Discussion
Re: Fen is flawless
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Dear Sagan,
As a produced playwright (The Story of Deborah, FemFest 2004, Sarasvati Productions) and graduate of the University of Winnipeg Theatre and Film Department, winning the Gold Medal in 2006, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on the review that you just posted of the play Fen.
I find your review slipshod and uninformed. It shows a lack of insight into art, culture and history.
Caryl Churchill wrote her plays in the 1970s. Assuming that a playwright’s works reference the time in which he or she is actually alive, we should take _Fen_ to be some kind of metaphor for the 1970s in England. What exactly do you know about the 1970s in England? You don’t even mention the mere fact of its chronology, much less any _political_ events that would have informed her work. Do you think artists just develop their work in some kind of solipsistic vacuum?
Honest art holds up a mirror to the world we live in, illuminating, examining, but never preaching. Dishonest art is propaganda - telling us how to live, and what to do. Additionally, there are two kinds of “angles” in art: art that celebrates a culture and art that critiques a society. Fen is an example of the latter, a play designed to have society take a good, long, hard look at itself and fix its problems pronto.
Do you think that a world-class theatre company would really put on a show that hammered in “the inescapability of society”? What would be the purpose, to have us all go running to hang ourselves? I don’t know about your experiences, but I have not had such a good time in WInnipeg lately. It’s hard to get a job, I notice that more and more ““signs” and various methods of controlling crowds are popping up here and there, and that people are generally freaked out - you can witness this merely by looking at the material disarray on campus. A person at Diversity Food Services told me that they’ve started charging for the honey dill sauce because people are spilling it everywhere. Have you noticed that there are posters and pamphlets that are out of date everywhere, that there is graffiti scrawled in all the bathroom stalls, or anything besides your supposed “studies” or whatever “job” you are working? We’re living in a society in crisis - at least that’s my impression.
And what do you even _mean_ when you say “society”? You use the term in such a blanket fashion, with such an obvious air of authority without any erudition, that I find it very hard to believe that you’ve actually done more than consider how to write a mock review. Have you studied any history or sociology, or just “journalism”?
Clearly _Fen_ deeply disturbed you, and your only way of staying safe from the issues it raised is to retreat into socially comfortable platitudes. The play was so disturbing that I had trouble sitting through it, and one would think, logically, that as a playwright I would “enjoy” it just - well, just BECAUSE, I suppose, of some definition people have in their heads about what “art” is supposed to be or do to us. I actually had to force myself to stay, it was so uncomfortable.
Consider the true horror of the story. A woman was killed with an axe on stage, by her wonderful, loving boyfriend. She was bleeding heavily, bright, crimson red, the blood spilled onto one of the platforms, and then he had to put her body in the closet. In what kind of society would a man kill the woman he _loves_ and have nowhere else to put her but a closet?
You see that repeatedly she runs back and forth between her “nuclear” family and the good, kind man who loves her, torn between two amazing little girls (I see that you at least noticed their wonderful performances, particularly Jane Burpee’s) whose father is surly and unkind and a man who is wonderful but to whom custody of those children would never be granted.
The question that comes to _my_ mind is this: What kind of a society won’t give a woman custody of her own children if her husband is abusive? And _why_?
Is it because she is just a “woman tenant farmer”? Consider that point. She toils all day, her whole life, in a field that someone else owns. It is abundantly clear from the text that it does not matter who owns the field next: like her mother before her, she will be working it.
Hold on a moment. Has there ever even _been_ a society where most of the tenant farmers are women? I just don’t even know. Perhaps _Fen_ is even, say, science fiction.
Let’s consider how _Fen_ might apply to society in 2010. Translate “woman tenant farmer” into, say, a woman wage earner in any field. She is forced to slave all day, for less than she is worth, in an environment of heirarchy where she has fewer opportunities and far less power than men - but perhaps people who live in an ahistorical bubble, as you seem to be at the moment, will fail to recognize these basic facts about our society.
Or perhaps the play moved you so deeply that on some profound level you will now understand the suffering of persons deemed women in this culture, and will write another, better review to replace this one. For a starting point, I refer you to the works of Germaine Greer, who said that a person is not born, but made, feminine. I am sure someone in the Sociology Department can help you out.
It is a crying shame that the Uniter does not seem to have an Arts and Culture Editor, or if they do, this individual must be in a deep coma at the moment. I hope that Mouseland Press will fix this problem ASAP in order to ensure a high quality newspaper.Sincerely,
Sara Arenson
Winnipeg– Sara Arenson in Winnipeg | February 4th 2010 at 12:46pm | Link
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Ms. Arenson, you clearly know as much about theatre reviewing as you think Sagan knows about Caryl Churchill. Those who do it are not mandated to deconstruct the social and political events within the show’s setting. By providing her opinion of the acting, the direction, the design, and the general themes, Sagan did her job and did it well, especially compared to the meandering rant you posted here. If her perspective differs from yours and that perspective gets published, it is not occasion to insult her, Sam Hagenlocher, or this newspaper.
– Jess C. in Winnipeg, MB | February 4th 2010 at 3:37pm | Link
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Sara Arenson,
Get off your high horse! This play was baased on true experiences of women living in the Fenlands in England. Actual statement were taken and some of them included in the play. Read up on it before you write and make yourself sound rediculous.
– Lyle Bauer in ??? | February 14th 2010 at 1:01pm | Link
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Sara Arenson
Conveying the unique sound of a grating whine though aimless, disjointed prose is a difficult skill, but you have certainly mastered it. I can’t find a job, life is hard, Winnipeg sucks, signs bother me, blah blah blah; the uniter discussion page is not a 15 year old’s diary. Graffiti in the bathrooms AND they’re charging for honey dill sauce, oh the end times are a-comin’. I haven’t seen the play so I can’t say exactly how wrong you are about it and Morrow’s review, but your lack of coherence, context and tact doesn’t lend much confidence in your abilities interpreter of theater. If you need to work out personal issues, scream into a pillow or something, don’t take it out on a more competent writer like Sagan Morrow. Your comment was ugly; it was pointlessly harsh and mean-spirited, confusing and often bizarre, not to mention poorly thought through and even more poorly executed.
Sagan, you wrote an excellent review; as someone who didn’t see the play I felt that I received all the necessary information in a succinct, linguistically attractive package. Keep it up.
– Kevin in Winnipeg | February 18th 2010 at 2:39am | Link
