Last Operas and Plays

by Gertrude Stein

"When I see a thing it is not a play for me, but when I write something that somebody else can see then it is a play for me." ―Gertrude Stein In the more than seventy-five plats Gertrude Stein wrote between 1913 and 1946, she envisioned a new dramaturgy, beginning with her pictorial conception of a play as a landscape. She drew into her plays the daily flow of life around her―including the natural world―and turned cities, villages, parts of the dramatic structure, and even her own friends into characters. She made punctuation and typography part of her compositional style and chose words for their joyful impact as sound andwordplay. For Strin, the writing process itself was always important in delevoping the "continuous present" at the heart of her work. Long out of print, Last Opera and Plays again makes available many of Stein's most important and most-produced works. As a special feature, it also included her thought-provoking essay "Plays," in which she reflects on the experience in the theater of seeing and hearing, and on emotion and time. "Now nearly a half century after her deathe," writes Bonnie Marranca in her introduction, "it is indisputable that Gertrude Stein is the great American modernist mind. No American author has been more influential for more generations of artists in the worlds of theater, dance, music, poetry, painting, and fiction."

Genres: Drama, Plays, Theatre

536 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Gertrude Stein was an American writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. Her life was marked by two primary relationships, the first with her brother Leo Stein, from 1874-1914, and the second with Alice B. Toklas, from 1907 until Stein's death in 1946. Stein shared her salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris, first with Leo and then with Alice. Throughout her lifetime, Stein cultivated significant tertiary relationships with well-known members of the avant garde artistic and literary world of her time.

Reviews

[sologdin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very difficult. Some of the items at the beginning (it is not chronologically ordered) have identifiable plot and character elements--the Faust play, a piece about Susan B. Anthony, a world war resistance text--but the rest are varying degrees of incomprehensible. The defect may very well be mine, of course, for wanting some conformity with aristotelian ideas. Definitely avant-garde in the most strenuous way. I wouldn't say that there's no merit, but it is labor intensive and I simply don't have the time for it.

[Samuel Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an avid follower of music my whole life, but never one who gave any shits about lyrics, it seems me and Gertrude Stein were bound to find one another. I have never really cared WHAT people sang but HOW they sang it. A few exceptions to the rule as I always dug Tom Waits' lyrics but this type of philosophy has led me to become a fan of Gertrude Stein. Much like her contemporary, John Cage, Stein deserves a place in the early 20th century avant garde pantheon, she wrote plays that not only were like none other before her but, made us view words and the theater in a completely different and challenging way. Stein meant for these plays to be performed (amazingly) because truly they almost don't make sense to just sit and read them. And come on, that would be kind of maddening anyway, wouldn't it? The magic of these works is in the cadence, in the repetition in the playful nature of wordplay. While reading these, I kept thinking of Dr. Seuss and his wonder with words. While these two artists may seem worlds apart, an avant garde theatre writer and a children's author, they are not so far removed from each other in terms of their approaches to the sound of language. I thought about that quote attributed to Dr. Seuss...."I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells..." I believe in that quote, when sound or language doesn't follow a normal pattern your brain picks up on this irregularity and instantly starts trying to make sense of the chaos. It becomes more aware, more keenly aware of what is going on.
This volume chronicles the second half of Stein's artistic life, a sequel to her previously published "Operas And Plays." The two plays that work best for me is the first two in this collection, "Yes Is For A Very Young Man" and "The Mother Of Us All" a fanciful staging of Susan B. Anthony chronicling women's suffrage and issues of feminism in the early part of the 20th century. In this play various real and imagined characters float in and out making this a surreal take on feminism and is probably the play that most follows a storyline in this collection. "Yes Is For A Very Young Man" is also one of the plays that you can sort of follow a typical story, which in Stein's world of repetitious eccentricism is not always too terribly important. This play marks some parallels between life in France post World War I and during German occupation there pre World War II and America's own Civil War. Probably the most famous play in this set is "Four Saints In Three Acts" which does not read so well in book form but (like Stein intended) works better as an actual production. Certainly when Virgil Thomson actually put on this play on Broadway in 1934 it not only was cited for it's love of the actual sound of words rather than any semblance of any type of narrative. Also it was presented with an all black cast portraying the European Saints which certainly was unprecedented.
For folks trying to find 'meaning' in a lot of Stein's works, good luck, I don't believe there are any deeper meaning beneath the surface. Stein's raison d'etre was language and how words sound and the art in that. A narrative would have at times seemed to get in the way of the art Stein was looking to produce. Stein has influenced all types of of creative people in the arts not only in stage writing. Her influence seems to stretch to the obvious in Richard Foreman to the not so obvious in the early stages of Beck's career. I'm really upset it took this long to get acquainted to Ms. Stein but I am really glad we have finally crossed paths.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Susan B. Anthony busy with her housework)

ANNE COMES IN. Oh it was wonderful, wonderful, they listen to nobody the way they listen to you.

SUSAN B. Yes it is wonderful as the result of my work for the first time the word male has been written into the constitution of the United States concerning suffrage. Yes it is wonderful.

ANNE. But

SUSAN B. Yes but, what is man, what are men, what are they. I do not say that they haven't kind hearts, if I fall down in a faint, they will rush to pick me up, if my house is on fire, they will rush in to put the fire out and help me, yes they have kind hearts but they are afraid, afraid, they are afraid, they are afraid. They fear women, they fear each other, they fear their neighbor, they fear other countries and then they hearten themselves in their fear by crowding together and following each other, and when they crowd together and follow each other they are brutes, like animals who stampede, and so they have written in the name male into the United States constitution, because they are afraid of black men because they are afraid of women, because they are afraid afraid. Men are afraid.

ANNE TIMIDLY. And women.

SUSAN B. Ah woman often have not any sense of danger, after all a hen screams pitifully when she sees an eagle but she is only afraid for her children, men are afraid for themselves, that is the real difference between men and women.

ANNE. But Susan B. why do you not say these things out loud.

SUSAN B. Why not, because if I did they would not listen they not alone would not listen they would revenge themselves. Men have kind hearts when they are not afraid but they are afraid afraid afraid. I say they are afraid, but if I were to tell them so their kindness would turn to hate. Yes the Quakers are right, they are not afraid because they do not fight, they do not fight.

ANNE. But Susan B. you fight and you are not afraid.

SUSAN B. I fight and I am not afraid, I fight but I am not afraid.

ANNE. And you will win.

SUSAN B. Win what, win what.

ANNE. Win the vote for women.

SUSAN B. Yes some day some day the women will vote and by that time.

ANNE. By that time oh wonderful time.

SUSAN B. By that time it will do them no good because having the vote they will become like men, they will be afraid, having the vote will make them afraid, oh I know it, but I will fight for the right, for the right to vote for them even though they become like men, become afraid like men, become like men.

[Egimenez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gertrude is a genius, and she knows it!

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good and interesting modernist dramas

[Jay Munroe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Went to see 'Mother of us All" performed at the Met because my friend was doing hair design, which she did very well. Let down by the lack of content going to see an opera with an open mind. More confused than confusing, and unkind in the name of compassion. Women's voting rights is an important issue to American history, watching this a century later against the backdrop of the historical artifacts I'm afraid Stein's work took upon a second irony for anyone hearing to listen that was not the kind of parody that was first intended. Art that is more concerned with the true and beautiful for its own sake despite its humble origins is what gives it a timeless quality, but art made with a central concern to be timely tends to age quickly.

There was a display of plates from 18th century Pennsylvania behind me, imagine that a whole display of clay plates made by hand from a state not far away next to history's great artifacts. I admit that the setting may have had the most to do with it, but definitely a night that made me think on what actually makes art speak the loudest.