It's Happening?

It happened!

Progress!

Gay marriage to be legalized in DC!

Louisiana incident

We talked about this at our meeting today- a justice of the peace in Louisiana refused to marry an interracial couple. The details are a little blurry, depending on what you read. Very interesting indeed.

A Few Thoughts on the History of Marriage

At our last meeting, Zac and I both brought the introduction to the same book as material that might inform our conversation. The book is Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage. I plan to read the whole book when I have some time, but right now I'm busy with wrapping up this semester, and so have just read the introduction. But that chapter raises some really useful questions.

First, I suspect that for people who consider marriage a religious institution consider it to be something fixed and permanent, the rules of which are determined somewhere other than in this world. I'm not sure, because I myself don't subscribe to any religious system, so I would be interested in hearing from people who hold that belief. But, having a strong interest in history, I recognize marriage as something that has likely changed over time and geography, and it seems that examining those changes can tell us a lot about what a culture values. Consequently, examining the history of marriage can give us a sense of how to position the institution of marriage in a way that reflects what we value (if we can ever come to a consensus!)

In the introduction to this book, Coontz points out that she began with the intention of showing how marriage has always been in flux and in crisis. While she acknowledges that this is, to some extent, the case, her own thinking on the subject changed several times over writing the book. What she did discover, to her surprise, was that the current state of the institution of marriage has no real historical precedent, which is to say: that marriage changes and appears to be "in crisis" is not new; what's new are the particular crises surrounding the institution in our current circumstances.

As you might gather from the title of the book, the thing that changed about marriage in modern times is the idea of marrying for love as opposed to financial or political gain. As Coontz writes, people most certainly fell in love in pre-modern cultures, but marriage was

...too vital an economic and political institution to be entered into solely on the basis of something as irrational as love. ... Because marriage was too important a contract to be left up to the two individuals involved, kin, neighbors and other outsiders, such as judges, priests, or government officials were usually involved in negotiating a match. Even when individuals orchestrated their own transitions in and out of marriage, the frequently did so for economic and political advantage rather than for love. (7)

I was thinking about dramatic literature here, though, and specifically Medea, in which this very idea-the dangers of marrying for love-comes up after Jason marries Glauce, the king's daughter. I'll post that debate here at some point, but essentially, Jason argues that although he has two children with Medea, his marriage is expedient and wise politically and economically. But Medea has clearly married Jason under the influence of Aphrodite - for love.

Interestingly, once people settled into this idea of marriage as a love match resulting in life-long intimacy (this was around the 1950s and 60s, the "Leave it to Beaver" era), it began to fall apart. When people accepted that love should be the basis of marriage, and that it should be a close relationship between equals, people started to get divorced more frequently. If those are the criteria for a good marriage, then staying in a loveless marriage that lacks intimacy seems destructive and wrong, so dissolving the marriage is a better choice than continuing it.

In examining why this same dissolution didn't happen in the late 18th Century or the 1920s or in any era when there was a particularly strong crisis for the institution of marriage, Coontz cautions against imagining that it was because in those eras people had stronger relationships. Contrary to what many people believe, there really is no "golden age" of marriage. One of the main root causes she determines is that, until the 1970s, people simply couldn't afford to get divorced.

I wonder, from all of this, what is happening to marriage right here and now. I, myself, know a number of people who are married and seem to have successful relationships. I wonder if it isn't because they all waited until much later in their lives to get married, and were sure they had reached a certain level of personal fulfillment before they decided to commit. From all of this evidence, though, I gather that the representation of marriage - how it's displayed in a culture, and therefore understood by the public - has a huge influence on what kind of respect marriage has. The value of the institution seems to be that it provides a model for how people's relationships should be, what we respect and want to reward and embrace, what we want to live up to. Given all of this, I could make a very strong argument that same sex marriage could save the institution of marriage in our culture.

But that's an entry for another time ...

Meeting on Saturday, and the News from New York

First, every time I hear news like today's reports that the New York Senate voted down the gay marriage bill in that state, I'm reminded of how important this public conversation is to have. I always feel somewhat removed from the legislative process, but I think that participation in democracy needs to go beyond just voting or reading about what lawmakers do. If we as citizens (and artists) don't take the time to have these public conversations among ourselves about how we feel about marriage as an institution, and why we believe what we believe about it, we can't begin to understand how and why lawmakers vote the way they do about things that affect our lives and how we are or are not allowed to live. I feel a real urgency to encourage people to start seriously examining where their values about marriage in general come from. Note that the article there talks about the "emotional debate" that took place in the Senate ... in a democracy, isn't it supposed to be our job as citizens to also be engaging in these debates? And as theater artists, aren't we in a unique position to give people different perspectives on the issue?

So ... in case anyone is reading this who hasn't been in touch with us on Facebook or heard about this elsewhere:

Our next public meeting will be happening on Saturday, December 5, this time in an off-campus location. We'll be meeting at Ray's Monkey House on Bardstown Road at 1:00 pm. Please come!

Here's a map:


View Larger Map

Remember that spoof video I posted...

...about banning divorce? Well, somebody is actually trying to do it.
It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Mick Foley Standing Up for a Kid's Right to Sit Down

The Daily Show had this segment on a man who was fired for expressing his disapproval of gay marriage, and a child who is harassed in school for refusing to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance because he believes the government should extend marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gaywatch - Peter Vadala & William Phillips
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

In trying to find more information about both cases, I searched the Internet and stumbled upon the Mass Resistance website. I found out that this organization has been characterized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their website seems to be devoted to anti-gay content, and as far as I can tell it was there that the video was first published. Here's a story about the incident from the local news in Boston:




Here's the whole video about Will Phillips:

An AP story on Texas' marriage ammendment

Apparently, the language Texas used to ban any incarnation of gay marriage essentially bans all marriages. Priceless.

Offbeat Bride

Here's a link to Offbeat Bride, a forum featuring less-than-"Traditional" weddings. Worth a look!

Marriage on the Radio

This past Saturday, Zac and Amelia and Katie and I met and basically discussed our own impressions of marriage and our experiences of weddings. I was struck by a thing about marriage that seems to be a kind of truth behind a lot of things - that there are supposed ideals or rules that define a marriage or even a wedding, but those rules are flexible and change according to people's actual experience. That is, a lot of what marriage seems to entail is a negotiation between people's own personal habits and lifestyles and accommodations to each other, which are in truth quite complicated, and the standard operating procedure that seems to be the "myth" or idea of how things are supposed to be. So the actual experience never matches up to the idea of it; but the idea helps give the experience meaning. Does that make sense?

Also, Zac brought in a clip from an episode of This American Life about what happens in marriage called "The Sanctity of Marriage." You can listen to the whole thing here.

There's also a segment on marriage from the BBC show "In Our Time," which you can find here.

Finally, Amelia's previous video post reminded me of this Carter Family song, which I love. It's called "Single Girl, Married Girl." (There isn't any video, just the song):

Wish I Were a Single Girl Again

There are many versions of this song out there, dating back to 1904 according to one source. This music video is a little strange, but the sound quality is good and the song is kind of fun.

An editorial from Slate.com...

...considering gay marriage, among other things, a part of Prohibition, and why legalization of these things is coming soon.

Robyn Ochs, bisexual activist

I saw Robyn speak at a big queer college conference a few years ago. Here are links to an article and a video about her marriage to her partner Peg.

Art and Politics/Let Me Down Easy

For anyone working on the project or who might be considering giving us an interview, here is some information about Anna Deavere Smith, by whose work our project was very much inspired. (There's a YouTube video bar on the side that is supposed to display videos of her work, but for some reason it messes up occasionally. If she's not appearing, just refresh your browser until you see her there.) We won't be using interview material in exactly the same way, but do intend to perform people's words exactly as they spoke them. In our production, this kind of material will be interspersed with dramatic texts and other documentary evidence.

She has been in the news quite a lot lately because of her new production Off-Broadway at Second Stage, entitled Let Me Down Easy. I was fortunate enough to see this as a work in progress a few years ago in Austin, TX, and thought it was fascinating and remarkable.

Today, Anna Deavere Smith gave an interview on NPR's Science Friday, and this evening she'll be a guest on Bill Moyers Journal. I think you can download a Podcast of the Science Friday show, and check your local PBS listings for the time of the Journal. I know that here in Louisville, it's on KET at 10:00 this evening, but there are other times when it will be rebroadcast.

If you're interested in the general topic of "art and politics," here's the archive of Now on PBS devoted to the subject.

A Little Information on the Current Conversation about Marriage in the United States

I thought it might be useful to write a link-filled post with articles to give some background on the current discourse in the U.S., especially surrounding the issue of LGBT marriage equality.

In my previous post, I mentioned DOMA. The Justice Department is defending the act against suits questioning its constitutionality, but President Obama has issued a statement that the defense is on legal grounds only, and the administration believes the law is discriminatory and should be overturned. I need to research the status of these lawsuits further. I do know that California's Proposition 8 was upheld by the CA Supreme Court. The federal suits that were filed stated that the law made a fundamental change in the state constitution, which would mean that it needed to be approved by the legislature before taking effect.

While this is going on in the courts, the law is also being addressed federally in the legislature. House Democrats proposed, in September, a law they've called the "Respect for Marriage Act" that repeals DOMA.

On the state level, this month the Maine law legalizing same-sex marriage was overturned in a statewide election. The campaigns to overturn these state laws are often run or at least supported by religious organizations. Today in D.C., the Catholic Church threatened to discontinue social programs because of a proposed same-sex marriage law.

It's interesting to consider how the very institution of marriage brings up questions of the relationship between church and state. I think it will be good to spend some time examining more closely the civil vs. religious ideas of what marriage is/should be, and the legal vs. spiritual aspects involved. I wonder in what ways these two sides are fundamentally opposed, and what ground they share, if any. I suspect the relationship is fairly complicated. Like a marriage.

Here's an interesting article that just frames the whole issue in a different way.

Meanwhile, here are some more videos that have been circulating lately from the pro-marriage equality side. (I will admit that I have not yet started to delve very deeply into the arguments of the other side, but do plan to do that. I want to hear what the logic is, even though I personally am very staunchly in favor of marriage equality. I truly am interested--and I think my collaborators are, as well--in making this a wide-ranging discussion so we can hear as many different perspectives as possible on the topic and try to make sense of our differences).






Finally, in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street this week, here's Grover and his friend Jesse discussing the very question we're asking:

And one more, because posting videos is easy

Protect Marriage, Protect Children, Prohibit Divorce - watch more funny videos

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed ...

Hello, everyone. I apologize for taking quite some time to post an update on here. This semester is a very busy one for me in terms of teaching and trying to write, but I'll try to post notes on our meetings as quickly as possible from now on.

We've had two very productive meetings, and I have to say I'm feeling encouraged and inspired by everyone who's shown interest in participating. The conversations we've had remind me why I think doing this kind of work and using theatre to stimulate dialogue (and vice versa!) seems so vital to me. So thank you so much to everyone who has contributed so far.

In general, as we talk about this and start devising a performance (for one definition of "devising" performance, go here), we seem to be approaching it asking the general question: "What is the institution of marriage, exactly?" It's everywhere in culture and literature, but we want to know what it means. How is it built through language, images and people's experience? How does it change people, and how have people changed the institution over time and across cultures?

Our first meeting - with me, Zac, Amelia and Katie - was spent discussing how we would embark on this project and sharing material we thought we might like to use. We came up with a lot of useful questions and topics for discussion, including:

- marriage as a civil institution vs. marriage as a religious institution
- legal vs. spiritual aspects of marriage
- the difference between "marriage" and "weddings."
- the history of marriage
- the economics of weddings (dowrys, buying gifts, preparations and cost, etc. etc.)
- the role of love in marriage
- monogamy, polygamy, polyamory: what's the significance of only one partner?
- marriage as a loss of independence
- memory and weddings (specifically photographs)
- the "script" and "characters" of weddings and marriage (proposal, ceremony, etc.)
- marriage as a choice or an obligation?
- for whom has marriage been prohibited in other cultures or in the past, and why (between classes, between races, between faiths, etc.)?
- are there other models for marriage? can we find and propose a new model/new rules?
- Objection!! The moment in the wedding where the community is asked to voice an opinion.

At both the first meeting and our meeting with new people from the community this past Saturday, we offered more material we had gathered and read it together.

As an introduction, I brought the actual language from the federal (so-called) "Defense of Marriage Act," which was passed by the 104th Congress. I also shared an Associated Press article that went out after the election in Maine that overturned their state's law legalizing marriage for same-sex couples. I was struck by the terminology used by a man from a Christian legal group who worked to overturn the law: he said they had succeeded in preserving "natural" marriage. I'm interested to hear someone's explanation of what that means.

Zac brought a scene from Moliere's The Miser, and Amelia brought a scene from The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, by Paul Rudnick. I offered selections from two of Charles Mee's plays that center around marriage, Big Love (based on Euripides' The Suppliants) and A Perfect Wedding (based on A Midsummer Night's Dream).

Among other plays and films we read and discussed: the second act of Our Town, A Fiddler on the Roof, Medea, Othello, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Monsoon Wedding, Romeo and Juliet, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and separate songs from Sweeney Todd and Gypsy.

When we had other folks join us this past Saturday, we introduced ourselves and described the project, had a general discussion about the topic, and read and discussed some of the material.

More topics that came up during that conversation:

- even some heterosexual marriages are thought not to "count." What has to happen for a relationship not to be considered a "second class" marriage.
- the statistic we've all heard is that over half of marriages fail.
- people stay together "for the kids" or because they want to have children. What is the root of this?
- the connection between marriage and sex
- Who are weddings for? The couple? Friends and family?
- the association of weddings with comedy in dramatic theory, and how tragedies also deal with marriage, but differently

Amelia brought up a really interesting question: why put a wedding in a play? What dramatic function does it generally serve?

So. We have here an onslaught of questions and ideas, and over the course of the next few months will be discussing these things, interviewing people about them, collecting more information, and trying to shape it all into a performance.

Please, everyone, help us out! Tell us here, in comment form, what your thoughts are on any of these things. Let one of us interview you about marriage. Come to our next public meeting on December 5 at 1:00 in the afternoon.

More to come ...

- Amy

"Prop 8 - The Musical"

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

Also probably old news. Let's hope I successfully embedded this time.

I'm sure most people have seen this...

But it always makes me smile.



More to come!

Supercalifragilistically Ever After

Public Meeting This Saturday, November 7

We will have a public meeting this Saturday, November 7 for anyone with interest in participating in our community dialogue about marriage and the theatre project accompanying it.

The meeting will be at 1:00 in the Theatre Building at the corner of Floyd and Warnock in Louisville. We'll be meeting in Room 115, which is to the right as you enter through the Floyd Street lobby.

The agenda is to introduce ourselves, describe the project, read and hear the community's thoughts on some material we hope to use, and finally answer questions, concerns and suggestions you have about this work.

There is free parking on Saturdays in the lot next to our building. Here is a map of the location:


View Larger Map


And here is a link to the TARC trip planner, where you can plug in your address and find out how to get here on the bus.

We hope to see you on Saturday! If you can't attend this meeting, please plan to come to our next public conversation on December 5 at 1:00.

Also, feel free to comment here on the blog at any time, or email with questions or suggestions.

Hello and Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to our blog for this performance project. Thanks very much for taking the time to look at what we're doing, here! My name is Amy Steiger, and I am an assistant professor in the University of Louisville Theatre Arts Department. This blog is part of a community based performance project we are working on, to be performed in UofL's studio theatre season in spring of 2010.

I'm just going to begin with a description of the project. Please note that we are always seeking community members who would like to participate, and we would also like to have two more performers in the group. Feel free to forward this URL to anyone you think might be interested.

We are always interested in your thoughts! Please comment here as much as you'd like, even if you aren't actively participating in rehearsals or in-person conversations. We only ask that you be civil and respectful to everyone participating and reading the blog. But a good part of the point of this is to have a public discussion about the topic with as many people as possible.

Here is the description I've sent out to various people to spark interest in the project. We have begun working, and will be adding more information very soon.

The extension of marriage rights to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities is a current issue around which there is significant public debate. In 2008, Proposition 8 passed in California elections, amending the state constitution to define marriage as valid only for heterosexual couples; this led to a court case questioning the federal constitutionality of that amendment. This month some Democrats in the U. S. House of Representatives have proposed legislation aimed at repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which established the federal definition of marriage as being “between one man and one woman.” Inspired by a conversation in class after Proposition 8 passed, I began to think about how a community-based theatre project might help us discuss our understanding of the value of marriage as an institution: What does it mean to be married? Why does the term itself carry such weight for some people, and why do some find it important to reserve that term for straight couples? How is marriage generally represented in dramatic literature, film, etc.? What are different cultural perspectives on marriage and weddings?

In order to approach these issues, we are planning to begin working on a community-based theatre project this fall, to be performed as a Studio Theatre production at UofL in Spring 2010. We envision the final project to be a performance that combines scenes about marriage from dramatic literature, interviews with community members, and other types of research (historical, economic, sociological, etc.) into the cultural significance of marriage throughout history and around the world. You might think of this as a sort of live and local version of programs like “This American Life” or “Radiolab,” but which includes theatrical evidence along with documentary evidence.

Right now we are seeking two groups of people.

First, we need four or five more performers who are interested in being part of the ensemble that will be building and performing the piece. This semester, these people will meet around once a week for an hour or two, depending on participants’ schedules. Responsibilities will include:
• commitment to attending all meetings;
• collecting and discussing material;
• conducting outside research and interviews;
• collaborating to shape the material into a performance.

In the spring, the group will have a regular rehearsal schedule for four or five weeks leading up to production.

Second, we need a group of people from the UofL and Louisville communities who are interested in participating in a public discussion on the general topic of marriage. Although participants should understand that the producers of the project are in favor of extending marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples, we hope to gather people across lines of difference to join this group. We are interested in working with people who span different political perspectives, religious beliefs, ages, genders, races, nationalities, sexualities, occupations and economic backgrounds. Participants should be able to commit to one or more of the following:
• Attending public readings of scenes and other materials on the topic of marriage and actively participating in a discussion of what is read;
• Being interviewed by performers and giving feedback on how the interview material is used in the final performance, or helping us find people whom we might interview;
• Attending and observing (at minimum) one or two rehearsals in the spring, and offering feedback;
• Participating in written conversations about the cultural value of marriage and about the process of building and rehearsing this project on a public blog.

While the ultimate outcome of this project will be a live stage performance, our interest is in engaging as many people as possible in ongoing arts-based civic dialogue about the cultural value of marriage, with the hope that the process of conversation will yield greater understanding of the different perspectives people have on this complex issue.

If you'd like to comment or participate but don't feel comfortable doing so publicly, we'd be glad for you to send us a private email through this blog.

Thank you again for your interest, and look for much more here soon!