virtual program

turkey and bones and eating and we liked it and other plays from geography and plays by gertrude stein

facility theatre* march 2025

plays to be performed tonight:

1. polybe in port: a curtain raiser [short]

2. turkey and bones and eating and we liked it  [longest]

x. [interlude: two tall mountains]

3. every afternoon: a dialogue [medium]

4. captain walter arnold: a play [short]

total run time: approximately one hour

the plays will be performed with no intermission

actors

Andrew Seller (he/him) has loved figuring out these plays with these people. Previous credits include Doctor Faustus with Nonsense Productions, understudying with Strawdog Theater, The Irish Curse with Wheat Ridge Theatre Company, Nightmares on Lincoln Ave 8 with Cornservatory, and midsummer mayhem. He's a graduate of The Academy at Black Box Acting and Drama Studio London. Thanks to his family!

Dina Perez (she/her) is a queer musical theatre actor. Some of her recent credits include Grimm at Theatre Above the Law, Medea with Bump in the Night Theatre, and Interplays with Fat Theatre Project. Dina is represented by Lily’s Talent and can be found watching Disney movies or Netflix when not on stage. She’s so grateful to get to work on this show with this incredible team!

Emmacate Sauer (any pronouns) is a multi-disciplinary storyteller who plays in the worlds of dance, theater, and speculative fiction. Emmacate received her BA in Dance and Creative Writing at Oberlin College, where she fell deeply in love with collaborative theater-making and speculative world-building. Since moving back to the Chicago area, they have been dipping their toes into all the dance and theater scenes have to offer. Most recently, their short film Look Up premiered at Short Stack: Chicago’s Tiny Dance Film Festival as a part of Project Bound Dance’s One Hour Project. They are a devout disciple of the strange, surreal, and otherwise offbeat and are so excited to make their Chicago theater debut with this show!

Lexy Hope Weixel (they/them) is an actor and deviser who has been lucky enough to call Chicago home for the last 5 years. They had a blast working on this weird lil play with these lovely humans. Other selected acting credits include: Phedré with Meat Machine, Toddler Hiking Club with Kerfuffle, Die Hard 4 Your Luv with Factory Theatre, Skunk and Badger with Lifeline, That’s Weird, Grandma with Playmakers Laboratory, and Twelfth Night with Midsommer Flight. They also directed a devised production in their apartment in 2023, exploring the worlds we create when we are alone. Lexy received a BS in Arts Administration - Theatre from Butler University, and also had the privilege to study at the Moscow Art Theatre School. They hope to keep making weird underground shows in people’s apartments (hopefully never their own again). For more information visit lexyweixel.com or check out their Instagram @lexy_h_weixel.

Mikayla De Guzman (she/her) is an actor, stage manager, and writer. As a graduate of Loyola University Chicago, previous credits include Coming of Stars, All’s Well That Ends Well, Polaroid Stories, SOMEWHERE, and Pride and Prejudice. She has since worked on Beyond The Garden Gate (Impostors Theatre Co.), The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Three Crows), BECHDEL FEST 9 (Broken Nose Theatre), Pocket Playfest (Pocket Theatre VR), THE KASHA OF KAIMUKI (NWaC), Hershel & The Hanukkah Goblins (Strawdog Theatre [2023]), and Attempts on Her Life (TUTA Theatre).

Her free time consists of baking, traveling, bubble tea, and naps.

She would like to thank her family and friends for their love and support.

crew

Anna Aguiar Kosicki staged managed this show.

Dana May (she/her) (musical arrangement) is a composer and arranger in Chicago.

Rosemary Spring Wexler (she/her) (dramaturg and production designer) has been interested in structure, repetition, and craft for a while.

Seph Mozes (director) (he/him) is a theatre director, dramaturg and performer based in Chicago. Seph’s next work-in-progress is a production of Bad Behavior by Richard Foreman. More information at woolstation.org or @woolstation on Instagram.

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*welcome to facility theatre, located in humboldt park! because most of us are visitors in this neighborhood, we’re encouraging members of our audience to make a contribution to the puerto rican cultural center while you’re here.

you can do so at this link:

tinyurl.com/donateprcc

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director’s note

thank you for coming to the gertrude stein show!

some people find gertrude stein hard to like. I hope this show convinces you of the pleasures of stein’s work.

before the plays begin, I’m going to give a little presentation to put stein’s work in context. I have a lot to say on this subject, and not all of it fit into my spoken presentation; so, what follows is a longer version, for those who are interested.

in a 1934 radio interview, stein was accused of writing texts that were impossible to understand. she replied: “if you enjoy it, you understand it.”

one way to approach stein’s work is to think about words themselves as objects of beauty, the way that a painter thinks about colors or a composer about notes/sounds. the beauty of a word is both connected-to and more-than its meaning: for example, the pleasure of saying the phrase white wines is connected to what the phrase means, but it also has to do with how the phrase sounds and feels in your mouth.

sometimes it also has to do with how the words look on the page, like here:

but what does this have to do with geography, and what does it have to do with plays?

the geographer ruth wilson gilmore says that drama and geography are connected: “the obsessions that drove me into and then rapidly away from drama were those most beautifully summarized in a few thoughts of marx: by mixing our labor with the earth, we change the external world and thereby change our own nature. that's what drama is; that's what geography is: making history, making worlds.”

gertrude stein connected drama and geography in order to solve what she saw as the problem with plays.

stein says: “the scene as depicted on the stage is more often than not one might say it is almost always in syncopated time in relation to the emotion of anybody in the audience. . . so your emotion as a member of the audience is never going on at the same time as the action of the play.”

that’s the first problem: you, as the audience member, are always out of time with the emotional rhythms of the play.

there’s also a second, related problem with that stein identifies. she says: “it is not possible in the theatre to produce familiarity which is of the essence of acquaintance because, in the first place when the actors are there they are there and they are there right away.”

in other words: who are these people, and what are they doing here?

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stein’s first book was a lesbian love triangle novel called q.e.d. (1903). the epigraph for this book is the following passage from shakespeare’s as you like it:

PHEBE

good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.

SILVIUS

it is to be all made of sighs and tears;

and so am I for phebe.

PHEBE

and I for ganymede.

ORLANDO

and I for rosalind.

ROSALIND

and I for no woman.

SILVIUS

it is to be all made of faith and service;

and so am I for phebe.

PHEBE

and I for ganymede.

ORLANDO

and I for rosalind.

ROSALIND

and I for no woman.

SILVIUS

it is to be all made of fantasy,

all made of passion and all made of wishes,

all adoration, duty, and observance,

all humbleness, all patience and impatience,

all purity, all trial, all observance;

and so am I for phebe.

PHEBE

and so am I for ganymede.

ORLANDO

and so am I for rosalind.

ROSALIND

and so am I for no woman.

PHEBE

if this be so, why blame you me to love you?

SILVIUS

if this be so, why blame you me to love you?

ORLANDO

if this be so, why blame you me to love you?

ROSALIND

who do you speak to, 'why blame you me to love you?'

ORLANDO

to her that is not here, nor doth not hear.

ROSALIND

pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling

of irish wolves against the moon.

I love that stein chose this passage to begin her body of work. you can see how it connects to her style. the use of repetition, which makes words unfamiliar, makes them into objects of beauty.

I especially love the punchline: “pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling of irish wolves against the moon.”

I learned something interesting from the poet pádraig ó tuama, which is that there aren’t irish wolves anymore.

as you like it was performed in 1599.

in 1653, british leader oliver cromwell put a bounty on all the wolves in ireland.

in 1786, the last irish wolf was killed.

here’s another fact about ireland:

ancient ireland was 80% forest.

by 1600, it was 20% forest.

by 1900, it was 1% forest.

today, thanks to reforestation efforts, ireland is 11% forest, but that’s still the lowest percentage in europe.

in the 1600s-1800s, the british deforested ireland for two reasons.

first, like all colonized people, the irish resisted the british through guerilla warfare. (irish guerilla fighters in this time were called “wolves.”) because they were native to the land, irish fighters knew the landscape better than the british, and they were able to hide in the forests. therefore, the british said: “the irish will never be tamed while the leaves are on the trees.”

the other reason the british deforested ireland was to build ships for the british navy.

that brings us to the place where we are now.

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in his essay “a struggle to destroy the world,” the palestinian-american writer dylan saba writes that the difference between a place and an event is a matter of scale. so: a mountain seems to be a place, but, “in geological time, a mountain is an event, a collision of objects in motion.”

we can think about chicago, or the united states, as places; but they are also events.

this map shows territories in the eastern half of north america as of 1754, the beginning of the so-called french and indian war, or about 30 years before the death of the last irish wolf.

the main thing you’ll notice is how much of the land is under native control - including all of the great lakes region.

1754 is not so long ago! it’s 270 years ago, which is about 9 or 10 generations.

this part of the country was mostly colonized very abruptly between 1800 and 1833.

1812 was the battle of fort dearborn. fort dearborn was located in what is now downtown chicago, near the trump tower. you can find it on google maps. in the battle of fort dearborn, potawatomi forces defeated u.s. troops in 15 minutes.

this defeat led the u.s. government to put more resources into conquering this area.

in 1818, illinois was officially made a state.

in 1821, the first treaty of chicago was signed between u.s. and council of three fires (ojibwe, odawa, potawatomi). this treaty ceded all of the michigan territory south of the grand river.

in 1830, president andrew jackson signed the indian removal act.

in 1833, the second treaty of chicago, signed by the council of three fires (ojibwe, odawa, potawatomi), ceded 5 million acres of land, including all of what is now illinois, wisconsin, and michigan.

upon signing the first treaty of chicago in 1821, potawatomi chief matea said this:

a long time has passed since we first came upon our lands, and our old people have all sunk into their graves. they had sense. we are all young and foolish, and do not wish to do anything that they would not approve, were they living. we are fearful we shall offend their spirits, if we sell our lands; and we are fearful we shall offend you, if we do not sell them. this has caused us great perplexity of thought, because we have counselled among ourselves, and do not know how we can part with the land. our country was given to us by the great spirit, who gave it to us to hunt upon, to make our cornfields upon, to live upon, and to make down our beds upon when we die. and he would never forgive us, should we bargain it away. when you first spoke to us for lands at st. mary's, we said we had a little, and agreed to sell you a piece of it; but we told you we could spare no more. now you ask us again. you are never satisfied! we have sold you a great tract of land already; but it is not enough! we sold it to you for the benefit of your children, to farm and to live upon. we have now but little left. we shall want it all for ourselves. we know not how long we may live, and we wish to have some lands for our children to hunt upon. you are gradually taking away our hunting-grounds. your children are driving us before them. we are growing uneasy. what lands you have, you may retain forever; but we shall sell no more.

again - 1833 is less than 200 years ago. the plays in geography and plays were written 100 years ago. that means that gertrude stein was as close to the signing of that treaty as we are to her.

there was one band of potawatomi who were permitted to remain in the great lakes region. they were led by a man named leopold pokagon (c. 1775-1841). pokagon converted his band to catholicism, which might be why they were allowed to stay.

leopold pokaon’s son was simon pokagon (c. 1830-1899). simon pokagon was the only native speaker at the 1893 world’s columbian exposition.

at the world’s fair, simon pokagon delivered a speech he called the red man’s rebuke. he had it printed as a book made of birch bark, which looked like this:

in this book, he wrote:

the cyclone of civilization rolled westward; the forests of untold centuries were swept away; streams dried up; lakes fell back from their ancient bounds; and all our fathers once loved to gaze upon was destroyed, defaced, or marred, except the sun, moon, and starry skies above, which the great spirit in his wisdom hung beyond their reach.

still on the storm-cloud rolled, while before its lightning and thunder the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air withered like grass before the flame—were shot for love of power to kill alone, and left to spoil upon the plains. their bleaching bones now scattered far and near, in shame declare the wanton cruelty of pale-faced men. the storm unsatisfied on land swept our lakes and streams, while before its clouds of hooks, nets, and glistening spears the fish vanished from our waters like the morning dew before the rising sun. thus our inheritance was cut off, and we were driven and scattered as sheep before the wolves.

one more thing about the two treaties of chicago.

you might know that a lot of the chicago lakefront is made of landfill - the city artificially extended the land out into the lake starting in the 1890s.

because that lakefront land didn’t exist in 1833, it’s not covered under the treaty of chicago. this means that chicago’s most valuable real estate is on unceded native land.

in 1914, the pokagon band of potawatomi sued the city of chicago for their rights to this land. the supreme court ruled against them.

you can read more about the potawatomi claim to the lakefront at whoselakefront.com.

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let’s return now to the question of: why geography?

ruth wilson gilmore says:

when [a former student] asked why a lecturer on race,

culture and power would go study

‘where is nebraska?’

I replied that actually I was going to study

‘why is nebraska?’

so, where/why was gertrude stein?

gertrude stein was born in 1874 and grew up in oakland, california. (she is famous for saying, about oakland, “there’s no there there.” more on that in a minute.)

in 1848, the treaty of guadalupe-hidalgo ended the mexican-american war, and california became part of the united states.

in 1849, the california gold rush brought 300,000 settlers to california.

1846 - 1873 is known as the california genocide, which about 120,000 native people were directly or indirectly killed.

in 1873, the first successful cable street railway was built in san francisco.

and in 1874, gertrude stein was born.

she was originally born in pittsburgh. her parents were upper-middle-class german jewish immigrants, whose money came from the clothing business.

in 1878, after spending a year in europe, the steins moved to oakland.

stein’s father and then brother ran the market street railway company, as well as owning rental properties and other real estate. stein was financially supported by her brother throughout her life, which is what made her writing career possible.

stein moved back east to baltimore in 1892 (at age 17), and then she moved to paris in 1903, where she spent the rest of her adult life.

let’s go back to that famous line of stein’s about oakland: “there’s no there there.” here it is in its full context, in her 1937 book everybody’s autobiography:

what was the use of my having come from oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.

she wrote this after having visited oakland in 1935. at that time, oakland’s population was 300,000, or ten times as much as when her family moved there in 1878.

the Black american poet, playwright and novelist ishmael reed, who lives in oakland, says:

she was talking nostalgically, that the oakland she knew no longer existed.

a lot of people have taken that as a put down.

tommy orange, an indigenous american writer from oakland and author of the 2018 novel there there, says:

‘there, there’ has been used to say it doesn’t have culture. or it doesn’t have place, or it doesn’t have a feel to it. it’s a very convenient quote if you’re gentrifying some place, to be like ‘there’s no place there anyway,’ or ‘nobody’s from oakland.’ all the new people here, all the new white people gentrifying, it’s very convenient to have that feeling.

that brings us to the place where we are staging this play, humboldt park.

humboldt park has been an immigrant neighborhood for over a century, and has been home to scandinavian, jewish, german, polish, italian, irish, mexican, african-american, and puerto rican communities.

in particular, it has been a historic puerto rican neighborhood since the 1960s.

puerto rico has been a colony of the united states since spain ceded it in 1898. puerto rican people began immigrating to chicago in large numbers in the 1940s, after world war 2.

in the 1960s, puerto rican neighborhoods in old town, lincoln park, and the near west side were forced out by “urban renewal” programs and the expansion of the university of illinois campus, forcing the puerto rican community further west to the wicker park / humboldt park / ukrainian village area. this forced displacement led to the 1966 division street riots, which created a new political consciousness for the puerto rican community in chicago. (for more on this, see the book the battle of lincoln park: urban renewal and gentrification in chicago by daniel kay hertz.) the puerto rican cultural center is an institution that carries on this radical legacy today.

because of its proximity to predominately white neighborhoods, humboldt park has been subject to gentrification for the past 25 years. you might see stickers or flyers around the neighborhood that say “humboldt park is not for sale,” and “the gentrification of humboldt park is connected to the colonization of puerto rico.”

because most of us are visitors in this neighborhood, we’re encouraging members of our audience to make a contribution to the puerto rican cultural center while you’re here.

you can do so through paypal at this link:
tinyurl.com/donateprcc

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let’s return again to the two problems with plays:

1.  your emotion is out of step with the action onstage

2.  who are these people, and what are they doing here?

gertrude stein wrote most of geography and plays while vacationing on the spanish island of mallorca with her wife, alice toklas, between april 1915 and june 1916.

when they went to spain in april 1915, it was 9 months into world war one. over a million people were already dead, including at least 400,000 in france, where they lived. (the first two months of the war were the deadliest overall for france.)

in her book the autobiography of alice b. toklas, stein wrote:

and we went to palma [de mallorca] thinking to spend only a few weeks but we stayed the winter. first we went to barcelona. it was extraordinary to see so many men on the streets. I did not imagine there could be so many men left in the world. one's eyes had become so habituated to menless streets, the few men one saw being in uniform and therefore not being men but soldiers, that to see quantities of men walking up and down the ramblas was bewildering.

the critic astrid lorange said about stein:

hers is a twentieth century built by industrialism and razed by war, focused on the quivering atom and the measurement of the universe, […] cut into film sequences, and segmented by nationalisms.

while in mallorca, stein started to work on a solution to the problem with plays.

here was her solution:

I felt that if a play was exactly like a landscape

then there would be no difficulty about the emotion of the person looking on at the play

being behind or ahead of the play

because the landscape does not have to make acquaintance.

you may have to make acquaintance with it, but it does not with you,

it is there

and so the play being written

the relation between you at any time is so exactly that

that it is of no importance unless you look at it.

well I did look at it [...]

the landscape not moving but being always in relation,

the trees to the hills

the hills to the fields

the trees to each other

any piece of it to any sky

and then any detail to any other detail,

the story is only of importance if you like to tell or like to hear a story

but the relation is there anyway.

remember: a place is an event, and an event is a place.

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I want to leave you with a map that you can use to navigate tonight’s plays. the following are a list of signposts you can use to orient yourself.

map of the plays

or, you can ask yourself:

who are these people, and what are they doing here?

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