Musings

Some random thoughts on “Agnes of God,” which was screened at the Museum as part of the Film Series on Friday, 11/6

I had the immense pleasure and honor of directing the stage version of  “Agnes of God” as a graduate student here at the University in 1986.  Grad students weren’t usually assigned as directors for “mainstage” productions; however, the faculty director of the play, Dr. Stephen Archer, became ill midway through rehearsals and, as assistant director, I was given the opportunity to take over for him.  It was interesting watching the movie again last week and I couldn’t help comparing it with the stage play, which was originally produced on Broadway in 1982.

The two differences that I most noticed were the “opening up” of the stage play for cinematic effect, and the realism of the movie versus the abstraction of the play.  In the stage version, there are only three characters – Dr. Miriam Livingstone, Agnes, and the Mother Superior – and the set is stripped down to the bare minimum.  On the set we designed for the University production, we had a raked stage with an open desk and a chair on one side and a table with a crucifix over it on the other.  That was all.  Almost all of the action takes place in the doctor’s office, with the exception of flashback scenes between Agnes and the Mother Superior, which take place at the convent.  For the movie version, John Pielmeier, who wrote both the stageplay and the screen adaptation, chose to place the action in Quebec and to move a great deal of the action to the convent itself.  This “realism” forced him to add characters to provide the back story that is told through asides to the audience in the play.  It also made the movie more of a murder mystery, sort of a “Columbo goes to the convent” sort of thing.  In the stage version, the plot is less obvious and much more speculative.

And that is why I find the stage play so much more compelling than the movie, although I strongly recommend either or both.  In the script of the stageplay, there is such a strong opposition set up between faith and reason.  Even the set is divided into these two realms – the belief without question of the two nuns and the questioning without belief of the doctor.  There is no getting away from the constant battle between those two forces, with Agnes in the middle.  In the play, we are not provided with a neatly wrapped ending; we are not told how Agnes “got the baby”.  In her last aside to the audience, Dr. Livingstone reveals that she removed herself from the case; the court sent Agnes to a hospital where she stopped singing, stopped eating, and died.  But the doctor, by the end of the play, has found her faith again.  And we are left to debate the meaning of miracles.

I also can’t help pondering upon the effect that a male perspective (John Pielmeier’s) might have had on this story of three women in a house of women.  I am currently reading a book by Dale Spender dealing with the premise that men writing about women are usually trying to re-create conversations they have never heard, either because they were excluded or because they didn’t pay attention.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to compare the one-act play “Trifles,” in which women band together to support each other, with “Agnes of God” in which women end up denying and thus destroying each other?  Regardless, it is a fascinating play and a stunning movie.

Jerri Crook
November 9, 2009

On Thursday, August 20 @ 7pm in Pickard Hall Auditorium, the Museum of Art & Archaeology Film Series will present “The Life and Times of Andy Warhol: Superstar” (1990) in conjunction with the Museum’s focus exhibition, “Faces of Warhol.”  The film is co-sponsored by the Museum Advisory Council of Students. Directed by Chuck Workman, the documentary is mainly comprised of interviews with people as diverse as Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, Roy Lichtenstein, Lou Reed and Shelly Winters.

It’s an insightful and amusing film that captures the life and the mystery of the artist and the person while posing some of the same critical questions raised by the exhibition. “Faces of Warhol” grew out of a donation of his Polaroid photographs by the Andy Warhol Foundation to the Museum of Art & Archaeology. The majority of the objects on display in the exhibition were part of this significant gift. This year-long exhibition explores three key themes (fame, gender, public v. private) involved with Warhol’s Polaroid portraits and gelatin silver prints, issues which photography in general has long posed for the realm of art. One of the key characteristics of Warhol’s work is its fascination and involvement with American consumer culture. In fact, Warhol’s name has become identified with so-called Pop Art, which focused so much of its attention on the standardized commercial images of American life such as comic strips, advertising, and celebrities. Warhol’s iconic images of Campbell soup cans and Marilyn Monroe became prototypical Pop Art expressions.

According to French theorist Jean Baudrillard, in postmodern society there are no originals, only “simulacra” (ie, copies). In painting or sculpture, historically, there would be an original work (eg, the Winged Victory of Samothrace) and often lots of copies (like the plaster cast in the Museum’s Cast Gallery), but the original would naturally retain the highest value. Warhol turned that traditional understanding upside down with his silk screen images of mass-produced consumer objects. As both the exhibition and film demonstrate, Warhol clearly anticipated the direction and contradictions of post-modernity. But we are finally left to ponder the meaning of Warhol’s enigmatic statement, “I am a deeply superficial person.” Please join us at the Museum of Art & Archaeology for “Faces of Warhol” and “The Life and Times of Andy Warhol, Superstar”, then let us know what you think…

All Consuming Images