A Great Weekend

Spent a four-day weekend in the Twin Cities, doing some fun things. But before we left I had my first gig of the summer with the Rochester Salvation Army, celebrating Donut Day. I stayed calm- and watched a lot of donuts being enjoyed.

Friday evening went to see the movie, Chef. Don't miss it. It is fun and engaging with excellent cinematography of food. It also has a heart-warming story. Nothing radical or revolutionary. Just a very well-done story that makes you feel good.


While at the Guthrie Theater on Saturday we got a good look at the mighty Mississippi. It was tearing across St. Anthony Falls and under the stone arch bridge like there was no tomorrow.

 

Sunday was a baseball day. Too bad the Twins lost, but it was still fun being there in the spring sun. Lots of jumping around, though.

Monday we first went to Como Conservatory. As usual the flowers were magnificent. The second picture below is a Bonsai bougainvillea in bloom. The white wall behind it and the light makes it look like a ceramic model. No, it was as real and as stunning (if not more) than the picture shows.

Finally, a stop at the Mall of America where the GRAMMY Museum of LA has a traveling exhibition of The Beatles. I had to try the guitar with skiffle great Lonnie Donegan and sit at Ringo's drums. Hey, compared to the still living Beatles, I'm still young.

The Power of Art

Saturday was a Guthrie Theater day. We saw a challenging and interesting drama from Britain, Our Country's Good.

Our Country's Good is a 1990 play written by British playwright, Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel The Playmaker. The story concerns a group of Royal Marines and convicts in a penal colony in New South Wales, in the 1780s, who put on a production of The Recruiting Officer.

In the 1780s, convicts and Royal Marines were sent to Australia as part of the first penal colony there. The play shows the class system in the convict camp and discusses themes such as sexuality, punishment, the Georgian judicial system, and the idea that it is possible for ‘theatre to be a humanising force'.
--Wikipedia

I found it engaging and a play that made me think about the power of art- specifically theater and story telling. The audience seemed to be puzzled by it. It wasn't as straightforward as some might like. It is done in a “sketch-scene” way that has a more experimental style to it. The cast played multiple roles- prisoners and guards- which impacted the style. As I said I found it engaging. One scene in particular grabbed me.

In the scene and costume change the some of the cast stood still at the front of the stage while other things were going on. Several of them held the wigs that would have indicated their British persona. The character closest to me stood there with the wig held out in front of her. Then, in very deliberate action, she took the wig and placed it on her head. She went from prisoner to guard in a brief moment.

We are all both prisoner and guard; we are all just one scene change from a different life than we have been living. Whether it is a single act of crime- or the accident of birth- we are all the same.

As to the "humanizing" action of theater (and the arts, by extension)? Well, that was the whole idea. yes, in the play it works that way- or at least implies that it does. But it went beyond that. It felt like a similar story to Les Miserables. The basic debate was whether "criminals" are able to be rehabilitated. The Jaevert-types believed that this was an impossibility. Once bad- always bad. But there is always a Jean Valjean who challenges that. The playwright and producers of this play believe (like Victor Hugo) that change is possible.

Such is a debate that never goes away. Sadly. Maybe we need to continue to challenge the Jaeverts of the world who insist that redemption isn't possible and that the only way to deal with "these people" is punishment- and punishment forever.

Challenging.

I, for one, am glad Jesus didn't believe that!

Power in Performance

We were at The Guthrie this past weekend for their remarkable production of Othello. We are season subscribers and find that our 7 - 10 plays a year are some of the best use of our entertainment budget. This was no exception.

Every time we sit there before the show starts, I am struck by the sense of anticipation. It is similar to what happens when the opening titles start in a movie. But here, in the theater, we are about to see live actors on stage in front of us. These are actors who are about to have us suspend our sense of belief of the world we are watching and transport us to different places in different times right before our very eyes.

The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis does it better than most and as good as any of the best. It is a top-level performance. Always.

So as I sat there on Saturday, the lights very slowly dimming and tense music filling the theater, I sat back ready for the experience. I have never seen a production of Othello. (I have seen many Shakespeare performances at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI, and the Guthrie. This great tragedy has not been one of them.) I found myself anticipating the story, the intensity, the way Shakespeare can always take your emotions and twist them into pretzels as you love every minute of it.

Othello was no exception. Raw energy exuded from the stage. I was being swamped by a tsunami of power and evil. Iago is the quintessential villain, the paradigm of evil, manipulating Othello and all around him for his own ends. The two characters are in this struggle from the opening scene although Othello doesn't know it until it's too late- at the end of the play. I was put through a wringer for the three hours of the production. It never let up and the two actors commanded the stage every moment.

In the second half of the play the two women, Desdemona and Emilia, have their chance, but the two leads are a force of nature onstage. There is little in the way of comic relief. Shakespeare built the play around these strong personas and, in comparison, all but the two women are just part of the scenery. An amazing feat.

All this by a playwright who lived 400 years ago and spoke an "ancient" version of the same language I do, while inventing portions of it as he went along. Issues of love and hate, prejudice and jealousy, power and its consequences never change, however. They are as devastating in the 21st Century as they were in the 17th.

To watch this being enacted in front of me, by real people, is an amazing experience. It is drama at its best. You don't, in a Shakespearean tragedy, get to the end and all will be well as they live happily ever after. Shakespeare lived in a world where the Plague could shut down the city for months on end. He lived in a world many never had the chance to live happily ever after. In his great tragedies he expressed the image of that experience.

 We walked out of the theater truly exhausted by the intensity. At the same time we were better for having been there, wiser in the ways of the world and given a view of the places the human soul can go when taken over by hatred or evil.

Opening Night Excitement

Tonight's the night.

The Rochester (MN) Civic Theater's production of the musical Les Misérables opens on the first sold-out weekend. Tonight's the first of thirteen public performances between now and October 6. This is, as is obvious, the result of a great deal of work on the part of a lot of people. As I said earlier this is the first time I have been in a "pit orchestra" since high school. It has been exciting to watch it come together. First the orchestra and cast rehearsed separately. Last week we came together for the first time to work things together. This week was tech and dress rehearsals ending with the preview performance last night.

The excitement has been almost more than we could stand. The energy level of the cast and orchestra has increased even as we become so infused with the music that it comes unbidden into many of our conscious thoughts. My wife laughs every time I start singing or whistling one of the tunes.The cast is remarkable! They all have their day jobs but have created a professional level performance that any theater company would be proud of!

It is also a very compelling story. To look at it quickly it seems to be made up of several well-worn tropes.

• love
• law vs. grace 
• personal transformation
• revolution
• poverty and oppression

Then you realize the story is adapted from a book written in the mid-1800s. The power of the words of Victor Hugo are as relevant today as they were 150+ years ago. Times have changed- issues are real.

I have been absorbing all this over the past weeks. Playing 3rd trumpet I get a lot of time to just sit and count endless measures. So I have followed along the words, letting the music inform the message and highlight the meaning Hugo was attempting to first describe. My plan is to at least bring a few of those thoughts to the blog after the musical is done. Time has been short with all this rehearsing and such.

View from the orchestra

But I'm as ready as I can be for tonight. It is an honor and a joy to be sitting in that orchestra behind the scrim for many of the next 13 performances.

Will It Ever Be Different?

Saw the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama, Clybourne Park at the Guthrie today. It is a play about that continual American issue- racism- and our American difficulty coming to grips with it. It takes place in two acts 50 years apart. It is about changing times and unchanging humanity. It is about tensions as neighborhoods change. It is finally about how the more things the more they remain the same when we can't even stop and talk about them in ways that recognize the humanity and pain of all involved. It is easier to stereotype and argue, fear and strike out.

This is one more story of what I believe is the basic American failure, the underlying fatal flaw that could one day bring about the greatest difficulties our nation faces. It encompasses our fears and differences; it flows from economics and class, poverty and wealth, and a deep-seated need to judge and place ourselves or others as "different."

When we walked out my wife calmly said,

This makes me tired.

I knew immediately what she meant. Both of us have been speaking out on this, wrestling with it, mourning its ongoing undermining of the American ideal for over 50 years. We both remember Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. We have stood up to racism as often as we have been able to. We have struggled to identify our own roots of prejudice that can be so subtle and scary as to throw us into silence as we confess our shortcomings.

Here we are in 2013 with an African-American president- and sitting in the theater seeing a powerful portrayal of how far we still have to go.

Will we ever see it be different?

Please, God, open our eyes, help us all see with openness and humility what we can do and be if we only allow ourselves to be humans in relationship with other humans, all children of God.

The End of the Rainbow

I hope it's a hit on Broadway. We had the great opportunity to see this new musical, The End of the Rainbow, at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis on its pre-Broadway run. It is magnificent. Tracie Bennett channels Judy at the end of her remarkable and remarkably sad career. I saw a review after its Broadway opening that found it justa s great as I did- and named Bennett as a contender for a Tony.

It is the story of the last days of a great performer struck down by her own history and excesses, then finally the terminal illness we call addiction. We see what we lost in 1969 and wonder what could have been different.

Here's a trailer from the Broadway play as Bennett sings "Just in Time."




But then there's Judy in 1964 with Liza Minelli: Unbeatable.

Preparing for a Tony Award?

Last Saturday my wife and I had the pleasure, no make that challenge, of seeing the Broadway-bound musical, Scottsboro Boys at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. I now understand the word "agape." No not the Greek word for love but the word for standing with her mouth open unable to close it. The musical is beyond description. I wanted to start a standing ovation half -way through when they did the showstopper dance number -- dancing around an electric chair!

The story of the Scottsboro Boys is the story of a miscarriage of justice in the depression-era South. Nine African-American young men are accused of rape, tried, and sentenced to death. The musical tells their story in song and dance (yes, song and dance) in the form of a "reverse" minstrel show. Here it's black performers being white imitators, though, fortunately not in white face. The white sheriff and his deputy; the white women supposedly raped; the white northern Jewish lawyer -- all performed by the black singers and dancers.

Everyone is open for challenge, being blasted out of the water, skewered, exposed. The northern liberals and the southern conservatives are shown in all their hypocrisy. The play's intensity grows and grows until, at the end, you are left gasping for air, the air knocked out of you by the truth, a truth you thought you knew. Far more powerful than any sermon or spoken tirade you are first lulled into submission by the music and contrasts. Then they hit you.

How can you do a musical about 1930s injustice and racism in the South? The same way you do one on pre-Hitler Nazism in Germany; or showgirls , murder, and prison in the Midwest; or a homosexual prisoner in a Latin American jail. John Kander and Fred Ebb, in their last collaboration before Ebb died, have done it just as they did in Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman. After closing here in September the musical moves to Broadway in October. I hope New York is ready - it is an amazing musical.

For me what hit home the most was how demeaning the old minstrel shows were. You don't realize it until you see one of your own ethnic groups done in the same manner -- exactly the same. In this case what struck me was a caricature of the New York Jewish lawyer. They utilized all the stereotypes of "Jews" just as offensively as the old minstrel shows demean African-Americans.

Back when doing the training for the Race Exhibit that has been here in Rochester since May, we were challenged to look at the use of native portrayals in school mascots -- you know Indians, Redskins, etc. One of the questions that we were asked in the discussion at that time was, "How do you think people would respond if instead of Indians they used caricatures of Jews or Germans or any other white European ethnic group?" The answer in our discussion was clearly that the response would be anything but accepting.

But there it was on stage at the Guthrie Theater showing us whites how hideous and violent it was. Talk about a challenge. At the end the audience gave an immediate, spontaneous, long standing ovation. It was well-earned and well-deserved. I will be very surprised if this is not nominated for a Tony Award next year.

Watch for it!

Surprise Endings

Last weekend we went to the Guthrie Theater for a modern rewrite of Ibsen's classic play, A Doll's House. Dollhouse by Rebecca Gilman uses Ibsen as the starting point for a 2004 interpretation of issues of materialism, truth, and living happily ever after.

Nora seems to have it all: a successful husband, three adorable children and a beautiful home in Lincoln Park. What looks like the picture perfect life, outfitted in the latest from Pottery Barn, is actually a complicated trap of secrets and lies, from which there is no easy bailout.
--Guthrie Theater

We were alerted by the Playbill that the ending would be as controversial as Ibsen's original where Nora, to the horror of a previous culture, left her children behind to seek her "self." What would this Nora do? How would she be as audacious as Ibsen's Nora? At intermission my wife and I pondered the possibilities. We challenged each other with controversy.

But as usual controversy often comes from what you don't expect, not what you can guess. I will not spoil the plot to say anymore specifically, but as the play ended we both found ourselves going, "Oh! That does make us stop and think. Hmmm." We each even found ourselves pondering it that evening and at different times during the week.

The power of drama to grab us and pull us into its own universe never fails to amaze me. Even when I try to out-think the playwright the "black swans" of quality writers will still make me stretch my horizons, whether I agree with the conclusion or not.

I guess that is what life is like as well.

Challenge and Tragedy

The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis continues to be one of the premier theaters in the country. Last weekend we went to see their latest presentation on the Wuertle Thrust Stage- M Butterfly the Tony-winning play by David Hwang. It was beyond incredible. Randy Reyes is nothing short of remarkable as Song Liling, performer in the Chinese Opera. Andrew Long is mesmerizing as French diplomat Rene Gallimard. The staging is powerful.

M Butterfly: From his prison cell, former French diplomat Rene Gallimard recalls the story of how he came to be loved by Song Liling, a performer in the Peking opera. Assigned to Beijing in the 1960s, Gallimard encounters Song in a performance of Madame Butterfly. Dazzled by her beauty, he believes he has found "the perfect woman," and uses his Western influence to ensnare this exotic butterfly. Their relationship develops into a passionate love affair that lasts more than two decades, yet when Song's identity is revealed - as a man and a spy for the Chinese government - Gallimard discovers far more than the submissive leading lady he wanted, and his personal and political realities dissolve before his eyes.

It is a challenging tragedy equal to anything ever produced. It brings us to an awareness of all kinds of prejudice, even the ones within us. How do I respond to the nudity? How do I feel about the portrayal of Asian women? What about the stereotype of the French? What about the presentation of homosexuality? it is not a fun and easy play. It is classic.

My reaction was simple and deep- I would see this again.

Here is one portion of it with Song Liling (Reyes) challenging western thinking....




M Butterfly at the Guthrie

Change at 16 Feet Beneath the Sea

We were at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis Saturday for their superb performance of Tony Kushner's Tony-nominated musical, Caroline, or Change. As described in Wikipedia:

Caroline, Or Change is a through-composed Broadway musical with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and score by Jeanine Tesori that combines negro spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, and Jewish Klezmer and folk music....

The musical is set in 1963 in Lake Charles, Louisiana during the American civil rights movement, around the time of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Caroline Thibodeaux is a black maid for a Southern Jewish family, the Gellmans, spending her days in their dank basement doing the laundry. The Gellmans' young son, Noah, has a strong emotional connection to Caroline, a woman resistant to the sweep of change she sees around her. She provides stability during his grief at his mother's death from cancer. Noah's new stepmother Rose, unable to give Caroline a raise, enlists Caroline's help in a plan to teach Noah a lesson about leaving change in his pants pocket. Rose tells Noah and Caroline that Caroline should keep the money Noah leaves in his pockets. Caroline loathes taking money from a child – but her own children desperately need food, clothing, and shoes. Noah deliberately leaves money in his pockets, dreaming that Caroline's family talk about him as they spend it.

Aside from the casting, music, staging, direction, and production- all of which are excellent- Caroline brings to the stage the challenge of change. Over the last year we have heard a great deal about change that "we can believe in." At the center of Caroline is the theme that in order for change to happen we have to believe in it.

The need for change is often resisted by some- such as Caroline. She is pushed by events and her daughter in the "younger generation" of 1963. She is an angry, unhappy person- but that is all she knows. Yet she has a soul- a great, deep soul that in the end has to look at her own issues in a powerful prayerful cry. The hopeful ending led by her daughter gives us a promise that change can work its miracles.

16 Feet Beneath the Sea is a theme from the opening song, since, as Caroline sings, there is no underground in Louisiana, only underwater, 16 feet beneath the sea. It is the struggle to keep from being drowned by change and the inability to change that drives the story for Caroline or the Gellman family. I was struck by the relationship of this show with another Jewish-influenced musical, Fiddler on the Roof. There too Tevye, the standard of tradition had to struggle with great change. Caroline takes that role here along with young Noah Gellman and his step-mother.

How then does one find change to believe in? Caroline finds it as she comes face to face with herself. Only then can she see either the need for change or be willing to allow it for her children. It is the issue of generational differences and the natural movement of life. As long as one lives in the past, the future is in danger.

Congrats again to the Guthrie for one more in a long strong of exciting productions. It is always a pleasure.

The Power of the Stage

Blanche DuBois: I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.

We went to the local theater the other night for the powerful, iconic play, A Streetcar Named Desire. It was not a large theater and we were in the 3rd row center. Local actors doing such a powerful play would seem to be a set-up for disaster. Fortunately, and wonderfully, it was as well produced and acted as any we have seen on the professional stage in Minneapolis. While not as "fancy" or complex a production as one might find in a larger venue, the power of the play came crashing through.

Streetcar is, of course, a tragedy by Tennessee Williams made famous in the late 40s and early 50s by Marlon Brando's amazing personification of Stanley Kowalski. Vivian Leigh played Blanche, Kim Hunter was Stella, and Karl Malden Mitch in that version. Fortunately the actors in this stage production seemed to dive deep into the characters and made them their own. Sure, you can't watch the play without thinking of the screen version, but it doesn't take long for the play, as it is being presented, sucks you in.

Movies do that, too, of course. But movies are larger than life. They exist in a seemingly different place. Or, at home on DVD, they are smaller, more manageable. On the stage the difference is amazing. These are real, flesh-and-blood people in front of us. Sure, they are actors performing lines written by someone else and told how to do their parts by another person. But, in good theater, with excellent material you discover life.

Perhaps Blanche Dubois's quote at the top of this post may be a lead-in to theater. Except that in the midst of the magic of theater, realism, reality and pain and fear and humanity, are played out for us to feel. If one can sit in a theater and watch the slow but inevitable descent into madness of a Blanche, the strutting and dangerous sexuality of a Stanley and not feel, then one is in danger of losing the hope of one's soul.

That's one of the reasons I so enjoy theater. It does not misrepresent the truth. Yes, it may stretch and magnify realism, but the magic of the stage (and screen) can turn life into truth.

An Evening of Incredible Magic and Awe

Even for the amazing Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Thursday night was unique. I am not exaggerating when I say that in all my years of going to the theater, especially Shakespeare, I have never, absolutely never seen a production like this one.

Of course it wasn't just any Shakespearean play. It is one of his greatest- King Lear. Lear is a remarkable play. While it has all the usual ins and outs of intrigue that Shakespeare handles so well, it is not the intrigue that is at the center of this play. It is the characters. Lear, his daughters, Kent, Glouchester, the fool, the brothers. The range of life and emotion they all portray may be unequaled in classic or modern drama.

Second, it wasn't just any old acting company, even the Guthrie's fine group. This was the Royal Shakespeare Company from England on an American tour. Minneapolis was richly blessed by being one of the three cities in the US that they visited. The other two were naturally, New York and LA. What makes this so exciting is these actors live Shakespeare. There wasn't a wooden performance among them. They know Shakespeare and his plays personally. The Elizabethan English is a second language to them. Amazing.

And finally it wasn't just any Royal Shakespearean actor playing Lear. It was Ian McKellan. While he may be best known for his amazing film acting, to watch him as Lear was nothing short of an out-of-this-world experience. His interpretations of this King going mad literally kept me on the edge of my seat. His amazing interactions with the other characters was stage magic.

Over 40 years ago I was introduced to Shakespeare as a high school junior (I think) when a production of Hamlet starring Richard Burton was presented around the country on a special arrangement with the New York Company. I saw it on screen in a local movie theater in north central Pennsylvania. But it was so intimate and real I was hooked on Shakespeare. Now, 40 some years later I have had the chance to see another great do a stage performance. The intimacy of the Guthrie's Thrust stage only added to the magic.

There is nothing in the world of acting that can compare with live theater. I was reduced to babbling, unable to find words. I stood and applauded with my eyes teary, not from the emotions of the play, but the emotions of life being so overwhelming. I was blessed, moved, pummeled, and finally lifted to the heights of human experience in three hours and forty minutes. I was in the hands of masters- the actors and directors and crew- and of old Wil Shakespeare himself. Lear is just about 400 years old and still has every bit of his maddening power.

Awesome.