Something new for the holidays at Studio Arena
By Anthony Chase
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Kathleen Gaffney, Christopher Eaves, and
Michele Costa (at center around puppet) with Buffalo State students. Photo by Jim Bush. |
“And I wasn’t that thrilled with it,” admits Gaffney, as she sits in the parlor of her Delaware District home. Make no mistake, Gaffney likes the classic O. Henry tale of the joy of giving. What’s not to like? She also likes A Christmas Carol. But she was hoping for something that would generate a little more excitement, and something that would do more to fulfill the mission of Studio Arena Theatre to forge new territory and enrich the cultural life of the community.
“The Gift of the Magi is a well-worn story,” says Gaffney, “and I thought we should really be doing something more original. Secondly, part of the reason The Gift of the Magi was chosen is that there were only three people in it, maybe four. I think that we need to have creative approaches to the small cast issue. I want to fill that stage with actors, but that can be a problem, because the salaries for a stage full of people can swamp us. So I decided not to do Gift of the Magi, but I needed to find something else.”
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“I was in his office in Manhattan,” recalls Gaffney, “and I told him, ‘I need to walk out here with some of your plays.’ He said, ‘What are you looking for?’ I said, ‘My fantasy? I would love a new holiday show. Something that nobody has ever seen before, that captures the imagination and has all of the enchanting qualities of the season.’ And without hesitation, he reached over to the shelf by his desk, pulled down a script and said, ‘Here’s something from 1985.’ It was his screenplay from the television film, The Fourth Wise Man.”
And so, Studio Arena went from The Gift of the Magi to the fourth magus, originally created by Henry Van Dyke in his 1896 story, “The Other Wise Man.”
Fontana confirms Gaffney’s account, adding, “I’m very excited about doing the play in Buffalo and at the Studio Arena, which was for all intents and purposes my ‘graduate school’ after I graduated from Buffalo State. Working with Kathleen again is truly wonderful. She’s got such love for theater and for the city. I think Studio Arena is about to enter its Renaissance under her leadership.”
Gaffney and Fontana will share authorship of the stage version of the story as follows: “Based on the story by Henry van Dyke; adapted for the stage by Kathleen Gaffney and Tom Fontana; from the screenplay by Tom Fontana.”
The fourth or “other” wise man is Artaban, a prominent magus who sells his fortune and sets off to follow the star in the east in search of the messiah. For thirty-three years, he searches for Jesus but misses Him at every turn. Along the way he uses the gifts intended for the Christ child to help people in need, until he has nothing left.
“Though the story of the play is basically the same as the film,” notes Fontana, “we’ve had to try—and this is where Kathleen’s genius has been amazing—to create the visuals with a minimal amount of scenery and props. The actors on stage feed our imaginations, so that the piece becomes more mythological and more spiritual. Kathleen conceived the framework in which my screenplay can come to life.”
Gaffney explains. “When they made the film, they used an actual desert location. They used twenty-nine characters. As I was reading Tom’s script, I was thinking, I cannot bring twenty-nine characters and the desert into Studio Arena Theatre! And then, as I was reading Tom’s script, and it got to the moment of the slaughter of the innocents, I thought, ‘I can’t do this on Studio Arena stage, especially not if there are families in the audience!’ We can’t have Roman soldiers killing babies—even if we had the funds to hire a bunch of Roman soldiers!
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Taymor became internationally famous for her direction of Disney’s The Lion King on Broadway, which made use of large puppets. Gaffney remembered seeing Taymor’s 1988 work, Juan Darien, A Carnival Mass, which was revived at Lincoln Center in 1996.
“Juan Darien was a show for adults, years before The Lion King,” Gaffney recalls. “She used puppets in the show, including shadow puppets, and by doing that, she was able to tell the violence of the story, but she did not have to subject her audience to its graphic depiction.”
“So taking my cue from Julie Taymor’s work, I thought, there are so many characters in this story, but if some of these were in Bunraku style, and the scenes of violence were done in puppetry, we could have this incredible story that spans thirty-three years!”
Bunraku is a form of puppetry developed in seventeenth century Japan in which hooded puppeteers, in full view of the audience, manipulate lifelike puppets to tell a story.
“Well, using puppets is a wonderful device and it’s very exciting,” says Gaffney, “but it kind of begs the question, how do you justify puppets dramatically? And then it occurred to me—it will be a play within a play!”
With this inspiration, Fontana and Gaffney became very excited and everything began to fall into place.
“The central plot of the story revolves around this fourth Magus, Artaban, trying to find the messiah and constantly failing,” observes Gaffney. “When you are dealing with film, as Tom did, you can fill in visually and make the experience absolutely lush with your shots of the Middle East and so forth. But on our stage, I thought, the story gets predictable. We really needed to bump up the drama—the conflict, the risk, the threat.”
This is where the “play within the play” device became especially useful.
“In our play,” explains Gaffney, “a group of peddlers is traveling to Nero’s Rome to tell stories to the Christians. Nero, of course, persecuted Christians. He was known to impale them on pikes, set fire to them, and light his games with their burning bodies. So this group of peddlers has arrived outside the city of Rome, but their cart breaks down. The Christians are on the other side of the hill, but with a wheel gone, they are stuck, so their audience has to be brought to them. The Studio Arena Theatre audience becomes the early Christians.
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Fontana emphasizes Gaffney’s observation, and reveals her symbolic motivation. “She conceived the framework, the puppets and the band of touring actors—and the young boy, who symbolizes the Christ child.”
“It is Tom’s story, contained within my story,” says Gaffney. “We have two boys alternating in the role, because the child must be onstage all the time.He has miniature characters that reflect all the action that is happening on the stage. And we will have a desert on the stage. I love natural elements on stage.”
The production will be directed by Christopher Eaves from New York City. “Christopher did work with a group called Pink Inc. that used large puppets for events like the Olympics,” says Gaffney. “And he is very precise, carefully overseeing every element, so I knew instead of having me go crazy, he could go crazy! He is very familiar with trying to integrate actors who are speaking and puppets who are moving.”
In terms of “filling the stage with people,” there are three very large roles in the play which have been cast in New York with, Gaffney promises, “three incredible actors.” The Praetorian guard is a local actor, as are the two little boys.
“So now we’re up to a company of seven,” says Gaffney. “And then we need performers to operate these remarkable puppets, and they will be six Buffalo State students. The puppets, by local puppeteer Michele Costa, are a little bit larger than life size. The heads are on a stick and then the actors operate the arms.”
Buffalo State has an exclusive internship agreement with Studio Arena Theatre, and because of her own experiences as a student, Gaffney has been eager to invigorate the program.
“I am determined that students with internships at our theater will not just be spear carriers. In The Fourth Wise Man, they will learn Bunraku from Michele and movement from Christopher, which will help them get work in New York City. They will act the role of the peddlers who become the puppeteers, and once they are off the deck they can interact with the audience.”
And here, Gaffney reveals the method behind this inspiration: “Actors’ Equity has no jurisdiction over improvisation. None whatsoever.”
The union rules allow Studio Arena to provide the students with these opportunities as long as they do not speak lines from the script. The students will be paid stipends for their efforts.
Gaffney is very pleased with puppeteer Michele Costa. “I was looking at two puppeteers in New York City, but Michele was recommended to me by our production manager. I went to her website and her work was absolutely as good as anything I had seen in Manhattan. And then I noticed that she was a Henson Award recipient, and I saw that Joseph Campbell was a large influence; I knew that she was highly regarded and that we spoke the same language. There was the bonus that she is local. I was thrilled with that, and I think this show will help attract a larger audience for her work.”
Gaffney is also pleased to be using a local composer to create a score for the show. “I knew that we needed a score, almost like a movie score, to highlight some of the events and also to help transport us to Rome, to Jerusalem, and so forth. I heard the music of a local composer, and he is working closely with Christopher Eaves to create an entire score for us.”
Finally, after putting so much into The Fourth Wise Man, Gaffney hopes that Studio Arena will enjoy returns from the production.
“We anticipate that there may be numerous productions of this play at other theaters looking for an innovative and enchanting holiday offering. We want our show to be a huge success with our audience, but we also want to create a revenue stream for Studio Arena Theatre. So all the costumes and puppets and props will be available for rental when other theaters do this piece!”
The Fourth Wise Man will play at Studio Arena Theatre (710 Main Street, 856-5650, www.studioarena.org), from November 24 to December 23.
Anthony Chase writes on theater for Artvoice and other publications.
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