Laurel Arts Festival Photos

Idylls in Action at the C Street Arts Festival in Laurel, Maryland              

June 9th, 2012

              The following are pics by Lew Lorton Photography, taken during the midday Idylls Sequence featuring Stephen Mead and Sue Struve.

Stephen Mead in "A Bandit Plots a Murder by the Road"
Sue Struve in "A Native Chief's Captive Woman Guards One Freshly Caught" 

(vide Jorge Luis Borges)

Stephen Mead in "A Reveler Walks Home to his Family by Moonlight"

              On that Saturday, I had the somewhat strange pleasure of being two places at once, for the first time.  In the flesh, in Philly, doing a reading for Furniture Press, publisher of my Heraclitean Pride and the forthcoming book-length poem, The Re-echoes.  Also, here at the Laurel C Street Arts Festival, in spirit, and through the presence of wonderful performers who've given great time and energy towards mastering the idylls form.

Sue Struve

                Sue introduced the set;  with a copy of Idylls for a Bare Stage in hand, she conveyed to the Theatre Tent audience her experience of the book, the theatrical piece, and the overall concept of the idyll as a form, and as an approach to acting and theatre.

Stephen Mead as the Bandit

Since I wasn't there,  I can only extrapolate based on rehearsals and the suggestion of the gesture, and his facial expressions, where Stephen might be in the piece.  I'd say, near to hearing the screech of an owl. Or, somewhere within the delivery of lines such as "Other people's money.  They'd have me slave and scrape for it all my life's worth, when I can steal it with self-respect."

"...with that dumb, complacent smirk of contentment I loathe - that type deserves to be victimized."

? Maybe?

And then, Sue Struve as the Captive Woman...

"I'm recovering them, these dream words..." perhaps?

"Don't be so scared!"

                Stephen also performed earlier in the day, and Harlie Sponaugle did "A Mother Feels her Estranged Daughter's Labor Pains" (vide Colette) later that afternoon.  Here's a shot of Harlie from one of the many outdoor rehearsals we did along the way.  Photo by Jeanne Cherner.

Harlie Sponaugle