PRESENTS

 

Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad as Fiction and Play

 

 

 

“Unmaking Myth in the Penelopiad”

Lauren Lacey

 

“Animating the Penelopiad: Collaborative Scholarship on Edgewood College’s Theatre Production”

Christopher Dunham

Aimee Hanyzewski

Jeanne Leep

Mary Waldhart

 

Tuesday, October 24 at 12 pm in Diane Ballweg Theatre

 

Abstracts

 

With The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood offers an intricate text that mirrors Penelope’s strategy when warding off her suitors in that it unweaves its own fabric almost as soon as it is woven.  In Atwood’s 2005 retelling of The Odyssey, she repositions Homer’s tale so that it centers upon Penelope and her maids rather than on Odysseus and his shipmates.  Penelope is given the opportunity to tell her version of events, yet Atwood’s choice finally to give Penelope a voice is not, ultimately, the main focus of The Penelopiad.  Instead, as my paper argues, the substance of Atwood’s text lies in its examination of the process of rewriting myth, a process that is largely about unmaking.  As Roland Barthes explains in Mythologies, myths can work to naturalize dangerous concepts that must then be denaturalized or demystified.  Feminist critics have furthered Barthes’ point in relation to patriarchal myths, including Marleen S. Barr who states that “Patriarchal stories, myths which validate men who rape and kill women, deny women the magic words to stop the raping and killing.  Patriarchy manufactures and reads myths to suit its needs.”[1]  Barr’s point about the way that patriarchy uses myths is precisely what Barthes means when he describes how myths can naturalize concepts, and in writing The Penelopiad, Atwood is acting in the role that Barthes assigns to the mythologist; she is denaturalizing and demystifying the patriarchal myth of The Odyssey.  However, Atwood is doing something more in The Penelopiad because she is also demonstrating the nature of the process of myth making and unmaking.

                       

In this presentation, The Edgewood College Theatre production team for The Penelopiad will highlight a sampling of their work on this script, adapted for the stage by Margaret Atwood from her successful novel. The questions and methods of inquiry vary from play to play, but the underlying goal of telling a story that serves the themes and ideas of the piece as well as the directorial concept for that piece guide all the collaborative choices for each production process.  Building on the dramaturgical scholarship for The Penleopiad, the production team for the Edgewood College Theatre will discuss how that happened over several months for The Penelopiad.  Educational theatre has the extra component of serving the students as they learn the techniques and skills required to create an original piece of collaborative art (which is far more complicated than working with trained and experienced collaborators).  As the theatre creates original concepts for this staging of The Penelopiad, we are eager to share our "behind the scenes" scholarship, which is often cleverly disguised in an entertaining night at the theatre.  The scholarship behind the creative choices will be shared briefly by the following individuals, highlighting the collaborative nature of their work for The Penleopiad:   in direction, Jeanne Leep; in set design, Chris Dunham; in costumes design, Mary Waldhart; in light design, Aimee Hanizewski; and possibly by others in sound design, graphic design and other noteworthy areas for this particular production.

 

Bios

 

Christopher R. Dunham is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Design and Technology and Technical Director for the Department of Theatre Arts at Edgewood College.  He earned his BFA in Theatrical Design and Technology from UW-Stevens Point and his MFA in Scenic Design from Purdue University.  In addition to his teaching and design work at Edgewood, he has collaborated with Forward Theatre Company, Children’s Theatre of Madison, Theatre Lila, and Four Seasons Theatre, among others including designs for Outside Mullingar, The Mojo and the Sayso, Anne of Green Gables, and A Christmas Carol.

Aimee Hanyzewski is the Resident Lighting Designer for the Department of Theatre Arts at Edgewood College.  In addition, Aimee is a freelance scenic and lighting designer.  She has designed for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in the Stackner Cabaret for such hits as The Devil’s Music, Liberace, Debbie and Doyle, Ain’t Misbehavin’, From My Hometown, Fire on the Bayou, Grafton City Blues, and many others. Moreover, she designed the lighting for Venus in Fur and The Year of Magically Thinking in the Stiemke Theater.

Lauren J. Lacey, an Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department, as well Co-Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, teaches courses in contemporary literature, postcolonial fiction, feminist theory, and speculative fiction. She is author of The Past That Might Have Been, the Future That May Come: Women Writing Fantastic Fiction, 1960s to the Present (McFarland 2014). Her current research explores post-human relationships in contemporary theory and fiction.

 

Jeanne Leep, a Professor in Theatre Arts, is the head of the acting and directing program in the Department of Theatre Arts and the Producer of Edgewood College Theatre. She received her Ph.D. in directing from Wayne State University, her M.A. from the University of Michigan in theatre studies, and has also studied at the Moscow Art Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.  She is the author of Theatrical Improvisation, Short Form, Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv. and the co-founder of River City Improv, a performance improvisational troupe based in Michigan. Past directing credits include Metamorphoses, The Arabian Nights, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Proof & The Crucible. She is the chair of the Acting Focus Group for the Association of Theatre in Higher Education.

 

Mary Waldhart is a Resident Costume Designer & Costume Shop Manager who joined the Edgewood College Theatre Arts Department in 2010.  During her 23 years at the Madison Repertory Theatre, Mary was the Rep's Resident Costume Designer, Costume Shop Manager, and Costume Director.  Mary has also designed costumes for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Next Act Theater in Milwaukee, Forward Theater Company, Children's Theater of Madison, Madison College, and UW-Madison.

 

Refreshments Provided!  Hope to see many of you there!

 

Sayeeda

Coordinator & Program Designer

2017-2018 Faculty Colloquium Series