Staged watercolors
Janece Shaffer is known as a devoted woman across many venues in Atlanta and probably beyond. There’s a positivity that surrounds her, a notion that says this lady is totally on to something. I first met her while working with the Names Project Foundation, and then again for Womenetics. Both organizations have such powerful messages. She was a believer in what could be done and passionate about the work. With all her energy, commitment and will power, I couldn’t wait to see the playwright side of Shaffer.
For Alliance’s 2013-2014 season, they produced Shaffer’s latest work, The Geller Girls (now in its final weekend). A historical play about the International Cotton States Exposition held during a time of great change and progress in the South. This is the backdrop. The foreground is a portrait of a family, also on the verge of change. The imagery of the show was beautiful. The set and costumes and production decisions were what you would expect from a theater the size of Alliance. These images that create such a design winning show are what influenced Shaffer heavily in the writing process.
“The pictures were fantastic, the voices were familiar. I imagined what it would have been like if I had been a 17 year old then, if I had lived then in Atlanta what had life been like for me.” Shaffer said. “I saw a picture of a group of girls playing basketball in the 1890’s, the one in the middle was holding the basketball and I thought to myself that’s my main character.”
The main character that came out of that image was Rosalee Geller. The oldest daughter of the Geller family and quite the forward thinker for her time. She was a feminist, wanted a career over getting married and becoming a housewife. She was the ugly-duckling-that-could in the Geller family. With a character that holds so much pizazz and possibility, especially amongst an entire family of traditional southern-minded folks, I imagined such great critique of the time, a true expression of what was going on beneath.
I talked about the lacking depth of thought in my review of the show. How the progression seemed so feminist, but in the end lost a little of its gusto. Even racially so much was happening in terms of advancement, but that still fell short in this family portrait. In reaction, Shaffer stated, “When I write it’s not so calculated. It wasn’t about a message. I’m not that critical, I thought about how I can bring an old point of view with a contemporary one.”
Within this family of mixed points of view, the Charlestonian step-mother who wants the old south to prevail, and Rosalee, the daughter who is fighting for more, there is another factor. They are Jewish. This point is mute though, like the rest. Even their religion is a form of separation from their Baptist society, and according to Shaffer, “makes their world even smaller.” But this limiting effect is never seen, discussed, it is passively mentioned. It is gratuitous, just like all the other background details.
I would have loved to see their small world, something beyond just small thought. It makes me wonder if we are going to create for the sole purpose of prettiness, of showing an image, than what are creating for? In my own writing process I don’t always begin with this bigger picture of societal critique, but it is always there. There is always a question being answered in the end. But what if there is no question being asked? Or maybe certain kinds of audiences don’t want any questions. It seemed Shaffer’s audience for The Geller Girls wanted banana pudding and unseen help, they wanted the romanticized version of the South. Maybe things were diluted for just this very reason.
Shaffer was clearly devoted in this project as she is with all her work. It was a pretty image of an Atlanta long gone from a “third generation Atlantan”. It was a work of watercolor.
