Marcus Gardley

Marcus Gardley is a poet-playwright. He was the 2012 James Baldwin Fellow and the 2011 PEN Laura Pels award winner for Mid-Career Playwright. The New Yorker describes Gardley as “the heir to Garcia Lorca, Pirandello and Tennessee Williams.” His play The House that Will Not Stand was commissioned and produced by Berkeley Rep and had subsequent productions at Yale Rep and the Tricycle Theater in London. He is an ensemble member playwright at Victory Gardens Theater where his play The Gospel of Loving Kindness was produced in March and where he won the 2015 BTAA award for best play. In 2014, his saga The Road Weeps, the Well Runs Dry about the migration of Black Seminoles (a tribe of African American and First Nations People) from Florida to Oklahoma, had a national tour. He has had numerous productions, some of which, include: Every Tongue Confess at Arena Stage starring Phylicia Rashad and directed by Kenny Leon, and On The Levee which premiered in 2010 at Lincoln Center Theater 3. He is the recipient of the 2011 Aetna New Voice Fellowship at Hartford Stage, the Hellen Merrill Award, a Kellsering Honor and the Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale Drama School and is a member of The Dramatists Guild. Gardley is a professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Brown University.

Source: https://www.concordtheatricals.com/a/106792/marcus-gardley

Production of The House That Will Not Stand at New York Theatre Workshop. Photo by Joan Marcus

Highlighted Play: annotation, sample audience/sample activity, discussion questions

The House That Will Not Stand

Synopsis: Arguably the work that Gardley is the most well known for, this play is inspired by Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba. Set in New Orleans in 1836, Beartrice is a free woman of color and was the mistress of a white man, Lazare, who has just passed away at the start of the show. Beartrice’s oppressive hold on her three daughters starts to cause two of them to rebel. Lazare haunts the house, and as the show goes on, the house, both symbolically and physically, begins to crumble. This show was a part of New York Theatre Workshop’s 2017/18 season. This play can be used as a learning resource to talk more about the free women of color in New Orleans in the early 1800s, a subject that is not frequently discussed.

Sample Audience: High school and up.

Sample Activity: Upon reading The House That Will Not Stand, compare and contrast the play with The House of Bernarda Alba. Have students demonstrate their understanding of the analysis through a presentation, written assignment, or project (ex: students can make costume designs for both shows or make lighting plots or set models, etc.).

or

Have students be dramaturgs and work in small groups to conduct research about the themes, plot, production and literary criticism of the show, and history of this time period.

Discussion Questions

  • Gardley has stated that he likes to write plays set in historical time periods and rewrite older plays to add in modern, relevant issues. How does Gardley put his own spin on The House of Bernarda Alba?

  • Gardley included quotes on the title page, which are:

  1. "Good taste was out of place in the company of death, death itself was the essence of bad taste. And there must be much rage and saliva in its presence. The body must move and throw itself about, the eyes must roll, the hands should have no peace, and the throat should release all the yearning, despair and outrage that accompany the stupidity of loss."

-Toni Morrison, Sula

  1. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

-Mark 3:25

  1. "He who cannot dance will say the drum is bad."

-African proverb

Why did Gardley include these quotes on the title page? How do they relate to the script?

  • Beartrice is adamantly opposed to her daughters becoming placées, which is why she says she wants them to stay in the house. However, she will not free Makeda or let her sister leave either. What is the underlying reason why she will not let these women out of the house?

  • What moment created clear images for you?


Other Annotated Plays

Photo by Mark Douet

A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes: Or the Gospel of Tartuffe

This play is Gardley’s modern take on Molière's Tartuffe. The show opens with Archbishop Toof and his wife at their church, but it is quickly apparent that their marriage is on the rocks (partially due to Toof’s infidelity) and that they are in need of money for their parish. Toof then is summoned to the house of a dying rich man, Organdy, in the hopes to cure him. Rather than cure him, Toof turns Organdy against his family and the medication, and gets Organdy to turn everything over to him. The family is onto Toof’s tricks, and eventually reveal his true nature to Organdy. This play would be useful for readers to compare and contrast with Tartuffe, and can be studied for its lyrical writing style. It can also be used to talk about misconduct in religion and familial relationships.



. . . And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi

This play is a re-imagining of the myth about Demeter and Persephone. It is set during the time of the Civil War, and Demeter is in search of her daughter, a slave who supposedly ran away. As Demeter discovers the truth about her daughter’s whereabouts, more is revealed. This play can be used to examine Greek mythology, spirituality, and the time of the Civil War. Additionally, this play is full of imagery, and can be useful to someone studying imagery in theatre.

Photo by Luke Jordan

Body of Work

Theatre

  • The House That Will Not Stand

  • An Issue of Blood

  • The Gospel of Lovingkindness

  • The Road Weeps, the Well Runs Dry

  • A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes

  • . . . And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi

  • Every Tongue Confess

  • The Box: A Black Comedy

  • Paradise Square

  • Love Is A Dream House In Lorin

  • On the Levee

  • X: or, Betty Shabazz v. the Nation

  • black odyssey


T.V. and Film

  • I'm a Virgo

  • Mindhunter

  • Maid

  • The Exorcist

  • The Chi

  • Z: The Beginning of Everything


Additional Resources


References

Berkeley Rep. (2014, Jan. 13). The House That Will Not Stand; Behind the Scenes with Marcus Gardley [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZFYJPYbwxI

Brantley, B. (2018, July 30). Review: In a New Orleans ‘House,’ Wealthy Women Are Haunted by Slavery’s Ghosts. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/theater/the-house-that-will-not-stand-review-marcus-gardley.htmlauth=login-google

Coelho, C. (n.d.). Marcus Gardley. News from Brown. https://news.brown.edu/new-faculty/humanities/marcus-gardley

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. (2020, Apr. 21). Marcus Gardley on Conversing with the Past [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3wu2oCVqsA

Gross, R. (2015, Feb. 4). Art Talk with Marcus Gardley. National Endowment for the Arts. https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2015/art-talk-marcus-gardley

I Am Theatre. (2012, Apr. 26). I AM THEATRE: Marcus Gardley [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cASQ4qLylX8

Lincoln Center Theater. (2010, June 10). An Interview with Marcus Gardley [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve2XTN09S_0

Reid, K. (2014, Feb. 19). Playwright Marcus Gardley Weaves Poetry, History Together To Create His Masterpieces. American Theatre. https://www.americantheatre.org/2014/02/19/playwright-marcus-gradley-weaves-poetry-history-together-to-create-his-masterpieces/

Roberts, D. (2018, July 30). Off-Broadway Review: “The House That Will Not Stand” at New York Theatre Workshop. OnStage Blog. https://www.onstageblog.com/reviews/2018/7/30/off-broadway-review-the-house-that-will-not-stand-at-new-york-theatre-workshop

Wills, M. (2019, Feb. 20). The Free People of Color of Pre-Civil War New Orleans. JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/the-free-people-of-color-of-pre-civil-war-new-orleans/

Information for web page compiled by Lydia Funke (2022)