"Shut up, he says. Voice from the depths. Shut up. IT STINKS IN HERE. I do think you
might change the straw, the previous occupant had crabs - no I haven't seen them, I
speculate - "
-Galactia, Scene 15
If this seems reminiscent of Judith, there's a reason. Scenes from an Execution, written by Howard Barker, premiered as a radio play for the BBC 1984. It later went on to be staged in 1986 at the Almeida Theatre in London, with Glenda Jackson staring as the lead, Galactia, in both productions. It received a revival in 2012 by the National Theatre. I found this play in Howard Barker: Plays One published by Oberon Books in London, part of their Oberon Modern Playwrights series. I found this information at The Wrestling School ("a European theatre company based in London that explores the relationship between language, performer and audience through the work of Howard Barker") and its Wiki page.
The play opens with Galactia painting her lover Carpeta. Galactia is a painter who loves details and paints incredibly life-like bodies and scenes, while Carpeta paints more biblically, painting a picture of Christ in the flocks eight times. Galactia gets a commission to paint the Battle of Lepanto for Urgentino, the Doge of Venice. The painting is a huge work, three thousand square feet. The Doge's brother, Admiral of the Fleet, can't be "seen", even though he is 14 feet high. Galactia is painting the battle as it was, full of blood and bodies. The Doge, however, insists it celebrate Venice instead. As Galactia delves deeper into her work, she distances herself from Carpeta. Galactia's daughters warn her that her painting is offensive because it pities the enemy, but Galactia is more concerned with truth. When Galactia fails to bend to the Doge's ideas, he turns to Carpeta to do the commission instead. When the admiral sees he has been painted with talons for hands, he throws Galactia in prison. An art critic takes up for Galactia, and because Carpeta's work lacks the brilliant detail and power of Galactia's, she is taken out of jail and her work exhibited. Galactia has gone slightly mad, the whole point of her work being misinterpreted and the truth morphed into something unrecognizable.
The first dramaturgical choice that stands out to me is the use of a Sketchbook as a guiding force and narrator in the play. The Sketchbook, found on the character list and given lines in the play, has no clues as to whether it is played by an actor on stage, or if it is a literal sketchbook given a voice from an actor off stage. The Sketchbook is very strong and prominent character in the first part of the play, but as the play progresses, it slowly disappears. The Sketchbook is quirky and ambiguous, often cutting off characters mid-line, only to be cut off itself as the scene abruptly ends. The explanation I came up with for the disappearance of the Sketchbook towards the end is that the line becomes blurred between the Sketchbook as a narrator and the subconscious of Galactia given a voice. When the Sketchbook speaks, it either observes what's being seen in the scene, or it provides an update of what portion of the painting Galactia is in. As the play progresses, Galactia begins to speak her thoughts aloud. She shares her internal struggles and her displeasure with the state of affairs she's in. The Sketchbook and Galactia's subconscious morph together to become one. I also enjoyed that a sketchbook, a personal collection of rough, unfinished, quick, and usually never shown to others drawings is used to narrate. Barker is on to something by using something so primal and gritty to be so definite and illuminating.
The second dramaturgical choice that stands out to me is the parallel of the definition of truth and the definition of perceived gender norms. The "point" of Scenes is well-known "Artist's Struggle". Do you paint what you are told, or do you paint the truth, also known as "for yourself". The Doge tells Galactia she was commissioned to paint the "greatest triumph of Venetian History". There's a great moment in scene two where the doge asks Galactia if she loves Venice. She replies she is Venetian. Right from the start, we see where Galactia stands. Throughout the play, everyone from the art critic to Galactia's own daughters to the upper echelon critiques her work for being too raw. Her work is nothing but blood, torn flesh, and "chopped up genitalia". This, to Galactia, was the battle. The Doge and his supporters, however, have a "you do what you gotta do" mentality, and see the battle purely as a victory for Venice, no matter how dirty it was. After all is said and done, the painting is a huge success. Visitors who view it weep from the power it holds. A group of male painters scoff at it, saying that if a man had painted it, it would have been an indictment of war, but because it was "painted by the most promiscuous female within a hundred miles of the lagoon" (WHAT???) it is instead viewed as "aggressive, coarse, and shrill". The painting is nicknamed "The Slag's Revenge". Because a woman fought against the male dominated notions of what art is and what should be put on display, she is suddenly whorish and her art is shrill? (At the beginning of the play, Galactia's daughter Supporta supports (eh, eh?) Galactia by telling her she would be a breakthrough for women if she painted for the doge). The parallels here are fascinating. Galactia is told she would be a breakthrough, she does what she wants (the truth), gets reprimanded for it, her work is wildly successful, but Galactia herself is seen as sub-par because of her sex? The things truth gets you and the things being a woman gets you are horrifyingly similar here.
(Apparently, I never learned what a word count is in this class. Sorry. Just call me a whorey Galactia because I do what I want.)
