Class #21 postgame

DISCOVERY TASK (FRIDAY):

My preference is that you turn this in to the EEE dropbox, but if you want to give me a paper copy, I guess that would be OK. The assignment asks you to find primary and secondary sources for analyzing Porgy and Bess.

DEBATE (FRIDAY):

Now that your last paper is over and you've had more of an opportunity to watch the musical, I want everyone involved in the discussion with minimal talking from me. As I said today, start by reading the essay #6 prompt. You will be arguing either that the play should be staged at UCI or that it should not. You can draw your arguments from personal opinion/experience, from the sources you found in the discovery task, and from the sources I'm providing below.

ADDITIONAL PORGY AND BESS SOURCES:

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - 1959 version with Sammy Davis Jr. as Sportin' Life

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - weird 1973 medley version where Davis sings as both Sportin' Life and Porgy

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - recent version from Warsaw National Opera in Poland

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - recent performance by Swedish jazz band

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - unreleased Tupac song

"Dere's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York" - weird Obama speech mashup

Kick Ass Student Paper about P & B - written for a different prompt last year

Recap of P & G's controversial nature - in London newspaper, 2007

Summary of P & G's performance history - from U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities

Interesting article in law newsletter - about copyright law as it pertains to making revisions to old plays

Another legal issue - a clause in the Gershwin brothers' will stipulates that P & G must be performed by an all-black cast

A bunch of other sources - from Moeller's webpage (login: moeller, moeller)

RESTATEMENT OF MY END OF CLASS RANT:

There is no intrinsic meaning in a work of art. There is nothing "there." The dilemma that art suggests, which surely bothered Plato, is that there is no such thing as an original, only a layered sequence of variations. Art is meaningful in a different sense; it is meaningful to particular audiences in particular ways at particular times. This is easier to see with live music and theater, which must be performed "new" each time. But it is also true of any form of art. Grosz, for instance, showed you how Botticelli's Primavera could mean something very different in 20th century Germany than it had in 15th century Italy.

So either way you frame your argument about Porgy and Bess needs to take this into account. There is no such person as Porgy, no such person as Bess, and no such "thing" as Porgy and Bess. There are, instead, a series of performances, a series of events, going back to its original performance. (And also further, if you consider that Gershwin has adapted the music from various classical, pop, and jazz influences.) So Porgy and Bess itself is a historically contingent event rather than a discrete "thing," and in restaging it you would be creating an entirely new event. Perhaps you think this new event would be valuable in some way, and perhaps you do not.

As we discussed today, racial stereotypes of the sort you see in the play are notoriously difficult to control. Even if a Robert Downey, Jr. or a Dave Chappelle (or a Gershwin) has the intention to challenge stereotypes, those stereotypes themselves must be presented/performed/recreated in order to do so. Recreating them for some audiences might be irresponsible, because the only difference between the stereotype and the anti-stereotype lies in the context of how an audience perceives it.