u (Universal), a Klingon opera
libretto by Marc Okrand; composed by Eef van Breen;
produced by the Terran Klingon Research Ensemble,
head researcher/director Floris Shönfeld;
featuring Henri van Zanten, Taru Huotari,
Ben Kropp, and Jeanette Huizinga
reviewed by Jen Gunnels
*In 1931, the French playwright, poet, actor, and theater director Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) witnessed a Balinese dance performance. The layered symbolism of costume, motion, and music was unfamiliar in Western theater at that time and outside of his understanding. For Artaud the performance pushed beyond any boundaries of language and text (the term wasn’t as loaded then as now) and became a purely emotional experience. Based on this encounter, he wrote three essays on theater practice in which he called for an abandonment of Western traditions and the destruction of all forms of language on the stage and even social strictures in order to turn actors and audience into “victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.” I find myself wondering what he might have made of the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble <ktre.nl/NEWS/> and its performance of the Klingon high opera (ghe’naQ nIt) u at the Hague’s Zeebelt Theater in September of 2010. I suspect Klingons would appreciate his imagery.
The venue for the performance indicated this would be a piece demanding serious consideration; the Zeebelt is a wonderful European theater committed to new work and public outreach. The ensemble also workshopped and developed the opera, in part, at the Watermill Center for the Performing Arts in Watermill, New York. Robert Wilson, a writer/ director, whose productions and designs from the late ’70s and early ’80s still represent the cutting edge in performing arts, created this internationally respected center to nurture the ideas and craft of new artists. If this weren’t enough, Marc Okrand, who “translated” the libretto, is the creator of the Klingon language.
u’s pedigree is impeccable.
It also eschews the boundary of the stage. The performance begins, not with the opera itself, but with the discovery of artifacts indicating the existence of the opera and how it should be staged. According to the extensive (and utterly fascinating) director’s notes,
The earliest material evidence we have of the opera “u” can be traced back to the so called “Kijkduin stones”: 3 three-sided rectangular stones said to be found near the Dutch seaside town of Kijkduin. I was able to access the stones in the storage of the Interfaculty of Art Science in The Hague. The stones seem to depict three scenes from the story of Kahless.Marc Okrand elaborates upon this in his translation notes for the libretto:
The stones tell the story of “u,” but they do not contain an actual libretto of a ghe’naQ nIt—that is, they do not stand for specific sounds, syllables or words. So, while not a text or a musical score, the stones do provide more general instructions for the proper structure of the opera, making it possible to begin to figure out how to put all of the parts together so that a true ghe’naQ nIt (with the music and choreography appropriately complementing the text, even a modern text) can actually be staged.Continuing with the ethnographic and anthropologic focus, in a gesture of friendship and respect, the Ensemble crafted a message to be sent to Qo’nos, the Klingon home world near Arcturus, via radio telescope (watch the footage at <idle.slashdot.org/ story/10/08/12/1325216/u-mdash-the-First-Authentic-Klingon-Opera-On-Earth>). Floris Schönfeld, head researcher and director, documented this and other phases of the project. His research on Klingon operatic staging practices and conventions as well as the brief cultural history on opera makes his directorial notes an engaging and well-researched ethnographic document.
Schönfeld’s involvement began in 2008 when, at a New Year’s Eve party, a friend mentioned the very beginnings of a project involving Klingon opera. The ensemble’s genesis resulted from the opera project, and while many people have contributed to the research and can be considered members, there are no permanent residents for the company. Marc Okrand explained in an interview with me that he became involved with them through an NPR segment made while the ensemble was in New York. As a part of that story, the reporter contacted Okrand in order to hear his thoughts on the production. “The reporter said that Floris wants to know if he could talk to you, and I was mutually interested.” For the next year or so, he and
Schönfeld would Skype with one another every three weeks. He found the highly collaborative effort very enjoyable and would love to do more translations for staged material.
The actual performance of the opera proper begins in the lobby where Schönfeld provides a detailed cultural background concerning Klingon high opera. This brief yet detailed lecture covers Klingon operatic construction, the musical and staging conventions used by the Klingons, and a brief synopsis of the story. In fact it felt like I was back in one of my graduate ethnography classes. The audience learns that Klingon high opera is stylized and formal, any deviations from tradition are frowned upon; yet there are specific points within this framework where the singers are expected to improvise. Schönfeld followed the overview of Klingon opera with a brief synopsis of the story we would see. The audience is dismissed to their seats with the multi-purpose “Qapla’!” meaning “success.”
u means universal, and what the audience sees is, for lack of a better term, a Klingon Ur myth, the story of their Gilgamesh hero, Kahless (Taru Huotari). The first act opens with Kahless and his brother, Morath (Jeanette Huizinga), hunting targ (a boar-like creature). Morath’s spear misses, and Kahless’s comments on his prowess anger him. After his brother leaves him to fume, Morath meets with the tyrant Molor (Ben Kropp), who convinces Morath to betray his family. If Morath surrenders the family sword to the tyrant, in return Morath will be made head of his house. In the next scene Morath attempts to steal the sword from his sleeping father (alsoplayed by Ben Kropp), but his father wakes. A ritual fight ensues, and Morath kills his father. Morath runs away, and Kahless enters to hear his father’s dying request: for Kahless to retrieve the sword. Chasing his brother to the top of a volcano, cornering him, Kahless leaves his brother no choice but to jump into the volcano with the sword, committing suicide rather than submit to Kahless.
In the second act, Kahless stands at the gates to the underworld having decided to pursue his brother. Before he enters, Kahless knows he will need a weapon in his search to find his father and brother, and dipping his hair in lava, he molds the first bat’leth, the two-handed “sword of honor.” He then tricks his way into the underworld where he finds his father and brother. He convinces them to join him in a fight with the emperor and shows them how to gain back their flesh. Before leaving the underworld, Kahless teaches them how to use the new weapon he has created. After they exit, Kotar, guardian/lord of the underworld (Ben Kropp), noting two of his souls are missing, sets off in search of Kahless in order to bring him and the two souls back.
During the final act, Kahless, with his father and brother, goes from town to town raising an army to fight the emperor (not always successfully). In one village the only person to step forward is the beautiful Lukara (Jeanette Huizinga), who chastises her fellow villagers for their cowardice. In the meantime, Kotar has found
Kahless, who convinces Kotar to fight against the emperor and also states his willingness to sacrifice himself so that his father and brother may go to Sto-vo-kor, the resting place for the souls of honorable warriors. The battle is ritually joined and the emperor defeated. Kahless’s brother and father have died honorable deaths, and Kahless enjoins the lord of the underworld to remember his promise. Kahless, having done everything he set out to do (including bathing the heart of his enemy in a nearby stream), commits suicide.
The Master of the Scream steps in from time to time to narrate events taking place off stage and to comment upon the action being seen. Henri van Zanten gives a grave dignity to his representation of this role, usually reserved for Klingon artists of the highest and longest standing. The extremely talented singers, effortlessly sliding in and out of multiple Klingon characters, exhibit mindful respect for representing a culture not their own. In no way do they try to be Klingon; they remain humans giving their best interpretation of Klingon culture and behavior within a ritualized and stylized frame. Their performances and acting choices reminded me a great deal of watching re-creations of cultural rituals as presented by Richard Schechner or Victor Turner. While a level of artificiality is unavoidable, as is the case with any command performance of a cultural ritual for or by outsiders, this in no way detracts from the beauty or complexity of the performance. The cast of u possessed an absolute respect for the cultural truthfulness to the material presented which made the
entire performance an elegant whole.
The lighting and general costume of the characters remained spare throughout, subtly enhancing the action and mood rather than drawing overt focus. Much of the acting space remained dramatically downlit (i.e., lighting focused from directly above the characters) with occasional additions from the side to help indicate changes of place. It was very reminiscent of lighting of Klingon spaces used in the Star Trek films (I’m thinking particularly of Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy facing trial in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). Costumes consisted of simple beige and brown Klingon tunics, loose pants, long over-vests, and boots. The generic costuming of the actors’ bodies stood in contrast to the more elaborate masks, or Dawl’mlv, used to differentiate characters. These masks only cover the top of the head leaving the face uncovered, and the stylized forehead ridges and variations in hair color and length designate the characters. When not used on stage the Dawl’mlv rest on stands upstage left, dimly lit to allow the audience to watch the singer become the next character. The act of changing characters is done in full view of the audience, and watching the singers prepare and become the character is part of the performance as well as a display of artistic prowess.
The set, in comparison to the rest of the production design, was extremely complex. There were a total of four platforms—two smaller circular platforms downstage left and right, one small platform upstage center, and a larger central playing area. The larger, modular, and complex center platform resembles, at the beginning of the opera,a large, slightly offset, three-dimensional yin-yang symbol. Prior to the first act, two individuals in gray robes occupy the two smaller platforms. They hold what resemble two mini-telephone poles (six to seven feet in length) with handles. These are lifted and dropped to the floor in a varied rhythmic pattern, presumably as a ritualized call to the performance of the opera. They represent a prelude to the
solemnity of what will be presented and signal what anthropologist Victor Turner would refer to as the liminal space of performance. As the opera progresses, the main playing area and the two platforms are moved about by the singers to indicate a change of place. For example, the larger pieces of the two platforms are laid on their sides to the left and right of the main area to represent the gates of the underworld. These are manipulated by the Kotar to symbolically show his search of the underworld even as he makes the playing area for the next act. As the action progresses, the set and the playing area become more compact, eventually comprising a multileveled, focused area at center stage by the end of the final act.
The musical peculiarities of Klingon opera are intricate in their simplicity. Three musicians in view at stage right provide all the music.The Klingon Terran Institute of Music, the sister organization of the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble, conducted its own workshops to experiment with Klingon-style instruments (all of which were created by the musicians), musical theory, and the use of music in stylized battle. Each artist plays either the baS ‘In and Dlr (metal and skin covered percussion instruments), played by Mike Rijnierse;
the meSchuS (a large wind instrument with various membranes and overtone flutes), played by Anne La Berge; and the tlngDagh (a string instrument resembling a truly bizarre combination of a Chinese erhu, Mongolian morin khuur, and a Japanese shamisen that can be bowed or plucked), played by James Hewitt.
Given that the instruments were at best only vaguely related to their Terran counterparts, I had higher expectations for the music sounding, well, alien. While there are what could be termed lyric passages, the score emphasizes a percussive sound. The rhythms are dynamic, making for memorable chase and battle scenes, but they remain fairly recognizable in terms of Western rhythmic conventions maintaining the 3/4– and 4/4–based rhythms familiar to the Western human. The extensive research indicates a preponderance of the number three in Klingon aesthetics, but I had hoped for a more exotic application of this. The wind and string instruments were better at creating a jarring though not unpleasant alien dissonance. Perhaps the best example of this came from Lukara’s first scene. In her call to join Kahless, the driving dissonance produced an uncomfortable feeling much in keeping with her scorn for those not willing to oppose Molor. At moments such as this, the departure from recognizable operatic music brought a more alien feeling to the performance. Doing it more often would have been even more enjoyable even if strange and aurally unpleasant. It’s Klingon. As a Klingon proverb has it: ’utbe’ bel (Pleasure is nonessential).
However, u does give pleasure, and this comes from the ensemble’s meticulous attention to detail. The staging maintained the formality one would expect from a traditional production, but it also granted a dynamic gravitas. The death scenes in particular were alien in their formality. In keeping with Klingon culture, onstage deaths, while emphasized, remained oddly uneventful—an unavoidable outcome. In Terran operatic convention, deaths usually entail a lengthy aria and often a great deal of . . . okay, I’ll say it . . . overacting. In u death has no more or less emphasis than life; both are equal within the action of the performance. What is different is the action given based on the kind of death. When Kahless’s father dies, the actor removes the mask, almost with a tired disgust. He was killed by his own son in a dishonorable situation. The aftermath of Morath’s suicide is similar. In the final act, however, when father and son re-establish their honor in battle against Molor, the masks are removed with great reverence and placed upon their weapons onstage with a single light focused on them from above. Kahless’s suicide is granted even more reverence. Kahless kneels before Lukara facing into the audience. Behind him Lukara gently grasps the mask, and Kahless quietly exits from beneath it leaving Lukara holding the mask before her. She places it upon his weapon and, before exiting, the entire audience joins her in a Klingonroar warning Kotar of the approach of the mighty warrior’s soul.
These particular production elements were what brought Artaud to mind. Many Asian theatrical practices have similarities to Klingon operatic conventions. In this instance, our closest earthly equivalent can be found in Japanese Noh. Presented for the warrior class of Japan, these highly stylized performances sought to emphasize a mood for the audience. Like Klingon opera, Noh plays employ a group of musicians, a narrator, and a handful of actors following a rigid performance tradition. Noh utilizes elaborate masks in designating character (though in the instance of Noh only one character wears a mask), and a great deal of emphasis is placed on the actor achieving a rapport with the mask to become the character, much like what occurs onstage in Klingon opera. Noh also maintains a percussive quality through its distinct use of rhythmic walking and stomping (sounding jars beneath the Noh stage amplify this). Of course, this comparison is fairly reductive, as a full understanding of Noh is as grounded in Japanese culture as u must be grounded in Klingon. Like many Asian theater forms, u retains layers of symbolic meaning, some obvious, some not. Their very foreignness foregrounds unfamiliar elements, making the construction of more familiar cultural practices noticeable as a result.
Schönfeld has documented the creation of u as well as its performance and the performances that frame it with the intention of turning it into a documentary. I, for one, can’t wait to see the result. Hopefully, and even better, the production can obtain the funding for a U.S. tour; I suspect that Klingon opera can truly be appreciated only as a live experience. Ultimately, returning to what Artaud might have made of the production, I believe he would have been the first to yell “Qapla’!” *
Jen Gunnels storms the heights of Yorktown.
