Writing Samples

Please find several writing samples below. For more information about hiring me as a copy writer, editor, or tutor, email be at cabiriaj@gmail.com.

Space in Performance

At the outset of Gay McAuley’s “Space in Performance,” the author sets out her ample thesis clearly; given its breadth, she manages to remain within its bounds throughout the book. McAuley states that her book is “an attempt to explore the multiple functions of...spatial reality in the construction and communication of theatrical meaning.” It is my opinion that her pursuit of the effective production of meaning is more successful that her search for the ultimate communication of that meaning.

McAuley’s initial emphasis on locating herself in an intellectual framework was helpful, but I often felt that she was deferring to other theorists, rather than simply referring to their example in order to bolster her own ideas. On this topic, however, I appreciated her analysis of Stanislavskian and Brechtian approaches to theater and gesture, especially pertaining to the uses of objects and the body’s relationship to and with them. Although mentioned once, I thought the work of Meyerhold was conspicuously absent from McAuley’s study of historical modes of viewing the body in performance. As one of the first people to practice a movement, gesture and body-focused approach to theater and actor training, I would have thought that his work would shed some light on the various topics discussed in “Space in Performance.” His work seems an obvious precursor to McAuley’s studies: in particular his attention to gesture, the expressive, performing body, and, importantly, the instinctual mind and its relationship to objects and its surroundings.

I enjoyed McAuley’s extensive references to specific textual and performance examples. I have read and seen many of the plays she speaks of in depth, such as Genet’s Les bonnes or The Maids, Racine’s Phèdre or Phaedra, and Chekhov’s Three Sisters. I was especially fascinated by her treatment of Les bonnes, since it effectively jogged my memory of the play without synopsis, and highlighted several textual ambiguities that I remember as confusing at the time of my intial encounter with the text.


Her use of examples from Racine’s Phèdre was an excellent way to highlight aspects of theatrical space and gesture in the context of a single work. By using the one play to discuss issues of space in translation, as well as text modified through gesture and props, McAuley created a sense of continuity and lineage that helped to guide the reader through a variety of discussions on space, in all of its manifestations, that appear throughout the book.

Of the many manifestations of space discussed in “Space in Performance,” McAuley speaks in consistent and uniform terms, which is an immense help when studying such a subject. She does a fairly good job of defining some general guidelines and terms useful in discussing space. She acknowledges the intensity of this task, calling it “The Terminological Minefield,” but does a good job of being relatively consistent with her identification of presentational, fictional, and thematic space. McAuley does define other kinds of space throughout, but most of her theoretical parameters are set out at the beginning, and are adhered to faithfully throughout “Space in Performance.”

Her focus on ideas like energy, believability, and actor’s perspective, also set McAuley’s study apart from other theoretical writing on performance. Energy and believability are such nebulous concepts, and her willingness to approach them as topics available to systematic contemplation is admirable. The perspective of the actor inhabiting the space around him or her is very often overlooked, and it is to McAuley’s credit that she devotes herself to its study as well. I especially appreciated her diagram of the opening of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, in which concepts of space had been drawn out that were not in the text. Although not part of what would ultimately be made available to the spectators on a conscious level, the diagram revealed essential aspects of the reality that ultimately becomes their experience in the theater.

Also well-executed was McAuley’s section on the various regards and standpoints possible in a theatrical event, as was her exceptional devotion to getting as much documentation of as many perspectives as possible. It should be mentioned, however, that these perspectives, though well fleshed out, are very clearly western, and certainly Euro-centric, a fact that McAuley admits and defends. I believe it to be an acceptable and honest limit to put on her own work, given that her understanding of theatre, and the origin of her expertise, both stem from a western, Euro-centric tradition.

Overall, I thought McAuley’s attempt to solidify a way of verbalizing space in theatre in “Space in Performance” was successful. There were points on which I felt her argument was somewhat weakened by her unwillingness to make her statement of belief or opinion based on her own experience and/or research, and without or at least before the interjection of some other theorist’s opinions on the topic. Although of course an author benefits from a firm grounding in previous research, a body of experiential or primary-source examples can often further strengthen the thesis argument. In this respect, I thought her attention to Racine’s Phèdre, as well as her addition of actor’s-perspective research were incredibly insightful. The field of research on the subject of McAuley’s study is heartily enriched by the addition of “Space in Performance."


Copyright 2009 Cabiria Jacobsen

Dark-ish Materials

A few months ago, I went to see The Golden Compass, an adaptation of the eponymous first book in Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials. I had read several reviews that took issue with the lightened treatment of religion in the movie as compared with its portrayal in the book, and, being wary of religion myself, I expected to concur. I had also read that the adaptation was a fairly faithful one, making changes that were necessary for the story to command the medium of film. My own impressions, however, were quite the opposite.


The Golden Compass was identified as an anti-religious book when it was first published in 1996. The association of evil with the religious establishment is certainly consistant and pervasive. The movie adaptation of this theme, however, presents it in terms far more unequivocal than the source material. As a talented and sophisticated author, Pullman avoids infusing one faction of his book's world with all the power, and there are a variety of forces contributing to the stumbling blocks encountered by Lyra, his gifted child-heroine, and her many companions. Terrible events are infused with shades of evil; "bad" characters are defined by multiple levels of malicious behavior, their motivations unclear and only partially revealed. There is a huge differentiation made between institutional evil and individual evil, between human insecurities and the fears of the state.


I understand that movies like this, blockbuster family movies, naturally and necessarily have less room for the shades of meaning that make novels so satisfyingly subtle and diverse. This particular blockbuster family movie, however, took the concept of evil in The Golden Compass and turned it on its head. This is not an anti-religious movie, it is an anti-Catholic movie. Which, as an atheist, doesn't particularly bother me on a moral level. As a lover of meaning, however, it offends me deeply. In Pullman's Golden Compass, there are multiple levels of rivalry and conflict; regional, governmental, scholarly, and personal; in the film that made it to the screens, all good is allied against one very mean but not particularly interesting Magesterium, which is a thinly-veiled euphemism for the Vatican. Responisbilty for every evil or unhappy act in the book is placed, with the verbal grace of hurled cinder blocks, on their institutional and pervasive evil. This is achieved not only by putting cumbersome explanations into the mouths of previously eloquent characters, but also by simply eliminating all sinister characters other than the Magesterium. There are several local people, or people specific to a certain part of the story, who work against Lyra and her companions at different points throughout Pullman's novel. The Magesterium is mentioned twice as a source of authority, whereas the Church and Chaplains are presented as the agents of that authority much more often, and the two institutions are not immediately connected. Lord Asriel, Lyra's father and someone who, in Pullman's book, seems alternately good and evil, uses the story of Adam and Eve to justify his acts, while at the same time rejecting the Magesterium and its power.

Given this careful elimination of potentially confusing, darker narrative in The Golden Compass, it is odd that the only really physically gorey act in the whole story remains. This is consistant with a particularly unnerving trend in theater, literature, and movies geared toward children. There seems to be a popular idea that young people can't deal with pyschological darkness, but that seeing someone's jaw get ripped off is okay and normal. I would much rather have a kid with a keen sense of the varied nature of evil than a really good grip on what it looks like to dismember someone, or worse, the idea that it's a normal thing to do. Along with the increasingly traditional normalization of violence, the creators of this film changed the names of many objects and ideas in order to make them more familiar to American audiences. Once again, I find myself wondering when the decision was made that it is more traumatizing for a kid to find themselves asking someone for the definition of a word than it is for them to remain ignorant. A history-laden Zeppelin becomes a non-specific ferry, just as Harry Potter's referential Philosopher's Stone became a meaningless Sorcerer's Stone for Americans because the publishers were afraid we wouldn't get the alchemy reference, and would be turned off by the mention of Philosophy.

The Golden Compass as a movie, however, is well worth seeing, and in some ways the localization of meaning and evil into a narrower set of characters allowed for a very satisfying, cinematic build-up of tension. Dakota Blue Richards is probably the best child actress since Margaret O'Brian, and she valiantly resisted the temptation to make Lyra as bland as the movie being made around her. I only hope that she will stick to the books for meaning and imagination, and look on the movies as exciting elaborations on a much deeper, more beautiful tale.


Copyright 2009 Cabiria Jacobsen

Je m'appelle Cabiria

My name is Cabiria. I am a singer, a writer, an editor, and a generally arty person. Visit my website: www.cabiriajacobsen.com