Mud Dramaturgy Packet

Unrealized Production (2023)

Dramaturgy packet includes introduction letter, plot synopsis, playwright bio, production history, essay on the film And The Rest I Make Up, two introduced excerpts, glossary, event ad, workshop plan, and a for further reading list.

Excerpt: Introduction Letter

Hello! Welcome one, welcome all, to my Dramaturgy Packet on Mud by Maria Irene Fornes. My main questions I aim to ask are: what would inspire Fornes to write this piece, and what would inspire us to produce it now?

This play is relentless and ruthless in content, while maintaining a ballerina balance between universal interior, social specificity, and fluid flexibility with space for people to make their own interpretation. This balance being a result of Fornes’ unique soul and process is what intrigues me the most. Her direction in this play is both biting, present, and also infinitely multitudinous. I love theatre that is radicalizing yet not preachy, horrifying yet not exploitative, representative yet not comfortable. That's what Mud hits on the head, balance.

This play: now. In a world dictated by the constant tug for validation, we must shock ourselves into sense every once in a while. We must serve ourselves in truthfulness, and to do this we must look into the mirror that shows us in warped ugliness. Capitalism is the ugliest thing humanity has created, and its repercussions are ever permeating to the very core of the great human soul. We have to be smacked awake every once to inspire self-compassion in this capitalistic America. My generation is one steeped in and characterized by doubt, cynicism, generational trauma, and hopelessness. It is because of this that I believe shocking, ugly theatre speaks our language and can inspire us to love, in a backwards way.

The following packet includes several resources to allow us to reflect upon the world, and specifically America where a story like this can take place. The chilling moment is when an audience realizes they recognize these moments, when we realize these people are fractions of ourselves. I believe that whether this play is set in a fever dream or on the Mississippi, the characters are ones that are derived from our own American circumstances.

What did this play mean to Fornes in 1983? What did it mean to New York in 1983? What did it mean to Chicago in 2007? What will it mean to us now? I believe that Mud depends on the deep thinking that happens only as we are about to fall asleep. Mud depends on the grand vulnerability that only happens when we really explore the eyes of another. Mud depends on the community beliefs of the entire public at its time of production. I invite us to reflect, to dig, to meditate, to look outwords, to challenge, and to play to achieve our goal of radical art making.

I want to stretch you, to ask the hard questions, and I want to create a space for the deepest form of art making and world-soul discovery. I want this play to be challenging and new, and I want to hold us accountable for finding our own questions, and speaking them into the world.

Peace out,

Amina Gilbert

Excerpt: Essay on The Rest I Make Up

“To me, writing plays is not a way of earning a living but it is a way of earning a life”

Maria Irene Fornes

“I know everything. Half of it I really know, the rest I make up”

Lyrics from Fornes’ Musical Promenade

To ground a piece of Fornes’ work in the soil, one must understand first the context to which Fornes experienced and danced with life. This is depicted fantastically in the film The Rest I Make Up, which is a lyric from her musical Promenade. She was hugely innovative not only in her plays, but the way she understood the world and how she was able to notice and channel certain truths from life onto the stage. She seemed to have lived an optimistic, free flight in which she loved, created, sang and smiled. In the film she comes across as incredibly present in the moment, and taking every opportunity to be creative, making up stories, humming songs, and flirtatiously teasing absolutely everybody. She says; “When we get older we return to our childhood” and “If you expose everything about you, the good, the medium and the bad, you are a freer person, a healthier person.” She puts into perspective beautifully what making art really means to her.

Journalist, filmmaker, and close friend of Irene, Michelle Memran (pictured and below with Fornes) follows Fornes through some of the later years of her life, capturing her spirit and way of life. The film depicts Fornes’ graceful relationship with her developing Alzheimer’s disease. In the beginning of the film, she recalls many people, places, and cherished memories. She describes the off-off broadway scene that she was a formative voice in, and the plays they produced in cafes and churches for little to no budget. Throughout the film, many influential playwrights and artists are quoted as having adored Fornes, her infectious spirit, and her deeply focused and free way of creating. Edward Albee says; “I don’t know any playwright as intuitive, more reliant on taking stuff from the unconscious and letting that take form.” Later through the film, Michelle and Irene travel to Cuba to visit family. At this point, Fornes does not remember most things that have happened, even a week ago. However, she continues to smile and see beauty and make up songs with Michelle and her family. It seems to me that Fornes has always lived so deeply in the present that when her past became inaccessible, it posed little threat to her way of life.

Fornes grew up in Cuba, when at the age of 15, moved with her mother and sister Carmen (who she calls Carmencita) to the United States. It is said she only ever attended an elementary level of education, but wrote plays through her whole life until Alzheimer’s permitted her from doing so. Through her playwriting, she became a prolific teacher, having deeply influenced dozens of successful playwrights of today such as Midgalia Cruz, Nilo Cruz, Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Edward Albee and others. Her teachings were focused on putting a playwright in a place of total creativity, so she taught of movement, games, and play. Fornes says, “I never teach how to write a play, I teach how to transport yourself to a world that at the same time you are creating in.”

Also briefly mentioned in the film is her experience of queerness. She speaks about how in Cuba, queerness was to be hidden, and in the US she never proclaimed her lesbianism, but she still experienced much love with many lovers. She calls Susan Sontag the love of her life.

Her life seems like a series of fantastic adventures, and the film is hugely inspiring in understanding how one can find fulfillment and joy and meaning in life from listening to your intuition and having fun.

Paula Vogul says: “There’s not excuse in her life, it seemed to me, for not going forward.”