Uncaging Dramaturgy: Deborah Dutilh @ Edfringe 2015

INTO THE PANTHER’S CAGE

Written and Performed by Deborah Dutilh
Directed by Award Winning Actor and Director Debra De Liso

When her late ex-husband visits her in a dream, Deborah wonders if she should be worried or not, never suspecting what the future has in store for her.

Review of Into The Panther’s Cage at The Los Angeles Woman’s Theatre Festival

Deborah Dutilh came on stage with a strong presence and powerful charm that lead the audience through the various steps and stages of her dreams. Her dreams paralleled life a lot and so much so that it was her husband who passed away as a result of brain cancer. Enlightening the audience about her dreams of having issues of there being something wrong inside her own head, she accounts for her dramatization of the brain tumor she was eventually diagnosed with. With her strong presence and charm, she was powerful, whimsical at times and she sprinkled her dramatic presentation with humor which made it all palatable.
Written by Lorenzo Marchessi of The Geek Authority. March 2015

Into The Panther’s Cage
11th -12th August at 10:15 (50 minutes), Paradise Green, The Annexe, Venue 29
What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object? 
Deborah Dutilh: I was inspired by an idea, my own true story. My show has also been a great source of healing energy for me.

Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
The intention of my show is to inspire and give hope to others touched by cancer, particularly brain cancer.  I would like to create awareness about this "orphan cancer" as it is often called, by sharing my story with the world. Not only is Edinburgh a world famous event it is also a triumph for me, performing my story on stage and by so far beating the very bleak odds for survival.

What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
Inspiration, awareness of what brain cancer is, what we are really are living and feeling even though we may look really good at times.They will most definitely experience my humor and how humor can alter any experience and help with healing. They will see that
dreams can predict illness; 
departed souls do come visit us in our dreams with powerful messages; love prevails
how stepping Into The Panther's Cage is what I have lived; facing my biggest fear of cancer with courage, embracing that fear and becoming more empowered thanks to facing and embracing it.

The Dramaturgy Questions

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work? 
I wanted to take the audience on a roller coaster ride. balancing the surrealism of my late ex-husband visiting me in a dream, my intuition and dreams confirming what I suspected when he appeared in my dream, with a delicate balancing act of drama and humor to make some of the experience more palatable without falling into self-pity. 

I explored the feelings and intentions of the other characters in my play, but mostly I dug deep into my own feelings and reactions. I always kept in mind the questions and comments people have surrounding my diagnosis, the comments people have made to me and any questions the audience would have. The structure of the play enhances this objective.

What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work -  have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition? 
I've always been inspired by solo performance, story telling, speaking, the art of the clown, and stand-up comedy. My show brings in a bit of all of that.

Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
The process was evolutionary as more and more ideas and dreams tickled my brain. I often ask for guidance before falling asleep, knowing that my dreams would give me answers.Interestingly, I collaborated with my late ex-husband and Black Panther spirit guide in my dreams. Of course, I have a fabulous director, Debra De Liso, as well! The final version required a lot of fine tuning too 

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work? 
The exchange of energy between me and the audience is phenomenal and indispensable for my performance! I have a fried brain due to radiation and chemo therapy which leads to sometimes forgetting my lines. I own this and invite the audience into my head with humor and quips which make me more authentic and leaves them howling. The character portrayed by an actor is lifeless without a relationship with the audience.


Debra De Liso Critically acclaimed actor and director and LA Women’s Theatre Festival 2014 Rainbow Award recipient, has guided the writing and directed over 300 One-Person Shows in L.A. NYC, and abroad with professionals and at the University of S. California and American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She directed Jay Sefton’s play, which won Best Solo Play L.A. Weekly, Hal Ackerman’s play Prick which won Best Script at the United Solo Festival in NYC. Debra received three California Arts Council grants to bring theatre to women in prison

“Into The Panther’s Cage” is a part of Six Women, Five Decades, California Stories, an anthology of the lives of six female friends and theatre artists, age 25 to 69, who create theatre in Los Angeles. Debra De Liso, Walk A Mile Works Artistic Director, has dramaturged and directed these plays inspired by the unique passion and universal thematic clay each of these women so bravely writes about.

What makes a California woman? Undaunted by life’s challenges, six bold, fun and daring women, from five different decades, paint an eclectic landscape of today’s 21st century woman, each one with infectious energy and vision: A Los Angeles stand-up comedian, who brought American tap dance to Africa shares her childhood travels in a van; A Hollywood Horror film star searches for unconditional love within herself as a mother of a bi-polar daughter; When a globe-trotting Californian finds her deceased ex-husband showing up in her dreams- should she worry? Dancing into her 7th decade, can a daughter of the Chinese Cultural Revolution find liberation through tango in the California desert? After three marriages and raising a child with severe disabilities, can a lawyer find recovery from being human and her addiction to belonging? A young Filipina-Californian finds the courage to speak her family’s secrets in order to love herself.

Walk A Mile Works is a theatre-into-film production company based in Los Angeles, dedicated to stories that create compassion. Get ready to be transformed with these inspiring stories! 
Join us for our free preview night Friday, 7th August at 18:45
as we share a sampling of five excerpts from our play anthology.Venue Paradise Green, The Annexe Box Office 131 510 0022 

Brown Dramaturgy: Winsome Brown @ Edfringe 2015

The Fringe
What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
Winsome Brown: It was January, 2014. Brad Rouse, the director, and I were working in my apartment in New York City on another project. He turned to me and: “I think you have a more immediate story to tell. One that will touch many people.” 

“What’s that?” I asked. 

“The story of your mother,” he said. It was like a veil fell from my eyes. 

“I’ll call it This is Mary Brown,” I said. I had the title before a single word of the show was written. Brad had heard me tell stories about Mum and found her both hilarious and very human.


Why bring your work to Edinburgh?I hope that the themes of This is Mary Brown will resonate with the Edinburgh audience. It is about an Irish woman, an emigrant, a woman of great humor and pathos, who raises her family far away from home, in Canada. As she ages, she turns to alcohol to soothe herself. Her family use various tactics to try to persuade her to give up drinking. 

Then, when she has succeeded in kicking the drink, she is sidewinded by lung failure. It’s a cruel turn. But it brings out an incredible amount of love and tenderness—emotional honesty – in all the characters. Everybody goes through the painful death of a loved one. It is a universal theme.

Also, practically, This is Mary Brown is a very simple play. I am the sole performer, there are just a few pieces of furniture and some lights. It travels easily and so is a great play to show in Edinburgh, and hopefully to tour with afterwards. The whole magic of This is Mary Brown is in the air between the stage and the audience.

What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
The show is simple and honest. Audiences in New York both laughed and cried when they saw it. The New York Times called it, “Lovely… honest… touching…. poignant.” I think audiences naturally think of loved ones in their own life – my play takes them inside their own heart.

The Dramaturgy Questions

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?
While the show is on the surface, simple – a personal tale – structurally it is modern and challenging. I worked hard to find a kind of elastic tension between scenes, so that each scene propels the next. The play jumps through time, place, and character. Some scenes are simple audience address. Some scenes have three or more characters on stage, in dialogue with each other. And I’m playing all of them. It is a fairly complex dramaturgy.

What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?
Yes. I have been inspired by other artists who dare to find that just a simple story about real people is enough. Some of these are: Terence Davies in The Long Day Closes, Chekhov in his willingness to write about mundane things like family finances and the stultification of habit, Spalding Gray, who sat before an audience with just a desk and a glass of water and brought us into a world.

Also, I have been inspired and instructed by the gentle and long-form rehearsal process of André Gregory and Wallace Shawn. I was lucky enough to perform in The Master Builder, and see that incredible work up close. Their process of stripping away artifice – even within the confines of art – is something I aspire to in my own work on This is Mary Brown.


Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I developed this play in a rehearsal space in my own home. Brad Rouse, the director, and I, invited small groups of eight or ten people at a time to come in and see the play. We were all in a small room together, with all the lights on all of us. I could feel how the play worked in the space between me and the audience. 

After each performance, I would talk with the audience – find out if there were moments where they were confused by anything. As I said, the play is structurally complex, but I worked hard to make it feel simple. So my collaborators have been, from day one, the director, and the audience.

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
The most daunting challenge of making a one-person play is loneliness. There’s no other actor to share the ride with on stage. So my partner in the performance is the audience. I have developed this show over the course of a year and a half, showing it to a few people at a time. 

Through this process, I have come to trust the material, trust the audience, and be inspired and moved by the communion that happens between us. It’s a very vulnerable piece. I am putting it all out there – surrendering, if you will. The audience is my partner in that. And the faith that grows between us brings its own reward.

Are there any questions that you feel I have missed out that would help me to understand how dramaturgy works for you?
No, but here’s one more answer! I feel This is Mary Brown takes some of its structure from cinema. In cinema, we now know that we can make jump cuts, sharp turns, show flashbacks, and have it be clear to the viewer what is happening. 

I directed and edited a film called The Violinist, and my work on that project has helped me to trust that even a bold structure can be the foundation for a simple, profound play.



Paradise in The Vault (Venue 29) ​
13:15
Aug 8-15, 20-21, 24-30
1 hour
Suitability: 16+ (Guideline)
Country: United States
Group: Winsome Brown
Warnings: Adult themes - alcoholism, death.