Talk (play)
Encyclopedia
Talk is an Obie
award winning play written by Carl Hancock Rux
, first produced at the Joseph Papp
Public Theater New York Shakespeare Festival
in 2002. The play parodies a panel discussion, regarding the identity of an enigmatic (fictional) writer named Archer Aymes decades after his death, formed to debate Aymes's life and work. The play is influenced by Euripides' play The Bacchae, held in the ruins of a museum of Greek antiquities, and has characters inspired by the Socratic dialogue
s (Phaedo
, Crito
, Meno
, Apollodoros, and Ion
) written by Plato
, which attempts to determine the definition of virtue and the meaning of art.
TALK also delves heavily in theoretical arguments regarding the likes of André Breton
, Clay Felker
, Mark Van Doren
, Jonas Mekas
, James Baldwin
, Wayne Shorter
, Jack Kerouac
, Maya Deren
and Robert Giroux
(among others) with film clips from an alleged unfinished film by the author, shown and narrated by one of his collaborators.
Early in the play, a woman (Apollodoros) exhibits to the audience ancient Greek amphora painted with scenes from The Bacchae
, introduces the architectural history of the play's setting (theMuseum of Antiquities) and alludes to the death of an unidentified woman some years earlier. The Moderator proceeds to read an excerpt from Mother and Son, a "novel by Archer Aymes", then welcomes the audience into the "curios room of forgetting what had been remembered" (both a complaint about forgetfulness, since the play revolves remembering a forgotten artist, and a call to action that requires letting go of moribund or memorialized Truths). Introducing five invited panelists, and one uninvited guest (Apollodoros) who unexpectedly insists she be included as a participant in the conference (even though she elects to sit apart from the others), quietly observing and occasionally interrupting it with remarks of intentional ambiguity as she serves food and wine. In the course of the play, the audience learns Archer Aymes became an overnight literary sensation for his first book, Mother and Son during in the age of the Beat poets and the McCarthy era. Ten years later he was found dead in a prison cell. TALK premiered at the Joseph Papp Public Theater (co-produced by the Foundry Theater) directed by Marion McClinton
starring Reg E. Cathey, James Himelsbach, Karen Kandel, Anthony Mackie
, John Seitz and Maria Tucci.
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
award winning play written by Carl Hancock Rux
Carl Hancock Rux
Carl Hancock Rux is an award winning writer and performer; former Head of the MFA Writing for Performance Program at the California Institute of the Arts and has taught or been in residence at University of California–San Diego, Stanford University, University of Massachusetts Amherst,...
, first produced at the Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
Public Theater New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
in 2002. The play parodies a panel discussion, regarding the identity of an enigmatic (fictional) writer named Archer Aymes decades after his death, formed to debate Aymes's life and work. The play is influenced by Euripides' play The Bacchae, held in the ruins of a museum of Greek antiquities, and has characters inspired by the Socratic dialogue
Socratic dialogue
Socratic dialogue is a genre of prose literary works developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC, preserved today in the dialogues of Plato and the Socratic works of Xenophon - either dramatic or narrative - in which characters discuss moral and philosophical problems, illustrating a...
s (Phaedo
Phaedo
Plato's Phaedo is one of the great dialogues of his middle period, along with the Republic and the Symposium. The Phaedo, which depicts the death of Socrates, is also Plato's seventh and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days .In the dialogue, Socrates...
, Crito
Crito
Crito is a short but important dialogue by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It is a conversation between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito regarding justice , injustice , and the appropriate response to injustice. Socrates thinks that injustice may not be answered with injustice, and...
, Meno
Meno
Meno is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. It attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning virtue in general, rather than particular virtues, such as justice or temperance. The first part of the work is written in the Socratic dialectical style and Meno is reduced to...
, Apollodoros, and Ion
Ion
An ion is an atom or molecule in which the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons, giving it a net positive or negative electrical charge. The name was given by physicist Michael Faraday for the substances that allow a current to pass between electrodes in a...
) written by Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, which attempts to determine the definition of virtue and the meaning of art.
TALK also delves heavily in theoretical arguments regarding the likes of André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, Clay Felker
Clay Felker
Clay Schuette Felker was an American magazine editor and journalist who founded New York Magazine in 1968. He was known for bringing large numbers of journalists into the profession...
, Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...
, Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.-Biography:...
, James Baldwin
James Baldwin
James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist and civil rights activist.James Baldwin may also refer to:-Writers:*James Baldwin , American educator, writer and administrator...
, Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
, Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, Maya Deren
Maya Deren
Maya Deren , born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s...
and Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux was an influential American book editor and publisher. Starting his editing career with Harcourt, Brace & Co., he was hired away to work for Roger W. Straus, Jr. at Farrar & Straus in 1955, where he became a partner and, eventually, its chairman...
(among others) with film clips from an alleged unfinished film by the author, shown and narrated by one of his collaborators.
Early in the play, a woman (Apollodoros) exhibits to the audience ancient Greek amphora painted with scenes from The Bacchae
The Bacchae
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides, during his final years in Macedon, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which...
, introduces the architectural history of the play's setting (theMuseum of Antiquities) and alludes to the death of an unidentified woman some years earlier. The Moderator proceeds to read an excerpt from Mother and Son, a "novel by Archer Aymes", then welcomes the audience into the "curios room of forgetting what had been remembered" (both a complaint about forgetfulness, since the play revolves remembering a forgotten artist, and a call to action that requires letting go of moribund or memorialized Truths). Introducing five invited panelists, and one uninvited guest (Apollodoros) who unexpectedly insists she be included as a participant in the conference (even though she elects to sit apart from the others), quietly observing and occasionally interrupting it with remarks of intentional ambiguity as she serves food and wine. In the course of the play, the audience learns Archer Aymes became an overnight literary sensation for his first book, Mother and Son during in the age of the Beat poets and the McCarthy era. Ten years later he was found dead in a prison cell. TALK premiered at the Joseph Papp Public Theater (co-produced by the Foundry Theater) directed by Marion McClinton
Marion McClinton
Marion McClinton is a theatre director and playwright. He was nominated for the Tony Award for King Hedley II. He won the 2000 Vivian Robinson Audelco Black Theatre Awards, Director/Dramatic Production and the 1999–2000 Obie Awards, Direction, for Jitney, and was nominated for the Drama Desk...
starring Reg E. Cathey, James Himelsbach, Karen Kandel, Anthony Mackie
Anthony Mackie
Anthony Mackie is an American actor. He has been featured in feature films, television series and Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Drowning Crow, McReele, A Soldier's Play, and Talk, by Carl Hancock Rux, for which he won an Obie Award in 2002.In 2002 he featured...
, John Seitz and Maria Tucci.