory writing in collaboration
with his wife, Marcia Dixcy Jory. The Jorys do not comment on
the matter.
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