Letters to Maud (from Shyamala and Babli)- Babli's edits

SHYAMALA'S LETTER

May 8, 1915/2019

Dear Maud,

You look stunning! I wish I could pull off an outfit like that! Wherever did you get it from? Part harlot, part orientalist imagination…you are a master of fulfilling people’s fantasies. And what a femme fatale. I mean I’m a femme and I feel kind of fatal when I think of you carrying the severed head of John the Baptist on a platter…did you really kiss it?  Well, I suppose I would kiss it too if it were the head of patriarchy that I could sever and kiss goodbye.

I keep thinking of all these men swooning after you and your spectacular performance of Salome - I suppose they prefer beheading to castration but I really don’t understand the hype around Salome. The craze around you on the other hand is another story, … though I’ve heard that you were not into men, but lavish your attentions on your female secretary? 

So why do you do it then – cater to their fantasies? Are you in it for the money, for the fame? Did you feel the raw seductive power of your bare skin? The power to behead men? Or do you feel liberated wearing nothing but pearls? I always thought pearls were for the conservative type, but no, you brought them back around, like the liberal woman that you are.  Always breaking stereotypes aren’t you? Breaking them and making them!  

Well, I know you’re busy suing against the “Cult of the Clitoris” defamation. But, I do hope you write back. Maybe we could get to know each other better. I’ve heard you’ve toured India and have an interest in Indian dance. I could help with that.  

See you in the theater,

Shyamala

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BABLI'S LETTER

Darling Maudie,

So, how was the garden party? I am sure you were the perfect hostess, just the quality Verna adores in you- and I am sure you looked stunning.

I wonder how it felt for you to host The Ladies Committee (...) for (the) Relief of Jewish Children from Germany.  I mean you lived in Germany – and you know German, right? Of course you were there much earlier, even before the Weimar Republic, when Berlin was just awakening into its anarchist and subversive glory of the early 20th century. When the horrible times to come could not be foreseen yet. Do you remember the amazing avant-garde movements and artists and subversive political cabarets? I wonder- did you ever meet Anita Berber?

And wasn’t it in Berlin that you became a ‘barefoot dancer’, and where you saw the production of Wilde’s Salomé by Max Reinhardt which inspired your Visions of Salomé? Berlin is all over your career! I guess MP Billing did his homework before he linked your anarchist sexuality to Germany.

I mean accusing you of being a German-sympathizer, a sadist AND a lesbian all in one breath?

True, you really were a femme fatale.  Bold. And lesbian. And it looks like you were really obsessed with pearls. To be frank – I kind of hate pearls. Well most pearls. Your style really isn’t my cup of tea.

But I digress. Where were we? Oh yes, the trial.

Tell me, what were you thinking denying your own identity and your lover by suing Billing for defamation? And what was that about Lord Douglas testifying against you for Billing’s case? I mean, wasn’t he Wilde’s lover?  So much for queer solidarity – between the ways you treated Verna and Douglas treated you – so disappointing. One could never take queer solidarity for granted I guess.

Well, goes to show that not every queer icon is to be admired automatically. So, why do I even write to you, a queer ancestor I cannot respect?

Sandra

SOURCES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yHoEY0VdQ

https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/women/willing-to-be-thrilling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Alfred_Douglas#Libel_actions

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/oscar-wilde-maud-allan-cult-of-the-clitoris-black-book-first-world-war-a8369811.html

http://www.sxpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/article-douglas-sanders.pdf

Un/dressing transition into Miserlou

Today we came up with a draft of a transition between Shy's projection solo and Miserlou.  The first video has the full transition into the beginning of Miserlou, where we played with some of the sexual vocabulary from our previous improvisation.  The second video is just the beginning of Miserlou, in which we did an improvisation on exorcising Maud.  We didn't bother with the projection, so imagine that it's on Shy's body and then disappears with her fist clench.

password: Maud

Projection Solo, refined / Shy projection solo with Cyn spectator

Here is a refined version of Shy's projection solo with Maud.

password for both: Maud


And here is a quick and dirty experiment with Cyn playing a spectator in the audience watching Shy (and Maud).

Ninda Stuti + Projection Solo

Today we came up with a draft for the ninda stuti; the music is a mock-up and still to be fleshed out.  We tried two different emotional/character approaches. There are two takes of each emotional approach, one in costume and one in regular rehearsal clothes. 

password "Maud"

We also worked on Shy's projection solo, specifically the new slideshow of Maud on Shy's sari.

Dance Maud Dance

Here's a simple slideshow I made for Shy's projection solo, of Maud dancing on Shy's sari.  I tried some more complicated things -- moving the image left and right, or making her do chakkars, but my sense is that the more complicated I make the video, the more it will take away from Shy's capacity to move and interact with the images. 

password: Maud

A couple earlier explorations:
Maud does chakkars

Same as above but with left and right movement

Shy projection solo + Miserlou

Here's a revision of Shy's projection solo (Cyn's role and position onstage TBD) and a quick and dirty Miserlou improv.

password for both: "Maud"

Projection Solo

Miserlou Study

And a super raw movement improv to Miserlou music:

Babli's Letter to Maud

Darling Maudie,

So, how was the garden party? I am sure you were the perfect hostess, just the quality Verna adores in you- and I am sure you looked stunning, even though your gown did not turn out to be from Molyneux.

I wonder how it felt for you to host The Ladies Committee of the Jewish Organization for Relief of Jewish Children from Germany.  I mean you lived in Germany – and you know German, right? Of course the time you spent there was a completely different – two regimes earlier, during the time of the German Empire, when Berlin was just awakening into it’s anarchist and subversive glory of the early 20th century. When the horrible times to come could not be foreseen yet.

Do you remember the amazing avant-garde movements and artists and subversive political cabarets? I wonder- did you ever meet Anita Berber?

And wasn’t it in Berlin that you became a ‘barefoot dancer’, and where you saw the production of Wilde’s Salome by Max Reinhardt which inspired your Visions of Salome?

I mean Germany and Berlin is all over your career. I guess MP Billing did do his homework before he linked your anarchist sexuality to the sexually anarchist parts of (anti-British) Germany. I mean accusing you of being German-sympathizer, sadist AND lesbian all in one breath?

True, you really were a femme fatale.  Bold. And lesbian. And it looks like you are really obsessed with pearls. To be frank – I kind of hate pearls. Well most pearls. Your style really isn’t my cup of tea. I mean when you think of femme fatale – just look at Helen! Yes, yes, she is after your time, but isn’t she fabulous? I bet you would have LOVED Bollywood. More to exotify! (But not Helen, she is too complicated)

But I digress. Where were we? Oh yes, the trial.

Tell me, what were you thinking denying your own identity and your lover’s existence and love by suing Billing for defamation? And what was that about Lord Douglas testifying against you for Billing’s case? I mean, wasn’t he Wilde’s lover?  So much for queer solidarity – between the ways you treated Verna and Douglas treated you – so disappointing. One could never take queer solidarity for granted I guess.

Well, goes to show that not every queer icon is to be admired automatically. So, why do I even write to you, a queer ancestor I cannot respect?

Sandra

SOURCES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yHoEY0VdQ

https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/women/willing-to-be-thrilling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Alfred_Douglas#Libel_actions

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/oscar-wilde-maud-allan-cult-of-the-clitoris-black-book-first-world-war-a8369811.html

http://www.sxpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/article-douglas-sanders.pdf

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Spectators Watching "The Vision of Salome"

Today Shy and I developed some material consisting of different spectators watching an invisible Maud Allan dance The Vision of Salome.  Currently, we're imagining that there would be spotlights that fade in and out so that certain spectators are highlighted at different times, with some overlap between the characters.  Each of us would play two different characters: Verna, an aristocratic white guy, a desiring South Asian femme, and a disgusted South Asian femme.  We would probably extend the desiring South Asian femme section to make it overlap more with the disgusted femme at the end.

Password for all: "Maud"

Cyn as Tophat Guy

Shy as Verna
Cyn as Desiring Femme (inspired by Babli!)

Shy as Disgusted Femme
Here's the script for when each character appears in relation to the text:
[Tophat] To Maud Allan, swaying like a passion flower in the last steps of the Seven veils, a giant negro brought upon a great salver Jokanaan.  [Verna joins] Her eyes half closed, the dancer raised by its dank hair the ghastly prize of Herodias’ daughter.  She leaned towards its lips.  Gently the severed head touched her wrists, and there shot through her a terrible tremor, a shivering of the soul.  [Tophat fades] Upon her white flesh were the stains, dark crimson clots.  [Verna fades, Desiring Femme starts] It was blood.  Her body rigid as though carved in marble, the dancer slowly forced her eyes to the face she held aloft.  It was the face of a man not long since dead.  (Disgusted femme starts). As one from whom life passes very quickly, she crumpled to the floor. (Desiring femme fades) From her hands dropped the head.  It rolled upon her breast and fell beside her, leaving upon her white body a crimson trail.

Letters to Maud from Verna and from Cynthia

Here's a letter based on a compilation of actual letters from Verna Aldrich.  I found it hard to draw from the full gamut of her writings and represent the full complexity of their relationship while still having it be a convincing letter, since their relationship changed so much over time (from worshipful to resentful of Maud's taking advantage of her).  This is from a more worshipful moment.

Darling Maudie
Well, I have had an anxious few days trying to get news of you-and I feel quite exhausted. This evening I got the cable and it is some reassurance -- I can't imagine you having gallstones -- you never have had. Maudie dear, I didn't know how much I love you until I heard you were critically ill. Now take of yourself and don't do anything startling, go easy.

I know how hard it all is but you must be brave and carry on like my little soldier.  You have had a wonderful life-and more than all else you are a wonderful person yourself and you must not let a feeling of pity and lethargy overwhelm the real, fine brain that is down under all this trouble-I don't mean your fame and all that greatness-but every bit of you I have known has shown a great, marvellously lovely character-and I want that to come out. Darling, you don't think I would have loved you all these trying, worrying years if you had just been a vain shallow creature-there is something in you that is great and lovely-that overcomes! That is not mastered by circumstances but masters circumstances. Now, my Maudie must overcome the circumstances of the day! The little girl in you must not be afraid to cry-she must be great! You have a definite work to do, now do it!

Yours always,

Verna

 

Dear Maud,

This was supposed to be a love letter.

            At first I was fascinated and a little horrified by you: by your unapologetic sensuality, your skin, your queerness, your blatant Orientalism, this aura of the “Cult of the Clitoris” that smolders around your image. 

            But the more I came to know about you, the less I liked you.  I was irritated that you fell into the trap of suing Billings for libel – for the unthinkable charge of being a woman-loving woman – resulting, of course, in the destruction of your career.  But more than that, I hated how you treated Verna, your loving and devoted partner, using and abusing her, demanding that she maintain those palatial quarters with money neither of you had, how you kept her under your thumb, how you explicitly went against her request and asked her relatives for money, compromising her relationship with her family.  I wonder how your relationship with Verna was affected by your relationship with Margot Asquith, the prime minister’s wife, who funded those quarters for twenty years before stopping.  I hated that you were a liar and a leech and a manipulator.  I understand changing your name to escape the infamy of your brother’s murder trial, but pretending that your parents were highly educated doctors in your autobiography?  Manipulating the press the way you did?  Your life is this nightmarish mix of the tabloids and conspiracy theories, from your brother drawing and quartering women in the church to your entanglement with the non-existent Black Book coupling gays, Germans, Jews, and the highest echelons of power in England during WWI.  It feels, so weirdly, like the fake news of today, the contingency and precarity of truth, the inability to tell what is real.

            So where does desire come into play?  What possible pleasure can I take in thinking and dancing about you?  How do I make a piece that wants to be about women reclaiming desire for other women, about queer pleasure, about flipping the script with a wink and a naughty glance, when all I feel for you is disgust and revulsion?  How can spending time with you be generative, life-giving, fun, sexy?

            In South Indian bhakti there’s a tradition of the ninda stuti.  It’s a weird, wonderful, counter-intuitive move whereby you basically trash-talk god, and it’s a form of devotion.  Devotion through hatred and enmity. 

            So here is my invocation:

May I disrespect you. 

May I take liberties with you. 

May I misrepresent you. 

May I seek revenge on your image.  

May there be pleasure in taking you down a notch. 

May there be pleasure in imagining you as you never were.

Let this piece be my ninda stuti to you.

With queer disgust,
Cynthia

QUESTIONS:

-Would this be compelling to read either of these letters to audience members one-on-one?  What do they add to the existing material?  Do they succeed in bringing out queerness and queer desire?

Re: my letter:

-I think it's too long -- suggestions for places to cut?  Maybe this line: "I wonder how your relationship with Verna was affected by your relationship with Margot Asquith, the prime minister’s wife, who funded those quarters for twenty years before stopping."

-The paragraph about desire -- while I think it works within the letter itself -- runs the risk of telling the audience what the piece is about before they see it.  Thoughts?

         
A reference on ninda stuti:
https://nikhiletc.wordpress.com/2016/07/02/ninda-stuti-trash-talking-god-2/

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Creative Exploration: a letter to Maud, from Shyamala

May 8, 1915/2019

Dear Maud,

You look stunning!  I wish I could pull off an outfit like that! Wherever did you get it from?  Part harlot, part orientalist imagination…you are a master of fantasy.  And what a femme fatale.  I mean I’m a femme and I feel kind of fatal when I think of you carrying the severed head of John the Baptiste on a platter…did you really kiss it?  Well, I suppose I would kiss it too if I could sever the head of patriarchy and kiss it goodbye.  Death can be sexy if it’s the death of an oppressive regime!   

I keep thinking of all these men swooning after you and your spectacular performance of Salome - I suppose they prefer beheading to castration but I really don’t understand the hype.  Really, though I’ve heard that you lavish your attentions on your female secretary? 

So why do you do it then? Are you in it for the money, for the fame? Did you feel the raw seductive power of your bare skin?  The power to behead men and topple empires?   Or do you feel liberated wearing nothing but pearls?  I always thought pearls were for the conservative type, but no, you brought them back around, like the liberal woman that you are.  Always breaking stereotypes aren’t you?  Breaking them and making them!  

Well, I know you’re busy suing against the “Cult of the Clitoris” defamation. But, I do hope you write back.  Maybe we could get to know each other better.   I’ve heard you’ve toured India and have an interest in Indian dance.  I could help with that.  

Yours Truly,

Shyamala

Creative Invitation: letters to Maud

Collectively we came up with the pre-show idea to read love letters to audience members.  We would address the audience members as Maud and we will be dressed as her secretary/ourselves/other characters in the show.

So we will each write a letter to Maud, or compile excerpts of her secretary's letters by May 17.