The Mad Mask Maker of Maigh Eo @ CPT

Throw a stone in Cleveland’s Irish community, and you’ll likely to hit somebody with roots in County Mayo. This week there’s a brand new work that celebrates those roots which opens Cleveland Public Theatre’s DanceWorks series: The Mad Mask Maker of Maigh Eo. A poetic mix of myth, comedy, and the anguish of a bitter war veteran, the piece uses three of Cleveland’s most interesting actors – Derdriu Ring, Meg Chamberlain, and Andrew Narten – with dancers from MorrisonDance to tell an unusual story. It’s about a mask maker who is stealing souls from County Maigh Eo and putting them in his masks, and the woman from the land of Faerie who comes to set them free.

The story behind the show is just as interesting. It’s the story of the collaboration between three Cleveland artists – playwright Christopher Johnston, choreographer Sarah Morrison, and artist Scott Radke (Morrison's husband), who have been working to bring it to life. Cool Cleveland correspondent Linda Eisenstein caught up with Johnston and Morrison at the MorrisonDance studios at W. 42nd and Lorain. It’s a hive of activity. Actor and dancers are arriving. The masks are laid out on a table. Morrison is finishing a costume fitting. The conversation jumps between Morrison & Johnson.

Cool Cleveland: How long ago did you get the idea?

Chris Johnston: I’ve had the general idea for at least 6-7 years. I’m a mix of English, Scottish, Irish, some of my family has been here since the 1640’s. But I feel the deepest affinity for my Irish heritage. Part of that is because of my Irish grandmother – my mother’s mother - who lived with us at the end of her life. The play deals with the mix of Christian and pagan, things I’ve been dealing with for 50 years.

CC: What made you decide to work with Sarah in the collaboration?

CJ: I knew from seeing her work that Sarah worked a lot with masks and fabric. When Jeff Blanchard and I did our evenings of improv The Mine Field at CPT in 2000, I invited Sarah to improvise a piece with us. Then she choreographed the opening dance for Theories of Relativity, a piece I did several years ago in CPT’s Big [Box]. We’ve been talking about this project for a long time. I gave her the collection of plays and fairytales to read by William Butler Yeats. I especially wanted her to read the dance plays.

Sarah Morrison: I was nursing my daughter and it wasn’t easy to just sit and read. So I read them out loud to her. Two months old, and her mother’s reciting Yeats to her. I thought, she’ll either be really cultured or really messed up. Or both! (laughs)

CC: How much has Chris been involved as you’ve been making the dances for the work?

SM: We talked a lot. It’s great to have that extra eye that sees something when we’re actually creating it. Making dance as part of a play isn’t abstract. Every movement has to have dramatic import, and work with the text. Chris came in to make sure we were on the right page.

CJ: (deadpan) I did say “cut the disco stuff.”

SM: Because we did so much discussing from the beginning, it’s been a very easy collaboration. There were very few situations where we didn’t see eye to eye.

CC: How about the actors? Did you have any actors in mind?

CJ: Derdriu Ring was in my head when I was writing it, even though I didn’t know at the time if she could do it. I wrote the first scene at Nighttown, which her brother Brendan owns. We were talking back then about doing some kind of fundraising event at Nighttown and I showed her the script –she read it and wanted to attach herself to the project. That was great. I also heard Meg Chamberlain’s voice, because I knew she could do both the comedy and the accent. I wasn’t sure who the guy would be. Then I thought of Drew [Narten]. He has the ability to tap this reservoir of melancholy and rage, but somehow you still emphathize with him. Then he read with us – there was a great chemistry between the three of them.

CC: Having the actors’ voices in your head while you work must help a lot. I’ve read and seen a lot of your work, and I think with this one you’ve reached another level.

CJ: Thanks. Some of it is how long it's been percolating. I finally started working on the text in 2004, and wrote the first draft this summer.Derdriu helped with the language. A couple of times she was able to point out a few Americanisms, things they wouldn’t say in Ireland.

SM: She's helped us get the depth of it, the layers of it.

CC: And when did you start choreographing?

SM: I actually created the opening solo before Chris had finished writing. I performed it in April, 2004 at the Cleveland Museum of Art in the interior garden court, the last performance before the museum closed. A version of it is what now opens the show. I tend to work over a longer period of time. It frightens me to create something in 4 weeks' time. I have a different way of processing. I like to really experiment, think things over – then try them again. I like to develop work over a long period. An audience really helps me learn.

CC: Do you mean by post-play discussions, or by how it feels in front of them?

SM: Both. Sometimes in the middle of the dance I can feel that something needs more work.

CC: What, you’re thinking, "Wow, this part is really crappy?"

SM: (laughs) Yeah, for me it’s suddenly, "Well, here I’m just floating around not doing anything!" There’s no show ‘til there’s an audience. They inform me as a choreographer.

I’ve been doing lots of readings on Celtic folklore, sun/moon, masculine/feminine energies. Then I began working with the dancers -- giving them lead-ins as Chris would give me lead-ins. We’ve been working seriously since January. Once I was reading Chris’ text and a dance just seemed to leap off the page – a section called "Brigit’s philosophy". She even uses a phrase about “crazed choreography” – I told Chris, there needs to be a dance here. The dancers are twirling around Meg, she’s not even aware that they’re there, then poof! We disappear. It’s really fun.

CJ: We originally wanted to have live musicians. But try hiring Irish musicians any time near St. Patrick’s Day! Forget it, it’s when they all have gigs. So Sarah found us recorded music.

SM: AfroCelt Sound System, it’s great to work with. What choreographer wouldn’t love African Rhythms with a Celtic melody?

CC: Is this the first time you’ve worked with actors?

SM: No, it was part of my training. I studied Theatre Arts at CWRU under Kelly Holt. He really ingrained that movement for acting – he came to dance through acting. Even when he taught dance, the acting classes were mixed with dancers. I’ve put in my dues on stage. I enjoyed it, it’s informed my dancing. I worked with MN2 Productions on an original piece, Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors, and I helped choreograph the opera Dido at CIM. I’ve taught movement workshops to actors.

When we were creating the final dance, I wanted Drew, who plays the Mask Maker, to be part of the dance without actually dancing -- like he’s plunging into the water. I envisioned a ship, moving toward Tir na n-og , the mythical Land of the Young. He’s in the center of the action, almost like he’s in the boat.

CC: So the dancers represent the faerie world.

SM: We’re actually a lot of things in this piece. We’re mischievous faieries and sprites, we’re souls stolen from the village, we’re souls taken by the Sidhe – the Red-Headed Girl of the Bog, played by Derdriu. There are a lot of transformations. We even play a coat rack, the door, a book-holder.

CJ: They become all these little props.

SM: Did you just call us little props?

CC: Tell us more about using the masks.

CJ: That’s the other thing about working with Sarah, you also get to work with Scott Radke, who is so incredible.

SM: Scott’s masks are amazing to work with. The big mask was just completed today. It’s more like a puppet, it takes two of us to work with it. The weird masks were cast on Derdriu’s face – it’s shows the several transformations of the sidhe. There’s the young maiden, as she appears on earth, the middle-aged washer woman, and the old hag.

The dancers have this more pallid look, very porcelain, like dolls. These masks seem to change, depending on the scene -- they can look very sweet or horrifying. It’s like those pictures where the eyes seem to follow you across the room.

They were all cast on our own faces using plaster gauze. First we covered our faces with Vaseline, then we all lay on the floor and pretended we were getting facials while he put the gauze on us. It takes a lot of trust and it’s kind of scary because your eyes and mouth are completely covered, there’s only a tiny hole for the nostrils. You have to do this extreme facial workout to get the mask off. Scott takes the cast, gessos it, then he uses self-drying clay. He mostly uses his hands and one or 2 tools. It’s in the painting when they come to life. First they get painted all black, then different layers of color.

CC: They’re very cool.

SM: I love watching Scott work. He used to have a studio in the back of this space, but now he prefers to work right at home. So every day I watch these things grow and change. I come down one day for breakfast, there are all these little white heads sitting there, the next day suddenly they’ll be alive! The next day they’ll have hands. Then I get really sad because people buy them and they leave. (laughs) I shouldn’t be too sad! That’s how we keep bread on the table.

Scott’s work is collected all over the world. His puppets and marrionettes have been to Prague, to Russia, been in film after indie film. They’ll star in a film and then come back to us. We should probably make sure the little one gets a star on the door. Scott writes a lot about his work on live journal. There are a bunch of photos of his work there, including from the play. http://scottradke.livejournal.com

We met through artistic interests. He was selling his sand sculptures at an Ohio city art market, before Market Square was established. I bought one of his sand sculptures. Then we both moved to Tremont. I ran into him 5 months later. “You’re that artist guy,” ”Hey, you’re that dancer girl”. The Fates were with us. What’s funny is that print I purchased from him was a pregnant woman in the sand.

The Mad Mask Maker of Maigh Eo @ CPT March 2-5, 9-12. 216-631-2727. http://www.morrisondance.com/maskmakermayo.htm

From Cool Cleveland contributor Linda Eisenstein hidden-email:Yvaqn@PbbyPyrirynaq.pbz?

Photos by Robert Schnellbacher (:divend:)