Monthly Archives: September 2019

Save this Date: Staged Reading of Gabriel Jason Dean’s IN BLOOM and Risk Theatre Book Launch

SAVE THIS DATE

SUNDAY OCTOBER 20, 2019 6pm

Join us at Langham Court Theatre for one night featuring two special events: the book launch of Edwin Wong’s award-winning debut work of literary criticism, THE RISK THEATRE MODEL OF TRAGEDY: GAMBLING, DRAMA, AND THE UNEXPECTED and a staged reading of playwright Gabriel Jason Dean’s play IN BLOOM. From the 182 entries from 11 countries, an international team of three jurors selected IN BLOOM as the winner of Langham Court Theatre’s inaugural RISK THEATRE MODERN TRAGEDY COMPETITION (risktheatre.com). Dean takes home the grand prize of $8000 cash, a three-day playwriting workshop at Langham Court Theatre, and a $1000 travel stipend.
The aim of the competition is to put Victoria and Langham Court Theatre on the playwriting map by redefining the art form of tragedy. Risk is now the dramatic fulcrum of the action. Tragic heroes make risk run riot with their delirious wagers. Because they wager human assets, tragedy functions as a valuing mechanism. Because they lose all, audiences wonder: how did the perfect bet go wrong?
The staged reading will be directed by Michael Armstrong, a well-known local director, playwright, educator, and actor. Wong will be in attendance, as well as playwright Dean, who will be flying from Brooklyn, New York to talk to you about his exciting new play IN BLOOM.
IN BLOOM tells the story of Aaron, an ambitious, well-intentioned, but ultimately reckless American documentary filmmaker in Afghanistan. While there, Aaron not only risks his own life in pursuit of exposing the truth surrounding dancing boys—a thinly disguised form of prostitution—but his actions also endanger the life of an Afghan boy named Hafiz, a tragedy that Aaron later lies about in his award-winning memoir about his experience in Afghanistan. The play examines what it means to risk all to do good, and looks at a character standing on the crossroads between altruism and imperialism. Is it justifiable to rewrite someone else’s history for the greater good?
Copies of Wong’s book THE RISK THEATRE MODEL OF TRAGEDY will be on sale at a special price of $10. Readers interested in risk management, writing, criticism, and theatre will want a copy. If you love literature—theatre, film, novels, history, biography, opera, whatever—you need to read this extraordinary work. You will never read another work of literature the same way. The book is a winner in the Readers Favorite Book Awards, the CIPA EVVY Awards, and the National Indie Excellence Awards. It has been featured in BC Bookworld, Broadway World UK, The Clyde Fitch Report (forthcoming), The Elements of Writing, Island Writer Magazine (forthcoming), London Review of Books (forthcoming), Monday Magazine, New York Review of Books, Ormsby Review (forthcoming), and The Tom Sumner Program. We are also thrilled to announce that a major MFA program has launched a course on risk theatre, the first of its kind in the world.
Come join us on Sunday, October 20. The book launch will be a casual meet and greet event and begins at 6pm. Complimentary appetizers will be provided by Food for Thought Catering and there will be a cash bar. The staged reading commences at 7pm with audience talkback to follow. Entry by donation, all proceeds will support Langham Court Theatre initiatives. We look forward to seeing you there.
BIOS
Michael Armstrong is an actor, director, playwright, and educator. He has a BA in English Literature and a MFA in Playwriting. He has directed, acted, and led workshops for twenty years. He has written a dozen plays, both comedy and tragedy, most of which have been inspired by actual historical events. He has a deep interest in the role of catharsis in personal growth and explores this theme in much of his writing: how personal tragedy can break us open, strip us clean, and make room for new life. It is a gamble that does not always pay out.
Gabriel Jason Dean is an American playwright whose plays include Terminus (Austin Critic’s Table Award), Heartland (David Mark Cohen New Play Award), Qualities of Starlight (Broadway Blacklist), The Transition of Doodle Pequeño (American Alliance for Theatre & Education Distinguished Play Award, and others. His work has been produced and developed Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Flea, The Civilians, and Cherry Lane Theatre. He received a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University and earned his MFA from the University of Texas Michener Centre for Writers.
Edwin Wong believes the time is now to reimagine the ancient art of tragedy. After reading Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, he developed “risk theatre,” a theory of drama which aligns tragedy with the modern fascination surrounding chance and uncertainty. The result is a tragic stage where every dramatic act is a gambling act and risk runs riot. Wong received a MA in Classics from Brown University where he concentrated in ancient theatre. He lives in Victoria, Canada and blogs at melpomeneswork.com.

The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoyevsky translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky

1880 (trans. 1990), Alfred A. Knopf, 976 pages

Book Blurb

Dostoevsky’s towering reputation as one of the handful of thinkers who forged the modern sensibility has sometimes obscured the purely novelistic virtues–brilliant characterizations, flair for suspense and melodrama, instinctive theatricality–that made his work so immensely popular in nineteenth-century Russia. The Brothers Karamazov, his last and greatest novel, published just before his death in 1881, chronicles the bitter love-hate struggle between the outsized Fyodor Karamazov and his three very different sons. It is above all the story of a murder, told with hair-raising intellectual clarity and a feeling for the human condition unsurpassed in world literature.

Translator Blurb

This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky–the definitive version in English–magnificently captures the rich and subtle energies of Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece.

The Brothers Karamazov

High school friend HT invited me to join her book club five months ago and Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece came up for discussion at our session last Sunday. I’ve read this book years ago and was happy to revisit it. Dostoyevsky, because of his pioneering work drawing attention to our subconscious motivations, is one of my favourite authors. Nietzsche was also a Dostoyevsky fan. You could draw a line tracing Dostoyevsky to Nietzsche and from Nietzsche to Freud. In other words, no Nietzsche and Freud without Dostoyevsky.

This is a big book. Instead of our usual month-and-a-half between book clubs, we allotted two months for The Brothers Karamazov, or ‘BK’ as fans call it. And then it got extended another week, since I was in Denver to collect a book award for my recently published book: The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy. But even this extra week wasn’t enough. Over half our book club didn’t make it through. Despite everyone’s valiant efforts, the states of completion ranged from halfway to the tens of pages from the ending. That’s telling of how tastes change.

Here’s a little bit about our book club. More women then men. Career wise we are all successful, having reached probably the top decile of our respective professions which are: interior designer, RMT, engineer, psychiatrist, and project manager. I’m not sure what one fellow does, but he recently did the Camino in Spain, and he was able to follow work with a laptop and an internet connection, so perhaps he’s a consultant of sorts?

The general complaint was that the book starts off slowly. I could see that. The religious issues that dominate the first half–the erosion of religion, the rise of free-thinking principles, the role of ‘elders’ in the church, the role of monasteries in society–have passed us by. They are no longer the burning issues they were in the mid-nineteenth century. Ivan’s tale of ‘the Grand Inquisitor’ caught people’s attention, but the problem was you had to read through so much to get to it. BK is not unlike a Wagner opera: you get ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ once in awhile, but you have to listen to a lot of other things in between. The mid- to late nineteenth century, in music and literature, was a time of epic constructions. Today we are more into Twitter, 140 characters or less, please.

While dramatic tension was slow in the building, the general consensus was the trial scene in the last third of the book is riveting. If only there were not the first two-thirds of the book to get in the way! The other observation echoed by book clubbers was that the female characters, notably Katerina and Grushenka, were cardboard cutouts more closely resembling drama queens than real individuals. I would have to agree, but I would add that everyone in the novel is a drama queen and that they are all drama queens (e.g. every conversation is “Please forgive me,” or “You’ve insulted my dignity,” or “My pride is wounded,” or “I’m all out of cash”) because no one has a job. If only Dmitri had to work our 40 hour week he would have less time to spend cavorting around with gypsies!

My burning question that I wanted to ask the book club was whether Ivan’s conjecture that “everything will be permitted” once Christianity gives way to free-thinking has come to pass. It seems in the century-and-a-half since BK came out freethinking has had a coming of age, especially out here on the westcoast, where the masses have raged into atheism. The book club consensus was that, today, in Russia, yes, Dostoyevsky was prescient. The anarchy and crime prevalent on the streets of Russia is a sign that “everything is permitted.”

I’m not so sure though. It seems to me that while Orthodoxism and religion were strong in Russia, lawlessness could also prevail. Look at how Dmitri drags around the retired captain Snegiryov by the beard. Or how Smerdyakov murders his father. I think human nature is the constant. We project human nature onto culture and society. To me, culture and society can change, but only so much as the elasticity of human nature allows. There is a bit of a moral decay theme in BK that change is always going for the worse (e.g. “Oh, if we were just in the good old days things would be better.”) I don’t find that necessarily true. From a technological point, things seem to be getting better (e.g. antibiotics, vaccinations, indoor heating, fridge, stove, and other appliances, cars, planes, etc.,). But from a moral perspective I can’t see how things can be that much different. Others will disagree. Vehemently.

The next book club read happens to be Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. It will be most interesting to see if science can encroach on morality and ethics, religion’s final strongholds. Maybe science will have the final word against Ivan’s prediction that, when religion falls, “everything is permitted.” Maybe Science will be our new god?

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I’m doing Melpomene’s work.

The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy Wins in the 11th Annual International Readers’ Favorite Awards

What do I have in common with celebrities Jim Carrey, Jonathan Frakes, Diana Hart, and bestselling writers J.A. Jance and Daniel Silva? Readers’ Favorite announced today that THE RISK THEATRE MODEL OF TRAGEDY: GAMBLING, DRAMA, AND THE UNEXPECTED is a winner in their 11th Annual Book Award Contest!

Thank you to editors Carla DeSantis and Damian Tarnopolsky for making concise the argument that risk, in tragedy, is the dramatic fulcrum of the action. Thank you to proofreader Mark Grill for his sharp eyes. Thank you to professors Laurel Bowman, Charles Fornara, and David Konstan for their inspiration and insights on drama. Thank you to Michael Armstrong, Michelle Buck, and Keith Digby at Langham Court Theatre in Victoria, Canada for turning this book into the world’s largest tragedy playwriting competition. Thank you to all the playwrights all over the world who have entered the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition. Together we will change the course of this art form! And finally, thank you to Readers’ Favorite for making this opportunity available. Publicity means so much to writers releasing their debut efforts. It is an honour to win the prize and to have my book displayed at the Miami Book Fair International.

Congratulations to all the other winners who I look forward to meeting at the Miami Award Ceremony this November. Miami, here I come! Here’s the link to my five-star Readers’ Favorite review by Astrid Iustulin: https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/the-risk-theatre-model-of-tragedy

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I’m doing Melpomene’s work.

Readers’ Favorite Award