On the Hunt for Transcendence
by Elizabeth Clark-Stern
With much of the world in disarray this year, I found myself reaching for experiences in art that took me into a place beyond the things I can’t control, stories that brought me into an imaginal world where I lost myself, then found myself, through the characters and their adventures. Two stellar examples are Damned Pretty Things by Hollow Wade Matter, and Cabinet of Wrath by Tara Campbell, both new Aqueduct titles.
The characters in Wade Matter’s novel pop out at us with such vibrancy, we feel they are standing in the room next to us. To wit, “There are women whose beauty lies in symmetry, and there are women whose beauty lies in incongruity. The Devil’s girlfriend was an incongruous beauty of the first water.” This is but a tiny sample of the tasty prose Ms. Wade Matter offers. I don’t know about you, but I have known several “Devil’s girlfriends” and now feel I grasp something about the appeal of evil I hadn’t understood before. Many adventures await our fantastical Thelma and Louise duo, Maude and Fortune, who bring us more charm and revelation than the ill-fated women of that film.
Tara Campbell’s Cabinet of Wrath invites us into the inner life of what we refer to as “inanimate” objects. In Campbell’s skilled hands, these objects become supremely animate, e.g., “I won’t deny that I began life as a novelty ring, giggled over in a shop in New Orleans, I was once only a silver skull with faux-ruby eyes and tiny silver bones strung into a circle with elasticized twine. One size fits all. I could have belonged to anyone, but I chose her.” ---If something that began life as a silly novelty ring can choose her owner, all manner of transformation is possible in what we call the “real” world.
Another glorious read is Phantastes by George McDonald, first published in 1858, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000). The introduction by C.S. Lewis sets the stage for this seminal work. Lewis confesses that he is “entirely dependent on Dr. MacDonald,” for his own career as a fantasy author. The first chapter shows why. Our young hero is thrust unawares into a fairy kingdom, much like the children in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. MacDonald’s book also weaves in the newly discovered psychological theories of Sigmund Freud, adding a familiar aspect to the narrative: the main character opens a forbidden door and discovers his shadow, not a metaphor, but literal, his physical shadow follows our hero wherever he goes. How does this transform the character? You must look into your own heart – and read the book, to find out.
Beyond the printed page, I found myself awash in live performances that thrilled me to the core. A friend bought tickets to Tristan and Isolde at Seattle Opera. I love opera, especially now that translations are projected above the proscenium so that I know what they are singing about. I knew the myth of these star-crossed lovers, but didn’t realize the opera was written by Wagner. An exhibit in the lobby traced Wagner’s controversial relationship with the Nazis, asking the question: should controversial art be produced? I was so glad to be educated about the controversy, beyond one-dimensional condemnations of the composer, and that Seattle Opera chose to produce Tristan and Isolde.
My opera companion could not make it to the end of this five-hour performance. I persisted, riveted by the voice and persona of Mary Elizabeth Williams, an African American artist who cut her teeth at Seattle Opera in 2000/01. In her hands, the Irish Queen, Isolde, vibrated with sensuality and all the power of her magical arts. In the final act, she held the body of her beloved Tristan in her arms, feeling his ascent into Cosmic Consciousness as she sang, “Mildly and gently how he smiles. How the eye he opens sweetly. Do you see it, friends?….Brighter and brighter he shines, illuminated by the stars….Shall I breathe? Shall I listen? Shall I drink, immerse? In the billowing torrent, in the resonating sound, in the wafting Universe of the World-Breath drown, be engulfed, unconscious supreme delight!” The entire stage was bathed in a video projection of the ocean, with only her face, and his, illuminated as their souls joined at last.
A fascinating musical fact: Wagner introduced the tension in the lover’s bond with the first note and did not resolve that musical phrase until the final note. This attention to musical detail is only one of the elements that made it such a moving experience. The full performance of Seattle Opera’s production is not online, but I discovered a grand reservoir of Tristan and Isolde on You Tube. I often wake in the morning and eat my oats in the company of Isolde’s final aria from a European production. Sublime.
My next ecstatic live performance was the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of The Seasons' Canon, Max Richter’s re-composition of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. I had never seen the choreography of Crystal Pite. A group of friends praised her and insisted I join them. I am indebted to them. From the first moment that the light on stage poured across the backs of a core of dancers moving as one organism, their heads popping up like shoots of new grass, I was enraptured. Crystal Pite wrote in the program, “Creation for me is like looking through a lens. It’s a way to see the world in greater detail and clarity; it’s a magnified experience. It is the act of making that sharpens my awareness and connects me most deeply to the natural world and all the brutality and beauty it contains.”
I have always loved Vivaldi’s music, especially The Four Seasons. Seeing it so faithfully brought into the art-form of dance was exhilarating in its portrayal of love and rebirth in spring, the joy of summer, the letting go of autumn, and the silence of winter. Again, I refer you to Crystal Pite’s work on You Tube. It isn’t the same as seeing a live performance, but you still get the awesome scale, depth and originality of the work. Her theme of how the individual operates in a state of inter-being with others is a critical one for our modern age. For any age.
Pite’s work reminds me of the work of Korean sculptor Do Ho Suh, whose sculpture of a ten foot tall empty coat of armor was displayed in the Seattle Art Museum for years. I don’t believe it is there any longer, but you can find it online. The coat of armor is made for an individual, but his armor is made of thousands of dog tags. Art holds the paradox: we are solitary beings: we are One.
Finally, no year would be complete without reaching for non-fiction that wants to change the world. Maria Ressa’s How to Stand Up to a Dictator, just hit the bookstores. (Harper Collins, 2022) She is the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist who stood up to the dictator, Duterte, in the Philippines, and still faces possible criminal charges. Look for her in interviews on PBS and Stephen Colbert, posted on You Tube. (Honest, I don’t own stock in You Tube!) She is a passionate, adorable, and engaging personality. I had to dash out and buy her book right away. And How to Stand Up to a Dictator does not disappoint, inspiring a change in behavior, consciousness, and world view that can build a brighter future for all of us.
Elizabeth Clark-Stern has had careers as a modern dancer, actor, teacher, screenwriter, playwright, psychotherapist (an art form in its own right), and most recently, a novelist. Her novel, The Language of Water will be published by Aqueduct in 2023.
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