Jackie
@loisbeckett and @dpwenger talk about Jackie, an 80-minute monologue delivered by the former First Lady about herself. Written by Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek, directed by Tea Alagic, starring Tina Benko as Jackie. From the Women’s Project Theater at New York’s City Center Stage through 3/31.
The wrong audience
Lois: I think we are the wrong audience for this play
me: ok
Lois: i think my mother would be much more interested in this play
me: why
Lois: like for us
for “millenials”
jackie kennedy is like
a brunette in a shift
well for me
like a woman on one of those singer dress patterns
completely generic
me: yeah
i mean
i think it was a bit of a history lesson
Lois: who is joan
“Joan, that boozer, gave me away”
me: a kennedy?
a sis in law
i think
Virginia Joan Kennedy (nee Bennett; born September 9, 1936) known as Joan, is the first wife of U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Edward "Ted" Moore ...
Lois: wow
me: was she before chappaquidkickdidikki
like were they married then
Lois: nice pic of the three of them
me: that is a lovely dress on jackie
i mean i think the only redeeming part of the play was the talk about clothing
the other day
someone was talking about michelle obama's inaug dress being too outre
not like tasteful fashionable
but like glittery fashionable
wait was that you
Lois: oh yeah
the tie-fabric
glam
Play vs. playwright
Lois: I found so many of the choices really infuriating
the pantomime style of direction
when you mention pills you take pills
when jackie compares marilyn to a doll BARBIE DOLLS LITERALLY EMERGE FROM VENTS IN THE FLOOR
me: i found that appealing as i find vogueing appealing
(not the dolls)
Lois: why did you like the play
me: don’t accuse me of that
i think the text is beautiful in places
that line early on
“I had to come and suggest myself to the population”
and i think this question of
what should be done production-wise with a text like this, a good text
is important
i saw “the suit” at BAM
and it was just this horribly maudlin treatment of apartheid
and the direction (by peter brook) was just as maudlin (but not more maudlin)
and so i didn't know whom to blame
but here it feels like we can blame our problems, pantomiming etc., on the director
while preserving our faith in the playwright
our provisional faith
Well-made
Lois: yes the play was extremely beautiful line by line
but im not sure if as a whole
it was
anything
it had no arc no plot
and not to be all like "oh i need a well-made play"
but things that are not plot
should still have shape
me: wait
a well-made play has to have plot?
Lois: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-made_play
me: lol
ok what was the attempted shape
without looking at the text
Lois: the climax was probably her talking about how JFK gave her gonorrhea
and made her miscarry
which is pretty shocking
me: “a recurrent device that the well-made play employs is the use of letters or papers falling into unintended hands, in order to bring about plot twists and climaxes”
LETTER = GONORRHEEEAA
LETTER = MARILYN
?
Lois: Yeah, the monologue seemed to be veering toward being about jackie vs. marilyn
but didn't get there
me: “the letters must bring about an unexpected reversal of fortune, in which it is often revealed that someone is not who they pretend to be”
JACKIE = MARILYN
?!
On boredom
Lois: i mean one thing to keep in mind
is that Jelinek isn't, like, Edward Albee
who wants everything to be done exactly as he says
she said in her NYT interview
that she regards the script as only half the play
the other half to be invented by the actor/director
me: which they did
to the play's detriment
Lois: i think it would have been really hard to make this script — much as we both kind of like it — a really good play
though the set was amazing
the old, abandoned swimming pool
full of leaves
rusty
perfect metaphor
but also
reminiscent of that famous anecdote about JFK making an intern give his friend a blow job in the WH swimming pool
me: i didn't know that, cute!
why didn’t she mention THAT in the play?
i did not like the set
Lois: why not
me: too fancy
Lois: i mean they just used it as random levels
the direction was pretty much completely alienated from it
except for those VENTS the barbie dolls popped out of
like if I read a description of that
I would think it sounded kind of horrible-awesome-amazing
but it was just like WTF DO YOU THINK WE ARE THAT BORED
and we were, kind of
More Jackies
Lois: but back to your question: could you have directed this in a way that made it more compelling than it was
maybe having a lineless marilyn character
shimmying around
i think that would have...helped?
get another body onstage
provide some action
but cost lots of $$$
unlike barbies
hate theater economics
me: ................
i like the idea of a support group
like 20 jackies
in folding chairs in a circle
but none of them really being jackie
just being like parts of jackie
Lois: actually that would be interesting
jackie even SAYS in the play
that the public wants to become her, sort of
“The flesh comes streaming out of the suburbs, it’s coming towards us even when we make a trip to the beach, but it’s running right past us, it’s running right past us, it’s running right past us, the whole stream runs to the newsstand to buy pictures of us, even though we are standing right in front of them, in the flesh, but no, we never mingle with the crowd.”
me: celebrities standing in front of you as you buy an US magazine with them on the cover
Jackie-Kimye
Lois: ha
yeah
but celebrities now
are not world historical figures
like kimye
is not going to start a war in vietnam
actually
that was a moment i thought was moving
when jackie is telling her children
at the funeral
that their deaths won't be awesome
me: “All my doing, convincing people of this enchanting death in red and powder blue, of this death in the shape of two small children, cute, like a slender patch of heaven, something like that, this death that’s in store for them as well, but it won’t be as awesome, I am afraid”
Lois: what tina benko brought to jackie
was pride in the awesomness of death
i’d just read it as sarcasm
me: so
the delivery was good
Lois: yeah
she was better than my reading
