La Mama Ellen

I wrote a reflection on this poem and revised it slightly on Summer Solstice, June 20, 2014.  Find it HERE!

International innovator Ellen Stewart died at the age of 91 in 2011.

"Ellen Stewart was a global citizen before anybody invented that identity as a way of being in the world. She staked a powerful claim on multiculturalism, intercultural thinking and multi-ethnic casting before any of these postures had acquired the patina of a fashionable movement dynamic.  Stewart herself credited Joseph Cino for starting the Off-Off-Broadway movement—but if Cino was the father of Off-Off-Broadway, Stewart was the mother. In building her Greenwich Village coffeehouse, Café LaMaMa—which morphed to become the world-famous La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club—our Mama welcomed huddled masses of artists yearning to breathe theatre. . . . "     

—Randy Gener from "Viva La Mama." TCG.

La Mama Ellen

           

                    by Susan L. Chast, 22 June 2012

They say that she cannot be summed up,

this high Catholic Sagittarius of legend

who thrived on drama and controversy.

That no matter where she cooked the brew

she served in the east ventricle of New York City,

she pumped its blood through the veins of ancient

civilizations and innovative fashion.

That she was a diplomat of the United Nations

who used theatre, music, and dance to prove

that borders can be crossed and that making

art together can change the world.

That she was beautiful, challenging, helpful,

difficult, stubborn, impossible, a genius,

an innovator, an imitator, an opportunist,

an opportunity, a seer.

And to her student-scholar, her shadow for a brief 20 months 

out of her life of nineteen hundred and ninety four:

She was a Mentor of quantum possibility 

She was a Mama who just knew

that I had energy to collaborate toward

common goals as well as to interpret

that I had time to watch and learn

as well as to record and analyze

that rehearsal breaks were for tasks

and not for naps.

She was Producer, Director,  Designer

and a cleaning woman who taught that we make the room

by cleaning walls and bathrooms and floor boards

because we respect the space and those who walk in it.

This was her secret and her bottom line: Occupation 

and Sharing of Space--Say what you must, but keep the space; 

Defend who you must but do not give up the space; 

Occupy the ground first and then play with definitions 

and remember that if peepee and poopoo is all 

that they can hear, then it is all that they deserve. 

Place was her gift.  We will not be dis-placed.

Ellen Stewart surrounded by her "babies" at a production meeting in her apartment in 1970.  Photo Credit: from Theatre Communications Group for LaMaMa 50th Anniversary in 2011 who have it courtesy of La MaMa Archive.  

This was the original last verse, cut by the poet: 

I have never forgotten to own and occupy the space, to empower myself and others through this oh-so-natural and necessary first step:  First comes Eden and only after, if you invite in the snake, can you call it Hell, and better yet--engage that snake in the work and in the play, open the snake eyes,  let it join in and cross the border. 

 Copyright © 2012 S.L.Chast

Thank you Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads! 

This is a real toad--a poem that has been in my mind since my dissertation research in 1989-90--pulled out of my history by yesterday's challenge "Fireblossom Friday ~ Get Famous."   Thank you Ellen Stewart and thank you Fireblossom, for helping me to celebrate her life, 

Susan
23 June 2012