Act one-
So Act 1 in our show is a memorial service
Is 2 memorial services, actually.
In Mollala, a 78 year old man named George died in 1980.
He was born in 1902 in Mollala and lived his whole life there.
He saw 4 major American wars, the transition from horses to cars; he lived through the introduction of radio, television and phones in every household.
He didn’t go to college; his life/work had some connection to the land.
He had children, and grandchildren and knew many people. He wasn’t necessarily beloved, but he was fairly respected. He died suddenly.
He had, without anyone knowing, been working in his later years a scrapbook of sorts; a history of Mollala. It was filled with three sorts of entries- newspaper clippings, journal entries about eras and changing times, and lore he collected from folks over coffee and at work about key moments or stories in Mollala’s history. The book was found amidst his things when he died.
At this memorial service, called by a family member or friend (I’m not sure who, called it, and to be clear, its not a funeral- that was a few weeks before), people will stand and eulogize him. And, people will read from this book. We will, at this 30 minute service, learn about him as we meet his family and friends, and we’ll learn about the place, Mollala, through this book.
We, the Sojourn team, will acknowledge our participation here- we will treat this man as a real man, and we will, as ourselves, tell our audience that we researched him, and that we are recreating, before their eyes an actual memorial service from 1980. (we will also somehow, with playfulness and perhaps some strategy I’ve not yet figured, gentlymake clear that this is all a fiction- that the woman wasn’t real, but we are using this fiction- asking everyone in the room to agree to go on the trip with us)…so in this act, we will be us, be the characters we are playing, and we will ask audience members to help us by playing some of the memorial attendees and we will ask several of them to read aloud entries from the ‘book’.
In Portland, an 82 year old woman named Bess died in 1980.
She was born in 1898 in St Louis and moved with her family to Portland in 1908 when her father wanted to take a chance on a new industry and the American Dream.
She saw, in addition to 4 major American wars, the transition from horses to cars; and the introduction of radio, television and phones in every household- she saw Portland change from a frontier city over the course of her life to a town eclipsed by seattle and san fran all the way to being on its way to growing as her life ended…
She didn’t go to college; her faith was important to her( don’t know what it was, but this memorial service is in a church).
She had 3 children; a fourth died in childbirth. Her life had its share of tragedy- She was in love with a boy who died in WW1. Her husband died in WW2- she remained a widow and unmarried the rest of her life. Her oldest son was injured in the Korean war and died of alcoholism in the early 60s…her other children, a son and daughter, gave her grandchildren. One of those children has lived East for a long time; one is who she lived with in her final years in NE Poartland. She was beloved in her community- active, loving and very present.
And, she loved Portland.
She had, without anyone knowing, been working in her later years on a scrapbook of sorts; a history of Portland. It was filled with three sorts of entries- newspaper clippings, journal entries about eras and changing times, and lore she collected from folks over coffee and at church about key moments or stories in Portland’s history. The book was found amidst her things when she died.
At this memorial service, called by a family member or friend (I’m not sure who, called it, and to be clear, its not a funeral- that was a few weeks before), people will stand and eulogize her. And, people will read from this book. We will, at this 30 minute service, learn about her as we meet her family and friends, and we’ll learn about the place, Portland, through this book.
We, the Sojourn team, will acknowledge our participation here- we will treat this woman as a real woman, and we will, as ourselves, tell our audience that we researched her, and that we are recreating, before their eyes an actual memorial service from 1980. (we will also somehow, with playfulness and perhaps some strategy I’ve not yet figured, gently make clear that this is all a fiction- that the woman wasn’t real, but we are using this fiction- asking everyone in the room to agree to go on the trip with us)…so in this act, we will be us, be the characters we are playing, and we will ask audience members to help us by playing some of the memorial attendees and we will ask several of them to read aloud entries from the ‘book’.
So
HERE IS TODAY’S PROMPT-
TO ALL OF YOU READING THIS, FOR THE COMMENT SECTION
PLEASE THINK/IMAGINE AND REPLY-
Fill in some story.
Who are the family members at these services?
Who are the friends?
Who feels what?
Who is broken up?
Who is funny?
Who is angry?
Who has a secret?
What points of view are represented at the services…?
I invite you to daydream/imagine fun story ideas for this act 1
And I invite you to cast yourselves in this exercise…
Right now, here’s what we know
In George’s world
In Mollala
Our cast is Jono, Ty, Rebecca & Nikki
Plus one or two interns and possibly some other special guests
In Bess’s world,
In Portland
Our cast is Hannah, Courtney, James and Joel
Plus one or two interns and possibly some other special guests
You can see, small casts for running an event with 45 people in the audience and lots of story/info to share.
Much of this we will work on together, believe me.
But as you can tell, with the info I’m providing here, you can put story, fact, history proposals and characters into the mix now, and I may write it in as we foundational stuff…if we get one idea that I end up moving forward with, out of your responses here, that’s a good thing…its all about building our world and event.
Spend some energy imagining and thinking…
Even fill in some of the story details in the George and Bess narratives i left open...
I look forward to your thoughts
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So, first off I am attaching my Uncle's eugulogy. He lived in Portland, OR for most of his life. He was a hard worker who never missed a day of work in his entire life. I was instantly reminded of him when I read the character of "George."
ReplyDeleteJack Leroy Leonard was born on June 6, 1920, to George and Ruth Leonard in Cedar Vale, Kansas.
When Jack was 12 years old, his family packed up all their belongings and made the trip across the country in their Model-T and a trailer, and settled in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Jack went to school in a one-room schoolhouse in the Fruitdale area, then went to high school at Grants Pass High School. Upon graduation, he went to a trade school in Alhambra, California to specialize in welding.
He joined the US Army in 1942. He specialized in tank maintenance, and saw action in World War II at North Africa and Italy. He received several medals for his bravery and was honorably discharged in November 1945.
He returned home and married Marie Darneille on November 30, 1946. They had four children, Kenneth in 1949, Adele in 1952, Michael in 1953, and Steven in 1955.
Over the years, Jack worked as a logger, a miner in the chrome mines, prospected for uranium for the
Atomic Energy Commission, and was a gold prospector.
In 1954, Jack and Marie moved their family to Portland, Oregon, bought a house in Southeast Portland and remain there to this day. Jack started working for Gunderson Brothers as a welder in 1953, worked up to Marine Superintendent, and retired in 1981.
Jack enjoyed camping, hunting and fishing with his family and friends, and lapidary work with rocks he and the family found in their travels. He loved reading western novels and other books, and his favorite authors were Louie L’amour and Jean Auel.
Jack will be greatly missed for his puckish sense of humor, his honesty and his quiet love for his family.
I wrote some ideas I had for both characters:
Geoge:
Who are the family members? A daughter, a son, and grandkids
Friends: An old coworker who talks about his dry,subtle sense of humor.
Who feels what? I imagined the son to be a reserved, stoic business man. The daughter to be slightly teary-eyed, and the grandchildren to be respectful but not overly emotional.
Who is broken up? Possibly the daughter
Who is funny? I imagined the coworker telling humorous stories about work
Who is angry? The son, I imagine him to be angry towards the father who never took time for his children, who was never there. They never took vacations. George had such a strong work ethic and was so serious that he never made time for fun.
Who has a secret? The son, I am not sure what though.
What points of view are represented? The son who is very serious and hardened. The daughter who is slightly sentimental. The coworker who talks about "The man" George was and the humorous things they did at work.
Bess:
ReplyDeleteI thought of Bess as being in a mentoring program like Big Brother/Big Sister and having the adult who was mentored by her talk during the funeral. I also imagined her as having a very high social status, well traveled, and someone who volunteered a lot.
Who are the family members? She has two living grandchildren in the East from a son who she never sees, and a daughter in Portland.
Who are the friends? I see her as having tons of friends from charities shes involved in, volunteering, her community, and her church.
Who feels what? I imagine that only her daughter from NE Portland comes. She is single, does not have any kids, and her mother was her life.
Who is broken up? Definitely her daughter
Who is funny? I see the pastor telling humorous stories throughout the service about her sense of humor, and her large heart.
Who is angry? Her son, I imagine him being angry that she spent her life helping others and traveling for charity but never making the effort to visit her Grandchildren often enough.
Who has a secret? her daughter
What points of view are represented in the service? Her daughter- one of love, respect, sadness. The girl whom she mentored- one of high respect, she believes that Bess sent her in the right direction and made her a successful business woman.
wow. this looks real good.
ReplyDeleteim glad to see that we're acknowledging the fiction of it all in some way- i think that will help people play with us. (asking folks to participate in the "research" we've done on George and Bess' life and death might be ethically complicated without admitting we're storytelling).
interesting that george is 80 in 1980- i suppose this means he saw 4 major wars, but never was quite the right age to serve... maybe that means he barely left molalla in his life. this makes him both a complicated and ideal mollala historian- knows the place thru and thru but maybe has little perspective from the outside.
my major question right now- why does he start making the scrapbook? is there a way for this process to have begun as a child, so we can trace him all the way back to 1902? maybe collected something his whole life? something that carries some mollala-history? maybe he delivered newspapers and kept favorite articles? general store signs? wedding and funeral announcements? maybe he used to sketch?
or, does he begin this process to leave some legacy behind?
same questions for bess...
more later, excited now.
Great stuff here. Lots of room to build and deepen the characters, as well as the stories they/we want to tell. My Dad, from small town, Massachusetts, born 1907, started writing what he thought of as a book in his 70's. He wrote about his experiences over the startling changes of horse to car to plane to space travel. Like George, no one but his immediate family (me) ever knew of this material. Like George, it remains amongst the papers he left when he died. Why did he do start writing? Because he couldn't help himself. He was overwhelmed with what I might call the cognitive dissonance of memories of stage coach travel to get to his grandfather's farm in up state New York for summer vacations with the news of events happening all around the nation and planet that confronted him daily in the 1980's. His daily living context remained very much defined by his small town life, yet he was daily presented with events he could only barely imagine (walking on the moon, atomic energy providing electricity to his stove, video imagery of war and other social cataclysm happening all over the planet). He became increasingly bewildered by the challenge to comprehend. His response was to write. (He wasn't very good at writing, unfortunately, yet his efforts reveal the disorientation he was experiencing almost by the very ramble and elliptical referencing he does get on paper.)
ReplyDeleteI did Bess' service, just because that's the cast i'm in....i had fun with this, don't know how much of it is likely/possible, but i hope it gives MR some creative fuel.
ReplyDeleteWho are the family members at these services?
son, Percy, 42 and his wife of 18 years, Annabelle, 39. they live in the suburbs of boston, ma with their three children, fraternal twins Jessie and Jim, 16, and Avery, 10. Percy is an advertising exec and commutes to the city. Annabelle writes children’s books and is working on a novel.
daughter, Ava, 39, and her partner Sheldon, 51. they have been together 10 years. Sheldon is a dentist with a practice in NE Portland, and Ava is a cellist. they adopted son from vietnam, Ike, 5. Sheldon has two teenage children from a previous marriage. Bess lived with them until her death.
Who are the friends?
Arthur, a man in his late 70s, who met Bess at church in their later years. They may have been lovers.
Who is broken up? Bess’ caregiver, Alvina, 52.
Who is funny? Sheldon is a crack up. It is sometimes inappropriately timed.
Who is angry? Ava is resentful that Percy took no responsibility for their mother’s care, and simply sent checks. Percy has no idea she’s angry, but until Bess died, Percy and Ava hadn’t spoken in 6 months.
Who has a secret? Bess called Percy a week before her death. She hadn’t been able to remember his number in years, but somehow she did one day, and she told him something he almost can’t believe. He doesn’t know whether to chalk it up to dementia and let it go, or to tell Ava. He knows she would be destroyed if she knew he or Bess knew about it.
What points of view are represented at the services…?
-differing and maybe surprising views on death/mortality from religious and secular attendees
Character Idea One. Preacher at the service. Philip Peterson. Idealistic, long hair, folk singing, perhaps far more liberal then his congregation. Working hard on social justice issues. Bess was instrumental in him establishing any credibility with the older and more conservative congregation. Bess was a dear friend of his own grandmother and he grew up visiting their family home nearly daily. He was best friends with her grandson, Robert. Robert was a serious Vietnam protester and Philip and Roberts friendship ended due to this difference of opinion. Philip volunteered for service. Just like his father and grandfather. He is deeply saddened by Bess' death.
ReplyDeleteHe is a bit bewildered by the Regan Revolution. He served in late Vietnam War as clergy. Some experience in combat environment but mostly offered counseling and support at Portland VA. He is trying to distance himself from that work as of late because it is bring up too much of his own unresolved issues about the war. He still offers a Men's bible study group that is mostly veterans. It is highly valued by the small group that attends. Perhaps he has is now dating Bess's recently divorced granddaughter Hallie? She has returned to Portland after living out east. Secret is she is pregnant.
Thoughts from the sound guy:
ReplyDeleteHalfway through the eulogy, I'd like some kind of long-lost son/daughter/sister/brother figure to show up. Not to turn everything on its head, but to offer up unexpected personal details from a perspective that nobody else shared. (Child from previous marriage, former business partner, someone who served with/under George in a war, etc.) Subsequent eulogizers could react to these details, maybe acknowledge how their pre-written stories take on a new light.
For example: Bess' lifelong friend has been a banker in Portland since forever. On October 28, 1929, this friend comes to Bess with insider information & tells her to liquefy and withdraw her whole family's savings, or everything will be wiped out. Bess declines on moral/religious grounds & never speaks of it to anyone. Banker tells story as part of eulogy, to highlight Bess' faith & moral character. Natural drama as family members react to this news in a variety of ways.
It would be cool if the respective scrapbooks had significant organizational themes/morals. Like, every story in Bess' scrapbook comes back to her faith and the glory of God, whereas every story in George's comes back to self-reliance, or family, or whatever his main focus is.
Maybe George was a codebreaker during WWII, then came home and got really into the related aspects of farming: breeding for traits, breaking the "codes" of weather & environment to maximize crop yields, etc. Something to show that urban/rural is just the presentation layer, while the underlying human beliefs and desires are universal & can be transposed (with varying degrees of success) into either lifestyle.
Maybe that doesn't fit at all.
The story will require some broad strokes, to emphasize theme, but here's a partial list of cliches I've written down for myself, to avoid (or at least be aware of) while brainstorming this piece:
- Red/Blue Strawmen: Pastoral noble savage vs. urban ice queen. Peaceful NASCAR Christians vs. stressed out latte-sipping Athiests.
- Lazy Character Inversion: "It turns out he was the opposite of who we thought he was! And so was she!"
- Deathbed Redemption.
I realize I've already committed some of these, but it's probably good to put them on the table, just to make sure we're not going too overboard with any one trope.
Great ideas so far, friends!
ReplyDeleteOne simple thing I'm wondering about is why these memorial services are happening apart from funerals which took place days or weeks before? Who has organized them and why didn't these stories get told when everyone was gathered the first time? Were the initial funerals family affairs? Are these events organized by friends or family who didn't feel appropriate sharing shortly after death? Were they boxed out by family? Is it customary within the two communities to have events like this for public mourning?
Or, is the discovery of these scrapbooks the reason for everyone coming together again? Did a child of each parent find the scrapbooks as they were cleaning out the remnants of the lives and decide to organize a gathering around them? Are there big mysteries to uncover in the scrapbooks?
Very exciting!
ReplyDeleteHannah, I had the same thought about the memorial service vs. the preceding funeral. It seems to me that the memorial service would be called by a person or group outside of the family that wanted to give the gesture of memorializing him/her in a special way separate from the (obligatory) planned funeral service. We know that Bess is beloved in her community - and active so maybe one of the groups or charities she is involved in calls her service.
It's interesting to me that George is not necessarily beloved in Molalla... I imagine him as a stoic, quiet member of the community, a part of the architecture of the town in a way... perhaps he kept to himself but has a lot going on under the surface (the scrapbook as one view into that).
What makes George this way?
What's his secret?
Did the girl he loved as a young boy marry someone else, is she at the memorial service?
What is his relationship to place... did he ever want to leave Molalla or was he content and tied to it in a deep way? Or some combination of both?
Are his kids who left coming back to realize deeper things about the community they left behind?
Bess seems to me that she took her pain and loss and poured it back into her community... at the memorial there is someone she helped once and never took credit for it. Someone else tells a ridiculous story when she made someone laugh when they most needed it...
I see children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews - but I see the memorial service being driven by friends and community members with family members also learning, for the first time, details about George/Bess they never knew. I imagine someone who has known George/Bess since they were schoolchildren together telling an old story. I've been thinking too about humor during mourning. The moments we laugh during grief because we learn something new about this person or because we share in similar experience of that person.
I echo Nikki about the transparency of fiction vs. nonfiction and the invitation to participate in this memorial. I am excited to see how we create the intimacy that is felt during memorials like this involving our audiences who have no information about these characters prior.
I've been excited about the scrapbook and started digging around a little bit to get a feel for what Molalla and Portland were like around 1902...
I found out that there was a daily newspaper called the "Oregon Daily Journal" that was published from 1902-1972 (almost the exact years of their lives in Oregon!). (And, it's available to be checked out at the Oregon Historical Society Library in Portland... could there be interesting scrapbook source material there??)
Also, the first library in Portland was established in 1902 - so when Bess moved there in 1908 is was just developing community-centered momentum.
I also found an interesting blog called the Pauling Blog (centered around chemist Linus Pauling), with some stories of that early-century period. It also talks about a town Condon, around that time - which from my internet digging looks comparable in size and rural placing to Molalla. It's fun to look at the images: photos, checks, marriage licenses, etc from their lives (some of the links are embedded).
Here are a few links:
"Pauline Darling Pauling Stockton Ney Dunbar Emmett, 1902-2003" http://paulingblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/pauline-pauling-1902-2003/
"Ava Helen in Oregon"
http://paulingblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/ava-helen-in-oregon/
"Checking In On Condon"
http://paulingblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/checking-in-on-condon/
Oregon also celebrated 150 years of statehood last year and did an Oregon 150 series with interviews of people's stories of Oregon. Some talk about family members arriving on the Oregon Trail or other anecdotes of past times - interesting to think about what the lives of George/Bess were like through these:
http://www.oregon150.org/category/stories/page/3/
James Mapes said...
ReplyDeleteIt feels important to me that George and Bess don't exist in isolation; having them be long-lost relatives themselves may or may not (probably not) be a good idea, but laying some ground work for later aspects of the show could be interesting. Does Bess own property just over the line in Molalla, or did George try living in Portland for a little while (when he was first married...?) before realizing what he was missing in Molalla? Maybe just they each took a vacation to the other location as a child, and the experience stuck with them. The first time Bess swam in a stream or walked through a forest happened to be in Molalla... (might not be realistic for a native Portlander, though you'd be surprised).
Or maybe George had a mistress in Portland. Secrets?
I don't know, but there's a lot of groundwork that can be laid.
Love all these ideas. Inspiring!
ReplyDeleteWhat some people have suggested puts an emotional distance between George/Bess and their descendants which feels like it a) supports the notion that George/Bess were reserved enough to privately make a scrapbook and b) puts the audience alongside the family members if this is the first time they learn about their ancestors. Seems like that keeps the stakes high given the descendants' fresh reactions.
Maybe there's one descendant who insists upon all of the descendants coming to a memorial service after all of the descendants (for reasons ranging from the selfish to understandable) didn't show for the funeral. Maybe this descendant insinuates to the others who need to be convinced that there's money coming their way.
(Ex: She tells a too-busy-for-ancestry grandchild named Chet that he's earning inheritance from the will and should at least make an appearance. (As Dave suggested) "Grandma Bess was offered insider information just before the crash, you know." Chet is convinced that Grandma Bess had a pile of money under a mattress. Guilted into attending, he soon learns that she declined the insider information and lost it all like everyone else. Chet learns a lesson, etc.)
Also, this doesn't have a place in Act I and probably doesn't even fit into Act III but I just stumbled across this exploration of the darker side of Portland. It's probably not new to all folks but I hadn't heard about it. It's a contemporary issue that doesn't fit into 1980, but does seem to reflect the often-preached "danger of the city." As per Dave's list of archetypes, this stigma fuels urban-rural tension. At the end of the video, the sergeant says something that seems to highlight that divide.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-rather/pornland-oregon-child-pro_b_580035.html
Again, mostly a red herring but feels like some folks in Molalla might view this as a natural byproduct of urban settings.
one more thought on this:
ReplyDeleteIf we invite audience members to read from the scrapbooks, is there a way we could also invite them in on the creation of George and Bess’ lives? By placing them at the memorial service, we position them as friends and family of the deceased. Can we ask for a favorite memory of George /Bess at their services? Something they valued? Something that made them love Mollala/Portland? So the audience gets to tell us a bit about the culture of M/P in a playful, performative way. Maybe this would muddy the stories we already created for George and Bess… or maybe it would give us a chance to hear about the “character, the personality, the collective human spirit of M/P during each performance...