Big Love – trydersmith.org

Photos by Roger Trigg

Above, from top: T. Ryder Smith, Jeff Jenkins, Mark Ziesler; T. Ryder Smith and Carolyn Baeumler; Carolyn Baeumler, T. Ryder Smith; T. Ryder Smith, Jeff Jenkins, Mark Ziesler; same; same: same; ensemble; ensemble.

Excerpts from the reviews

“A blistering, exhilarating drama of sexual politics, staged with whirlwind intensity and inventiveness by Les Waters and performed at white heat by a superb cast. . . The tension generated in T. Ryder Smith’s awkward wooing of Baumler is haunting. . . . The cataclysmic wedding ceremony – cake-cutting erupting into mass slaughter – comes as a horrifically entertaining release.” Robert Hurwitt, The San Francisco Examiner

“Giddy collisions between pop culture references and mythic-sized themes about male-female relations, U.S. cultural imperialism, and the power of human love. . . . Under Les Waters’ beautifully modulated direction, a bravura cast creates a dynamic war between the sexes. Most spectacular are the two sequences in which the [characters] propel themselves around the stage with abandon, as if driven by unseen forces . . . “ John Istel, The Village Voice

“The Festival’s most striking offering . . . Mee riffs on what may be the oldest surviving play of the Western canon, ‘The Suppliant Women’, by Aeschylus. In it 50 Grecian brides about to be taken by force by 50 grooms flee their homeland and seek refuge . . . The men come after them. The women decide to organize . . . A terrific production, played wonderfully.“ Michael Phillips, The Los Angeles Times

“Among the Festival highlights was ‘Big Love’ . . . it is staged on a wrestling mat because the actors are called upon to hurl themselves about in a remarkably vigorous fashion; in twin set pieces, one with three women, one with three men, the actors enact a fiercely violent ballet, with bruising collisions and falls, conducted to screaming speechifying . . . the primordial, communal twitch of loins and heart has rarely been so viscerally acted out.“ Bruce Weber, The New York Times

“Brilliant . . . The direction . . . was catharsis-inducing . . . The cast of nine was fabulous . . . T. Ryder Smith . . . has the haunted features of a great poetic actor; his souls lights up his face.” Erin Blackwell, San Francisco Frontiers magazine

“Naive and wise, primal and sophisticated, dead serious and hilarious, Mee’s retelling of ‘The Suppliants’ was the best of the Fest. . . . Mee’s quirky, moving script was exquisitely played by a troupe of actors that seemed like a budding SITI company in their skill and flexibility.” Rich Copley, The Lexington Herald-Examiner

Publicity

Above, from top: T. Ryder Smith, Jeff Jenkins, Mark Ziesler; Aimee Guillot, Aimee Hayes, Pascaline Bellegarde, Karenjune Sanchez; Chuck Mee.

Full reviews

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by Charles Mee

world premiere

Directed by Les Waters

Actors Theatre of Louisville – Humana Festival
Louisville, KY
March – April, 2000

Stage Manager: Alyssa Hoggatt
Scenic Design: Paul Owens
Lighting Design: Greg Sullivan
Costume Design: Marcia Dixon Jory
Sound Design: Malcolm Nicholls
Choreography: Jean isaacs
Assistant Stage Manager: Kathy Preher
Dramaturg: Michael Bigelow Dixon

CAST
Carolyn Baumler (Lydia)
Aimee Guillot (Olympia)
Jeff Jenkins (Oed)
Lauren Klein (Bella/Eleanor)
Fred Major (Piero/Leo)
Karenjune Sanchez (Thyona)
T. Ryder Smith (Nikos)
Tony Speciale (Giuliano)
Mark Zeisler (Constantine)
With: Pascaline Bellegarde, Aimee Hayes, Matt Zehnder

Note

I became ill around this time in my life, and people sometimes ask me about it. Here is what happened:
I had enjoyed robust health for most of my life, and had been eating a healthy diet – organic, vegetarian – since my late teens, so for 25 years at that point. I became ill – radically so – quite suddenly, literally between one hour and the next on one of the first days of the year 2000, and I remained ill every day for the next 10 years. It is hard to evoke what happened in that hour of my life, but it did feel like the fundamental processes of both my body and my psyche changed, and in ways I could only witness and not resist, or alter. A strange and scary feeling. It took me 2 years and 10 different doctors – of every stripe, traditional and alternative – before I had any sort of accurate or helpful diagnosis for what was going on with me, and able to take steps to address it.
In any case it was during the time of “Big Love” that I was still at my most symptomatic and debilitated, as well as most bewildered about my condition. Had I known then what I later learned, I would not have agreed to do such a physically-taxing show, as much as I loved it. But at the time the illness was just a month or two old, and I woke up every day believing that the worst of this bizarre affliction was over and whatever remedy I was trying – a vast number, ultimately, some traditional, some really odd – would be the one to work, and get me back to “normal”.
“Adult-onset Celiac Disease” was the diagnosis suggested to me a year or so later, which I then started to treat more specifically, (appreciating the irony that the diet, weighted toward grains and legumes, which I thought had kept me healthy for so long was part of what was making me ill). During “Big Love”, however, I only knew that I went through the days feeling I had a combination of food poisoning, the flu and weird – and entirely uncharacteristic – bouts of forgetfulness and confusion. Everything I ate or drank made me nauseous, I ran a fever most nights, could barely sleep, forgot or misplaced things all day long, and was so dizzy and weak I had to pause for breath and balance after climbing even a short staircase. I had trouble focusing my vision, my digestion was not good, my skin was erupting in rashes, and my hair falling out in clumps. My teeth started to ache and then shatter, and I had 3 of them abscess and require root canals in a matter of weeks, one of them twice. Ultimately I had to have an apicoectomy, where they sawed off the root of that troublesome tooth. I think that happened the day before we opened, I can’t recall. It all started to seem like one long day to me.
None of these issues were intolerable in themselves, but in combination, and worsening incrementally as they did, made me feel besieged. The worst part of it all was the fear that I was letting the cast and the show down; illness is humiliating that way. Attempts to ignore my symptoms and just “carry on” became more difficult, and eventually impossible. I performed as best I could despite my condition, and the cast and staff of ATL, and the casts of other shows in the Festival – particularly the members of the SITI company – were wonderfully supportive. I stayed in Louisville a week after the show closed, for more dental surgery and to help my fever subside, and I did not act for the rest of the year. (I had to turn down the offer to continue ‘Big Love’ at several theatres around the country in subsequent months, including a stint at BAM, which hurt, but I was sure it was for the best decision for all concerned. I was very glad the cast got to bring the show to such a large audience.)
Postscript: My condition did not begin to improve until a year later, when a doctor suggested I get tested for Celiac. I felt an immediate improvement once I tried the protocols, but was still ill for many years afterward, as I searched for a specific dietary regimen which might restore my health.
It is my belief that the complex of food sensitivities called Celiac Disease are just one manifestation of a larger problem of immune-system triggering and depletion, but my evidence for that is just anecdotal and not scientific – and the suggestions currently in place to treat Celiac remain a good way for anyone to begin to address the problem. I hope we continue to learn more about what the human body should and should not eat, and why, and that all those suffering from food intolerances or systemic allergies are able to find a regimen and lifestyle that restores them to health.