Playhouse Tuesdays 2.0: The Art of Dynasty

by erica wachs, prose reader

Dear Playhouse Tuesdays,

“Women bleed in private, like animals. Men bleed in public like kings.”

I know, I know—why such a dour opening for this blog? It’s that time of year where it feels like everything is hurting, everything is bleeding. There are midterms and not enough hours in the day to study. There are meals you want to schedule with your friends, but either can’t go to, or cancel on last-minute. For us East Coasters, the weather has finally turned with a defiant snap, and it’s freezing. We are 18 days away from an historic election; the campaign trail has created multiple national wounds. What happened to the days when Trump was a funny monologue on The Daily Show, what happened to the halcyon, invincible days of summer?

Enter Scenes from Court Life, or the whipping boy and his prince, by Sarah Ruhl. I was lucky enough to get to see this play this past Tuesday at its world premiere, and got a much-needed glimpse into the humanity of dynasties.

In the play, Ruhl juxtaposes the “Bush dynasty” with the rule of Charles I and Charles II during Stuart/Restoration England. Ruhl established many brilliant parallels between the two worlds, from the “ass-wiping” of the Councilman of the Privy Chamber in Stuart England, to the “ass-wiping” of Karl Rove during Bush’s administration. There was a scene between George and Jeb, as children, with George dressed in Captain America pajamas, Jeb in his adult suit. The main conflict of the scene: George was upset that Jeb “stole his army guys,” especially incensed that he took the “Russians.” Needless to say, the play was powerfully written, with humor, strength, and… empathy.

Yes.

There were multiple moments during this play where I actively empathized with Jeb Bush. How did Ruhl accomplish this? (Can you guess my politics by now? Also: remember to vote on November 8th!)

My best guess—though she is much more talented and accomplished than I am, and probably has a lot more years of craft backing up her art—is that she began this project writing from a place of empathy. No one was a caricature in Ruhl’s depiction. Kings and governors were portrayed as flawed fathers and sons who felt as if they disappointed; women strove to find their place in the societies in which they were born or married into. Laura Bush speaks at the end of the first act the quote that began this blog post, where she is cleaning up the blood from Charles I’s execution/the soldiers deployed in the wake of 9/11. In the monologue, she is not the wife of a failed politician, she is not her southern accent: she is a woman, with agency, venting her frustration. And thus—sympathy. Empathy. Connection.

In my playwriting class this semester, we continually talk about the notion that fiction is simply redistributed autobiography. Whether we, as playwrights, are writing our mothers or our First Ladies, there is truth and humanity that the playwrights imbue in each of their characters. Without even knowing it, I’ve found myself assigning personal traits to the antagonists of my plays. And yet, even this feels like a misrepresentation of the characters I attempt to create (and Ruhl succeeds in creating). Even the best people, the heroes, are flawed in some way. The playwright’s job, in my opinion, is not to draw arbitrary distinctions—you are the hero, you are the villain—but rather, to subvert the audience’s expectation of good and bad. That’s where you create complex characters. That’s how you are able to avoid the caricature in favor of the real.

People often ask me if (other than Hamilton), the theater can really be relevant in this day and age. I respond each time with a resounding yes. Yes, the world may bleed, as Ruhl purports. But there are special places, like the theater, in a deft combination of escapism and political relevancy, that can redeem the irrevocable, the unredeemable.

Until next time,

Erica