Laila Maria Salins: InSomnia/InSexton

The life and work of Anne Sexton is endlessly fascinating and seems perfect for adaption to the stage and cinema. While we have yet to see a movie version -- something HBO or an enterprising independent filmmaker could surely take on -- there is (happily) now an innovative new stage production conceived by Laila Maria Salins. She has begun performing InSomnia/InSexton, a theatrical musical creation, in Manhattan, to acclaim, with the capability and desire for staging it in other cities. I would love to see this come to Detroit. Sexton's poetry is set to music, with three different actresses representing different facets of the poet.

I was able to reach Laila last week, and she graciously answered my questions soon after her successful performances at the 3-LD Art & Technology Center at 80 Greenwich Street in downtown NYC. See Here.

Q. You are Latvian? How long have you been in the USA?

A: I'm first-generation Latvian - I actually grew up here in the US. But both my parents came here from Latvia after WWII, so it was a big part of my life growing up - Latvian was my first language and what was spoken at home, and I attended a Latvian school on the weekends, and did the whole folk music and folk dancing thing. It was a very rich (though obscure) sub-culture.

Q. What brought you to create InSomnia/InSexton?

A: About two years ago I was re-reading some of her poetry and I was once again struck by the vividness and immediacy of her writing voice. There was a kind of urgency and nakedness there, and a willingness to bare all, even when the subject matter was dark and painful and very personal. I sat down at the piano and set one of the poems [to music] - I think it was "Starry Night" - and it hit me that I wanted to immerse myself more deeply in her life and poetry. I was delighted to discover her published letters, which were also quite intense and provocative, and realized that by combining elements from the letters and poetry there might be a way to weave something together to make an evening of theater. I quickly decided to let Anne speak for herself in my piece - in other words, the text of "InSomnia/InSexton" is practically all pure Sexton, though heavily cut-and-pasted together to create a dramatic context and flow. Setting the poetry to music was a challenge, since most of her poems are quite extended and irregular in terms of structure. My main concern was to let the words breathe - and to add harmonic colors, while allowing the voice to ride the natural rhythm of the text.

Q: What are the key elements of the production?

A: Music, video, lighting - the usual suspects. I had the opportunity to work with the video artist, Benton-C Bainbridge, whose work I had admired from other productions - and I was introduced to a wonderful Iranian woman director, Leyla Ebtehadj, who had a strong vision for the show and she and I shared a similar sensibility - both of us wanting to emphasize both humor and absurdity, while also taking on the true darkness at the core of the material. My friend Jim Matus, who is a wonderful musician, helped with recording the music and adding live guitar and laouto to some of the songs.

Q: What is it about Sexton that speaks to people in today's global environment?

A: I remember Sting saying after 9/11 that the most radical response he could imagine to the events going on in the world was to write a love song. So... even as I try to imagine how I personally could possibly make a difference in this disastrous political climate we're in - it seems more essential than ever to stay true to one's inner voice - to act "as if one were free" (the words of an early Russian anarchist). And I feel this freedom in Sexton - the freedom to be wild and outspoken and intensely personal and intimate and needy - whatever it takes. And then, of course, there was her obsession with death - the ultimate end of insomnia - and the great unknown that faces us all. And yet, this ongoing awareness of death is also what brings the minutiae of daily life into a brilliant and loving focus. I could only hope that our world leaders could have a more sustained awareness of their own(and our!) deaths -- so that it could put into some perspective the madness of all this violence, which only seems to be intensifying now.















Q. How does the three-in-one actresses/personae work? How would/will you do it differently by yourself?

A: There is a central Anne, myself, who is the most sustained one - and does all of the singing and much of the speaking. The other two Annes are more mutable -becoming, at times, nurses, Anne's mother, her Aunt Nanna, or simply emphasizing different facets of her persona. Anne 2 also plays out a more youthful Anne - the Anne who dreams of motherhood and children, and who went to poetry classes together with Sylvia Plath. Initially, I had intended to do "InSomnia/InSexton" as a one woman show. I had even imagined that - if need be! - the whole evening could be performed with me in bed - just one, long, sleepless night in which she was reaching out to people she loved and/or needed. If I were to ever perform it as a one-woman show, I would still love to have the added visuals of the video art, and to create as much layering as possible, to emphasize different aspects of her life and persona, with the use of pre-recorded voices who drift into her consciousness - her own, and, possibly, of people in her life - her husband, psychiatrist, fellow poets, her lovers, her children, etc. Having said that, in its present form, with three Annes, there is a dynamic tension that is, I believe, sustained throughout the piece, which is more difficult to capture in a solo performance.



















A link to Laila's American Music Center web page can be found here: http://www.amc.net/member/laila_maria_salins/home.html

(Production stills from InSomnia/InSexton courtesy of Laila Maria Salins).

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Atā!