Edward Gorey On Stage: A Multimedia Memoir
By CJ Verburg
()
About this ebook
Most fans of the artist Edward Gorey know him as the author of lavishly drawn, sparely plotted little books in which hapless characters come to unpleasant ends. But if you happened to be in the right place at the right time, you might know him as a dramatist. From Boston's Poets' Theatre to New York's Broadway, and from Bourne to Provincetown on Cape Cod, Edward Gorey applied his distinctive wit to writing and directing plays for actors and puppets--occasionally including himself. This short memoir is an affectionate chronicle of Gorey's theatrical experiments by the friend, neighbor, and artistic collaborator who produced most of them. Illustrated with rare drawings, photographs, script excerpts, film clips, and even music created for Gorey's twenty-odd "entertainments."
Related to Edward Gorey On Stage
Related ebooks
Gorey Secrets: Artistic and Literary Inspirations behind Divers Books by Edward Gorey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThrough the Looking-Glass: and what Alice found there Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsString Quartet: Four Plays by Ronnie Burkett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wondrous Brutal Fictions: Eight Buddhist Tales from the Early Japanese Puppet Theater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPuppetry Handbook for Christian Leaders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sophisticated Sock: Project Based Learning Through Puppetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Masks and Marionettes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlove Puppetry - How to Make Glove Puppets and Ideas for Plays - Three Volumes in One Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings101 Hand Puppets: A Beginner's Guide to Puppeteering Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Speaking of Noel Coward: Interviews by Alan Farley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrican Theatre for Development: Art for Self-determination Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Collection of Antique Asian Puppetry: A Most Ancient Art Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Embody the Marvelous: The Making of Illusions in Early Modern Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Players Almanac: An Anecdotal History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDublin Voices: An Oral Folk History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking Puppets Come Alive: How to Learn and Teach Hand Puppetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gale Researcher Guide for: Karen Finley and Performance Art Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeft Handed Ukulele Hymn Book With Chords Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssential African American Wisdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPioneering Cartoonists of Color Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking It Up Together: The Art of Collective Improvisation in Balinese Music and Beyond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFor the Artists: Critical Writing, Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMelodrama: Genre, Style and Sensibility Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMidtown Sacramento: Creative Soul of the City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSlippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Philadelphia Mummers: Building Community Through Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Renaissance Solos: 12 Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlay-Making: A Manual of Craftsmanship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Performing Arts For You
Yes Please Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth (new classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Importance of Being Earnest: A Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Dolls House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slave Play Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: Train Your Dog in 7 Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of Sketch Comedy: A Journey through the Art and Craft of Humor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCoreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comedy Bible: From Stand-up to Sitcom--The Comedy Writer's Ultimate "How To" Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Life in Parts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Edward Gorey On Stage
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Edward Gorey On Stage - CJ Verburg
Prologue
How to categorize Edward Gorey? A writer with a flair for drawing? An artist who also told stories? A distinctive book designer and illustrator? A maker of odd ephemera, from beady-eyed beanbag animals to esoteric playing cards? A godfather of Goth? A sine qua non for Tim Burton, Lemony Snicket, and other macabre-minded line-straddlers? Twelve years after his death, booksellers still debate whether to shelve Gorey’s elusively plotted, obsessively penned little books under Art, Humor, or Children’s.
One label that’s rarely proposed is dramatist. Yet ever since he arrived at Harvard University after World War II, Gorey’s stories have popped up persistently onstage. Starting in the late 1980s, when he moved full-time to Cape Cod, theater encroached on his creative life to the point of engulfing it.
In person—over lunch at Jack’s Outback, for instance—Edward Gorey was as hard to pin down as his work. He had a staggering ability to shift focus from a film he saw thirty years ago to today’s menu to last night’s episode of Third Rock from the Sun
to Schubert’s repetitions to Roman coins under Trebonianus Gallus. Every subject seemed to fascinate him, although you couldn’t be sure, since he talked about each of them with the same cogency of perception and utter nonchalance of tone.
Being hard to pin down extended to new projects. Edward hated to say no. Rather than refuse a job, he’d either ignore it or claim some other obligation he couldn’t get out of. You formed the impression that, like his hapless characters, Edward Gorey was perpetually being stalked by unseen threats. Even when it was clear he’d lavished enormous care on a drawing or story, he acted as though it had ambushed him—leapt on him from an overhanging branch and dragged him into the shrubbery. Ask him why he’d written this or that book, or what projects were on his drawing board, or even which had come first, the elephant on wheels or the woman standing under it, he was likely to mutter Oh, I don’t know,
and wave a heavily be-ringed hand in vague embarrassment.
As Edward Gorey’s neighbor, friend, producer, stage manager, instigator, and comrade-in-arts, I was involved in almost all of his theater work on Cape Cod. Our tastes were different, but we shared a passion for art as a way to investigate the world, particularly human peculiarities. In the hundreds of hours we spent talking about what we were doing, or wanted to do, I don’t recall a single conversation about artistic influences, trends, formative experiences, or the like. As you’ll see in this book, one thing did very often lead to another; but our focus was active, not reflective. The idea was to DO IT, not record or analyze it.
I only started writing about Edward’s thespian adventures after he died, when his executors asked me to help them publish a book of his scripts. Given that he’d written, designed, and directed more than a dozen full-length plays and entertainments
for Cape Cod theaters, plus half a dozen shorter pieces, that promised to be a challenge.
I started with a descriptive summary of our theater work—also a challenge. For one thing, there was Edward’s reluctance to explain anything he did, or even to admit that he’d done it on purpose. For another, reliving that extraordinary creative collaboration without my much-missed collaborator felt—as he would say—iddy ottic.
More than a decade later, with the scripts still inching toward print, I published my summary as a sort of exhibition catalog for the Edward Gorey House’s 2011 show, Edward Gorey and the Performing Arts.
A combination of niche biography and memoir, it’s called Edward Gorey Plays Cape Cod: Puppets, People, Places, &