journal for 26 Oct 2010

It was nice to have Laura back :-). According to Laura we don't want to worry about a liner order and we can or can not use quotes. I think quotes would be a plus, makes it feel more realistic. Whatever we create we will be able to work into the story, I like this idea especially since I am out of ideas :-( The two biggest issues I felt while doing the stretching, which was very relaxing, was isolation and the concept of company town, since Ludlow was isolated and was a company town. Now it comes down to how to portray the sense of isolation and the concept of a company town without taking up to much time with "lecturing."

ALL -what does sunday from 11-1 (or 10-12 or 1-3 or...?) look like for each of you to join me for work in the space - is there a better time?? If you can't make sunday - would Monday snytime after 2:00 work? Please share your response by post and email me as well....Thanks!
Laura

My three pieces

Opening Scene:

Amidst artifacts and images of Ludlow and the coal mines, there are a couple of benches placed in the space. They are angled towards the front of the room. The space is situated so that audience members are enticed to wander and look around the room. In a cubby at the bottom level of the north shelf, three or four heat lamps emanate heat and light. Heavy breathing possibly can be heard from some body in this cubby hammering a rock. In the center near the front of the room. Smoke or fog rises from a hole in the floor. The distant din of miners at work can be heard from this hole. A couple of actors mill about as if they were apart of the audience. While the audience is looking around, the COMPANY MAN as the union leader walks to the front of the room and calls the meeting to start.

Company Man: Well now, lets all have a seat. The meeting shall begin shortly. waits for people to sit, and motions them to the benches. As you all know we need to organize and work as one if we want change...Now then Can I have your name?

Tom as audience: Tom Larius, Sir.

Company Man: writes in his notebook. Tom Larius...good. And why are you here?

Tom: Because I’m tired of not getting paid for my weight of coal each day. I see the weighman knock my load down every day. sometimes 50 lbs!

Company Man: And what makes you think you are being unfairly paid?

Miner as Audience: Are you kidding? At the end of the day, I go home without enough money to feed my family.

Company Man: Yes...And what’s your name?

Miner: My name?!

John Lawson: off stage in back. I’m sorry I’m late, had some trouble on the roads coming up... Comes onstage with Louis Tikas. Ah! I see you’ve started the meeting without me.

Louis: Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.

After a pause, the Company man makes a run for it. Everyone gets up to chase him and the lights go out. There is a scuffle, and a gunfire is heard.

As the lights fade back up, the funeral procession for Louis Tikas crosses the stage. We don’t know it is his funeral yet. He is covered in black cloth. Once the procession is off stage, the sound of a shovel cutting into dirt is heard. As the sound of the dirt sliding off the shovel and into the grave is heard, some gravel and dirt drops on the audience from the ceiling.

As the dirt falls, the company man and his supervisor meet in the center of the room.

Company Man: Sir, the miners’ are ruthless. I think a strike is absolutely possible.

Supervisor: Do you think they are actually capable of organizing? We hardly have to keep them separate. They break into factions on their own. Their is so much animosity between some groups of miners that I wouldn’t be surprised if they killed each other off before they can even agree on terms.

Company Man: They’re angry and violent. They ran me out of their meeting... I can see the lust for blood in their eyes.

Supervisor: I don’t see what they could be angry about. We provide them with shelter, food and clothing, and they want more? What would they be doing if it weren’t for the mines? Starving on the streets? These foreigners should be grateful, being given a chance here in America. They will come to their senses.

More gravel falls from the ceiling as the lights fade out.


Sound design for being under the ground/feel of piece:

I’d like to heard the constant groaning of support planks. Since it is under the ground, I believe an underwater quality to the sound would fit well with the piece. Muffled, reverberating voices can echo on all sides and the sound of mining carts running along the underground tracks can pan from the front to the back. I like the idea of having an underground quality throughout the entire piece, so we can manipulate outdoor noises to give them an eerie quality of also being underground. For example, if birds are chirping in the morning before the massacre, we could make their sound more sparse and distant, with a slight slap-back echo so that the space the massacre takes place in seems much smaller and claustrophobic than it actually is.


Sound design for the massacre:

I’m still unsure as how to do the massacre visually, but I picture the sound of a peaceful early morning with that flurry of chirping birds that happens around 5 in the morning and carries on until 7 or 8. Faintly in the distance you can here a couple of people in their daily life, gathering wood, filling their pails with water, etc. During this we hear the distant sound of the death special working it’s way down the tracks from the back left. as it reaches the center, is a short pause in which the death special has stopped on the tracks and is getting cocked for firing. Then the sound of machine gun fire over takes the space for 7-10 seconds, and then the death special heads back the way it came from. Firing sporadically as it passes the camp. As the death special fades away, the sound of fire begins to become more prominent until it is also overwhelming. Throughout the entire soundscape though, birds can always be heard chirping.



Woman Piece:

A hardened woman sits at a pail her husband’s Sunday clothes on a wash board. She is preparing for his funeral. She shows no emotion.

A company man walks up to her. He is nervous, and holds back. He watches her work the the clothing.

Company man: Excuse me, Mrs. Larius?

Elsa: without stopping her work. What.

Company man: Mrs. Larius... I’m sorry but-

Elsa: I got it.

Company man: Excuse me? So you know...

Elsa: I said I got it. I have my girls packing up right now.

Company man: Ah...well then. You’ve got two sundowns.

Elsa: slamming her work down. I said I got it! You must be thick, standing there repeating yourself like an idiot. You think I’m the only one this happens to? That loses her husband?

Company man: Mrs. Larius, I-

Elsa: Now get off! For two more sundowns I own this property. And for two more sundowns, I don’t want to see your sniveling nose nowhere near here! Now off!

With her last sentence she pushes the company man with the strength and resolve of a powerful man, and begins to clean her husbands clothes again.

The company man is at a loss and slinks off stage.

The New Pieces

So here are my pieces:

This is the speech from Mother Jones. The pieces is broken up into three voices:

Charleston, WV August 15^th, 1912

I want to say,

with all due respect to the Governor —

I want to say to you that the Governor will not,

can not,

do anything,

for this reason:

The governor was placed in this building by Scott and Elkins, and he don't dare oppose them. Therefore you are asking the governor of the State to do something that he can not do without betraying the class he belongs to.

I remember the Governor in a state, when Grover Cleveland was perched in the White House — Grover Cleveland said he would send the federal troops out [to protect the miners], and the Governor of that state said,

"Will you? If you do, I will meet your federal troops with the state troops, and we will have it out."

Old Grover never sent the troops; he took back water...

You see, my friends, how quickly the Governor sent his militia when the coal operators got scared to death...

They wouldn't keep their dog where they keep you fellows. You know that. They have a good place for their dogs and a slave to take care of them.

The mine owners' wives will take the dogs up, and say, "I love you, dea-h" [imitating a mine owner's wife].

My friends the day for petting dogs is gone; the day for raising children to a nobler manhood and better womanhood is here!

You have suffered; I know you have suffered. I was with you nearly three years in this State. I went to jail. I went to the Federal courts, but I never took any back water! I still unfurl the red flag of industrial freedom; no tyrant's face shall you know, and I call you today into that freedom — long perch on the bosom —

[Interrupted by applause.]

I am back again to find you, my friends, in a state of industrial peonage...

We will prepare for the job, just like Lincoln and Washington did. We took lessons from them, and we are here to prepare for the job.

Well, when I came out on the public road [to get to the rally] the superintendent

— you know the poor salary slave —

he came out and told me that there were notaries public there, and a squire —

one had a peg leg —

and the balance had pegs in their skulls!

[Laughter]

They forbid me speaking on the highway, and said that if I didn't discontinue I would be arrested.

Well, I want to tell you one thing, I don't run into jail, but when the bloodhounds undertake to put me in jail I will go there.

I have gone there.

I would have had the little peg-leg squire arrest me, only I knew this meeting was going to be pulled off to-day, to let the world know what was going on in Colorado.

When I get through with them, by the Eternal God, they will be glad to let me alone.

I am not afraid of jails.

We [will] build jails, and when we get ready, we will put them behind the bars!...

Now, brothers, not in all the history of the labor movement have I got such an inspiration as I have got from you here to-day. Your banners are history; they will go down to the future ages, to the children unborn, to tell them the slave has risen, children must be free.

Read more: Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Coal Miners http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/jones-coal-miner/#ixzz13UXtcpUC

And this is the Rockefeller stuff. It has 5 voices:

Official call to go on strike - September 17, 1913

All mineworkers are hereby notified that a strike of all the coal miners and coke oven workers in Colorado will begin on Tuesday, September 23, 1913 … We are striking for improved conditions, better wages, and union recognition. We are sure to win.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. to CF&I vice president Lamont Bowers after beginning of strike - October 1913

We feel that what you have done is right and fair and that the position you have taken in regard to the unionizing of the mines is in the interest of the employees of the company. Whatever the outcome, we will stand by you to the end.

Lamont Bowers to Rockefeller - October 21, 1913

Our net earnings would have been the largest in the history of the company by $200,000 but for the increase in wages paid the employees during the last few months. With everything running so smoothly and with an excellent outlook for 1914, it is mighty discouraging to have this vicious gang come into our state and not only destroy our profit but eat into that which has heretofore been saved.

Rockefeller to Lamont Bowers - Dec. 8, 1913

You are fighting a good fight, which is not only in the interest of your own company but of other companies of Colorado and of the business interests of the entire country and of the laboring classes quite as much. I feel hopeful the worst is over and that the situation will improve daily. Take care of yourself, and as soon as it is possible, get a little let-up and rest.

Federal mediator Ethelbert Stewart comments on the situation - October 1913

Theoretically, perhaps, the case of having nothing to do in this world but work, ought to have made these men of many tongues, as happy and contented as the managers claim … To have a house assigned you to live in … to have a store furnished you by your employer where you are to buy of him such foodstuffs as he has, at a price he fixes … to have churches, schools … and public halls free for you to use for any purpose except to discuss politics, religion, trade-unionism or industrial conditions; in other words, to have everything handed down to you from the top; to be … prohibited from having any thought, voice or care in anything in life but work, and to be assisted in this by gunmen whose function it was, principally, to see that you did not talk labor conditions with another man who might accidentally know your language — this was the contented, happy, prosperous condition out of which this strike grew … That men have rebelled grows out of the fact that they are men.

Rockefeller defends "open shop" before Congressional committee - April 6, 1914

"These men have not expressed any dissatisfaction with their conditions. The records show that the conditions have been admirable … A strike has been imposed upon the company from the outside …

"There is just one thing that can be done to settle this strike, and that is to unionize the camps, and our interest in labor is so profound and we believe so sincerely that that interest demands that the camps shall be open camps, that we expect to stand by the officers at any cost."

"And you will do that if it costs all your property and kills all your employees?"

"It is a great principle."

New York Times' account of the massacre - April 21, 1914

The Ludlow camp is a mass of charred debris, and buried beneath it is a story of horror imparalleled [sic] in the history of industrial warfare. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifles' fire the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered [the day after the massacre] disclosed the bodies of ten children and two women.

Rockefeller to Lamont Bowers - April 21, 1914

Telegram received … We profoundly regret this further outbreak of lawlessness with accompanying loss of life.

Socialist writer Upton Sinclair's open letter to Rockefeller - April 28, 1914

I intend to indict you for murder before the people of this country. The charges will be pressed, and I think the verdict will be "Guilty".

I cannot believe that a man who dares to lead a service in a Christian church can be cognizant and therefore guilty of the crimes that have been committed under your authority.

We ask nothing but a friendly talk with you. We ask that in the name of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who are this minute suffering the most dreadful wrongs, directly because of the authority which you personally have given.

Rockefeller's version of the events - June 10, 1914

There was no Ludlow massacre. The engagement started as a desperate fight for life by two small squads of militia against the entire tent colony … There were no women or children shot by the authorities of the State or representatives of the operators … While this loss of life is profoundly to be regretted, it is unjust in the extreme to lay it at the door of the defenders of law and property, who were in no slightest way responsible for it.

Abby Rockefeller to John D. Rockefeller Jr. - September 1914

I am writing more and more to urge you to leave to me the petty details of the houses, places, etc. even though I realize they will not be as well or as inexpensively done; and throw the full force of your thought and time into the big, vital questions that come before you.

Rockefeller's testimony before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations - January 26, 1915

"I should hope that I could never reach the point where I would not be constantly progressing to something higher, better — both with reference to my own acts and… to the general situation in the company. My hope is that I am progressing. It is my desire to."

"You are, like the church says, 'growing in grace'?"

"I hope so. I hope the growth is in that direction."

Rockefeller speaks to the miners - September 20, 1915

We are all partners in a way. Capital can't get along without you men, and you men can't get along without capital. When anybody comes along and tells you that capital and labor can't get along together that man is your worst enemy. We are getting along friendly enough here in this mine right now, and there is no reason why you men cannot get along with the managers of my company when I am back in New York.

United Mine Workers' leader John Lawson comments on Junior's visit to Colorado - September, 1915

I believe Mr. Rockefeller is sincere… I believe he is honestly trying to improve conditions among the men in the mines. His efforts probably will result in some betterments which I hope may prove to be permanent.

However, Mr. Rockefeller has missed the fundamental trouble in the coal camps. Democracy has never existed among the men who toil under the ground — the coal companies have stamped it out. Now, Mr. Rockefeller is not restoring democracy; he is trying to substitute paternalism for it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/sfeature/sf_8.html

So there it is ^_^

Mistake

I may have accidentally deleted a couple members from the blog. If this was the case with you, check your email and you should have a new invitation to contribute. Sorry for the mix-up.

3 New Pieces

The Tale of George Belcher

A crowded street. Night. Miners, women, children bustle about, getting home or going for a drink. Amongst them appears George Belcher. He is strong, persistent, menacing. An intimidating fellow. People avoid his gaze as they pass, giving him a wide breech. Then….a gunshot. For an instant we see a soft look, one of surprise, of fear, of tragedy. Freeze.

BELCHER: Under the wide and starry skies, they dug the grave wherein he lies. But long he lives in our hearts who dies as he, in doing his duty well.

A few months earlier. Unfreeze.

WIFE: Do you have to go?

BELCHER: I’ll be back before you know it.

WIFE: What about me? What about your family?

BELCHER: Country first, honey. You know that. These men are breaking down the system, behaving like animals.

WIFE: My sister, in Denver, she says that winter is coming and they cannot keep warm. The strike has lost them all of the coal. She cannot keep her children warm.

BELCHER: And that is why I am going. To restore order.

Freeze. 1904. Unfreeze.

AGENT: You work for Baldwin-Felts now, son. You’ve got a job to do.

BELCHER: Yes sir.

AGENT: These men are animals, wild. They will shoot you and everyone you love just to get some pay. You have to put these men down, Belcher. Like fucking animals.

BELCHER: Yes sir, I know my duty sir.

Freeze. 1874. Unfreeze.

FATHER: Listen to me son, are you listening?

BELCHER: Yes, pa.

FATHER: There ain’t nothin’ more important in this world than your country, ya hear? She is your love, your life, your home. And don’t you let anyone, anyone, destroy her.

BELCHER: Pa?

FATHER: They’ll come. You’ll see, from all over they’ll come – looking for opportunities. But they’ll destroy her, son. They will destroy her unless somebody is there to teach them the way, keep them in line. Make me a promise, son.

BELCHER: Sure Pa.

FATHER: Don’t you ever let someone sully your home. Promise me, now.

BELCHER: I promise, Pa.

Freeze. Present.

BELCHER: Under the wide and starry skies, they dug the grave wherein he lies. But long he lives in our hearts who dies as he, in doing his duty well.

Gunshot. Unfreeze. For an instant we see a soft look, one of surprise, of fear, of tragedy.

He falls.

Death Pit

A huddle. From within we hear singing, soft and low. “Hallelujah.” There are gasps and cries of fear. And slowly, ever so softly we hear a voice. We do not know where it comes from or from whom. It builds….it grows. A fire…shadows and sound raging against the huddle trying to back through the growing barricade of voices.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Yearning for breath in a war of suffocation. Suffocating rights, compassion, humanity. The sickening smell of death spreads across, as spasms create devilish curses filling the blackened air with hatred. The coal has made beasts of men and victims of children. As the dust clears their faces I see only monsters, shooting into the air, bullets continuous. As the pollution seeps in, lighting their souls into flame, their smoke creeps through. Creeps through the door, through the canvas, through the floor and through my mother’s arms. Because I am but a huddled mass, yearning to breathe free.”

A breath. The fire expands.

Names

Performed back to back with Death Pit, a candle lighting ceremony.

Louis Tikas, age: 30 years
James Fyler, age: 43 years
John Bartolotti, age: 45 years
Charlie Costa, age: 31 years
Fedelina Costas, age: 27 years
Onafrio Costa, age: 4 years
Frank Rubino, age: 23 years
Patria Valdez, age: 37 years
Eulala Valdez, age: 8 years
Mary Valdez, age: 7 years
Elvira Valdez, age: 3 months
Joe Petrucci, age: 4 ½ years
Lucy Petrucci, age: 2 ½ years
Frank Petrucci, age: 4 months
William Snyder Jr, age: 11 years
Rodgerlo Pedregone, age: 6 years
Cloriva Pedregone, age: 4 year