Story. The immersion in information when one is devising a play does eventually have to lead to story. It has to, it always does, even if it isn't apparent at first. At least that is how I conceive it. And I find myself daydreaming, reading, doodling and playing with story ideas. This is the part of devising that I love and loathe. It is an indulgent process in that all I think about is a story that can support this project. I love it because of this very indulgence--how cannot it not be a good thing to lose oneself in a project such as this. I loathe it because every other creative thing goes away--I cannot think about the other projects I am doing with my daytime drama classes (for this theatre project is only 20% of my job--the rest of the day sees me teaching a drama elective to 32 7/8th graders, a drama/language class for 22 students with limited English proficiency, and 2 sixth grade wheel classes in drama); I cannot think about my own writing and storytelling projects. (It's also a great excuse for not thinking about the plumbing in my house that needs fixing and things like that) For story to emerge I have to keep on this to make connections with things that are going on in my life with this project. Two case in points. Two nights ago I saw a dress rehearsal of a play that will be performed at the Berkeley Repertory theatre. While watching I noticed a device the playwright used that I thought might be useful for this play of ours. Journals. The main character in the play addressed the audience by reading from his journal that he kept while his mother was dying. He'd read to us an entry and then he, and other actors, would bring that entry to life. Sometimes he would emerge from the scene and say something to the effect that: "That wasn't exactly how it happened, from now on I have to stick to the Journal". I thought how some journals could be uncovered by archeologists working around the Hagia Sophia, and that our "play" is based on the reading of these journals. Perhaps there would be contradictory elements in these found journals, presenting history from two or even more divergent points of view.
The second thing is an article I found on the internet entitled:
The article itself is a worthwhile for anyone that wants to read it. For the rest of you I will try and summarize. After a wonderful introduction that captures the reason the Hagia Sophia is important, and reminds me of why I am trying to create a theatre project out of this building, the author introduces an architectural/historical concept I was unfamiliar with: Spolia
Hagia Sophia contains artifacts that memorialize Turkey’s vast and rich history that date back before the time of Constantine. These artifacts and fragments came from all over the Empire and beyond. Fragments and artifacts from pagan temples, allied countries, and conquered nations were incorporated into the building with purpose and intent. Historians call the artifacts and fragments incorporated into the structure spolia. The Roman's and later the Byzantine's used spolia in the construction of their buildings throughout the Empire. Spolia relates meaning in the way the stones and artifacts are incorporated into the structure. It was a way of telling a visual story. Spolia is the fragments, columns, and stones from buildings, religious medallions, and statues taken from conquered or allied nations. It is not re-use or recycling in the way a person living in the twenty-first century would understand; the intentional reducing of one’s carbon footprint. This notion has no place in antiquity. While examples exist that show the reuse of stones in buildings because of convenience and fit, the use of stones and columns from foreign temples or churches were used with the intention of making a statement of domination or political legitimization. Each of the major player's in the history of the Hagia Sophia can be understood through spolia. While there is no lasting ruins from the original Hagia Sophia, build by Constantine, some of the other structures built under his authority, in particular The Arch of Constantinople showed his use of spolia--incorporating the sculptural adornments of the great second century emperors into “his own arch” served as a public affirmation and political validation that Constantine was the Empire’s embodiment of the past rulers and legitimate successor. For Justinian, the Hagia Sophia was rebuilt with the grandeur to make a statement to the world; Christianity trumps paganism. All this through his using materials from past pagan temples pieces of which were incorporated into the Hagia Sophia as a means of incorporating cultural memory of its past and showing it now under the control and authority of the Christians; “a political statement of Christian hegemony." And with Mehmet II, the Ottoman Sultan who succeeded in conquering Constantinople in 1453, the reshaping the Hagia Sophia into the Ayasophia as a mosque was symbolic as well. It stood as the principal mosque of Istanbul for five hundred years and became the model for many of the Ottoman Mosques built after the conquest. He wanted to perform an act that would be a “symbolic refounding of the city” and would establish himself as a great and powerful Byzantine leader, like Constantine and Justinian. Mehmet even tried to mimic Alexander the Great and took great pains to “compare symbolic acts in his history of conquest.” With the conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a Mosque, the covering of Christian icons and the desecration of crosses, he made a statement to the world. Hagia Sophia became a “symbolic monument of conquest and domination. In Christian eyes, Hagia Sophia became a standing monument of “Christian defeat, the sense of which is perpetuated and embittered by the preservation of its ancient but desecrated name.”
And even in it's modern incarnation, as a museum, the building continues to build its narrative. With the rise of secularism in Turkey, in 1935, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, made a symbolic statement by making the Hagia Sophia a museum and restoring the Christian Murals that stood side-by-side with the Koranic verses. The existence of the mosaics were known, thanks to the records the Fossati brothers who discovered them when recording and cleaning (in the 1800s). Plaster stayed over the mosaics for quite sometime and the building was allowed to stand in disrepair. The slowness of the restoration and the disrepair the structure has fallen into is controversial. Visitors today, some seventy-five years after its secularization, see a work in progress that seems almost frozen in time and incomplete. And so the story continues. For what happens next will have a great impact on the story that is told. The restorers have a difficult job in trying to balance the Christian and Muslim features in the Hagia Sophia so that it stands as a museum that testifies to its entire history. As Christian icons are uncovered and restored, it is done at the expense of destroying Islamic Art. And that is a narrative that is difficult to imagine. So, it seems as if nothing is done. It is my thought that doing nothing indicates our current time's dilemma with how to reconcile what is a 1500 year struggle between two competing world views. And is this not the story of the world today? All this through a building and it's stones. I was struck, in reading this, how the building materials are placed and used tell a story. A story that would be full and clear if we knew how to listen. It brought me to the idea that the pieces of the building can speak to us. Why not? If we can make a play out of a building it certainly would make sense that the building can speak. Even if none of this ends up as our device (either the journal idea or the Spolia idea) I write about them to serve as a point. That when you are immersed in a devising project, you have to take everything into account. For you don't know what will inspire a story.
The second thing is an article I found on the internet entitled:
Hagia Sophia: Political and Religious Symbolism in Stones and Spolia
By Michele Stopera Freyhauf Wed, May 04, 2011The article itself is a worthwhile for anyone that wants to read it. For the rest of you I will try and summarize. After a wonderful introduction that captures the reason the Hagia Sophia is important, and reminds me of why I am trying to create a theatre project out of this building, the author introduces an architectural/historical concept I was unfamiliar with: Spolia
Hagia Sophia contains artifacts that memorialize Turkey’s vast and rich history that date back before the time of Constantine. These artifacts and fragments came from all over the Empire and beyond. Fragments and artifacts from pagan temples, allied countries, and conquered nations were incorporated into the building with purpose and intent. Historians call the artifacts and fragments incorporated into the structure spolia. The Roman's and later the Byzantine's used spolia in the construction of their buildings throughout the Empire. Spolia relates meaning in the way the stones and artifacts are incorporated into the structure. It was a way of telling a visual story. Spolia is the fragments, columns, and stones from buildings, religious medallions, and statues taken from conquered or allied nations. It is not re-use or recycling in the way a person living in the twenty-first century would understand; the intentional reducing of one’s carbon footprint. This notion has no place in antiquity. While examples exist that show the reuse of stones in buildings because of convenience and fit, the use of stones and columns from foreign temples or churches were used with the intention of making a statement of domination or political legitimization. Each of the major player's in the history of the Hagia Sophia can be understood through spolia. While there is no lasting ruins from the original Hagia Sophia, build by Constantine, some of the other structures built under his authority, in particular The Arch of Constantinople showed his use of spolia--incorporating the sculptural adornments of the great second century emperors into “his own arch” served as a public affirmation and political validation that Constantine was the Empire’s embodiment of the past rulers and legitimate successor. For Justinian, the Hagia Sophia was rebuilt with the grandeur to make a statement to the world; Christianity trumps paganism. All this through his using materials from past pagan temples pieces of which were incorporated into the Hagia Sophia as a means of incorporating cultural memory of its past and showing it now under the control and authority of the Christians; “a political statement of Christian hegemony." And with Mehmet II, the Ottoman Sultan who succeeded in conquering Constantinople in 1453, the reshaping the Hagia Sophia into the Ayasophia as a mosque was symbolic as well. It stood as the principal mosque of Istanbul for five hundred years and became the model for many of the Ottoman Mosques built after the conquest. He wanted to perform an act that would be a “symbolic refounding of the city” and would establish himself as a great and powerful Byzantine leader, like Constantine and Justinian. Mehmet even tried to mimic Alexander the Great and took great pains to “compare symbolic acts in his history of conquest.” With the conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a Mosque, the covering of Christian icons and the desecration of crosses, he made a statement to the world. Hagia Sophia became a “symbolic monument of conquest and domination. In Christian eyes, Hagia Sophia became a standing monument of “Christian defeat, the sense of which is perpetuated and embittered by the preservation of its ancient but desecrated name.”
And even in it's modern incarnation, as a museum, the building continues to build its narrative. With the rise of secularism in Turkey, in 1935, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, made a symbolic statement by making the Hagia Sophia a museum and restoring the Christian Murals that stood side-by-side with the Koranic verses. The existence of the mosaics were known, thanks to the records the Fossati brothers who discovered them when recording and cleaning (in the 1800s). Plaster stayed over the mosaics for quite sometime and the building was allowed to stand in disrepair. The slowness of the restoration and the disrepair the structure has fallen into is controversial. Visitors today, some seventy-five years after its secularization, see a work in progress that seems almost frozen in time and incomplete. And so the story continues. For what happens next will have a great impact on the story that is told. The restorers have a difficult job in trying to balance the Christian and Muslim features in the Hagia Sophia so that it stands as a museum that testifies to its entire history. As Christian icons are uncovered and restored, it is done at the expense of destroying Islamic Art. And that is a narrative that is difficult to imagine. So, it seems as if nothing is done. It is my thought that doing nothing indicates our current time's dilemma with how to reconcile what is a 1500 year struggle between two competing world views. And is this not the story of the world today? All this through a building and it's stones. I was struck, in reading this, how the building materials are placed and used tell a story. A story that would be full and clear if we knew how to listen. It brought me to the idea that the pieces of the building can speak to us. Why not? If we can make a play out of a building it certainly would make sense that the building can speak. Even if none of this ends up as our device (either the journal idea or the Spolia idea) I write about them to serve as a point. That when you are immersed in a devising project, you have to take everything into account. For you don't know what will inspire a story.
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