Woven from two Indian folk tales, this story is filled
with magic and mysticism. A writer must stay awake all night in order
to break a fatal spell. He searches for a story and finds one in the
tale of a young bride, abused by her husband and seduced by a cobra.
This imaginative staging is embellished with Indian music, dance,
masks, and puppetry.
This season, The Rogue Theatre is launching
a new publication, In Rehearsal at the Rogue, as part of
our continuing commitment to foster a dialogue with our audience about
the challenging, provocative and complex ideas behind quality dramatic
language and literature. In Rehearsal at the Rogue is written
and edited by Dr. Carrie J. Cole. The first issue discusses Nāga
Mandala and can be downloaded here.
The file is viewable in Adobe Reader, downloadable here.
Press
Actors, costumes strong in
production
Company takes risk; India play succeeds
Review of Nāga Mandala by
Kathleen Allen in the September 17 Arizona Daily Star
Rogue Theatre’s snaking
narrative meditates on reality
Don’t look for character arcs as story weaves its threads
Review of Nāga Mandala by
Dave Irwin posted September 16 on TucsonSentinel.com
Rogue uncovers cobra tale from
India to start season
Preview of Nāga Mandala by Kathleen
Allen in the September 3 Arizona Daily Star
From The Rogue’s
new YouTube channel:
In preparation for The Rogue Theatre’s Nāga Mandala,
we interviewed actress Patty Gallagher to get some insight into
the world of masked performance.
Author
Girish Karnad
(Playwright) is an Indian actor, director, producer and playwright
whose plays exemplify the Theatre of Roots movement that developed
after India gained its independence. The movement sought to develop
a theatre not based solely on European models; instead, integrating
traditional Indian performance into modern Indian drama. To Karnad,
the goal of Theatre of Roots “was not to find and reuse
forms that had worked successfully in some other cultural context.
The hope, rather, was to discover whether there was a structure
of expectations—and conventions—about entertainment
underlying these forms from which one could learn.”
Brian Taraz (Cobra), Patty Gallagher (Rani) and Matt
Cotten (Cobra)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Direction
Cynthia
Meier (Director) is the Managing and
Associate Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre for which she
has adapted and directed James Joyce’s The Dead,
directed The Four of Us, Othello, Animal
Farm, Orlando, Happy Days, The Good
Woman of Setzuan, The Fever and The Cherry Orchard,
and performed in many of the productions including The Goat
for which she received the Arizona Daily Star’s 2008 Mac
Award for Best Actress. A co-founder of Bloodhut Productions,
Cynthia has also performed in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Arizona
Repertory Theatre), A Streetcar Named Desire (Arizona
Theatre Company), Blithe Spirit and A Midsummer Night’s
Dream (Michigan Repertory Theatre), Romeo & Juliet
and Chicago Milagro (Borderlands Theatre), A Namib
Spring (1999 National Play Award winner), and Smirnova’s
Birthday, The Midnight Caller, and The Ballad
of the Sad Cafe (Tucson Art Theatre). Cynthia is a Faculty
member in Speech at Pima Community College and holds a Ph.D. in
Performance Studies from the University of Arizona. In 2000, Cynthia
was awarded the Tucson YWCA Woman on the Move Award.
“Writing a play is like having
children. You can’t predict what will become of them.”
—Girish Karnad
Note from the Author
Nāga Mandala is based on two oral tales—the
tale of the gossiping flames and that of the snake lover. These oral
tales are narrated by women—normally the elder women in the family—while
children are being fed in the evenings in the kitchen or being put to
bed. The other adults present on these occasions are also women. Therefore
these tales, though directed at the children, often serve as a parallel
system of communication among the women in the family.
They thus also express a woman’s understanding of
the reality around her, a lived counterpoint to the patriarchal structures
of classical texts and institutions. The position of Rani in the tale
can be seen as a metaphor for the position of a young girl in the bosom
of a joint family where she sees her husband in two distinct roles—as
a stranger during the day and as a lover at night. Inevitably, the pattern
of relationships she is forced to weave from these disjointed encounters
must be something of a fiction. The empty house Rani is locked in by
her own husband could be the family she is married into.
Many of these tales also talk about the nature of tales.
The story of the gossiping flames comments on the paradoxical nature
of oral tales in general: they have an existence of their own independent
of the teller and yet exist only when they are passed on from the possessor
of the tale to the listener. Seen thus, the status of a tale becomes
akin to that of a daughter, for traditionally a daughter too is not
meant to be kept at home too long but has to be passed on. This identity
adds poignant and ironic undertones to the relationship of the teller
to the tales.
Professor A. K. Ramanujan of the University of Chicago
who collected and analyzed these tales stressed that they were not leftovers
from the past. “Folklore,” he wrote, “is a suburb
away, a cousin or a grandmother away.”
—Girish Karnad, Author of Nāga Mandala
Patty Gallagher (Rani) and Joseph McGrath (Nāga)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Nāga: The Cobra
In Sanskrit, Nāga refers most specifically to
the King Cobra, but is often used to describe any snake. In the Sanskrit
epic The Mahabharata, nāgas are portrayed somewhat ambiguously,
of virulent poison, great prowess and excess of strength. This poisonous
prowess points to the cautious reverence the Indian culture has for
nāgas as representative of the gods and of the cycle of birth, death
and rebirth.
The Buddhist nāga is most often represented by a King
Cobra—sometimes with multiple heads. Some of the nāgas in both
Buddhist and Hindu mythology can transform themselves into humans. In
India, nāgas are associated with water, protecting springs, wells and
rivers. They also are said to bring rain, but along with rain can come
flooding and droughts. Nāgas traditionally strike when provoked—so
often the environmental disasters associated with nāgas are attributed
to humanity’s mistreatment of nature.
Carved or stone nāgas exist throughout India at temples
and shrines. Food and gifts are often left at these places as offerings
to please and appease the nāgas. It is also believed that nāgas should
not be harmed or killed, and that anyone who does so must perform a
ritual to cleanse themselves and the community of the act. In some regions
of Southern India, a cobra that is killed accidentally receives death
rites like a human being.
Serpent deity’s altar in a temple in
Belur, Kamataka, India
Mandalas
The concentric design of the mandala carries significant
weight in Indian culture. It is a manifestation of the connection between
the spiritual and the physical planes. The mandala contains the essence
of the universe.
The mandala design uses squares and circles as a blueprint
not only of time and space, but of the connection between the earthly
temple and the celestial home of the gods. The process of creating a
mandala is in part an invocation of the gods, connecting the physical
plane with the greater spiritual forces of the universe.
Carl Jung popularized the use of mandalas in the Western
world in the first half of the twentieth century as a metaphor for the
wholeness of the self, bringing the conscious and the unconscious mind
into focus. For Jung, the mandala represented the sensing of a center
of personality, a kind of central point within the psyche, to which
everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which is
itself a source of energy.
Mandalas often sanctify both temples and private dwellings.
They are also traditionally used as an offering to a potential teacher
when a student requests spiritual instruction. In these instances, the
mandala, as a representation of the universe, also symbolizes the value
of knowledge.
Making a mandala
Tibetan sand mandala
Brian Taraz, Jenny Wise, Avis Judd, Jill Baker and Kristina
Sloan (Flames)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Cast
Rani
Patty Gallagher*
Appanna
Joseph McGrath*
Kurudavva
Jill Baker
Kappanna
Brian Taraz
Flame
Avis Judd
Flame
Kristina Sloan
Flame
Jenny Wise
Cobra
Matt Cotten
*Member
of Actors’ Equity Association,
the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United
States,
appearing under a Special Appearance Contract
Cast Biographies
Jill Baker
(Kurudavva) has previously performed with The
Rogue Theatre in The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Cherry
Orchard, Red Noses and Animal Farm. Other
favorite roles include Catherine in Proof at Beowulf
Alley Theatre and Bertha in The Father at the Berkshire
Theatre Festival. She has recently spent time acting in film in
Mattie and D.I.Y., which she is also directing
with Director’s Seat Productions. She enjoys teaching theatre
to young people and has directed numerous children’s productions,
including CYT’s Narnia. She graduated with her
BFA in Theatre Performance from Missouri State University.
Matt Cotten
(Cobra) has been teaching drawing, painting, and design courses
at the University of Arizona since 1994. For over ten years he has
dedicated much of his efforts to the glorification of the puppetry
arts. He has collaborated with an eclectic mix of artists in the
creation of over a hundred different productions. As well as performing
in the shows, he specializes in the design and fabrication of the
puppets and sets. Matt recently designed and built the giant puppets
in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of Hair.
He is currently co-director of Tucson
Puppet Works, a collective of artists, writers, and musicians
which holds a series of workshops for the Tucson community every
fall season in preparation for the annual All
Souls Procession. Matt has created puppets for several Rogue
productions, including three big-head puppets for The Good Woman
of Setzuan that are displayed in the theatre’s hallways.
Patty
Gallagher (Rani, Dance Choreography) is Associate
Professor of Theatre Arts at University of California Santa Cruz
where she teaches movement, mask, Balinese dance, and clown traditions.
With The Rogue Theatre she performed the roles of Shen Te in The
Good Woman of Setzuan, Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard,
Winnie in Happy Days (most recently for Rogue’s
tour to Bangalore, India), Sonnerie and Scarron in Red Noses,
Orlando in Orlando, the Player in Act without
Words, and Emilia in Othello. She has worked
with Shakespeare Santa Cruz, The Folger Shakespeare Theatre, California
Shakespeare Theater, The New Pickle Circus, Ripe Time Theatre,
Two River Theatre, Teatro Cronopio and Grupo Malayerba. She has
performed, choreographed and directed workshops in Asia, South
America, Europe, and the U.S. In 2006 she was Fulbright Scholar
in Quito, Ecuador. She holds a doctorate in Theatre from University
of Wisconsin–Madison, and she is Director in Residence for
the Clown Conservatory, San Francisco Circus Center.
Avis
Judd (Flame) has previously performed with The
Rogue Theatre in Animal Farm, The Good Woman of Setzuan,
as Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard, as Sasha in Orlando,
as Beatrice in Immortal Longings, as Julia in A Delicate
Balance and as Desdemona in Othello. She received
her theatre degree from Northwestern University. Other favorite
roles include Olga in The Three Sisters, Faith in Invisible
Theatre’s production of Kindertransport, Emilia
in Othello, and the title role in a one woman show, which
she adapted and directed, about Bahá’í heroine
Martha Root.
Joseph
McGrath (Appanna) is the Artistic Director for
The Rogue Theatre for which he has performed in Othello,
Krapp’s Last Tape, A Delicate Balance (winner
of the Arizona Daily Star 2009 Mac Award for Best Actor), Animal
Farm, Orlando, Six Characters in Search of an
Author, Happy Days, The Goat, The Cherry
Orchard, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Dead and
The Fever. He authored and directed Immortal Longings
for The Rogue and has directed The Balcony, Endymion,
The Maids (winner of the Arizona Daily Star
2007 Mac Award for Best Play), Red Noses and Our
Town. Joe is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama.
He has toured with John Houseman’s Acting Company and performed
with the Utah Shakespearean Festival. In Tucson, he is a frequent
performer with Ballet Tucson appearing in The Hunchback of
Notre Dame, Cinderella, A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Dracula and The Nutcracker. He has
also performed with Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Opera, Tucson
Art Theatre, and Arizona OnStage. Joe is also a scenic designer
and owns Sonora
Theatre Works with his wife Regina Gagliano, producing theatrical
scenery and draperies.
Kristina
Sloan (Flame) has performed with The Rogue Theatre
as The Actress in Six Characters in Search of an Author.
A recent graduate of the University of Arizona in Theatre, she
has worked with numerous companies in town, including Beowulf
Alley Theatre, Arizona Onstage Productions, Gaslight Theatre,
Studio Connections, Redondo Music Theatre and Live Theatre Workshop.
Favorite roles include Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street (Pima
Community College), Susan in tick, tick…BOOM! (Da
Vinci Players), and The Girl Who Danced Herself to Death in Lost
(Arizona Onstage Productions).
Brian
Taraz (Kappanna) has appeared with The Rogue as
Joe Stoddard in Our Town and as the Duke in Othello.
Previously, Brian performed the role of Harold in Black Comedy
at Beowulf Alley Theatre Company. Most of Brian’s acting
has taken place in San Diego, performing in numerous Shakespeare
plays such as Macbeth, Twelfth Night and A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as Marat/Sade,
Book of Days, The Trial and I Hate Hamlet.
Brian also has a musical side, composing original pieces using
traditional religious texts as the lyrics. Samples of his work
can be heard at www.godsminstrel.com.
Jenny
Wise (Flame) is a newcomer to The Rogue’s
stage. A senior at the University of Arizona, Jenny is a proud
member of the improv group The Charles Darwin Experience.
Patty Gallagher (Rani)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Music in Nāga
Mandala
All music composed and performed by Matthew Finstrom
Instruments:
Sitar
Swaramandal
Gopichand
Mark Tree
Electric Tambura
Various sound effects
Matt Finstrom
(Composer, Instrumentalist) is the director and founder of Sruti—Music
of India, based in Tucson, Arizona. His musical career began
in percussion at the age of 10, and has included many western
styles such as rock, jazz, symphonic, country/western, and avant
garde. He started studying the sitar in 1982, the tabla in 1983
and the dilruba in 1984. In 1985, while performing at the Festival
of India at the University of Arizona, he met Darshi Jayawardena,
who became his sitar and dilruba teacher. More recently he studied
sitar with Jaya Jog, a disciple of Ustad Usman Khan and is currently
studying with Ustad Shahid Parvez. Matt has performed on sitar
at Bharatanatyam Arangetram recitals in Tucson and Phoenix with
acclaimed vocalist Neela Ramanuja, nattuvangam Kalashri Asha Gopal,
mridangist Kalashri N.G. Ravi, flute player Rajkamal Nagaraj and
percussionist S.G. Pramath Kiran. He studied morsing with S. G.
Pramath Kiran and is currently learning the veena. Matt is also
the director and builder of Tucson’s Fine
Stream Gamelan, which plays many regional styles of Indonesian
gamelan music.
Patty Gallagher (The Story) and Joseph McGrath (The
Man)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Designers
Scenic Design
Joseph McGrath
Costume Design
Cynthia Meier
Dance Choreography
Patty Gallagher
Original Music
Matthew Finstrom
Cobra
Matt Cotten
Masks
Aaron Cromie
Lighting Design
Clint Bryson
Production
Staff
Stage Manager
Nic Adams
Assistant Director
Dawn C. Sellers
Scenic Painter
Amy Novelli
Dramaturg
Carrie J. Cole
House Manager
Susan Collinet
Assistant House Manager
JoAn Forehand
Box Office Manager
Thomas Wentzel
Box Office Assistant
Anna Swenson
Snack Bar Manager
Leigh Moyer
Snack Bar Assistant
Shannon Macke
Poster and Program
Thomas Wentzel
Aaron
Cromie (Masks) is a Philadelphia based, multidisciplinary
theatre artist who has collaborated as performer, designer, director,
writer and musician with several companies including Arden Theatre
Company, The Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre,
Mum Puppettheatre, The Studio Theatre, Wilma Theater, Lantern
Theater, and Shakespeare Theatre among others. He has toured nationally
with Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story and is a graduate of
The College of New Jersey and The Dell’Arte International
School of Physical Theatre. He has designed masks and puppets
for over two dozen productions. www.aaroncromie.com
Clint
Bryson (Lighting Designer) has designed lights
for nearly every Rogue Theatre production. Other lighting design
credits include As Bees in Honey Drown and Golf Game
for Borderlands, Woman in Black for Beowulf Alley, and
The Seagull for Tucson Art Theatre. Clint is currently
the Shop Foreman, Production Technical Director and Marketing
Director for Catalina Foothills Theatre Department where he designs
and coordinates the construction of all scenery. He is also a
member of Rhino Staging Services, and a regular participant in
Arizona Theatre Company’s Summer on Stage program where
he designs and builds the scenery as well as teaches production
classes.
Nic Adams
(Stage Manager) has worked with
The Rogue Theatre, both onstage and off, on its productions of
Othello, Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and
Act Without Words, Orlando and Six Characters
in Search of an Author. Nic has appeared with the Now Theatre
in This Property is Condemned and The Zoo Story ,
both “Rogue After Curfew” productions. A theatre student
at the University of Arizona, Nic performed in productions of
Titus Andronicus and Candide. He can next be
seen in The Rogue's upcoming production of The Tempest.
Dawn C. Sellers
(Assistant Director) was a pianist, composer and educator prior
to receiving an MFA in dramatic writing from Carnegie Mellon University.
Her screenplay, Butterfly Found, won the Arthur Sloan Foundation
Screenwriting Award as well as the Santa Fe Screenwriter’s
Conference Award. She composed music for the Off-Broadway production
of Dance with Me by Jean Reynolds and is published with
Hal Leonard Music Publishing, Alfred Music Publishers and the Neil
A. Kjos, Jr. Music Company. Dawn also holds a Masters of Music from
Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Music Education from the
University of Oklahoma. Since moving to Tucson three years ago,
her plays have been produced by This Side Up Productions, Beowulf
Alley Theatre Company, Live Theatre Workshop and The Arizona Women’s
Theatre. A member of Tucson’s Old Pueblo Playwrights, her
play Frozen Heart was presented at Live Theatre Workshop
this past April. Dawn serves on The Rogue Theatre’s Board
of Directors and performed in The Rogue’s production of Our
Town.
Amy Novelli
(Scenic Painter) received a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree, cum
laude, from the Columbus College of Art & Design in 1987,
and a Masters of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh
in 1994. Surrounded by her menagerie of animals and desert flora,
Amy now lives and paints along the Santa Cruz River in Tucson.
Her art can be seen at locally at Tucson’s Wilde Meyer Galleries
and Bohemia Artisans Emporium. www.amynovelli.com
Carrie J. Cole
(Season Dramaturg) teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in
Theatre History and Dramaturgy at the University of Arizona. Her
areas of interest include American theatre and performance, performance
ethnography, and audience and fan studies. She is a member of the
American Society of Theatre Research, Popular Culture/American Culture
Associations, and a Recognized Actor/Combatant by the Society of
American Fight Directors. She holds a Bachelor of Theatre from Willamette
University, a MA from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. from
University of Maryland. Carrie was fight choreographer for The Rogue’s
production of Othello and will be appearing on stage in
the upcoming production of The Tempest.
Our Thanks
Arizona
Daily Star
Shawn Burke
Tim Fuller
John Wilson
Delectables Restaurant and Catering
The Rogue Theatre Board of Directors
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Joseph McGrath (Appanna) and Patty Gallagher (Rani)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Performance
Schedule for Nāga Mandala
Location: The Rogue Theatre at The Historic Y, 300 East University
Boulevard
Free off-street parking! Click here
to see map and parking information.
Performance run time is approximately 2 hours, not including musical
preshow or post-show discussion. There will be one 10-minute intermission.
Thursday September 9, 2010, 7:30 pm PREVIEW
Friday September 10, 2010, 7:30 pm OPENING
NIGHT
Saturday September 11, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 12, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday September 16, 2010, 7:30 pm, PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday September 17, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday September 18, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 19, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday September 23, 2010, 7:30 pm, PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday September 24, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday September 25, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 26, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
T U C S O N A R I Z O N A![rogue, (rôg), n. [<16th-c. thieves' slang <L.rogare, to ask]](Assets/Roguescrolltextheader.gif){kind=small}
