JACKIE
During my first year at the National Theatre School my class had the opportunity to work with director Micheline Chevrier in each developing a set concept for one of Elfriede Jelinek's three 'Princess Plays'. I chose Jackie. The final design was a huge Warhol-esque billboard that Jackie herself would have to pull up as she spoke her monologue.
Many of Warhol's prints in addition to his portraits of women like Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were representations of American commodities- the coke bottle, the soup can, the hamburger.
I wanted to explore the question: what happens if the image you spend your whole life holding up isn't really you? This set creates a stark contrast between the woman and the overshadowing image she struggles to uphold. Watching Jackie hoist up a billboard image of herself not only gives us the opportunity to empathize with her, but to gain a better sense of her strength.
The painting used in this set concept is a gouache and ink reproduction of Andy Warhol's Red Jackie, 1964.
"Jackie should appear in a Chanel suit, I think (you would have to have very good reasons to do it differently!). One could also take as a model that last photograph in Central Park (with Maurice Tempelsman), the one on the bench, trench coat, wig (hair lost because of chemo), sunglasses, and Hermès scarf.
In any case, she should work hard. I imagine all her dead loved ones, her children, well, the embryo and the two dead babies aren’t that heavy, but those dead men, Jack, Bobby, Telis (“Ari”), they’ll be quite a load, so, how shall I put it, she should drag those dead ones behind her like in a tug-of-war. Or like a Wolga boatman with his boat. Sorry, I can’t make it easier for you. At least the blood on her suit doesn’t weigh that much, and there is a chunk missing from Jack’s skull. The actress should drag the bodies (which are tied to each other) behind her with great effort, which makes her speech increasingly breathless; panting for breath, she will have to stop her monologue at some point because she can’t go on. According to her condition and the way she feels on a given day, this will happen sometimes sooner, sometimes later. And then the monologue is done and over. But I am sure you’ll come up with something completely different."
-ELFRIEDE JELINEK'S STAGE DIRECTIONS
A projection test to experiment with overlapping Marilyn's face over Jackie's.