Mein (1983)

A collective creation by Stewart Arnott, Mark Christman, Denis Forest, Maggie Huculak and Tanja Jacobs

A "multiperspective," non-linear, collective work that attacks corporate ethics via the influence of Macbeth and Richard III, Mein, directed by Richard Rose, posits a central character who is acted by all five of the actors in the play, sometimes in unison. Rose's comments on the play's origins take note of how "corporations have the structure of armies" (Theatrum 2 [1985]: 6) and that he drew inspiration from sources both Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean: Scenes From Corporate Life; Winning Through Intimidation; The Success Factor, and Jan Kott's classic critical work Shakespeare, Our Contemporary (ibid.). In this regard, the mapping of corporate ethics onto Shakespearean thematics (or vice versa) reminds of the ways in which Shakespearean theatre serves as a conduit for a vast range of adaptive practices that relate Shakespeare to contemporary contexts.

Rose comments:

Both in Macbeth and Richard III , I looked for a plot, and especially from Macbeth, I developed what I call the "spine." The "spine" refers to the events of a story, but not just a plot. It is a progression of human emotions in relationship to the actions, a progression of images in relationship to the emotions, and finally a progression of thoughts that indicate the meaning of the action at each specific time. The spine had a certain abstraction and a philosophy that guided us through the rehearsal period but did not define the content. Its abstraction, like the title, provided emotions, images or thoughts that would provoke the improvisations but hopefully would not define how a scene would be created in rehearsal. (ibid. 6-7)

Like many of Rose's other works, Mein 's collective process of creation depended heavily on improvisational techniques developed by the company as a whole, and one of the play's central challenges lay in how collectively to represent a single character. The adaptive process that Rose discusses in his comments above point to the ways in which Shakespearean specificity (of plot, characterization, and so forth) is transformed into something much more fluid and abstract as a result of the kinds of dramaturgical practices put into place by Rose and his company.

A fascinating example of these practices entails how the actors generated the script from a range of specific imaginative tasks, whether through the creation of a dance that was limited to 25 movements that somehow represented competition or the recreation of a nightmare via collective improvisation. Around the Macbethian spine develops an entirely related but differential corpus of events, images, emotions, and so forth in a unique dialogical interplay.

Mein 's single character, "I," is a young, ambitious executive, played sometimes in unison, sometimes by single actors, with, in the latter case, the other actors representing different psychic aspects of the central character or (with masks on) various other characters with whom "I" interacts. Additional influences on the conception of the play are the way in which the actors' movements echo commedia dell'arte and Japanese theatre.

"I"'s ambition is the key psychic focus of the play: the title "Mein," as Rose has stated, "is a word that resonates/symbolizes many different images and experiences: possession, fascism, conquering, claiming, and controlling, all acts of ambition. It also seemed that 'having' as an action is insatiable and never-ending. 'Having' was important, very important in this new world. Materialism had become the new religion, having its form of worship, and one's career moves were the beads on the rosary" (ibid. 6).

The tragic plot involves "I's use of deception to achieve corporate power and in so doing "I"'s actions lead to the suicide of his company president who is then replaced by "I," a profoundly unethical act that ultimately leads to "I"'s downfall. In this latter regard, the play's echoes of Macbeth are unequivocal. But in the contemporization of court intrigues transmuted into the contexts of corporate evil (well in advance of the corporate scandals of the late 90s and early 21st century), Mein 's adaptive strategies uncannily anticipate precise material realities through its imaginative abstractions.

Daniel Fischlin

CASP gratefully acknowledges the authors' permission to publish this play to its website.

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