“The story of Alceste is a love story and that’s the thing I keep coming back to,” director and actor Darin Dahms says of Alceste, written by B. Walker Sampson and produced by Theatre of NOTE. Called a “free adaptation” of Euripides’ Alcestis by its producers, this premiere production also marks the 30th anniversary of NOTE.
Darin Dahms
“It’s an untraditional love story in that it starts at the end of the relationship rather than at the beginning,” Dahms explains.
“That’s always fueled my interest in the story because it’s different. It’s not Romeo and Juliet; it’s not these young people having this affair that ends in tragedy. It’s people who have been together for a considerable amount of time, and it’s only at the moment when one of them is facing death they begin to realize how important they are to each other. And that sets us on the journey of sacrifice. We go to the underworld and are reborn to a new fresh relationship.”
EURIPIDES TO RILKE TO SAMPSON
Dahms laughs at his own description and reveals, “It’s absurd; who knows what’s supposed to happen?” Alcestis is the oldest surviving work of the Greek playwright Euripides and has often been seen as a problem play, mostly due to that untraditional love story.
“The god Apollo wanted to reward King Admetus for hospitality offered at his home, the story goes, and convinces the Fates to give him immortality. Of course, there is a catch; in this case, the King must find someone to die in his place. He asks his elderly parents, his faithful servants, but the only person who will accept the King’s fate for him is Alceste, his own wife. At the beginning of Euripides’ play, Alceste is caught between life and death.”
Lorianne Hill
Dahms discusses how he sometimes “found inspiration but not necessarily clarification [in the original text]. Sampson starts with an already obscure classical piece and then freely adapts it in every capacity. It’s in reality an absurdist play, an absurdist modern adaptation of a Euripides piece. It is very surreal, very whimsical, but you have these great sorts of epic characters…gods and monsters.”
Dahms believes that Sampson actually drew more of his inspiration from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Alcestis” — “and specifically how Rilke poetically captures some of the emotional crisis of Admetus, the king, the husband of Alceste. I think it’s that particular image in that poem the author spun off of.” Rilke’s Admetus appears to have a lot in common with Everyman, except instead of begging friends and possessions to travel to Death with him, Admetus must find a replacement:
As translated by A.S. Kline, part of the poem reads:
And yet, when it was spoken, it was greater
than all knowledge, none could grasp it.
Admetus has to die. When? This very hour.
But he broke through the shell of his terror
and stretched his hands from the fragments
outwards from them, to bargain with the god.
For years, for only one more year of youth,
for months, for weeks, for a few days,
oh, not days, for nights, for only one,
for one night, for just this one, for this.
The god refused, and then he cried out,
and cried out, and held nothing back, and cried
as his mother cried out in childbirth. -Rilke
Ezra Buzzington, Lorianne Hill, all production photography by Nick Sayaan
Just as Admetus begged for more time, so it always seems to artists if they could just bargain one more day, night, week, month, out of their rehearsal time, then the life of the play would be better. In the case of Alceste, the play was slotted for last season and Dahms chosen as the director after a series of pitch meetings:
“They [Theatre of NOTE] placed a [notice] on Big Cheap [a list serve for Los Angeles theater] looking for directors for their upcoming season. It was actually two years ago and they had quite a bit of success with another show, so this was pushed back to now, actually.
“They have kind of an elaborate interview process: you apply, then they have you come in before the Artistic Committee – they’re very committee oriented – and they decided they wanted to bring me on board. This production is dramatically different than the original pitch and for a variety of reasons. The pitch was also made two years ago. I’ve thought about it a little bit over that time, so my thoughts about it changed a little bit. From the moment you start casting, the shape of your vision starts to change, or it can, and in this case, it did dramatically.”
30 YEARS OF NOTE
Why choose Alceste to kick off NOTE’s 30th anniversary? Producer Lauren Dobbins Webb explains it “spoke to NOTE’s aesthetics and offered a new twist on a classical tale. Dahms’ vision of the play seemed to speak to the play’s strengths and complemented the text with splendid visual imagery while keeping the characters emotionally honest.”
Lauren Dobbins
Theatre of NOTE built itself on a series of Value Statements to which it remains true after 30 years with slight tweaks, even as its infrastructure changed from more traditional to more democratic — thus, the committees. The company’s website’s official history section begins:
NOTE was founded in 1981 by Kevin Carr, along with Kitty Felde, Marc Gordon, Melanie MacQueen, Heather Carr and Ted Parks as a forum for original one-act plays (NOTE stands for “New One-Act Theatre Ensemble”) and to provide a stimulating environment for new playwrights. Since its inception, NOTE has been through several transitions but the integrity of the original idea has always remained intact.
Through moves downtown, an earthquake, new artistic leadership, numerous awards and a roster of playwrights that includes Kitty Felde, Larry Kramer, Adam Szymkowicz, Christopher Kelley, Jacqueline Wright, Barbara Weichmann, Erik Patterson, among others, NOTE always seeks new ways to experiment and keep the genre of live performance as theatrical as possible.
Webb further explains how the mission and values evolved to better serve the present: “The most obvious change has been the transformation from a total focus on one-act plays to a focus on distinctive and original full-length material. In addition, our productions have become more sophisticated in their technical aspects. While we continue to try and enrich the experience of theater lovers, we have focused on trying to develop new audiences of theatergoers. In addition we do try to contribute to the community that has supported us throughout our history.
HOLDING TO VALUES AND DREAMS
NOTE’s flexibility through changing times may be the key to its ongoing place in the LA theater community. Dahms recounts how he was impressed by the work at NOTE, “There rarely seems an evening when you can’t hear a new play in the NOTEworthy reading series, or even newer voices in the Young Writers Project,” completing its eighth year. “Late nights, off nights, mainstage, an annual performance marathon: NOTE never rests on any laurels even as they celebrate critical and audience success.”
Julia Prud’homme
Webb elaborates on the plans for the 30th anniversary. “We are looking to honor our historical origins in this our 30th Anniversary Season by doing an evening of one-acts entitled The Pity of Things that will feature five one-act plays by Tommy Smith, Jason Grote, Delondra Williams, Phinny Kiyomura and Bill Robens. In addition, we are offering a look at three distinctive new plays: Shoe Story by Ben Snyder, Wonderlust by Cody Henderson and Jacqueline Wright’s latest play, Have You Seen Alice?
Dahms admits that there hasn’t been enough time for rehearsals, or for a design process versus just implementation, in the 99-seat situation – indeed, the official opening was postponed a week, until Feb. 11, for technical reasons. But Dahms holds tight to the goal of creating an experience for the audience that stays true to the basic story of love while illuminating the world of the play — which he describes as having “a nonspecific sort of dreamlike quality. It functions in the logic of dream, it takes place mostly in dreams… and there are a couple of characters who go on rather long journeys through space and time. So the initial impulse was to create this epic environment in this small space inside this little tiny black box that’s not much larger than my apartment. How did we do that? I don’t know. It’s pulling things together to create the experience for our audience.”
Alceste opens Feb. 11; plays Fri.-Sat., 8 pm Sun., 7 pm with special performances on Thur., 3/3 at 8 pm; Sun., 3/5 at 2 pm; through March 12. Tickets: $18-$22. Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood; 323.856.8611 or theatreofnote.com.
