Three Saties
Behave Yourself, Please: A Monkey is Watching You
How Music Informed the Writing of Satie et Cocteau: A Rehearsal of a Play of a Composer by a Poet.
by Mike Czuba
In a previous article for CharPo I wrote about how Larry Lamont and myself, and our company Dancing Monkey Theatre, are trying to create a Rock & Roll Theatre. My play I AM I (Now available at: http://www.originalworksonline.com/iami.htm) lent itself to this philosophy based on its attitude, its language and its In-the-Now aesthetic.
My latest play to hit the stage, produced by Charles Foreman & Kathleen van Mourik,at the Mountain View Music Festival in Calgary on August 11th is also trying to, within the pages of the script, find that Rock & Roll spirit. Only this play, Satie et Cocteau: A Rehearsal of a Play of a Composer by a Poet, is about Erik Satie, a minimalist Classical composer who died in 1925, as told by the Poet/Artist Jean Cocteau. The concept of the play is that we are watching Cocteau direct an Actor playing Satie in a play that he allegedly wrote in1939 called ‘Soyons Vulgaires’. The action takes place during what turns out to be the final day of rehearsals, after Cocteau has learned that he’s lost his financing. This last rehearsal is where Cocteau wishes to have the Actor fully embody Satie so Cocteau can posthumously demand Satie acknowledge all that he had done for him. This ultimately backfires and Cocteau ends up a broken man, asking Satie forgiveness. The framework, bordering on absurd and meta-theatrical, allows me to ‘stage’ sections of Satie’s life as they suit the narrative. Throughout the play the audience will discover both Satie’s and Cocteau’s desires and philosophies about Music and Art within the conflict between Cocteau and the Actor.
