Jim Seay is a local theatre advocate who has been doing work in the arts for his entire adult life, aside from his work in the airforce. He has studied at ISU, and has worked on projects in California, to Washington D.C., and even in Dublin, Ireland. He has worked on TV shows, movies, and staged plays. In addition he has written 18 plays and a musical. Collectively, he has sixty-plus years of experience in acting, directing, producing, and writing for the stage. Now he works with LLCC as a dramaturg for their production of The Shadows of Edgar Allan Poe appearing at the Hoogland Center for the Arts.
To begin our conversation, I asked him what his role was, as a dramaturg.
Roy: So, to start us off, tell me, what exactly is the role of a dramaturg, and why is it so crucial to have one on the creative team of this production?
Seay: Well, actually, dramaturg’s a position that is not too well known in the United States. It’s been well used in Europe for many many years, but it is just beginning to be recognized in the [U.S.]. What a dramaturg basically does is [a creative team member] who does research and takes that effort off the director, and then helps the cast with their understanding of the role. It’s very important here because we are taking something not written for the theatre but is written as either prose or poetry, to be a stand alone sort of thing. The director, Mark, has taken [these] pieces and welded them into a single dramatic unit. Therefore it is necessary for the cast to understand not only the complete unit as a piece of theatre, but to understand the individual writings by Poe as well. Thanks to the internet and the World Wide Web and whathaveyou, a dramaturg no longer has to spend long hours in the stacks of the library, which is good, but… I am of an age when I feel kind of guilty doing it that way… Even though it is accessible to people with a computer and contact with the internet, I can do it and save people that much trouble. That is primarily my job as a dramaturg and why it is important.
Roy: If I heard you correctly, it sounds like you are saying you are a guiding force, to help make the text understood by the audience, as well as the cast and crew?
Seay: Well, if I understand your question, basically yes. Although I don’t have much control over the audience. That’s where the director and the cast and crew come in, their job is to communicate with the audience. My job is to just make certain everyone understands Poe. This is a fairly young cast and a lot of ‘em don’t know all of the words Poe uses. Some of [the words] are a bit antique, some of them are just obsolescent I guess one could say. Also to help them to understand the piece of poetry in itself, and some of his allusions. Like in The Raven it says “Ah distinctly I remember It was in the bleak December And each separate dying ember Wrought its ghost upon the floor.” Now these kids aren’t old enough to be around open fireplaces, most of ‘em if they do have fireplaces, they’re gas logs, and so they’ve not seen bits of a log pop out [of the fireplace] and that little bit of smoke come up from it as it goes out. I think this is one of the beautiful images of Poe, and I’m just using it as an example of something that I would try to make sure that a person understands. I am the behind the scene guy doing research. Had this been thirty years ago I would have been the behind the scenes guy who would have been buried in stacks [of books] at the library, making all kinds of notes with pencil and paper and having volumes of “forgotten lore” stacked around me.
Roy: What part of this production is most crucial, to you?
Seay: Well, as a dramaturg, the most crucial part is understanding. If I can get the cast to understand not only the thing as a dramatic whole, but as different segments of Edgar Allan Poe, and his writing, why then to me that’s the essence of my job.
Roy: What is your favorite part of this job?
Seay: Oh… [Of dramaturgy in general] I guess the research. I just love knowledge for the sake of knowledge. And if I find out something I didn’t know in my efforts, which is always the case, to me that is a victory, something I like.
Roy: What do you hope the audience walks away from this production with?
Seay: Well I hope the audience walks away from the production with an understanding of the influence of Poe’s writing upon itself, and upon them, as an audience. You see Poe, in my estimation, Poe is one of the major American authors even though he’s kind of overlooked. Such people as T. S. Elliot referred to him as being a pre-pubescent adolescent… About the only American author I can think of who really appreciated Poe was Walt Whitman. And now you cross the pond, and it’s just the opposite. Charles Baudelaire discovered Poe and just thought Poe was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Baudelaire was probably a better poet than Poe, but he gives an awful lot of credit to Poe in Baudelaire’s own works. T.S. Elliot couldn’t stand him.
Roy: How long have you being doing theatre, or worked on things related to theatre?
Seay: WIth exception of the time I was in the airforce, my entire adult life. I would say.. 60 years. I have done work in central Illinois, in Washington D.C., Dublin, Ireland, California… I’ve got rather extensive credits on stage mostly, and some work on televisions, and some work in the motion pictures although I don’t like doing motion pictures. I don’t have a feeling of… completeness in it… Everything is driven by the production end of it, rather than the artistic end of it, at least that’s how I feel. I can be in a movie... and I have no feeling of fulfillment from it. I much prefer the stage. I like doing something as a whole, not as bits and pieces. And also, like most actors, and indeed directors, I feed off the audience. [That circuit between the audience and the actors] is the reason theatre is still here. With technology these days, there is no reason that the theatre’s touch still exists. Yet it goes back to the time of Thespius. Aside from acting and directing, I have also been a critic and a playwright. I wrote for non-professional theatre, and the high school, that sort of things. I have written about 18 plays and musicals.
If you would like to know more about Seay’s writing, he recommends his play and musical “How The West Was Fun.” His publisher is Samuel French.
