Venus Rising!
Astrology as
Theater
by Barbara Schermer
and
Mary Ellen Segraves
This is the second in a series of articles on a Chicago performance of the Rising Stars Astrological Mythic Theater players. In the last article you were introduced to Mark Mysliwiec's interpretation of Mercury ("Heigh ho--Mercury here!") as a manic messenger. Here you will meet the planet Venus (ruler of Libra/Taurus), as played by Mary Ellen Segraves (pictured above), and will get a behind-the-scenes look at her process in developing the character and embodying the energy of the planet Venus.
Bear in mind that ten "planets," with a range of experience with astrology or acting from much to none, spent three months creating their planetary characters and writing individual scripts, based on a deeply personal experience of their chosen planet.
[Performance pieces for The Sun, Moon and Mercury preceded Venus's entrance]
The scene opens with Venus sprawled luxuriously on pillows, looking into her hand mirror, checking her makeup, humming "That's Amore."Oh, Hello! I didn't realize I had company.
I'm just sitting here waiting for my beau. He should be here any minute now. I've got this romantic, candlelight dinner planned for tonight. We'll have [she pauses to savor each word] oysters... Lobster... Angel hair pasta... and then for dessert... chocolate and raspberry truffles.... MMMMM!!!
To tell you the truth, I didn't actually cook the dinner. I picked it up at this wonderful little gourmet shop on the corner. Cooking is such a hassle sometimes! You know, all those pots and pans to clean up! And besides, I just got my manicure this afternoon and didn't want to ruin my nails.
Oh, in case you haven't guessed already, I'm Venus--Aphrodite--Goddess of Love. [Blows a kiss]
[Seductively]. I am the feminine power of attraction.
I know that you work so hard sometimes, that you forget about me. So every once in a while, I feel that I need to remind you that I'm still here.
For instance, you probably ride the same bus to work everyday, or take the same elevator up to your office, and people come and go, and no one really makes an impression on you. Until one day, you're on the elevator, and all of a sudden you realize that you're standing next to the person of your dreams. And you feel your heart start to pound in your chest, faster and faster, and your breath starts to become very shallow and you are aware that you're getting very, very hot.
And somehow you get up the courage to look in their direction and you make--eye contact--and for one very brief moment, you look deeply into one another's eyes. And your heart is pounding really fast now, and inside you're thinking, "I'm in love!"
[Demure] You know what I mean, don't you?
But that's not the only time I'm in your life. I'm there whenever you decide to volunteer... to help the elderly, or to serve dinner for the homeless on Christmas day.
And I'm there in that very special love that a mother feels for her newborn child.
And I've been there all along at the Middle East Peace talks, although I'm never really quite sure that anyone's listening to me there!
[Doorbell]
Oh, there's the door. I guess I should be going. But before I do, I just want to remind you of one thing--That I am always with you, even at those times when you feel that your heart is breaking or when you feel that you're all alone in the world. I'm there.
All you need to do to feel my love is to just allow me into your heart, allow me to touch you and to love you.
[Doorbell]
There's the bell again. I don't want to keep him waiting too long.
[Raises champagne glass to toast] To Love!
Mary Ellen's choice of Venus was a natural for her. She is a Leo Sun, Moon in Pisces, Virgo rising with Venus in Virgo conjunct her ascendant. (She is a corporate exec at a major Chicago company who has been a student of experiential astrology for years and who also has an acting background.) She left the first rehearsal eager to get to writing her script. True to her first house Venus in Virgo, at the second rehearsal she came with a complete script already written out! But when she tried her script out on us, her fellow players, the consensus was "back to the drawing board." She had the words that described Venus qualities but nothing about her body or voice conveyed Venus. She took the feedback well, trashed her script, and agreed to try an experiment to help her get the real "look and feel" of her own Venus.
Her assignment?--to spend the next week imagining that she had Venus in Scorpio in the first instead of a Venus in Virgo. Aha!--she arrived at the next rehearsal with a Victoria's Secret shopping bag, mysteriously disappeared into the dressing room and emerged in a beautiful white silk and lace nightie complete with a matching robe and boudoir slippers with white fluffy balls on them! (This is a Venus in Virgo first house?) With aplomb, she modeled this sexy (though admittedly still virginally white) nightie for us! Venus was beginning to take hold.
Next I asked her to try another exercise: that whenever she took note of a living being (tree, cat or person) that she look at them and mentally say, "I love you" (a wonderful experiment for anyone trying to tap into their Venus energy). The results? Sometimes our budding Venus experienced her heart as willing to open and she could feel the warmth flood through her body. But one day, while practicing this, she reported, "I experienced a tremendous sense of fear, a terror that I would somehow be hurt or harmed. Intellectually, I had known this was an issue for me, but I'd never had such a visceral sense of what that feeling was really about." Mary Ellen learned that an open heart can also be a heart exposed, and she began to seek ways of protecting herself while still remaining accessible.
The next week co-producer Mark Mysliwiec had Mars and Venus spend two hours off in a corner reading the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet to each other. He asked that they stay in eye contact and to really enter into the words they were exchanging. "At first we felt silly and uncomfortable but we kept at it," said Mary Ellen, "but I then found myself focusing more on how Mars was feeling and how difficult this must be for him. By shifting my attention to his feelings something shifted in me. The Venus that emerged out of me after that experience was softer and less critical (Venus in Virgo). Shortly after this exercise an exciting young actor came into my life. Before this experience I had been feeling that I was 'over the hill' and was pretty lonely--then all of a sudden here was this charming young guy (twelve years younger, I say with some pride) telling me how beautiful and wonderful I was! No doubt about it, I'd been given a gift from Venus."
By the end of the fourth week of rehearsals, Mary Ellen was beginning to reveal her first house Venus. She was visibly more open, much softer. She felt warmer to be around and was beginning to show the beauty she was feeling. But one more limitation of the Venus in Virgo remained to be tackled: compliments typically drew from Mary Ellen a quick disclaimer or compensatory self-criticism. We began to block those whenever they appeared. When she began to protest at a genuine appreciation of her beauty by one of the troupe, we all made her stop, breathe, and take the compliment in as fully as possible. Slowly Mary Ellen began to soften her self criticism and to value her own very apparent beauty.
Here is what Mary Ellen has to say about her role as Venus: "For someone with a lot of heart chakra pain, playing the role of Venus was not easy for me. Actually, particularly at first, it was really scary. But my process in finding expression for my own Venus was truly a gift. I realized that while Venus energy depends on 'self-love' it is also 'other directed.' To feel and express Venus took me outside of myself and I learned to relate to others in loving ways.
"At this writing, the experience is six months in the past. I'm in the midst of some difficult transits, so I can't tell you that I've ridden off into the sunset with the man of my dreams. I do know that playing Venus has had a definite impact on my life. I'm less critical of myself and others. I've learned to lighten up and have some fun. I've almost completely dropped my 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm' persona and have started seeing myself as a sensual, sexy woman. I used to think that nothing really mattered until you found that one 'special someone.' Now I just don't get so hung up about being alone. I'm really not alone--there are lots of people in my life who need and will accept my love. Sometimes when I feel down I practice my Venus 'I Love You' exercise. It's hard for me to feel isolated when I'm doing that. Playing Venus has taught me that how I love others is more important than what I get back from them... it's loving just for the sake of loving."
Note: The performance described above took place on Saturday, February 20, 1992, in Chicago before a small invited audience. In the weeks preceding, a group of ten actors with the aid of producer/directors Barbara Schermer and Mark Mysliwiec, devised a series of performance pieces to recreate the healing theater of the past--an environment in which astrology can be used as language for direct interaction with the unconscious. (In antiquity, the embodiment of archetypal planetary energies was integral to public theater. Theater was a sacred, cathartic medium, designed to heal through direct contact with the deepest levels of consciousness. Since those days, mankind has lost touch with these primary influences on his daily life.) --Barbara.
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