The Unfortunates Words on Plays

A M E R I C A N C O N S E R VAT O R Y T H E AT E R
Carey Perloff, Artistic Director
PRESENTS
The Unfortunates
Created by Jon Beavers, Kristoffer Diaz, Casey Hurt,
Ian Merrigan, and Ramiz Monsef
Directed by Shana Cooper
The Strand Theater
February 3–April 10, 2016
Words on Plays
Volume XXII, No. 5
Simon Hodgson
Editor
Shannon Stockwell
Associate Editor
Elizabeth Brodersen
Director of Education & Community Programs
Michael Paller
Resident Dramaturg
Beatrice Basso
Director of New Work
Cecilia Padilla
Publications Fellow
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Table of Contents
1
Overview of The Unfortunates
4
Guitars, Guts, and Graphic Novels
An Interview with Jon Beavers, Casey Hurt, and
Ramiz Monsef
By Simon Hodgson
11
Voices Come Together
Storytelling through Music in The Unfortunates
By Cecilia Padilla and Shannon Stockwell
16
Fabulous Forces Are There Encountered
The Mythological Hero’s Journey
By Cecilia Padilla
19
Play of the Imagination
An Interview with Director Shana Cooper
By Cecilia Padilla
22
The Unfortunates Expanded Universe
Kismet to Comic Book
By Shannon Stockwell
25
Creating a Monster
An Interview with Scenic Designer Sibyl Wickersheimer
By Simon Hodgson
30
“There’s Only One Thing Promised to the Living”
Death in The Unfortunates
By Shannon Stockwell
34
An Unfortunates Glossary
40
Questions to Consider / For Further Information . . .
COVER Set model, by scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer, for A.C.T.’s
2016 production of The Unfortunates.
OPPOSITE Recruitment poster for the U.S. Army, by James Montgomery
Flagg, 1917. Courtesy Library of Congress.
Overview of The Unfortunates
The Unfortunates was created by Jon Beavers, Kristoffer Diaz, Casey Hurt, Ian Merrigan,
and Ramiz Monsef as a Midnight Project with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It
premiered in 2013 at OSF. For the past two years, it has been workshopped through
New Strands, A.C.T.’s play-development and commissioning program.
Creative Team
Music Director and Orchestrator .................................................................Casey Hurt
Choreographer ............................................................................... Erika Chong Shuch
Scenic Designer ............................................................................. Sibyl Wickersheimer
Costume Designer..............................................................................Katherine O’Neill
Lighting Designer ........................................................................... Russell H. Champa
Sound Designer ...................................................................................... Brendan Aanes
Associate Director ..................................................................... Paul James Prendergast
Dramaturg ............................................................................................... Beatrice Basso
Characters and Cast
Coughlin/Rook ............................................................................................Jon Beavers
Roxy ........................................................................................................... Lauren Hart
Rae .................................................................................................... Taylor Iman Jones
CJ/Rook ....................................................................................Christopher Livingston
Handsome Carl/Rook ............................................................................... Amy Lizardo
Koko/Rook .................................................................................................Eddie Lopez
Madame .............................................................................................. Danielle Herbert
Big Joe ....................................................................................................... Ian Merrigan
Enemy Soldier/Stack/Doctor ..................................................................Ramiz Monsef
Preacher ......................................................................................................Arthur Wise
Synopsis
In a bar, Koko, Carl, the Preacher, CJ, Coughlin, and Big Joe roll dice and have a good
time. General Goodtimes enters, announcing that their country needs men to fight in
a war. He mentions that death is a possibility, and the men hesitate, but he shows them
OPPOSITE Set model, by scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer, for A.C.T.’s 2016 production of
The Unfortunates.
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their incentive—Roxy, Madame, and Rae—the Victory Girls. They perform a song, and
Joe is mesmerized, especially by Rae. Joe signs up with General Goodtimes. His closest
friends, CJ and Coughlin, sign up as well.
Some time later, Joe, CJ, and Coughlin are in a jail cell. They are now prisoners of
war. An Enemy Soldier enters and shoots CJ and Coughlin; before they are shot, they
bravely pound their fists on their chests, saluting each other. The Enemy Soldier points
his gun at Joe, who does not salute—instead, he begs for his life. In disgust, the Enemy
Soldier pistol-whips Joe, who blacks out.
The moment explodes into a fever dream, and Joe is transported to another reality:
he finds himself in a bar in a dream world. He is greeted by Rae, who, in this world,
doesn’t have arms. She encourages him to mourn his dead friends, and she is joined
by other townspeople (Roxy, Madame, Koko, Carl, and the Preacher). But Joe avoids
remembering his lost compatriots. Instead, he moves from despairing about the
hopelessness of life to denying his grief by remembering the good times he had partying,
gambling, and drinking.
The Rooks enter. They are the ghosts of CJ and Coughlin, and they collect dead
bodies. They inform Joe and the townspeople that there is a plague and gleefully
describe the symptoms—it begins with a cough and a groan and then gets worse. They
use Rae’s body to indicate what the ailments will affect. Their treatment of her body
enrages Joe, and he attacks the Rooks.
After the Rooks flee, Joe discovers that he has grown giant fists. The townspeople
admire them and declare him their king. Joe finds that he can now win any game of dice
by punching the ground, which causes the dice to flip over in his favor. The townspeople
claim that someone would have to either be crazy or very sure of their skill in order to go
against Joe in a game of dice.
Stack, an invincible crapshooter, enters and challenges Joe to a game of dice. He sets
the stakes: If Joe wins, Stack will let him live. If Joe loses, Stack will kill him. As they
begin to play, there is a slow transition back to Joe’s jail cell in the real world. Joe loses
the dice game, and Stack pulls his gun, but Koko the clown takes the bullet instead.
Fully in the jail cell now, Joe’s fists disappear as he apologizes to his dead friends.
Joe is transported back to the world of the dream, where the townspeople are holding
a funeral for Koko. They want Joe to say something, to give them wisdom in their time
of need, but Joe, who has had enough of death, is angered by their request. He starts
to attack Carl, but instead destroys the bar. His giant fists reappear, and, surveying the
damage he caused in his blind rage, he apologizes to the townspeople. They forgive him
and tell him it’s okay to feel afraid sometimes.
Joe and the townspeople begin to clean up the bar, and he promises to give up playing
dice. The townspeople note that Joe might be falling in love with Rae, but just then, the
CJ and Coughlin Rooks enter, now joined by the Koko Rook. The Rooks put on a show
for the townspeople. They ask Carl to join them in singing a song to Rae. When they
are done, the Rooks pat Carl on the back, who immediately coughs and groans: the first
sign of the plague.
2
The Rooks take Carl and the townspeople to the St. James Infirmary, where a Doctor
claims to have a cure for the plague—but only for a fee. The Doctor begins testing the
townspeople by listening for an irregular heartbeat. Roxy and the Preacher are healthy,
but Carl has the plague. When none of the townspeople can provide the fee for the cure,
the Doctor sends Carl to quarantine.
Next, the Doctor tests Rae, who exhibits some unusual symptoms. The Doctor wants
to keep her for observation, but Joe won’t let him. The Doctor allows them to leave,
confident that they will be back. Joe orders everyone to go back to the bar, and they all
go, leaving Rae alone with Joe.
Fearing she might be sick, Rae loses hope, and Joe tries to encourage her. Rae
implores him to open his big fists, to show that he can give up fighting and accept love,
but he is unable. She begins to leave, but he gives one final effort and his fists finally
open. She goes back to him, but just as they meet, she coughs and groans—Rae has
the plague.
The townspeople rush back in. The Preacher says they need to take her to the Doctor,
but Joe refuses—if they take her there without the fee for the cure, the Doctor will send
her straight to quarantine to die. Just then, the Rooks enter, now joined by Carl Rook,
who offers a tempting idea: Joe can win a game of dice against Stack and get the money
for the cure. Desperate to save Rae, Joe leaves her to find Stack. Meanwhile, outside the
St. James Infirmary, the Carl and Koko Rooks convince Rae to go back to the hospital.
They give her what they say is a treatment for the plague: a ticking clock.
Joe arrives at the alley outside the bar, where he finds Stack. The last time they played,
Joe’s life was on the table, but Koko took the bullet instead. This time, Joe puts his life
back on the line. If he loses, Stack can kill him. If he wins, Joe gets the money to pay
for Rae’s cure.
At the St. James Infirmary, the Doctor visits Rae. The townspeople anxiously explain
that the fee is coming, but the Koko and Carl Rooks usher them all offstage, leaving Rae
alone with the Doctor. Ever the scientist, he asks about her symptoms, but she refuses to
answer, clutching the ticking clock the Rooks gave her—which eventually stops.
Back in the alley, Joe and Stack roll their dice, and Joe is victorious. He collects his
winnings, but the Rooks enter with the stopped clock and announce that Rae is dead.
They encourage Joe to get revenge and kill the Doctor. Joe finds the Doctor, struggles
with him, and finally ties him up. Just as he is about to bash in the Doctor’s skull, the
townspeople enter with Rae on a gurney. She is still alive. They went into quarantine
and pulled her out. Joe demands that the Doctor give Rae the shot, but the Doctor
begins to explain something . . . and then coughs and groans.
Joe realizes that there is no cure for the plague. There never was. He decides not
to kill the Doctor, because he’s going to die anyway. The Doctor runs away. Rae dies,
but Joe and the townspeople celebrate her life—and all their lives—by singing a rousing
tune together.
The song cuts off. We’re back in the jail cell. The Enemy Soldier is still pointing
his gun at Joe’s head. Joe pounds his fists on his chest in salute and acceptance, and the
lights black out.
3
Guitars, Guts, and Graphic Novels
An Interview with Jon Beavers, Casey Hurt, and Ramiz Monsef
By Simon Hodgson
The Unfortunates started out as a side project for musical collaborators Jon Beavers,
Casey Hurt, Ian Merrigan, and Ramiz Monsef. In 2013, with the creative team now
including playwright Kristoffer Diaz, the show emerged as a breakout hit at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF)—an original musical that blended bluesy grit with
contemporary syncopations. Word spread through A.C.T. about the production and,
one after another, staff members drove up to Ashland to see a performance. Over the
last couple of years, the musical’s creators have worked with A.C.T.’s artistic team to
refine the score and script for a run at The Strand. We sat down with Beavers, Hurt, and
Monsef to find out more about the amazing journey of The Unfortunates.
What’s the inspiration behind The Unfortunates?
RAMIZ MONSEF: The seed of the whole thing is the song “St. James Infirmary.” The first
time I ever heard that song was in a Betty Boop cartoon, in which Cab Calloway sings
it. It’s this seven-minute-long Snow White cartoon from 1933. I saw it as a little kid
and it haunted me.
So, blues and cartoons. Ramiz, don’t you have a background in graphic novels, as well?
MONSEF: I have a background in being a total comic-book nerd. I’ve got boxes of
Spider-Man back issues to prove it. The character design and the idea of using hands as
a metaphor came out of my head, then were brought to life by our incredible designers,
set designer Sibyl Wickersheimer and costume designer Katherine O’Neill.
It seems like there’s a Hellboy element to Big Joe, with the supersized fists. Are you
drawing from that?
MONSEF: Yeah. Hellboy and the Goon, absolutely. I’ve always found hands really
fascinating. I also like [early-twentieth century Austrian painter] Egon Schiele, whose
figures all have these crazy fingers. We drew inspiration from everywhere.
4
Four of the five creators of The Unfortunates: (L to R) Ramiz Monsef, Jon Beavers, Ian Merrigan, and
Casey Hurt. Photo by Randy Taradash.
CASEY HURT:
We’ve also pulled from the early blues aesthetic and jazz, with that kind of
energy and vibe.
JON BEAVERS:
We also drew from action movies. And we were really interested in
propaganda posters from the two world wars. In World War II, the artwork was heavily
influenced by [comic book artist] Jack Kirby, graphic novels, and cartoons from the New
Yorker. The styles of those artists were used for war propaganda, and we were borrowing
from all of that.
The Unfortunates seems to be rooted in the two world wars—or is it set in a generalized
world at war?
HURT:
It’s the idea of a world at war. World War I is where a lot of our influences are
drawn from, but we’re trying not to put the show specifically in that time period. The
reason for that is because the enemy in the play is not a regime. It’s fear. For us, that’s
the most important element—fear is the thing that every generation faces. And we want
that to be transparent and true throughout.
5
Selbstporträt mit schwarzem Tongefäß (Self Protrait with Black Vase), by Egon Schiele. Oil on panel,
1911. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Big Joe talks about fighting against the Hun, which sounds like a World
War I reference.
HURT:
Yeah. [Laughs] That’s for the rhyme. Sometimes you gotta cheat a little bit!
What other myths do you draw from?
MONSEF: I don’t think we ever sat down with any particular myths and tried to do a
one-to-one comparison. However, we are all mythology nuts, and living in New York,
each one of us would be reading a different Joseph Campbell book and comparing notes.
Mythology is in our DNA.
You guys have been working on The Unfortunates for six years. How is the production at
A.C.T. different from the production you originally staged at OSF in 2013?
BEAVERS:
The script’s undergone a huge transition, very much to the betterment of the
story. When we produced the show at OSF, it was a work in progress. But being able to
move this show to A.C.T. and the support that they’ve given us in terms of continuing
the work on the script has been amazing. It has helped us unravel and rediscover what
the truest version of the story is.
6
MONSEF: The beginning is definitely new.
None of that was there to begin with. It
just started out with soldiers in the cell.
BEAVERS: At
OSF, we started in the jail cell,
and you see Joe very weak, even though the
characters around him have expectations
of strength that he can’t live up to. By the
time we got to A.C.T., we understood Joe
a little bit more, and we wanted to see him
at his most “braggadocious.” Along with
learning about Joe, we got a stronger sense
of what Rae is to Joe. We’ve changed
songs and lyrics and cut some characters
to create space for who this woman is and
what she teaches him.
HURT:
That has been a major focus with
the character of Rae—giving her a lot
more agency. We wrote a whole new song
for her that spikes her tenacity within the
world, and makes her a really ferocious,
honorable character. She’s a much more
active character now, a great counterpoint
to Joe and to his growth within the story.
In families, everyone finds their role. You
get the peacemaker or the troublemaker
or the comedian. How does that break
down among you guys?
BEAVERS: Kris [Diaz] was the gatherer
of concepts, which allowed other people
to be up on their feet and spitballing.
Ramiz is excellent with dialogue. He’s an
incredible wordsmith. Ian and I just say
a bunch of things, and maybe two out of
five are pretty good. Then Ramiz grabs
one of them and says it back in a way that
has vibe.
As well as being the instrumentalist
and contributing unbelievable amounts of
Costume rendering for Rae, by costume designer
Katherine O’Neill, for A.C.T.’s 2016 production of
The Unfortunates.
7
melody and harmony, Casey is the idea distillery. He’s straight to the quick. If Ramiz
just poeticized something that has real guts to it, then Casey will say it in three words
and give us what we’re doing thematically. But that makes for a pretty picture of what’s
going on in the room. Honestly, everybody’s shifting roles a lot, and sometimes we’re
just hanging around and making fart jokes—but don’t write that down!
HURT:
I would like to nominate Ian as the MVP. He’s done so much work with
managing shit, and he’s a peacemaker at heart.
MONSEF: We’re kind of like Voltron. Individually, the members of Lion Force can’t do
a whole lot. They’re pieces of a robot, but they’re just not as powerful as when they
form up and make Voltron. You get us all together in the room, and there’s some magic
crackle that happens. I can only imagine what it looks like to somebody walking in off
the street. They’d either think we’re geniuses or we’re bat-shit crazy.
This is an unusual score—did you set out to include a range of American musical
genres?
HURT: We’ve
done our best effort to expand the definition of Americana. A lot of people
tend to lean more toward an acoustic guitar or folk elements. What we’re trying to do is
not only bring in those elements but also reach into the more modern elements of blues
and jazz and hip-hop and spoken word. The desire is to tell the story through music and
to have a really open palette for whatever style we’re working with.
Are these musical genres all related to the dispossessed?
HURT:
In some ways, yeah. But the thing that I find really magical about them is not
that they are sung by the disenfranchised, but that all these genres have the ability to
transform people. There’s something in the joining of voices that can transform a person
or a group and move them forward in their journey. Ultimately, that’s our goal.
Three of you were originally part of an a cappella trio called 3blindmice. How do you
go from there to a show at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival?
MONSEF: Ian, Jon, and I were all living in New York and spending a lot of time together.
If we ended up at a party, we wouldn’t be talking to people, we’d be off in a corner,
freestyling and beatboxing. Then the party would come to us. So 3blindmice happened
naturally because we found comrades that spoke the same language.
As far as coming out to OSF, that was one of those crazy moments in which
you ask for something ridiculous and you get it. I got an offer to come out to OSF,
and I said, “Thanks, but can I bring my friends out there to work on something?”
OPPOSITE A 1917 U.S. Army recruitment poster for World War I, by Harry R. Hopps. Courtesy Library
of Congress.
8
9
Set model, by scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer, for A.C.T.’s 2016 production of The Unfortunates.
We’d been throwing around the idea of putting something together, because we all have
backgrounds in theater. When 3blindmice would perform a show, we wouldn’t just get
on a microphone and stand there. We had a number where I died and then Ian brought
me back to life with beatboxing. We were just kids running around New York and
following any crazy idea we had. Because why the hell not? That’s rock and roll.
BEAVERS: I had known Casey for a while, so I told Ian and Ramiz that if we were going
to do anything that got any bigger than bringing Ramiz back to life with beatboxing,
then we should circle this guy in, because he’s a multi-instrumentalist and a musical
genius. Casey was happy to play with us, but I don’t think he realized exactly what he
was getting into. At the beginning, it was a lot of us humming a tune and clapping our
hands and saying, “It goes like that. Play it on the guitar!” Casey would be doing on-thespot transcribing. We definitely abused him for a little while.
MONSEF:
He liked it!
HURT: Oh, I loved it! Honestly, it was such a privilege to be able to learn from these guys.
Because they were all the instruments already. When I came in, these three guys had a
bass line, a rhythm, a beat, and a melody. I learned so much about rhythm and phrasing
and language through working with them, and it ended up morphing into a bigger thing
than any of us expected.
10
Voices Come Together
Storytelling through Music in The Unfortunates
By Cecilia Padilla and Shannon Stockwell
The plot of The Unfortunates is strange and engaging, its visual world grotesque and
meaty. But it is the emotional score that makes the show so moving. It is the music that
brings this group of misfits together and unites them in the face of tragedy.
The play draws from a wide range of musical genres—folk, blues, pop, hip-hop,
spoken word, and gospel. It follows, then, that the music is one of the most complex
parts of the play to dissect: the origins, the genres, the process, and what the music does
for the creators as well as the audience.
“St. James Infirmary”
The nucleus of The Unfortunates, the initial inspiration, is “St. James Infirmary,” a
classic blues song with mysterious origins. “It represents a morphing tradition,” says
The Unfortunates music director Casey Hurt. “No one knows where the thing started.”
It’s impossible to know the origins of the song because it comes out of an old
European folk music tradition, which was based on sharing songs orally. The earliest
written reference to anything resembling “St. James Infirmary” is “The Unfortunate
Rake,” an Irish folk song from the seventeenth century.
But the reference to St. James Infirmary dates the song even earlier than that.
Although it’s unclear what hospital this is exactly, the best guess, according to music
historian Robert W. Harwood, is that it refers to a sixteenth-century infirmary in
London that treated women with leprosy. This hospital was turned into a palace by King
Henry VIII in 1532, so it is likely that the song became popular before that, when the
building was still a hospital.
In “The Unfortunate Rake,” the singer comes upon a sickly friend sitting outside St.
James Hospital. When the singer asks his friend what ails him, the friend admits that
he has a venereal disease, and he blames the woman that gave it to him. The friend gives
the singer instructions about his funeral:
Don’t muffle your drums and play your fifes merrily,
Play a quick march as you carry me along,
And fire your bright muskets all over my coffin,
Saying: there goes an unfortunate lad to his home.
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“St. James Infirmary”
It was down by old Joe’s barroom,
On the corner of the square
They were serving drinks as usual,
And the usual crowd was there
On my left stood Big Joe McKinney,
And his eyes were bloodshot red
And he turned his face to the people,
These were the very words he said
I was down to St. James infirmary,
I saw my baby there
She was stretched out on a long white table,
So cool, so sweet, and so fair
Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She may search this whole wide world over
Never find a sweeter man as me
When I die please bury me
In my high top Stetson hat
Put a twenty dollar gold piece on
my watch chain
The gang’ll know I died standing pat
Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She may search this wide world over
Never find a sweeter man as me
I want six crapshooters to be my
pallbearers
Three pretty women to sing a song
Stick a jazz band on my hearse wagon
Raise hell as I stroll along
Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She may search this whole wide world over
She’ll never find a sweeter man as me
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“The Unfortunate Rake” has
inspired many songs that play off
of this fallen-hero trope. Over
the years, the song has influenced
“Bad Girl’s Lament,” from the
nineteenth century, which switches
the gender of “The Unfortunate
Rake”; “The Streets of Laredo,” a
nineteenth-century song about a
cowboy dying from a bullet wound;
“Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues,” made
popular by Blind Willie McTell in
the 1920s; “Gambler’s Blues,” first
recorded by Fess Williams and His
Royal Flush Orchestra in 1927; and
“St. James Infirmary,” a song known
by many blues musicians in the
early twentieth century and made
popular by Louis Armstrong’s 1928
recording. There are at least four
variants of “St. James Infirmary”
floating around, notes Harwood.
The song and its variants have
remained popular over the years and
have been recorded by artists from
Jimmie Rodgers to Van Morrison
to the White Stripes. Despite intensive study as to the song’s origins
and meaning, they remain a mystery. But knowing exactly who first
sang it doesn’t matter. Harwood says,
“Regardless of where a musician first
heard the song, we can be reasonably
certain that it came to that place
from elsewhere, assembled from bits
and pieces of other songs, from bits
and pieces of other people’s experiences. It was a song written by
Everybody.”
This idea of a community
creating a song appealed to the
creators of The Unfortunates. Hurt says, “The song is a tradition and a form that people
have taken and made their own. We all connected to that because we love to do that.”
The Genres
The score of The Unfortunates incorporates a wide range of American musical genres,
like gospel, blues, and hip-hop. The play is anchored in these three genres, and features
others like folk, pop, jazz, and ragtime.
The blues is a combination of European folk tunes and African slave music that
originated among black communities in the Deep South at the end of the nineteenth
century. The blues is marked by distinct chord progressions, as well as certain kinds
of lyrics. Early blues songs were not narrative—a departure from folk songs that told
stories. Instead, the lyrics were lamentations, usually related to love. The songs in
The Unfortunates clearly come from this blues tradition, not only melodically, but also
through a similar lyrical expression of sorrow.
Gospel music as we know it today—featuring upbeat rhythms, enthusiastic
movement, dynamic harmonies, and hand clapping—comes from three sources: black
spirituals, slave songs, and Christian hymnals. In the early nineteenth century, many
hymnals were published for black Christians. These included text but rarely any music,
so they were intended to be sung to hymnal tunes already well known. In the late
nineteenth century, black Christians began to create their own text and sang it to the
tune of existing hymns. However, the tunes were adjusted to accommodate African
American musical sensibilities, and thus were heavily syncopated. Gospel music was
further influenced by the Pentecostal church, which worshipped with lively music using
all kinds of instruments.
In combination with gospel and the blues, The Unfortunates also features hip-hop,
which has intense rhythmic beats accompanied by rapping (rhyming speech spoken
in rhythm). Hip-hop originated in the South Bronx, an economically depressed part
of New York City, in the late 1970s. Encyclopedia Britannica says, “As the hip-hop
movement began at society’s margins, its origins are shrouded in myth, enigma, and
obfuscation.” However, scholars speculate that rapping has its origins in blues songs,
in which musicians sometimes spoke instead of sang; in the hipster-jive vocabulary
of 1950s rhythm-and-blues DJs; and in Black Power poetry, among many other
potential influences.
This musical amalgam in The Unfortunates creates a unique American sound that
diverges from the traditional musical. The show’s music celebrates the old and the
new by merging a venerable folk sound with contemporary hip-hop. As a result, The
Unfortunates expresses a universal sound that bridges generations and cultures.
Creating the Score
It makes sense that the creators of The Unfortunates would make a show that feels
like a mash-up of American genres, because each of these artists comes from
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a different musical background. Ian
Merrigan is a folk artist and singersongwriter; Ramiz Monsef is aligned
with R&B; Jon Beavers is a lyricist;
and Casey Hurt, a third-generation
former Baptist minister, comes from a
background of gospel and blues. The
thread that ties them all together is
hip-hop. “We all grew up on hip-hop
and loved listening to it and had spent
a lot of time and energy in that scene,”
says Hurt. “The fusing of all those
genres just came together naturally.
We brought the skill set that we
had to the table, and the story grew
from there.”
In the beginning, the process of
creating the music for the play was,
as Hurt says, “pretty hodge-podge.”
When they first began working on
it, everyone involved was split up
geographically.
How do you create a
Set model, by scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer, for
musical
with
people
all the way across
A.C.T.’s 2016 production of The Unfortunates.
the country? If you’re one of the
creators of The Unfortunates, you get an idea for a song, call your friends, and leave it on
their voice mail. After they collected enough material this way, they would gather it up
and bring it into the studio.
Once the creators got together in a room, their primary goal was to sing and to get
ideas down on paper. The story and the songs came at the same time. “As we got the
idea for a scene or a character, almost immediately we would write the song that would
fit in that character’s genes, in their voice.”
To make a song fit a character’s voice, the creators worked closely with the actors.
For the Unfortunates team, workshopping in the rehearsal room with other artists was
essential to molding the characters and their songs. “An actor comes into the room and
gives us so much of their heart and soul, but also their thought process and energy,” says
Hurt. “It really sculpts it for us.”
That energy is something they hope to keep in the performances, partly by having
the blues-influenced band situated on the stage instead of in a “pit,” the area below the
stage where orchestras usually reside during musicals. The earthiness of the music is
kept alive by the energy that flows between the actors and the musicians. “That’s the
way the show was created—just sitting around with musicians and singers and pushing
back and forth,” says Hurt. “Removing the band would feel like removing a major part
of the heart and soul of the piece.”
14
The result of this “hodge-podge” process is an array of infectious multigenre songs,
songs that many audience members have found themselves singing for days after seeing
the show. For the Unfortunates creators, the ability to write a catchy song that’s familiar
and yet fresh comes naturally—it’s not an intentional effort. “I think it’s just the nature
of us as writers,” says Hurt. “We all love a really good song. In the dressing room, we sit
around and make up songs all day. It’s just the way we participate with each other and
communicate.”
The Catharsis
The theme of unity through music appears again and again in The Unfortunates. Big Joe
finds that his suffering and pain are bearable if he simply allows himself to become part
of a community. “There’s a real authenticity when a group of voices are joined together,”
says Hurt.
The creators of The Unfortunates may come from different musical backgrounds, but
the one thing they share is the desire to use theater to show audiences the power of musical
narrative. Hurt notes that hip-hop is an incredible way to convey narrative. Rapping and
spoken word fit seamlessly into the catchy rhythms of hip-hop music, compelling the ear
to listen. Hurt says, “A lot of theatergoers are not necessarily accustomed to listening to
hip-hop, or at least seeing musicals written in that genre. But through this production,
they are introduced to hip-hop in an unexpected medium.” Some of the songs in the play
are hybrids of two genres; heartwarming ballads draw audiences in, then a burst of hip-hop
in the middle of the tune gets everyone tapping their toes.
Storytelling is a communal art form: the storyteller unites a group of people through
the shared experience of a narrative. In The Unfortunates, audiences come together
to hear the telling of a war hero’s journey as related through different musical genres,
genres that are all built from communities joining together and improvising off each
other. This is something that Hurt utilizes when writing music: “Why not reach out
for those [traditions] and tell the American story at the same time we’re telling a war
hero’s story?”
Not only does the show connect individual audience members to each other, it aims
to heal divisions within society. “War and music,” says Hurt, “are two things that, for
better or for worse, America’s always had. And there’s no question that music has always
been an outcry, a response to injustice. We sing in the hard times—in the midst of
tragedy looking for solace. But we also look for a catalyst to change things for the better.”
SOURCES Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Hip-Hop,” accessed December 18, 2015, http://www.
britannica.com/topic/hip-hop; Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Blues,” accessed December
18, 2015; http://www.britannica.com/art/blues-music; Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Gospel
Music,” accessed December 18, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/topic/gospel-music; Robert
W. Harwood, I Went Down to St. James Infirmary (Kitchener, Ontario: Harland Press, 2008);
Casey Hurt (music director of The Unfortunates), in discussion with Shannon Stockwell,
December 2015
15
Fabulous Forces Are There
Encountered
The Mythological Hero’s Journey
By Cecilia Padilla
Storytelling has developed in every culture as a way to examine the human condition.
Stories give meaning to life by explaining the earth’s creation, passing down culture, and
connecting individual experience to that of a larger group, providing a sense of belonging.
Every culture has its own mode of storytelling, but American writer Joseph Campbell
points to a commonality among mythological stories across cultures. In The Hero with a
Thousand Faces (1949), Campbell explains what he calls the “monomyth,” a theory positing
or most mythic narratives are variations of the same epic story: “A hero ventures forth
from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are
there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious
adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” In his book, Campbell
lays out 12 stages that structure the Hero’s Journey. The Unfortunates exhibits all the
characteristics of this journey, situating the play as a modern-day American myth.
In the first stage of the Hero’s Journey, which Campbell calls “The Ordinary World,”
we find the Hero uneasy in his environment. The Hero is drawn sympathetically, but he
exists in a world where polarized forces cause stress. The first scene of The Unfortunates
opens in a bar. The characters drink, roll dice, and fool around. Joe, the archetypal
Hero of the story, enters the scene looking to have a good time. He is painted in a
sympathetic light as a jovial, outgoing man, but he is soon confronted with the gravity
of war. General Goodtimes shouts, “It’s a world gone mad folks! A world gone mad! The
enemy is knocking on our door and we are looking for a few brave young men to keep
the demons at the gates!” This contrasts the spirited Joe against the ominous backdrop
of war—as Campbell says, two opposing forces causing strain.
According to Campbell, the Hero confronts change in the next two stages, “The
Call to Adventure” and “Refusal of the Call.” In The Unfortunates, Joe is beckoned to
his journey by the General, the archetypal Herald who brings the call to adventure: “I’m
looking for a few brave souls. A few brave souls who are glory bound.” But, as in many
adventure stories, the Hero or his friends doubt the Herald’s call. CJ, Joe’s drinking
buddy, says, “I got a bad feeling about this, Joe.” Even Joe hesitates when he finds out
that the cost of enlisting might be death.
16
Nevertheless, Joe commits to the adventure and enters the fourth stage of his
journey: “Meeting with the Mentor.” The archetypal Mentor gives the Hero the training,
equipment, or advice that will help him along his journey. In The Unfortunates, Joe first
meets Rae (the Mentor in this myth) in the ordinary world, where she cautions him
about the consequences of relying on his muscles: “Careful with those big fists, Big Joe.
If you don’t watch out, they’re going to find you a fight you can’t win.” She emphasizes
that love and courage, not brawn, will see him through the hard times.
Entering a new world with unfamiliar rules and values, the Hero “Crosses the
Threshold” into the fifth stage of the narrative. The play flashes forward. Joe and his
friends, CJ and Coughlin, have been captured by an enemy soldier and are in a jail
cell facing execution. Both CJ and Coughlin are shot immediately, neither of them
flinching. Joe, on the other hand, pleads for his life. The enemy pistol-whips Joe in
disgust, knocking him out. In this moment, Joe crosses the threshold into a dream world
inhabited by darkness and grief.
Waking up in a strange environment, Joe must determine who his “Allies and
Enemies” are—the sixth stage of the Hero’s Journey. Rae is the first to meet Joe in the
new world, guiding him through the rest of his journey. She becomes his strongest Ally.
She lets him know that it’s not a sign of weakness to let his guard down. Rae is joined
by the townspeople, who act as Joe’s support system throughout his journey.
During this stage, the Hero also identifies his enemies. Campbell calls the villains in
myths “Shadows.” The first Shadow Joe encounters is Stack, the “best-that-ever-rolled’em” dice shooter. He challenges Joe to a game of dice with high stakes: If Joe loses, he
must pay with his life. The second Shadow is the Doctor, a conman who charges high
prices for a cure to the plague.
The Hero and his Allies prepare for the major challenge in the new world in the
seventh stage, which Campbell labels “The Hero’s Approach.” Part of this stage includes
testing the Hero, either directly or indirectly. In The Unfortunates, Rae pushes Joe to see
if he has learned to open his heart. After contracting the plague, she tells Joe that there is
no point fighting the inevitable; he should just accept that she will die and stay with her
during her last moments. Joe, however, wants to fight Stack for the money to save her.
Rae sings, “Maybe I was wrong to trust you, / To believe that you could see what’s going
on. / Look what you’ve become, / Your fists are a prison that you can’t escape from.” Joe
protests that he has learned to love, but Rae doubts him. Finally, Joe admits, “Broken,
open, love is how we live when we’re dying.” His giant fists open and Rae is stunned. He
has passed the test. Joe learns that by sacrificing himself for those he loves, he can meet
death bravely. With his newfound courage, he leaves his friends to face his final battle.
Campbell explains that, near the middle of the monomyth, the Hero confronts death
or faces his greatest fear in the eighth step of the journey—“The Ordeal.” Although Joe
has learned to open his fists and set aside his brute strength for those he loves, he takes
a chance with death and plays Stack in another game of dice to get money so Rae can
afford the cure for the plague.
With the money he has won, Joe moves on to “The Reward,” the ninth stage of
Campbell’s monomyth. In this stage, the Hero takes possession of the treasure but he
17
is in danger of losing it again. In The Unfortunates, Rae is the treasure. Joe thinks he is
able to save Rae with his winnings, but he finds out that the Doctor is a fraud—there
never was any cure for the plague—and Joe is again in danger of losing her. Rae dies and
Joe begins to regress to his feelings of anger. He stops himself, remembering the lessons
Rae and his Allies helped him learn. Suddenly, Joe realizes the true reward—the ability
to love even in times of sorrow and suffering.
Deciding to change his ways, the Hero applies the lessons he has learned to find
“The Road Back Home,” the tenth stage of the journey. Through music, Joe is able to
accept Rae’s death, as well as his own. He sings, “Lord, lay me down in the evening, /
Lowered in the ground when I’m cold, / Lord, lay me down and when I’m leaving /
Carry home my very soul.” Fulfilling the purpose of his journey, Joe is able to feel his
repressed emotions.
At the climax of the monomyth, the Hero is severely tested once more on the
threshold of home; he must sacrifice an emotional or physical part of himself in the
eleventh stage, “The Hero’s Resurrection.” Joe turns over a new leaf when he sings, “I’m
done lyin’, / I’m done bein’ somebody’s gun, / I’m done fighting, I’m done dyin’, / I’m
tired of war stories.” His revelation forces him to shed his hard facade and his giant fists.
Joe is left vulnerable but free.
In the twelfth stage, the hero “Returns with the Elixir,” having changed for the better
and possessing the power (the Elixir) to alter the ordinary world. The scene suddenly
switches back to the jail cell, where Joe faces the enemy’s rifle once more. He begins
to cower—but stops. He knows now that he will die, but his journey has taught him
that he will not die alone.
All mythological narratives revolve around structures that make their telling relatable
to audiences. These universal tales draw listeners into a world where they forget
themselves by participating in a hero’s struggle. By identifying with a character in crisis,
we can discover new ways of meeting challenges and solving problems. We see Joe go
through pain, suffering, and redemption, and we learn that, as he says, “the things we
truly accept can’t haunt us.”
SOURCES Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: Bollingen Foundation,
1949); “Hero’s Journey,” The Writer’s Journey, http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero’s_journey.
htm#Memo (accessed November 16, 2015); Eric Miller, “Theories of Story and Storytelling,”
January, 2011, http://www.storytellingandvideoconferencing.com/67.pdf (accessed November
21, 2015); Ann Woodlief, “The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice: As Told by Apollonius of Rhodes,
Virgil, and Ovid in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology,” Virginia Commonwealth University, 2001, http://
www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/eurydice/eurydicemyth.html (accessed November 18, 2015);
18
Play of the Imagination
An Interview with Director Shana Cooper
By Cecilia Padilla
“The Unfortunates is a metaphor for facing hardship,” says director Shana Cooper. “When
we fall on hard times, I am always struck by how difficult it can be to open ourselves up
and be vulnerable. This show reminds us of the power in community and music. Joe’s
journey exemplifies the strength it takes to let someone catch you when you fall.”
These are the themes that lie behind the gritty, bluesy, graphic novel–inspired
musical. After taking on the challenge of bringing Big Joe’s world to life at the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival (OSF), Cooper now reimagines this hero’s journey for A.C.T.’s
Strand stage. We caught up with Cooper to talk about the play’s inspiration, message,
and fresh take on American music.
The Unfortunates has a unique sound and script structure. How does it compare to
other musicals?
I think that The Unfortunates is breaking new ground in the world of musical theater.
It’s transforming how people receive and celebrate the American musical. To me, The
Unfortunates is reminiscent of a revival meeting. Because of the way it weaves together so
many kinds of American music—blues, gospel, pop, Americana—it creates a communal
experience. As a result, you get the imagination of several very diverse creative lines all
coming together to create the musical language that is The Unfortunates.
How is this story distinctly American?
The music is derivative of the history and tradition found in American blues. The blues
interprets the human condition through music. It illustrates how a group comes together
to celebrate the sad, tragic, disturbing events of life. Over the course of his journey, Joe
discovers how to gracefully accept pain.
What dramaturgy did you do in preparation for directing The Unfortunates?
I did a lot of research about graphic novels, which are a part of the Americana landscape
manifested in the set and costume design. I also researched propaganda posters from
World Wars I and II, which have a graphic sensibility about them. I explored the history
of blues and how it has shaped the world of music; it’s a common link between musical
19
genres. The universality of the blues is not only a vehicle for grief and suffering, but
also a powerful bond between generations. Young people and those well into their later
years will walk out of the theater loving a genre of music they didn’t know they even
liked before.
We have made some changes to the original production mounted at the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival. When restructuring the story, we asked ourselves: How do we use
poetry and musical styles to transform the familiar into the revolutionary? When you’re
listening to the music of The Unfortunates, it all sounds familiar, but it’s completely
original work—except for “St. James Infirmary.” We wanted to invite the audience into
the world of the play by evoking musical strains that reflect our American history. That
way their minds are open to the revolutionary experience about to occur onstage.
What has your role been in shaping the production?
The Unfortunates is a play of the imagination. There is a large amount of influence from
graphic novels. The design team and I brought these influences to life by creating a
vocabulary that can describe Joe’s world. What does a world look like where the hero
has giant fists and a girl has no arms? That’s one of the biggest challenges, creating a
world that is highly theatrical and at the same time deeply human.
What new challenges will performing at The Strand Theater bring?
One challenge specifically about The Strand is its construction as a proscenium. At
OSF, we performed on a thrust stage, including the audience as part of the action.
But there are some great opportunities with The Strand’s setup in proscenium. The
events take place in Joe’s head, in an Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton dream world.
Performing in a proscenium space gives the audience a different perspective; by sitting
outside of the action, they can see the whole picture unfold before them, allowing for a
richer experience.
The greatest gift in mounting The Unfortunates at The Strand is the theater’s location.
The Strand is adjacent to the Tenderloin, which is home to many people in difficult
times in their lives. This piece, at its core, is a beautiful statement about facing conflict
and loss with dignity and pride. My hope is that this play, and the music in it, can bridge
the different communities living together in the Tenderloin.
Why this play, now?
In this age of technology, where we’re all spending more and more time online, it’s
essential more than ever to have moments to bond as a community through art and
music. The Unfortunates really makes the case that music and theater can not only inspire,
but can also heal and redeem. Through the power of music, these soldiers redefine their
lives by joy, not fear. Joining together in song creates something mysterious and divine
that can never be accessed through technology. That’s what makes art essential.
20
The inner workings of Big Joe’s giant fists. Photo courtesy Unfortunates production team.
I came across a letter that was written by an audience member who saw the show at
OSF. In the letter she explained that she had stage IV colon cancer and knew she was
looking death in the face. She came to see The Unfortunates in the middle of this illness.
She said that, for her, the play was about accepting the reality of death, knowing that
it was inevitable, but refusing to let death win by compromising how you live. You can
beat death by loving fiercely and connecting with the people around you. She felt that
this play was a testament to that. Joe’s journey is his way of embracing music as a source
of strength and meaning in the last moments of his life.
21
The Unfortunates
Expanded Universe
Kismet to Comic Book
By Shannon Stockwell
Throughout the creation process of The Unfortunates, writer and actor Ramiz Monsef
kept telling his collaborators, “We need to do a comic book for this!” To Monsef, a
ardent comic-book fan, the world they were creating was perfect for the graphic-novel
format. But there was a problem: Monsef can’t draw. “It was an equation I couldn’t finish
myself,” he says.
But one day, after a performance during the show’s run at the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival, Monsef was told that there was a man backstage who wanted to speak with him.
This man was comic-book artist Daniel Duford, who was rendered speechless by the
Unfortunates experience, “not only because it’s so moving, but also I was thinking, ‘Oh
my god, that’s like my work, but onstage!”
Duford happened to be in Ashland curating an exhibit at the Schneider Museum
of Art called Fighting Men, which featured the work of painter Leon Golub, ceramicist
Peter Voulkos, and comic-book artist Jack Kirby. Kirby’s work was a particularly
important influence for the creators of The Unfortunates, so the meeting felt like kismet.
“All of a sudden, I found someone that spoke the language I’d been trying to speak with
other people for a long time,” says Monsef.
That summer, Duford and his wife, Tracy Schlapp, began to produce posters
featuring characters from The Unfortunates, and then created an eight-page comic book
about Stack O’Lee, one of the villains in the play. The collaboration between Monsef
and Duford flourished, and they commenced work on a full-length Unfortunates graphic
novel that functions as a prequel to the musical. They hope that viewers of the play will
also read the comic book and vice versa. “It’ll add emotional impact to what Big Joe
goes through,” says Duford.
The following two pages include examples from the graphic novel.
OPPOSITE AND NEXT PAGE Images from the Unfortunates graphic novel, by Daniel Duford and
Ramiz Monsef.
22
23
24
Creating a Monster
An Interview with Scenic Designer Sibyl Wickersheimer
By Simon Hodgson
“For a designer, The Unfortunates is unusual,” says scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer.
“I don’t often get to create a different world that feels nonsensical. The props take on a
larger-than-life quality, with these giant fists, giant arms, and giant creations. We want
to keep surprising the audience.” Wickersheimer is full of surprises. She has designed
scenery for dozens of productions, including projects at Seattle Repertory Theatre and
the Geffen Playhouse, as well as productions at the Natural History Museum of Los
Angeles County and even a Disney cruise-ship production of Toy Story—the Musical.
She’s also a professor at the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts
and an artist who has exhibited her photography and installations across Los Angeles.
We caught up with Wickersheimer to talk about rooks, books, and baby grand pianos.
What are the visual influences for The Unfortunates?
For me, the play is a soldier’s tale. It’s about soldiers coming to terms with death. The
design team started looking at imagery from World War I, because we wanted to ground
the production in a reality that was not just any war. What does it mean to be in the
barracks? To be in the dugout? What did different enemy camps look like? What were
the weapons used?
I looked at a lot of sources. There weren’t that many photographic references, but
there were many sketches from the time. The style of sketching was loose, which was a
texture that I wanted to incorporate. The set is very naturalistic; it has distressed wood
and aged canvas. The grittiness of the soldier’s world really spoke to me.
The other layer that we put on top of that was the red cross as a symbol of health.
The red cross started out as an emblem for the Doctor. Then we started to twist that into
something really surreal and dark. The layering of those emblems and textures started
to become our own comic book.
Did you mine any particular artists’ work for ideas?
The comic-book ideas I had all started with cartoonist Ralph Bakshi. His imagery is
very dark, very twisted. His paintings are textural, almost like a collage, and they focus
25
Set model, by scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer, for A.C.T.’s 2016 production of The Unfortunates.
on sources of light, as if you were walking down the street inebriated and seeing these
hotspots everywhere. That speaks to the world of The Unfortunates, because we start in
a bar.
Another artist I should mention is Rebecca Horne, a performance artist from the
1970s. She created these appendages and put them on her body. There are several
different styles, and they’re so creepy, interesting, and human. Yet they’re not human,
because they’re actually fabric that she would add to her arms and her fingers. That
inspired us to take something super simple and create a monster. That was something
we considered when creating Joe’s fists and the lack of Rae’s arms, as well as the Doctor’s
arms, which grow and grow right in front of you.
What are the differences in set design between the real world of the play and the dream
world into which Big Joe descends?
In terms of delineating the real world from Joe’s dream world—that starts with
the entrance of Stack. The plan is for Stack to ride the piano across the stage, and
26
then the audience begins to
see the differences between
the realistic world versus the
comic-book world. In the
A.C.T. set, this piano goes
from an upright piano to a
baby grand piano, which then
breaks apart. The audience
will assume the piano is real,
but suddenly it isn’t.
Who makes
changes?
those
set
There are a few tricks that
our stagehands do, but it’s
mostly operated by the performers. That’s one of the
joys of working with [director] Shana [Cooper] and
[choreographer] Erika Chong
Shuch: they’re so willing to
choreograph the operation
into the action. Even the first
reveal—when the curtain World War I propaganda poster, by James Montgomery Flagg.
drops to unveil the framework Courtesy Library of Congress.
of our set—is 75 percent actor
driven. Same thing with the piano. When the piano moves out and breaks apart, it’s the
actors who move it. I’ve tried to be efficient about the transitions, so that if the actors
have to manipulate them, it’s easy to do.
When this play was produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, it was on a thrust
stage projecting into the audience. At The Strand, you’ll be designing the set for a
proscenium stage. What are the challenges with this production?
The Strand is a very narrow, deep space. This is a performance where there are 22 songs
in a little more than an hour, so it’s difficult. This show wants to be front and center
all the time. There’s not a whole lot of wing space. There’s not enough space for the
performers to go away and come back.
For the scenes in the bar, we’ve decided that everything revolves around the piano.
This is a musical about a community coming together and singing, so the piano should
be central. So not only does the piano have a few tricks, but it’s also the hub. There’s also
a booth in the bar where the performers can retreat a little when they’re not performing
27
in the scene. They can sit in
the booth and get a drink,
then they can turn around
and be in the scene, or help
with stage transitions.
Tell us about the Rooks.
They show up throughout
the storyline of The
Unfortunates. How are they
represented through the
design?
I was really captivated
by bird imagery and the
Rooks. They support whatever Death wants them to
support. They’re lingering,
waiting to help the next
death take place, and then
they want to take the body
and gobble it up. It’s somewhat funny, but it’s not
funny. One of the artists
that I looked at for inspiration was Anselm Kiefer, a
German Jewish painter who
does these amazing giant
paintings. One of his paintings is of a bird taking off. It’s not only very textural but also
gestural; you can see the movement in the brushstrokes. That was something I wanted
to capture onstage.
In the script, it mentions that Rae is a songbird. She’s a songbird versus the Rooks,
who eat carrion. They’re like vultures. I couldn’t get that metaphor out of my head. For
the A.C.T. production, there are elements of a vulture in the background graphics. In
the bar, there are hanging lights which, if you look closely, form the outline of flying
wings. When Rae’s death occurs, I want her spirit to fly out over the audience. Over the
house, we’re hanging another row of those lights that form wings. When those lights
come on, it will take Joe’s sadness and his new understanding of death and let them soar
out over the house.
ABOVE Set model, by scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer, for A.C.T.’s 2016 production of
The Unfortunates.
OPPOSITE World War I propaganda poster, by Frederick Strothmann, 1918. Courtesy Library
of Congress.
28
29
“There’s Only One Thing Promised
to the Living”
Death and The Unfortunates
By Shannon Stockwell
Everybody dies. It’s a fact of life. Most of us can set aside this truth to get on with our
lives and avoid despair, but eventually, we will all have a moment where we must come
face to face with our mortality. The Unfortunates tells the story of such a moment: Big
Joe must confront the inescapable reality of death—and he must come to terms with it
quickly, because the enemy is aiming his gun at Joe’s head.
It’s not easy for Joe to accept his own death. Even though he just watched his friends
take the bullets without flinching, he pleads for his life. After that moment, the entirety
of The Unfortunates takes place in the split second before Joe dies. His final moments on
earth explode into a dream world where he embarks on a journey not toward a physical
destination but toward the courage to accept his death.
Of Rooks and Plagues
In the dream world of The Unfortunates, one of the most potent symbols of death is
the plague. It is telling that, although Joe is in the midst of a war in the real world, his
subconscious invents a pandemic. Wars and plagues are often thought of in similar terms;
one is often used as a metaphor for the other. We talk about the “war” on AIDS, or an
enemy’s ideology “infecting” our people. But the two are very different in significant
ways, the largest being that war is human driven, but plague comes from uncontrollable
biology. It could be argued that war is preventable, but disease is inevitable. In this way,
the Unfortunates plague becomes a metaphor for death itself—it’s inescapable. The
fervor with which Joe chases after the cure for the plague shows just how much he wants
to avoid facing more death.
In The Unfortunates, the heralds of the plague are the Rooks, also important symbols
of death, and particularly antagonistic ones at that. The Rooks look like CJ and
Coughlin—Joe’s friends in the real world whom he watched the enemy kill. Simply by
looking like his dead friends, the Rooks remind Joe of his failings as a human being: he
convinced his friends to risk their lives and sign up for the war, and now he can’t even
take a bullet without pleading for his own life. He’s a coward, the Rooks tell him.
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A copper engraving of a seventeenth-century plague doctor, by Paul Fürst, circa 1656.
The Rooks’ costumes are reminiscent of death. They are partially based on the outfits
worn by seventeenth-century doctors who treated the bubonic plague. These consisted of
wide-brimmed hats, long robes, and beaklike masks. The masks were filled with strongsmelling herbs, which protected the doctors against bad smells, which, they believed,
carried disease. In the seventeenth century, these doctors were seen as benevolent figures of
good health, but as time went on, it became clear that they were unable to cure the bubonic
plague, and today, the outfits are seen as symbols of death and disease.
The Rooks aren’t just visually disturbing; the way they talk about death is also
unsettling. They are gleeful when describing the plague’s symptoms, they use Rae’s body
to indicate exactly where the symptoms will take place, and they talk about corpses in
an insensitive way. Essentially, the Rooks focus on bodily functions and cadavers, which
are profoundly distressing subjects for anyone, let alone someone who is himself about
to die. No one wants to imagine themselves as a corpse. Philosopher Julie Kristeva
explains why:
The corpse (or cadaver: cadere, to fall) . . . is cesspool, and death. [Refuse] and
corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live. These body
31
fluids, this defilement, this shit are what life withstands, hardly and with
difficulty, on the part of death. There, I am at the border of my condition as
a living being. My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border. Such
wastes drop so that I might live, until, from loss to loss, nothing remains in
me and my entire body falls beyond the limit—cadere, cadaver.
The Rooks tell Joe everything a dying person doesn’t want to hear—he’s a coward,
he’s going to die alone, and, most awfully, no one will remember him after he’s gone.
This may get to the root of the terror; as sociologist Joseph A. Scimecca says, what
people fear most is not extinction itself, but “extinction without meaning.”
The Fear of the Inevitable
With all this death coursing through the play, The Unfortunates asks the question, “How
do we love and how do we live / While we’re waiting to die?” How can one go on living
when one is intensely aware that everyone is rushing toward the same inevitability?
Fear of death is one of the universal aspects of humanity. Sociologists Calvin
Conzelus Moore and John B. Williamson say, “Every culture has generated a system
of thought that incorporates the reality and inevitability of death in a manner that
preserves the social cohesion of that culture in the face of the potentially socially
disintegrating aspects of death.” In other words, the knowledge of death’s inescapability
threatens to throw any society into chaos. To avoid collapsing into complete nihilism,
societies create constructs to deal with death’s reality.
These various methods date back to prehistoric societies, which practiced ancestor
worship to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. Greek society used
philosophy to deal with the anxiety. Early Jewish society had a variety of cultural rules
surrounding cleanliness—some anthropologists suggest that this focus on cleanliness
was an effort to stave off disease and therefore avoid death. In the Middle Ages,
Christians dealt with the threat of death by focusing on the heavenly afterlife that lay
beyond, while religious thought in the East explored the cycle of death and rebirth. The
advent of modern medicine marks the beginning of society’s drive for actual immortality,
while contemporary psychologists have only just begun to explore what it means to deal
with death and dying.
Accepting Death
In The Unfortunates, Big Joe goes from being utterly terrified of death to accepting it
with bravery. For human beings, learning how to accept our own death is one of the
most difficult things we can do—so difficult, in fact, that some believe we are completely
incapable of it. Freud said, “It is impossible to imagine our own deaths.” But there
are those who believe that accepting death is not only doable, but the key to living
the happiest life possible: “We cannot live authentically and meaningfully without
embracing death,” says psychologist Paul T. P. Wong.
32
Several theories have been proposed about the ways in which humans approach death.
Psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief: denial, bargaining,
depression, anger, and acceptance. In The Unfortunates, Big Joe goes through all of these
stages: He denies his feelings of grief by flexing his big fists. He bargains for Rae’s life
with Stack by betting on a game of craps to win the money to get her medicine. He
goes through bouts of extreme depression. His anger comes through when he attacks the
Rooks, and when he tries to kill the Doctor at the end of the play. As in Kübler-Ross’s
theory, Joe’s journey finally ends in acceptance of death—his own as well as his friends’.
According to Wong, there are three different ways people can come to embrace
death. “Approach Acceptance” is the belief that whatever comes after death will be
pleasant—this is the religious approach, a belief in a joyful afterlife. There is also
“Escape Acceptance,” which is the belief that, no matter what death is, it will be less
painful than the life currently being lived. This is the form of acceptance associated with
suicides. The third type, “Neutral Acceptance,” is rare. Neutral Acceptance is when a
person simply accepts that death is the inevitable end of life. Wong identifies Neutral
Acceptance as the ideal way in which to become comfortable with death.
The way to achieve Neutral Acceptance, Wong maintains, is “to focus on the
immediate task and live a meaningful life. . . . When one has found something worth
dying for, one is no longer afraid of death.” At the end of The Unfortunates, Rae echoes
this when she tells Joe, “There was never a way to save me. Not forever. It’s about what
we do with the time that we have.”
But what exactly is a meaningful life? The Unfortunates seems to say that the most you
can do with your life is to love as much as you can. In response to the question—“Why
do we love and how do we live / When we’re waiting to die?”—Joe says, simply, “Love
is how we live when we’re dying.” And the answer to why we love while we’re waiting
to die seems to be that . . . we just do. It’s the only thing that keeps us sane. Joe sings:
Oh, there’s only one thing promised to the living
And the sorrow doesn’t know no final call
Lord, I know it ain’t enough to say forgive me
But I need someone to catch me when I fall
SOURCES Julie Kristeva, The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); Calvin Conzelus Moore and John B. Williamson,
“The Universal Fear of Death and the Cultural Response,” in Handbook of Death and Dying,
ed. Clifton D. Bryant (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003); Katherine Trendacosta,
“The ‘Science’ Behind Today’s Plague Doctor Costume,” i09, October 19, 2015, http://io9.
com/the-science-behind-todays-plague-doctor-costume-1737404375 (accessed December 12,
2015); Paul T. P. Wong, “Meaning Making and the Positive Psychology of Death Acceptance,”
International Journal of Existential Psychology & Psychotherapy 3 (2010)
33
An Unfortunates Glossary
Adrenaline, also called epinephrine, is a
hormone in the brain typically released
during moments of extreme stress.
Neurologists speculate that its purpose
is to stimulate heightened awareness,
leading to a “fight or flight” response.
Dressed in style, brand new
tile [hat],
And your father’s old green tie on,
But I wouldn’t give you tuppence
for your old watch chain,
Old Iron, Old Iron.
“Amazing Grace” is a hymn written in
1779 by John Newton, an English sailor
who gave up the slave trade for a life of
religion after praying to be saved during a
storm at sea. The hymn celebrates the idea
of redemption:
Attila the Hun was the leader of the Huns,
a central Asian tribe between the first
and fifth century CE that became feared
across Europe for its military prowess and
ferocity. Hun became a derogatory name
for a German soldier in the early twentieth
century. The epithet was not a random
slur—in 1900, during a speech addressed
to German soldiers who were being sent
to put down the Boxer Rebellion in
China, German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm
II invoked the name of Attila the Hun,
urging the troops to live up to his legend.
Amazing grace! How sweet
the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.
“Any Old Iron” is a song from the British
music hall tradition (similar to vaudeville
in America). It was written by Charles
Collins, E. A. Sheppard, and Fred Terry in
1911. The song ridicules a man who boasts
about an inheritance before learning that
his new watch is nothing more than base
metal, or “old iron”:
You look neat, talk about a treat,
You look dapper from your napper
[head] to your feet,
34
Broad, bird, and doll are all slang words
for “woman.”
Caesar in the Senate on the Ides refers
to the Roman dictator Julius Caesar, who
was due to appear on the Ides (the 15th)
of March at a session of the Roman
senate. Caesar was stabbed to death by the
Roman senators who had been plotting
his downfall.
Cake is slang for money. The word often
appears in rap and hip-hop songs.
A chanteuse is a female singer.
Craps is a game in which gamblers place
bets on the roll of two dice. While the
original game dates back to the twelfth
century (and possibly earlier), the modern
game was introduced to the United States
in the nineteenth century by Bernard de
Marigny, a New Orleans–born gambler
and playboy. The name derives from the
French word for toad (crapaud), because
of the way dice rollers squatted by roads
to gamble.
A cudgel is a short, thick stick used as a
weapon.
The duodenum is the first part of the
small intestine. The stomach partially
digests food and then passes it on to
the duodenum, which then begins the
absorption of nutrients. The colon is the
longest segment of the large intestine,
which absorbs the remaining fluids and
salts in the digested food, and stores
the waste products (indigestible materials,
commonly known as feces) until they are
ready to be passed from the body.
A final call is what bartenders announce
right before they close up the bar, so
people can get one last drink.
Formaldehyde is a clear, flammable liquid
that has a strong odor. It is used for the
embalming of cadavers.
“Glory, glory, hallelujah” is a lyric from
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The
lyrics were written by Julia Ward Howe in
1861; she took the music from the song
“John Brown’s Body,” which was a Civil
War marching hymn popular in the Union
Army. The first verse and chorus read:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage
where the grapes of wrath
are stored
He hath loosed the fateful
lightning of His
terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
In America, the song is often sung
during times of national crisis and resolve.
Journalist Benjamin Soskis says, “The
song encourages us to believe still that
our efforts and our militancy have been
sustained for the good of some higher
cause, which . . . often happens to align
with our fiercest ambitions and most
resolute self-conceptions.”
Hard eight is a craps roll of double
four. For a dice shooter trying to roll a
combination of eight, the easier routes
are a two and a six, or a three and a five.
Double four is mathematically less likely
(hence the “hard”), so the odds and the
return are usually higher.
Holy Roller is a pejorative term for a
member of a Christian sect (including
Quakers, Shakers, and Pentecostalists)
who exhibits their spirituality in sudden
physical movement.
Hot dice is a gamblers’ phrase used when a
35
“The Need for Fighting Men Is Urgent”
is slogan featured or displayed on British
army recruitment posters during World
War I. The industrial nature of the “war to
The hounds of Hades refers to Cerberus, end all wars”—illustrated by such neverthe gigantic three-headed dog that before-seen lethal technologies as poison
guarded the gates of the underworld in gas, long-range artillery, and machineGreek mythology. The hound was posted guns—forced many European countries
to prevent ghosts of the dead from leaving into massive recruitment drives. By the
the underworld.
end of World War I, more than 40 million
men on both sides had been mobilized.
“Hustle off to Buffalo” is a reference to
More than half of these were wounded,
“Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” a song written
killed, or taken prisoner.
by Al Dubin and Harry Warren that first
appeared in the 1933 musical film 42nd A pandemic refers to an outbreak of an
Street. Shuffle off to Buffalo is also the infectious disease that occurs throughout
name of a tap-dance step.
a wide geographical area and affects a
particular shooter (or dice roller) is rolling
winning numbers, either for himself or for
the other participants in the game.
Jimmy Beam is an affectionate reference
to Jim Beam, a brand of bourbon produced
in Clermont, Kentucky.
“My kingdom for a whore into the
breech” is a bastardization of two famous
Shakespeare speeches. “My kingdom for
a horse” was the plea of Richard III,
unhorsed and vulnerable at the Battle of
Bosworth Field (1485), where his defeat
cost him the crown. The phrase “into
the breech” is drawn from “Once more
into the breech,” the rallying cry of the
king in Henry V at another famous battle,
Agincourt (1415).
Knave is both a card-players’ term
(indicating the jack cards) and a medieval
word meaning trickster.
A loaded deck is a deck of cards that has
been illegally altered (either by the dealer
or another card sharp). For example, a
dealer looking to influence a game of
blackjack might secretly extract kings,
queens, and jacks from the deck to reduce
the odds of players winning.
36
significant portion of the population.
Pandemics are different from epidemics,
which are confined to one geographical
location (such as one country). Some
examples of pandemics are HIV/AIDS,
the 1918 Spanish flu, and the 2009–10
swine flu.
A paper tiger is something that looks
scary or powerful but actually isn’t.
Penicillin is one of the first and most
widely used antibiotics. It was discovered
by Scottish bacteriologist Alexander
Fleming in 1928. It is used to treat
bacterial infections, but is ineffective
against viral infections.
A plague is an infectious and communicable disease that spreads rapidly through
a group of living things. There have been
several deadly plagues throughout history
that have affected humans in particular.
The most famous of these is probably the
bubonic plague pandemic of the fourteenth century, which experts estimate
Photo of the Oakland Municipal Auditorium, which became a temporary Red Cross hospital during the
1918 flu pandemic. Photo by Edward A. Rogers. Courtesy Oakland Public Library.
wiped out about half of the population
of Europe. One of the deadliest human
plagues ever was the 1918 Spanish Flu
pandemic, which struck during World
War I. The amount of travel necessitated
by the war caused the virus to spread
uncontrollably, killing more than 50 million people worldwide. A more contemporary deadly plague is the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes
acquired immune deficiency syndrome
(AIDS). HIV/AIDS was first discovered
in 1981, although experts estimate that
it has been around since the middle of
the twentieth century. The virus, which
is transmitted through blood and semen,
has killed more than 39 million people
worldwide.
Plasmodic necrosis is not a real ailment,
but plasmodic might refer to plasma, the
liquid part of blood or lymph that carries
cells to other organs in the body. Necrosis
is the death of an area of plant or animal
tissue that can be caused by a variety of
injuries and diseases. Necropheliosis is
37
also an ailment that does not exist; the
term necrophilia refers to the pathological
urge to have sex with corpses. Halitosis is
commonly known as bad breath. It can be
caused by many things, from bad dental
hygiene to poor diet to infections.
Poseidon is the Greek god of the sea who
was reputed to wield control over marine
creatures.
A prognosis is a doctor’s best guess
as to how a given patient’s disease or
ailment will play out. It usually involves
information about how long the disease
will last, how the patient’s body will
handle it, and whether or not it will be
fatal. Chronic refers to a disease that
can never be cured. Terminal refers to a
disease that will end in death.
Quarantine is the practice of isolating
individuals with a communicable disease
to prevent the spread of the illness.
Quarantines have been around since
societies first realized that diseases might
be contagious. There are references to
such practices in the Bible; the book
of Leviticus mentions that people with
leprosy were isolated and their clothes
and possessions burned. The practice
became more popular with the onset of
the bubonic plague in the fourteenth
century CE. When it was discovered that
the plague was spreading even further due
to the increase in maritime trade, it was
decreed in Venice that all ships coming to
port must be isolated for a period of 30
days—trentina—but it was later extended
to 40 days—quarantina. Today, people
tend to be quarantined only if they have
highly communicable and deadly diseases,
such as hemorrhagic fevers (like ebola).
Shell shock is the name of the psychiatric
disorder suffered by many World War I
soldiers and veterans. Those with shell
shock have several symptoms, including
a hypersensitivity to certain sounds,
movements, and light accompanied
by startle reactions; irritability that
can progress to violence; and sleep
disturbances, such as night terrors and
insomnia. As the disorder was studied,
shell shock later came to be called “combat
fatigue” or “battle fatigue,” and today it is
often categorized as “post-traumatic stress
disorder.” The phrase “shell shock” derives
from the explosive rounds fired by artillery,
which are known as shells.
Rolling bones refers to rolling dice—
before the invention of dice, gamblers
would use the knucklebones of animals
such as sheep or goats.
Snake eyes is a gamblers’ term referring to
a dice roll in craps when both dice come
up showing one (the dots or “pips” looking
like the eyes of a snake). In craps, it is
not only a poor roll, it is also considered
unlucky.
A rook is a black bird related to the crow
and associated with death and bad luck.
As a verb, the word “rook” also means to
take money or valuables from someone
by cheating, defrauding, or overcharging
them.
A roustabout is an unskilled laborer.
A scepter is one of the traditional symbols
of a ruling king or queen. It is a staff,
usually made of metal, with a figure or
ornament at the top end.
A seven-round gun is probably a reference
to the 1911 Colt .45 pistol, designed by
John Browning. This handgun was used
by U.S. servicemen during World War I
and featured a magazine containing seven
rounds.
38
Stack O’Lee is a reference to an American
folk song dating from around 1900 that
tells the true story of Shelton Lee (also
known as Stack O’Lee, Stagger Lee, or
Stack Lee), a wealthy African American
pimp who shot and killed his associate
Billy Lyons in a St. Louis bar during an
argument over politics. Although Lee
was jailed for murder, his legend lived
on—the gory tale became a folk song
that was played by artists including Louis
Armstrong, Bob Dylan, and Elvis Presley.
Stack the chips is a casino term referring
to the way gamblers organize their
chips, but colloquially, it usually refers to
amassing money.
“St. James Infirmary” is an American folk
song of uncertain origins. The song has
evolved from various sources, such as
“The Unfortunate Rake,” an Irish folk
song about a soldier who spends his
money on prostitutes and then dies of
venereal disease. Later iterations of “The
Unfortunate Rake” often focus on a young
man laid low by poor choices and immoral
behavior. The title is said to derive from
St. James Hospital in London, a religious
foundation from the sixteenth century
dedicated to the treatment of leprosy.
Tuppence is a British slang word for two
pence, a coin still in use in the United
Kingdom. It is also used to refer to a
trifling small amount: “She doesn’t care
tuppence for him.”
Uncle Sam is the personification of the
United States government. The name
dates back to 1813 and is believed to have
derived from Samuel Wilson, a meatpacker from New York who supplied the
U.S. army with barrels of beef during the
war of 1812. Wilson stamped the barrels
with “U.S.,” and the soldiers began to
refer to the meat as coming from “Uncle
Sam.” A local newspaper picked up the
story, and the name spread throughout
the country. In the late 1860s and ’70s,
political cartoonist Thomas Nast solidified
the popular image of Uncle Sam: a white
man with a white beard wearing a starsand-stripes suit. During World War I, the
portrait of Uncle Sam with the words “I
Want You for the U.S. Army” was created
by artist James Montgomery Flagg. This
is the image that we associate with Uncle
Sam today.
39
A union break refers to a period of rest
required of employers by certain labor
unions.
Vendetta derives from the Italian word
for vengeance. The term originated in the
nineteenth century and refers to a series of
retaliatory actions.
Victory Girls were young women who
offered their companionship (usually
including sex) to servicemen during
World War II. They were sometimes
referred to as “patriotic prostitutes.”
Working stiff is a play on words, referring
both to a regular working man and the
nickname given to dead bodies.
Questions to Consider
1. What musical genres can you identify in The Unfortunates? How is music used to tell
the story? What other functions does the music serve in the play?
2. What does strength mean for each of the characters in the play? How do these ideas
shift?
3. How is power represented in the play? Who are “the unfortunates” and what forces
do they battle?
4. How are hands and arms used metaphorically in The Unfortunates? What do you think
the creators’ intention was with this visual motif?
5. How does war affect the characters? How does this compare to how modern wars
have affected Americans?
6. On one level, The Unfortunates is a tragic love story. How do the characters of Big Joe
and Rae evolve individually, in response to each other, and within the world of the play?
7. What forms does death take throughout this story?
For Further Information . . .
Axelrod, Alan. Selling the Great War: The Making of American Propaganda. New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2009.
Campell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, California: New World
Library, 2008.
Harwood, Robert W. I Went Down to St. James Infirmary: Investigations in the Shadowy
World of Early Jazz-Blues in the Company of Blind Willie McTell, Louis Armstrong, Don
Redman, Irving Mills, Carl Moore, and a Host of Others, and Where Did This Dang Song
Come from Anyway? Kitchener, Ontario: Harland Press, 2008.
Thomas, John Rhett. The Marvel Legacy of Jack Kirby. New York: Marvel Comics, 2015.
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