 |
|
|
 |
|
|
| Poet Yusef Komunyakaa Adapts Story of Gilgamesh (04.28.08) |
 |
|
| Tickets/Registration: 212.415.5500 |
|
| Media Contact: Emily Gewitz, 212.415.5455, email |
|
| PULITZER-WINNING POET YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA ADAPTS STORY OF MIDDLE EASTERN TYRANT KING IN THE WORLD PREMIERE OF GILGAMESH |
|
| Monday, April 28, 8:00pm (One Night Only) |
|
| Directed by ROBERT SCANLAN |
|
| Featuring: Johnny Lee Davenport, Bill Camp, Estelle Parsons |
|
| New York, NY, April, 3, 2008—Fifteen hundred years before the Greek poet Homer was born, a Mesopotamian scribe wrote The Epic of Gilgamesh on a dozen stone tablets. It told the story of a tyrannical and morally bankrupt king in the area of the world that is now Iraq (and was then the Mesopotamian kingdom of Uruk), his quest for immortality and his ultimate acceptance of the inevitability of death. Almost 4,600 years later and half-a-world away, this ancient story inspired Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa to adapt it for the stage at the behest of dramaturg CHAD GRACIA, who wanted to bring Gilgamesh to life for modern audiences.
On Monday, April 28, at 8:00 p.m., the 92nd Street Y Poets' Theatre presents the world premiere of Komunyakaa and Gracia's version of Gilgamesh, directed by Robert Scanlan former Literary Director of the American Repertory Theatre. The production stars Johnny Lee Davenport, Bill Camp, Estelle Parsons, Stephanie Roth-Haberle and Juliet Rylance, and features music by percussionist Billy Atwell, with an ensemble including violinist Gil Morgenstern. Gilgamesh is presented at the Y as a staged reading.This Poets' Theatre presentation is part of the 2007/08 season of literary programs presented and produced by the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased at www.92Y.org/poetry and 212.415.5500. ($10 for anyone 35 and under, subject to availability) |
|
|
| THE STORY OF GILGAMESH |
|
| The Epic of Gilgamesh is the story of a tyrannical king whose corrupt reign has led his subjects to pray for heavenly intervention on their behalf. Relief comes in the form of a man-beast named Enkidu, who forces Gilgamesh to change his ways and wins the king's everlasting friendship. Together, they journey into the forest to battle a ferocious enemy, and the fight leaves Enkidu mortally wounded. This is a huge blow for Gilgamesh, and propels him to journey into the netherworld in search of immortality; he does not want to accept death as a fact of life. Ultimately, Gilgamesh comes to understand the fragility of human life and the finality of death. For Gracia, this is why Gilgamesh continues to be a powerful narrative. "Human personality and culture," he says, "have always been deeply informed by an unconscious terror of mortality. The subject matter here is timeless." |
|
|
| THE EVOLUTION OF GILGAMESH AS THEATER |
|
As a dramaturg (literally a "story consultant" for playwrights), Gracia saw theatrical potential in Gilgamesh, with its psychological themes of mortality, loyalty and transformation. He approached Yusef Komunyakaa to write the text, convinced that the poet was perfectly suited to write a staged version of Gilgamesh. "His work," says Gracia, "is infused with deep longing and a sharp awareness of mortality, and those are some of the text's most poignant themes."
Komunyakaa, in turn, was immediately drawn to the Gilgamesh project. "It is a story that bridges time," says Komunyakaa, "and even challenges the concept of time, bringing with it an echo of the past, present, and future." He was attracted to the prospect of re-creating the epic with a fresh eye. "Given the numerous translations of this epic, I had hoped to create a contemporary setting...Gilgamesh is forced to accept the reality of his own mortality, and this knowledge is what humanizes him and situates him in the present." |
|
|
| ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM |
|
| Chad Gracia is the former Executive Director of Inverse Theater, where he acted as producer and dramaturg to the award winning playwright Kirk Wood Bromley. His Inverse productions, which were lauded by the NY Times and The New Yorker, include the 2002 winner of Best of Fringe, The American Revolution; Midnight Brainwash Revival (directed by Joshua Spafford); and another Best of Fringe winner, the hit 2003 musical by the late Jessica Grace Wing, Lost. Gracia has also published and edited six of Mr. Bromley's verse plays and written a book on the business of acting. He is the creator of ActorTips, a weekly newsletter read by more than 30,000 actors. |
|
| Yusef Komunyakaa's numerous books of poems include Neon Vernacular, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In addition to his works of poetry, Komunyakaa wrote the libretto for Testimony, an opera based on the life and music of Charlie Parker, which premiered at the Sydney Opera House. Komunyakaa also co-edited The Jazz Poetry Anthology and co-translated The Insomnia of Fire by Nguyen Quang Thieu. His honors include the William Faulkner Prize, the Thomas Forcade Award, the Hanes Poetry Prize, fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Louisiana Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, where he served as a correspondent and managing editor of the Southern Cross. In 1999 he was elected Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Yusef Komunyakaa is currently Distinguished Senior Poet at NYU. |
|
| Robert Scanlan is Professor of the Practice of Theatre in the English Department at Harvard University. He was for many years the Literary Director of the American Repertory Theatre, where he headed the Dramaturgy Program for the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training. He directs frequently in America and abroad, winning the 1995 Boston Theatre Award for Outstanding Director. Directing credits include Julius Caesar for the Actors' Shakespeare Project (Boston), Samson Agonistes, with Claire Bloom and John Neville at the 92nd Street Y Poets' Theatre, his own stage adaptation of The Inferno of Dante in Robert Pinsky's translation, an Evening of Beckett and Beckett Trio in the A.R.T. Fall Festival, Oleanna at the Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theatre, and the world premiere of Marie Jones' The Hamster Wheel in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He has also directed premieres of several foreign-language productions, including David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow (in Polish) and Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart (in Chinese). |
|
| For photos and full biographies please contact Emily Gewitz at 212.415.5455 or egewitz@92Y.org. |
|
|
| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y UNTERBERG POETRY CENTER |
|
| For decades, the 92nd Street Y has served as a public literary salon and a place to which writers have come to hone their craft. The legendary 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center opened in 1939 with a reading by William Carlos Williams. Over the years, he was followed by virtually every great 20th century writer—Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, W.H. Auden, Jorge Luis Borges and Langston Hughes, to name but a few. Today, the Center presents readings by poets, novelists and playwrights, and talks by critics, biographers and scholars. Through its Poets' Theatre, a series that emphasizes language and the aural experience of theater, the Center produces masterfully written dramas performed by accomplished actors. The Center's extensive writing program gives working adults access to teachers who are practicing authors, a rarity outside M.F.A. programs. Community outreach programs offer high-school students access to world-famous writers and provides literary training to new immigrants through the study of literature. Young writers find support at the Center through a series that pairs them with established authors as well as through the "Discovery"/Boston Review poetry contest, for poets whose work had not yet been published. The Unterberg Poetry Center is part of the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts, endowed through the generous support of the Joan and Preston Robert Tisch family. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/poetry. |
|
|
| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y |
|
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y's mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit in person each year as well as those who visit virtually, through the Y's satellite, television, radio and Internet broadcasts. The organization offers comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, the arts, personal development and Jewish culture; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards nearly $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 7,000 public school children through subsidized arts education programs. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
© 2008 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association
All Rights Reserved. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
