A 1930s Dramaturgy "Soiree"

The world of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit is a rather far cry from the world that we are familiar with today. As such, a dedicated portion of our dramaturgical work for this production focused on helping the creative team become more comfortable and familiar with this brief look into the 1930s.

To accomplish this, we hosted a little dramaturgical soirée in the style of a 30s dinner party as we see featured within the play itself. We invited the team to rehearsal that evening to enjoy some treats with us while learning a bit about the era that Blithe Spirit takes place in.

A group of people around a table eating and drinking.

In addition to serving food, we also had a variety of ingredients available to the members of our cast to create mocktails that they thought would be a good representation of their character. To assist everyone in the creation of these representative drinks, we gave everyone a quick rundown of the character and stereotypes associated with various spirits that are referenced in the play as well as a couple of other popular spirits of the era, and provided non-alcoholic stand-ins in the form of sodas and fruit juices for our team to experiment with. This allowed everyone the chance early on in the rehearsal process to explore their characters through a unique lens while simultaneously becoming more familiar with the world that these characters exist within.

In addition to the food and drink, we also treated our creative team to a couple of party activities that were common during the 30s. Parlor games were incredibly popular to play at gatherings such as this one, so we divided everyone into teams for a game of charades followed by a session of solving riddles – another popular form of entertainment during social events – that turned surprisingly competitive before we wrapped things up to prepare everyone for the surprise we had for the end of the evening.

To wrap up our evening of character exploration and learning more about the true spirit (pun intended) of the play, we took our creative team on a spooky walk through the halls of the old Provo High School to give everyone a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the more spooky and unsettling elements of the play. We ended our walk in a dark room near a ghostly mannequin that we, as dramaturgs, had prepared ahead of time as an inanimate guest for the conversation.

We invited everyone to think in-character and to share an experience that their character may have had that reflects their views on the more spiritualistic and supernatural elements of the script As a result, our cast ended up having quite interesting character conversations that in the end gave many members of the creative team insights into the nature of their characters that they likely would not have had otherwise.

A group of people sits in a circle in the dark around a ghostly mannequin.

A ghostly mannequin silhouetted in a bare light bulb.

At the end of the evening, our actors came together to discuss their newfound understandings, both of their respective roles within the show and of the world that they will be interacting with as part of this production. Especially with a number of the elements of this show existing outside of what many members of our LDS demographic may be more intimately familiar with, this exploratory opportunity opened the doors to a number of artistic options for our creative team further down the line in the rehearsal process.

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by Emme Corbett, dramaturg As a senior student studying history at BYU. One of the first concepts you learn as a history major is that when you study history, it is vital that you do not bring your modern-day biases with you. As strange as some past behaviors or occurrences may be to our modern eyes, understanding the reality of what life was like in historical societies allows for a more authentic and rich study of the past. It also becomes evident fairly quickly that no matter what point in time you’re studying or where you are in the world, there will be commonalities across many cultures. The shared similarity of the human experience allows these connections to occur, so it is no surprise that researching various time periods could be related back to Caesar in Ancient Rome. It was necessary in our dramaturgical research to explore three major time periods that are encompassed within this play in one way or another. These time periods are first, 49 B.C. Rome, when Julius Caesar first became a dictator of Ancient Rome, and the setting for the original script. Second, 1599 England, when William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was first performed, most likely at the Globe Theatre. And third, 1919 Italy, when Italy was recovering from participating in the First World War, and the setting for our performance at BYU. This weakened state created a situation where authoritarianism could ensue. It was an interesting experience to be able to connect the culture of Ancient Rome to that of Italy in the early 20th century. The reason for choosing this production of Julius Caesar to take place in 1919 Italy is not random. The significance of that time period is to draw upon the reality that history repeats itself. An aspect of history that is repeatedly detrimental to countless societies is when a group of people finds itself weak and vulnerable--whether that is due to lack of resources, a change in leadership, exiting a war, or simply evolving generations--and a power vacuum is created. This moment in time when desperation allows for someone to assume leadership (based purely on the need to rely on anybody) and provide temporary relief is often too quickly turned into an authoritarian government. The third time period that we also had to account for in this production was the time of Shakespeare in 1599 England. Some of the questions we had to ask ourselves were: Why Julius Caesar? What elements from the story of Caesar’s assassination did Shakespeare feel would resonate with his audience? From these questions and further research on the Elizabethan period, we discovered that, like in 1919 Italy, there was a concern with the succession to the Crown. Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne at the time and created conflict among the people beyond her just being a woman in power. Queen Elizabeth never married and subsequently never bore any children, thus failing to secure a successor who was in her direct line. Another element of the play that related to Shakespeare’s audience was the role of the plebeians. Their behavior in the play could symbolize how the lower class in the Elizabethan Era, while uneducated and changeable, contribute largely to the success of their society.

A 1930s Dramaturgy "Soiree"

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