Manhattan Experimental Theater Workshop

overview

Imagine the story of The Ugly Duckling in the hands of Antonin Artaud, Lee Breuer and Mabou Mines, Jerzy Grotowski, Rachilde and Valle-Incián, F.T. Marinetti, Harold Pinter, and Joan Schenkar. Can't do it? We did.

The 2003 MXTW company put their heads together and crafted seven original pieces for the theater under the influence of some of the 20th and 21st Century's most interesting avant garde playwrights. (And then we created one more piece under our own influence.)

target story

What you need to know about The Ugly Duckling:

Hans Christian Anderson’s The Ugly Duckling is the story of a swan born into a family of ducks. The Duckling’s mother begins to notice that something is different about him before he is even fully hatched. The fact that he takes longer to hatch than the eggs of his siblings makes the mother suspicious that his egg may actually hold a turkey rather than a duck. However, she continues to help the egg to hatch, despite a lack of support from her children’s absent father, who she describes as a “rogue.”

When the duckling is born he is ugly and large, but because he is able to swim like his siblings, his mother deduced he that he cannot be a turkey as she suspected. After teaching her children how to swim, the mother shows The Ugly Duckling and its siblings how the world works: They see two families fight over an eel head with is taken by a cat, and they also see a Spanish Duck with a red flag tied to her leg whose lofty social status is recognized by both man and beast. This Spanish Duck then mocks The Ugly Duckling fro being so ugly, but his mother defends him by saying that while her son may be ugly, he does swim better than any of his siblings.

Soon afterwards, though, The Ugly Duckling begins to be rejected by everyone around him. His siblings hate him, and even his mother wishes that he had never been born. After leaving his family, he is further humiliated when he is kicked by a little girl who feed poultry. Depressed and lonely, he tries to live with some wild ducks who say that The Ugly Duckling is so ugly that they will like him, and that they will accept him on the condition that he does not try to marry into their family. The wild ducks eventually offer to help him marry some pretty, wild geese who live elsewhere, but immediately after they make their offer the wild ducks are killed by a sportsman with the piff paff of a gun. However, The Ugly Duckling is not shot and is able to escape because he is so ugly that even the sportsman’s dog will not kill him.

After this episode he takes refuge with an old woman and her two pompous animals: a hen named Chickabiddy Shortshanks who lays amazing eggs, and an egocentric cat named Sonnie. The old woman accepts The Ugly Duckling in the hope that he will provide her with duck eggs, but sadly he cannot. Also, the can and the chicken tell him that his desire to swim is ridiculous, and so he eventually leave the old woman and her pets so that he can swim again, which he loves to do.

Upon returning to the wild he enjoys swimming but is ignored by the other animals, One day, however, while swimming, he sees a flock of swans and feels a strange sensation. He is in awe of their beauty. After spending a winter swimming on a pond to keep it from freezing, The Ugly Duckling is eventually frozen himself, but luckily is freed by a peasant. Less luckily, he is chased away by the children in the peasant’s town when they tried to play with him. Thrown out again into a harsh winter, he returns to the swans and asks them to kill him, because he is so ugly. However, on his way to the swans he sees his own image and realized that he is not a duckling at all. Rather, he is a swan. He is so happy that he does not know what to do, and he feels glad about his previous suffering because he believes it makes his current pleasures all the better.

He never meets his biological mother or father, and the reason his egg was mixed in with a family of ducks is never revealed.

reader

MXTW 2005 Reader Contents

Bibliography

F. T. Marinetti, "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" 19-24
Futurist Manifestos, Umbro Apollonio, ed. (MFA Publications, 2001 – original publication date, 1973)

Giacomo Balla, "Disconcerted States of Mind" 232
Paolo Buzzi, "The Futurist Prize" 242-43
"3nomial Voices Whirlpool Destruction" 246
Francesco Gaugiullo, "Detonation" 247
Remo Chiti, "Words" 258-59
Fortunato Depero, "Colors" 278-79
Guglielmo Jannelli & Luciano Nicastro, "Synthesis of Syntheses" 289
Futurist Performance, Michael Kirby, ed. (PAJ Publications, 1986)

Antonin Artaud, "Paul the Birds" 61-63
"Description of a Physical State" 64-65
"The Spurt of Blood" 72-76
Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings, Susan Sontag, ed. (University of California Press, 1976)

Rachilde, "Pleasure" 81-92
Rachilde: Madame la Morte and other plays, Kiki Gonnarido and Frazer Lively, trans. & ed. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)

Rachilde, "The Crystal Spider" 67-75
Ramon del Valle-Inclán, "Dream Comedy" 139-145
Doubles, Demons, & Dreams, Daniel Gerould, ed. (PAJ Publications, 1985)

Bertolt Brecht, "The Elephant Calf" 205-218
B. Brecht: Baal, A Man's a Man, & The Elephant Calf, Eric Bentley, ed. (Grove Press, Inc., 1964)

Harold Pinter, "Trouble in the Works, The Black and White" 237-243
Harold Pinter: Complete Works Two (Grove Press, Inc., 1977)
"Night, That's All, That's Your Trouble, Applicant" 223-234
Harold Pinter: Complete Works Three (Grove Press, Inc., 1977)

Ludwig Flaszen, "Akropolis: Treatment of the Text" 61-77
Towards a Poor Theatre: Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba, ed. (Routledge, 2002)

Joanne Akalaitis, "Dressed Like an Egg" 191-220
Wordplays 4 (PAJ Publications, 1984)

ntozake shange, "boogie woogie landscapes" 109-142
ntozake shange: three pieces (Penguin Books, 1982)

Ping Chong, "Kind Ness" 53-94
New Plays USA 4, James Leverett & Gillian Richards, eds. (Theatre Communications Group, 1988)

Lee Breuer, "The B. Beaver Animation" 55-71
Lee Breuer: Animations, Bonnie Maranca & Gautam Dasgupta, eds. (PAJ Publications, 1979)

Joan Schenkar, "The Universal Wolf" 203-226
Joan Schenkar: Signs of Life, Vivian Patraka, ed. (Wesleyan University Press, 1998)

Caryl Churchill, "The Skriker" 239-291
Churchill: Plays Three (Nick Hern Books, 1988)

scripts

Copyright & Permission to Reproduce

Dream Eaters' Manifesto
written by the company & staff/ performed by the company
directed by Gwethalyn
– under the influence of F. T. Marinetti

The way it ripples…
written and performed by ChloÎ, Jeremy, Chad, & Libby
directed by Jim and Chris
– under the influence of Rachilde and Valle-Inclan

Pretty / UGLee: A True Hollywood Story
written and performed by Brett B., Megh, Martha, & Simon
directed by Dawn
– under the influence of Joan Schenkar

Crude Lyrics
written and performed by Brett C., Misty, Jessi, Cory
directed by Gwethalyn
– under the influence of Jerzy Grotowski

A Body Twisting
written and performed by Flinn, Lisa, Peter, & Kevin
directed by Chris
– under the influence of Antonin Artaud

Je M'appelle Cockette
written and performed by Sophie, Chetan, Elaine, & Libby
directed by Jim and Blake
– under the influence of Lee Breuer and Mabou Mines

Shifting Refractions
written and performed by Kearsten, Polina, Amanda, Charlie
directed by Blake
– under the influence of Harold Pinter

Claws and Dirty Fluid
written by the company and staff
performed by the company
directed by Jim & the staff
-under our own influence

company

Brett Baugh
Chloe Beeman
Meghomala Chakrabarti
Kearsten Cross
Brett Currier
Polina Demina
Sophia Exdell
Ashley Flinn
Jeremy Gibson
Lisa Hamer
Misty Hinrichs
Chad Hodge
Martha Hunt
Chetan Michie
Jessi Montegue
Cory Olewnik
Peter Oviatt
Amanda Paez
Charles Sutterlin
Simon Sylvester-Chaudhuri
Kevin Terry
Elaine Tucker
Libby Uthoff
Meredith Uthoff

staff

Director: Jim Hamilton

Assistant Directors: Gwethalyn Williams, Blake Bolan, Chris Gregory, and Dawn Terry

Lighting Design: David Brown

Technical Staff: Theresa Buchheister, Sean Goin

Public Relations: Justine Hamilton

Graphic for MXTW 2003: Mike Senften