NDdTG was built for the patients of a tuberculosis sanatorium. What if the play takes place in the sanatorium with the patients performing a play about the creation of the Church? It's a crazy idea, but that was the community this church was built for. What are the needs of this community? Are they the same needs that exist for the Church today? For our society in America?
The decorations of the church were chosen expressly for the community at hand, they were 1. The sick, 2. French, 3. Christian. This seems to be the heirarchy that defines the congregation. For example, the windows depict saints based on their involvement with sickness and cure, yet also the majority are national French heroes.
From "Modern Sacred Art and the Church of Assy":
"Surverying the decoration from within the church, one is struck by a feeling of isolation of parts, resulting to some extent from the absence of a continuous iconographic scheme. This sense of disjunction is reinforced by the marked difference in style from one work to the next. Thus, just as the musical saints of the tribune seem to have no connection with the iconography below, the style of Bazaine is at variance with that of Rouault. Yet this iconographic and stylistic discontinuity is not out of harmony with the more individualistic, less group-oriented religious experience of the convalescents at Assy" (Rubin 39).
"Another unusual aspect of the iconographic program is the almost total absence of narrative imagery. None of the themes popular among even modernist Catholic artists (like the Stations of the Cross) are present. Although the saints are included on account of their acts, they are never shown in action; rather they are portrayed as simple standing figures, resembling more the medieval 'icon' than the narrative image familar since the time of Giotto... This absolute insistence upon the 'icon' presentation is peculiar to the church of Assy among the twentieth-century churches, and it may be that it results in part from the particular expressive needs of the participating modern artists. In general, narrative imagery has been foreign to modern painters" (Rubin 43-44).
How does this affect the style and structure of the play? Are the artists shown as icons rather than as characters? Does this play take place during the building of the church or after? How long after? Does this play take place in Heaven? What is the foundation of the play? The artists, the church, or the priests behind it? Or the patients? What bearing does this individualistic, non-narrative quality of the art have on the play? I'm still drowning in questions, themes, and topics. Where is the nucleus?
Caryl Churchill keeps jumping into my mind as I think of writing this play. "Top Girls." "Cloud Nine." What does that mean?
About Me
- Chris
- Chris Leyva is originally from Albuquerque, NM. He received an M.F.A. from the Playwrights Workshop at The University of Iowa and a B.A. in Directing from Coe College. Chris recently directed a production of his play, "All Grace," (Richard Maibaum Award in Playwriting, workshop production, 2006 Iowa New Play Festival) for the Columbus Arts Festival in 2008. His play, "Solamente Una Vez; A Thaw," was named a finalist in the Regional Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre’s 2007 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition and was presented in a staged reading at Playwrights Horizons and at the Alliance. Other plays include: "The Brothers Caramillo--Eulogy for a Piece of Sh*t" (staged reading 2008, Great Plains Theatre Conference, semi-finalist PlayLabs 2008), "Bloodletting" (reading 2006, Bison Theatre), "Holy Schmidt!," (staged reading, 2005 Iowa New Play Festival), "Father Bob," (workshop production, University of Iowa), and "Dialogues with Lars," (finalist, YES Festival of New Plays, Northern Kentucky University; semi-finalist, New Play Festival, Florida Studio Theatre).
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