Saving Mr. Sawyer

Another Christmas adventure for Clarence the Wonderful Life angel. (See also Saving Mr. Potter and Christmas Belle, or: Saving Miss Fezziwig.)

In a dim and foggy corner of almost Heaven, we see a hardworking, earnest agent of goodness bent over his desk. His office space is crowded with filing cabinets and bulging boxes of who knows what, obscured by puffy foggy clouds. His phone rings [Ringtone: Clay Aiken sings "Don't Save It All for Christmas Day"] and he picks up:

"Marley the Ghost! What's your favorite color?" Marley jots down the information cheerfully. "Ooo, good one. 'Rainbow.' Ha! Well, thank you. Got it. And Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Season's Greetings and all to you, etc., etc." Marley rips the note from the pad and goes to the array of overstuffed boxes and file cabinets, cramming the new information into a folder and shoving it back into a drawer. He struggles to get the drawer shut again. Through the clouds, he spies two familiar figures leaning in the doorway watching him.

"You're gonna need a bigger metaphor, Mr. Jordan!"

"You may be right, darling Marley," Jordan says with a twinkle in his eye. "These security questions for cloud storage are tedious and overwhelming, but your fellow Earthlings are just trying to protect themselves. We're working on shifting paradigms."

Marley blinks vacantly and notices Angel Clarence by Jordan's side. "Oh, Mr. Clarence, I didn't recognize you!"

Clarence steps into the less-cluttered center of Marley's office. He is no longer garbed in his usual white AngelWear gown with the ruched bodice and sweetheart neckline. Instead, he is wearing a natty charcoal suit with subtle pinstripes, lengthening his lithe figure. "Howdy doody, Marley! It's meeeee!" Clarence twirls, Jordan twinkles, and Marley blinks.

"Our sweet Clarence has earned a promotion," Jordan says proudly. "He is to be your mentor as we send you on your first salvation!"

Marley blinks again. "But I thought I already saved old Ebenezer. That whole time-traveling three-ghost thing was my idea--"

"Now, Biff," Jordan chides. "Don't start taking credit for the work of the powers that Be. Mr. Dickens, as you well know, was the author of that tale. Editors are not authors."

"Yes, Mr. Jordan. I'm sorry, Mr. Jordan. I only meant-- Yes, Chief! At your service!"

"That's better." Jordan shimmers between his two direct reports and angelically wraps his arms around their shoulders. "Now, sweet Clarence, please brief our darling Marley on his rescue mission."

Clarence retrieves a device from his vest pocket, enters his password, and begins scrolling through his apps--Bullies and Belligerents. Egos and Eccentrics. Hubris and Chutzpah. He taps on Misers and Misfits.

"This time of year, it's awfully hard to choose. So many souls left behind," Clarence says with a wan sigh. "I thought this one might interest you, Mr. Jordan. See the similarities with Mr. Marley's old pal Ebenezer?"

"Miss Van Pelt clearly demonstrates an unhealthy love of nickels, nickels, nickels that jingle jangle."

Mr. Jordan reviews the case file uploaded in the surrounding clouds, using a gestural interface activated by the sweep of his grand angelic wing. "Indeed, love of money does have a motivating but not terribly influential pull on this subject," Jordan scrutinizes. "I believe she did have another dearer wish, however." Jordan sweeps his wing so that both Clarence and Marley could see:

"Ah, love!" Clarence exclaims.

"Right, love!" Marley exclaims. "Everyone wants love. Did she ever capture that boy she was so sweet on? What was his name--Schroeder, right?"

Mr. Jordan smiles. "Yes, there was our friend Schroeder. Artistic type, you know." Clarence and Marley blink. "Musician... loves Beethoven." Clarence and Marley blink at each other. "He was the catcher on Charlie Brown's team."

Marley clears his throat. "I'm never sure when you're being literal."

"Not important," Mr. Jordan replies kindly. "Actually, Miss Van Pelt said herself what she always wanted: Real estate. But more than that, her endeavors to attract young Schroeder, to appoint herself the Christmas Queen, to taunt good ol' Charlie Brown with a perpetually thwarted placekick--all these actions demonstrate that she also desired not love, but attention."

"And didn't she get what she wanted? I mean the real estate and the attention?" Clarence asks, sweeping his own wing grandly across the cloudy interface. "I see big buildings, skyscrapers, casinos, and--oh, my, is that the White House? Good-NESS! Our little Lucy became quite the Trump!"

Jordan laughs mirthlessly. "Are you kidding? Lucy sends Trump out for cigarettes."

Marley points at a troubling scene in the Lucy case cloud. "Could I see this part again, please, Sir?"

Jordan embraces Marley proudly. "Yes, yes, my dear soul. Your instincts about human nature are much improved. There is such an overlap in belligerence and hubris, we really need to reorganize our files. Tell me, dear Marley. What made you stop on this episode?"

Marley fishes for his own insights. "Well, it had to do with Clarence's new suit. Vintage Forties. Black and white. Christmas time, too, but with friend Kris involved somehow."

Clarence brightens up and sweeps his wings across the clouds in the room to reveal another tinkerer in the psychiatric arts:

"Sawyer!" Clarence exclaims. "I remember him. Tom Sawyer's great-great grandson. He did have a mischievous streak. Look at him now--a bundle of nerves."

Marley can barely contain his excitement. "Can I help him, please Mr. Jordan? And can I ... can I have a nice suit like Clarence's?"

Jordan smiles and twinkles and waves his grand angelic wings. Clarence and Marley are black-and-whited down to Christmas on 34th Street, nattily attired as befitting businessmen of the day. Marley struggles with an unexpected burden, as he still must bear the chains he forged in life. Thanks to his prior puttings right of things once gone wrong, however, his chains are fewer and lighter than during his Scrooge redemption episode.

As Marley and Clarence enter Mr. Sawyer's office in the famed Macy's department store, Marley's remaining chains clink and clang loudly, startling the mortal.

"Who rang that bell?" Sawyer snarls petulantly. "Can't you read the sign? 'Bell Out of Order. Please Knock.'" Clarence and Marley look at each other in wonder.

"He can't hear us, can he?" Marley asks. Clarence shakes his head. Sawyer continues examining the employee records on his desk, his eyes wandering suspiciously around the room to see where that chain-rattling noise keeps coming from. "Should we appear to him now? I hate all this sneaking around, just showing up in door knockers and what-not."

"You might be right, Mr. Marley. It's your call." Marley nods, and Clarence grandly sweeps his wings to effect the revelation, knocking poor Sawyer in the head. He recovers quickly and squeals with childlike delight upon seeing Marley's chains.

"Oooo!" Sawyer exclaims. "Looky! Well-forged, my good man. Well-forged!" Sawyer hesitantly fingers the chains. "May I? Oh, lovely work. Good stainless, superior nickel content, if I'm not mistaken. Where did you get it?"

"This is the chain I forged in life," Marley intones ghostily. "I'm pretty sure you've got one going yourself."

"Awesome! Well, now, please have a seat. We'll get started with your tests."

Watching from above, Jordan presses pause on the scene. "You need a little more backstory here, dear ones," Jordan whispers. "Observe, if you please, that nervous gesture. What does it tell you?"

"He really needs something to do with his hands," Marley offers insightfully.

"That's IT!" Clarence cheers.

"Yes, indeed," Jordan confirms. He sweeps his wings to change the scene once again to Sawyer's childhood after-school job at the local junk yard.

"That's SCRAP yard," Sawyer corrects. "Wait a minute, who said that?"

Together, Jordan, Marley, and Clarence watch as young Sawyer happily wanders through a large warehouse full of junk-- er, scrap: stuff discarded by a populace flawed by their failure of imagination. "Ferrous, nonferrous, alloys, and fibers! E-scrap and baling straps, and mixed bulky rigids!"

Sawyer reaches into a box of Christmas tree lights, his eyes aglow (behind his protective goggles) with visions of copper cuttings dancing in his head. "Ooo, I know I can make something special out of this. The kitchen for a doll's house, maybe, or the control console on a rocket ship to Mars! Someday, Mr. Macy will buy my repurposed materials-for-toys idea. It's the only sustainable way to future Christmases."

Marley peers over at Jordan's CloudVision screen to peek ahead in the story. "What happened to the young man's dreams?"

"He should have gone to dental school," Clarence mumbles.

Jordan smiles patiently as he angel-wing-swipes the scene again. A cloudy mist obscures a blank slate. "Mr. Marley, my dear, where do we take poor Mr. Sawyer's story from here? No help, Clarence!"

Clarence shuffles his feet in embarrassment, a feeling of helpless incompetence that dissipates as he examines his smartly polished Oxfords with aesthetic appreciation. "There's always cobbling. Or, shoe making, they call it now."

Ignoring Clarence's distracted remarks, Marley thinks a moment. He reviews Sawyer's psychological profile: nervous, fidgety, needing to be correct in the face of strong opposing opinions. And yet, also demonstrating a strong desire to help people, to fix their problems. "The problem with that, though," Marley explains slowly so Clarence, too, could follow, "is he keeps trying to fix things--people--who aren't broken."

"That's right," Jordan says with a sigh. "Mr. Macy saw potential in him, despite rejecting dear Mr. Sawyer's recycled toy idea, and placed him--misplaced him, rather--in HR. This history must be altered."

Marley thinks a little harder. Clarence's offhanded remark about dentistry calls another Christmas story to mind. There was that elf, Hermey, who also felt misplaced in his role, a misunderstood misfit in the toy world.

Misfit. Toys. Misfit. Toys. "Misfit Toys!" Marley, Clarence, and Jordan exclaim as one. "Even Kris would approve of that idea," Jordan confirms.

With a group swipe of the CloudVision monitor, the merry gang envision a new future for misguided misfit Mr. Sawyer. He is brought to the Island of Misfit Toys, where the citizens--recognizing his natural gift for materials identification and impulse to fix broken things--name him their Wizard of Refurbished Toys, Deluxe. Times being what they are, he accepts the job.

As the thunderous cheers subside, Jordan returns with his direct reports to Marley's cloudy office, pondering their next mission. As Clarence has noted, there are so many souls left behind in this special time of year. Whom shall we save next?

A face begins to take form in the CloudVision screen. Clarence and Marley anxiously wait to see who it might be... The face is youthful, freckled, and oddly vicious looking.

Clarence gasps. "He has yellow eyes! So help me God, yellow eyes!"

Marley laughs. "Tag, Scut Farcas! You're it."

The End.

Love, hosaa
Repurposing plots

"Where Is Love" and "The Touch of Art"

Time to catch up again.

The last two performances I saw at Round House Theatre had nothing to do with each other; one was produced by Adventure Theatre MTC, the children's theater training camp at Maryland's Glen Echo park, and the other was RHT's entry in the regionwide Women's Voices Theater Festival. And though they had nothing to do with each other, Oliver! and Ironbound had more in common than the latter did with another WVTF entry at Ford's Theatre, The Guard.

[I interrupt this brief recap to report another RHT-hosted production I saw a few days before Oliver!, evidence of which is a xeroxed list of the 11 "clumps" of one-minute plays in the obviously named One-Minute Play Festival. The audience seemed to be composed mainly of authors of the 50 or 60 "plays," who laughed and cheered noisily in support of each other's art. I can recall almost none of this now, not even the date of the production, which failed to make it onto the one-page info sheet.]

Adventure Theatre's Oliver! happened to be my first exposure to the stage version of one of my all-time favorite movie musicals. My 12 1/2 year-old within is still in love with Jack Wild's Academy Award-nominated performance as the Artful Dodger, so my biases on movie versus stage were pre-formed. I loved the dancing in the AT show, and I thought the little actor playing Oliver (Franco Cabanas, per my program) had a gorgeous voice. The failure to cast a like-sized Dodger, as in the movie with Wild and Mark Lester, proved a big disappointment to me, and their voices never blended in that chummy way they should.

The next RHT production, season-opening Ironbound, was a world premiere play by Martyna Majok, focusing on the struggle of a single immigrant mom, statically positioned at a bleak New Jersey bus stop, poised between failed romances.

As far as women's voices go, this was one I couldn't really relate to, and it was yet another one of those stories about people I simply don't want to spend time with. Yet, upon further review, I found the story had a lot in common with Oliver!. Like the orphan begging to be fed more of even the worst gruel, ironbound Darja (Alexandra Henrikson) hungers. That ill-defined hunger exposes her to a cruel lover or two, a cruel life, and a cruel yearning, "Please, sir, I want some more."

I think what Darja wants is to matter. Her "where is love" plea is a demand for respect. Things seem to turn around for her when she meets her own "Artful Dodger" in the form of a random kid (William Vaughan as Vic), who finds her at the bus stop one night, badly beaten up, and reaches out to help her.

Ironbound's William Vaughan and Alexandra Henrikson. Photo by Cheyenne Michaels, RHT/Facebook

Moving along on the Women's Voices series, The Guard actually had less to do with "women's voices" and turned out to be the kind of play I wish I could write: witty, touching, philosophical, a portrayal of what art means to us (me). It was a bit smutty, though, so I'm happy to leave it to more sophisticated talents.

Playwright Jessica Dickey's story starts and ends with a museum guard (Mitchell Hébert) goaded into touching Rembrandt's painting, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.

The Guard's Mitchell Hébert, Katherine Tkel and Josh Sticklin. Photo by Scott Suchman, Ford's Theatre/Facebook

This "touch" takes us back in time to Rembrandt's (Hébert again) daily life, and then further back to Homer (Craig Wallace) complaining about people wanting to write down his poems. They're meant to be heard, he says, so people can zone out if they want (says Homer/Wallace, glaring at the audience). Back to the guard's present, he has been fired for touching the art. He then devotes himself not to art, but to life, caring for his partner (Wallace again), a dying poet, tenderly touching his head as Rembrandt's "Aristotle" touched the bust of Homer.

love, hosaa
touched by art

Haiku: Season's End

Barker's voice grows hoarse,

carnival rides shake and sieze.

Help Wanted: Grown Ups.

Diary of a Mad Gogol

It's been a while since I've read one of my 19th-century Russians, and normally I would go for any Dostoevsky or Tolstoy I hadn't read yet (or reread lately), but there was something about Gogol that was gnawing at me.

I'd read Dead Souls a number of years ago, or at least most of it. I'd had the 1961 David Magarshack translation sitting patiently on my shelf, and I really enjoyed it up until I started seeing things like [Here ends the manuscript of the first four chapters of Part Two] and [Part of the manuscript is missing here]. There had been no indication on the cover of the book that I was about to embark on an unfinished story. I see by my old business-card/bookmark that I didn't even make it all the way to the end of the incomplete manuscript.

Yet, Gogol, I felt, was a master satirist, storyteller, scene maker, and character analyst. I'll put him ahead of Chekhov anytime for the sheer joy of reading. But I had a little bit of a Gogol block years ago when I took up my thrift-store 1960 Andrew R. MacAndrew story collection. It opens with "The Diary of a Madman," which so happens to begin on my birthday. I took it as an evil omen and threw it across the room.

Recently, a scholar among my friends was talking about the significance of particular dates used in texts. I decided to conquer my Gogol superstition and take up the Madman's diary again. It was hilariously disturbing.

As the protagonist inexorably slips in and out of delusion, from his conversations with neighborhood dogs to his revelation that he is the king of Spain, his diary-dating system reflects his growing madness: From October 3, he goes as normal through the end of December, then abruptly finds himself in Year 2000, April 43; then Martober 86, between day and night; then No date. A day without a date; Faubrarius the thirtieth; 25th date; and finally da 34 te Mnth. Yr. yraurbeF 349.

The other short stories in the collection capture the absurd, dream/nightmare-like frustrations of civil servants and petty functionaries in Russian life. "The Nose," in which a man's proboscis escapes his face and literally takes on a life of its own, is as surreal as anything you'd find in Kafka.

The MacAndrew collection ends with the something-completely-different historical romance of "Taras Bulba," which I was vaguely aware had been a movie with Yul Brynner. Set in the 17th-century Ukraine's Cossack battles against the Poles, Tartars, Catholics, Jews, and other infidels, this novella contains a great deal of manly violence, drunkenness, and treachery.

It also contains some of the richest expository writing you'll find, and the loveliest treatment of romantic love as Taras's younger son, Andrei (Tony Curtis in the movie), is enchanted by a Polish general's daughter:

But neither chisel nor brush nor the mighty word can express what may be found sometimes in the eyes of a woman, any more than they can convey the storm of tenderness which sweeps over the one those eyes are looking upon.

Not bad for a writer who supposedly never had love in his life.

love, hosaa,
back from a 19th-century view of the 17th-century steppes

Cheers, Edward Duke

For Edward Duke, who would have been 62 today.

from The French Lieutenant's Woman, with Jeremy Irons

Love, hosaa

singing his praises, toasting his memory

A Tale of Two Plays

Slightly behind in my recapping enables me to bring two current productions together: A Tale of Two Cities performed at Synetic Theater and NSFW performed at Round House Theatre.

Coincidentally, the term NSFW was just added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, which defines it as "not safe for work" (meaning, if you're e-mailed a link or attachment so labeled, don't open it at the office).

In the RHT production, the term is expanded to "not safe for women," meaning workplaces such as playwright Lucy Kirkwood's two fictional commercial magazine offices, Doghouse and Electra, that sexualize, objectify, exploit, and manipulate images of women. While I could relate a bit to the young woman working at Doghouse (she needs the work), there are compromises and comeuppances in this story that I just don't get. (Thank goodness for noncommercial journalism, right?)

In a way, exploitation and objectification of female imagery is also what the drag queen Jerry (Alex Mills) does at Synetic's Tale, in an adaptation originated by Everett Quinton. Jerry entertains an irrationally inserted baby in his apartment (Vato Tsikurishvili as Dorian the baby) as he prepares to perform his act.

Alex Mills (Jerry) and Vato Tsikurishvili (Dorian), A Tale of Two Cities. Synetic Theater

The parallels between Jerry's primping for his act and Electra editor Miranda's (Deborah Hazlett) primping for a night out were astonishing. (No production photos for NSFW up yet, but if you see both shows, you'll see what I mean.)

Alex Mills, A Tale of Two Cities, Synetic Theater

Alex Mills, A Tale of Two Cities, Synetic Theater

The lesson is clear to me: 'Tis a far, far better self-actualization when you take control over your own life, work, image, sexuality, and self-expression.

Love, hosaa
safe for work

A Tale of Two Cities
Synetic Theater (1800 South Bell Street, Crystal City, VA 22202)
May 13 through June 21, 2015

NSFW
Round House Theatre (4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814)
May 27 through June 21, 2015

The Mahler Ballet

As promised, here is the result of my scribbling the other day while listening to the working rehearsal of Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

The Officer's Bride

Place: A seaside market town.

Time: About when they usually place stories like this, vaguely 19th century.

I

A rising storm bodes ill. War is imminent. The villagers are aware their young men will be called away, but their fears are abstract and distant. Life goes on, markets are busy, and there's a big wedding to prepare for: the mayor's daughter, Barbara, and her betrothed, the handsome officer Gregor.

As the young men march into the square in their identical uniforms, Barbara laughingly pretends not to recognize any of them, though they are all her childhood friends and the sweethearts of her bridesmaids. Barbara tells all her friends to give their sweethearts a handkerchief in his favorite color--a token to remind him he is unique and loved. Barbara gives Gregor a crimson handkerchief, which he kisses and tucks into his coat.

The call to war is heard, alarming the mothers of all the young, inexperienced soldiers. The fathers try to assure their wives and advise their sons.

II

A month later, a witness arrives to describe the battle. As mothers mourn and fathers put on a brave front, the Mayor (Barbara's father) questions the witness further. They learn that it was not their sons who fought in this particular battle, but their turn may soon come.

III

Barbara attempts to keep her friends' spirit up by making them continue preparing for the wedding. She tells them how she and Gregor met and fell in love. And she asks her friends each in turn, Was it not this way for you? Her friends dance while waving their brightly colored scarves, which match the colored kerchiefs they gave their sweethearts, 

IV

Months pass; the war is over, and the men are to return. They were victorious in their battle, but the villagers are aware many will not return. The wedding preparations have turned into a welcome home, but it is tinged with dread.

One by one, the uniformed soldiers return, each greeted by his sweetheart all dressed in his special color. the square is filled with a joyous, multicolored bouquet of humanity.

V

As the square clears, Barbara is alone, in her bridal white, but with a black mourning scarf over her shoulders. Her Gregor has not returned. The villagers, in mourning black, attempt to revive her spirits. She dances with all her friends' sweethearts, but she reunites them each with their true loves, telling them all to be happy. This is the life that her Gregor fought and died to secure for them.

Barbara's father drapes his mayoral sash over her shoulders, declaring her his logical successor to lead the village. As the men of the village lift her on their shoulders, she lifts her mourning scarf over her head. She flips it over and holds the crimson side upwards, showing it to Gregor in heaven.

My, My, Mahler

I'm already late in my recap of yesterday's working rehearsal for the NSO performance last night of Mahler's Fifth Symphony at the Kennedy Center, so the Washington Post's review, focusing on guest violinist Leonidas Kavakos's participation, should fill in my usual gaps.

What I love about the working rehearsals is seeing the actual work go into an artistic performance. The musicians are not demigods, delighting the elites among us mere mortals (though you do have to be elite enough to join the Kennedy Center's second-to-lowest membership level to score a rehearsal invite--a privilege I have to forgo for the next season due to my recently compromised budget). The disadvantage is that you don't get the whole impact of the performance, as there are fits and starts, do-overs, and, as I learned, movements might get moved out of order.

Yesterday's experience was a delight on at least two levels for me, so there will be a part two of this post coming later (I know not to say "Soon" in some of my social circles).

The Level One delight (for blog post Two) was hearing Mahler's Fifth Symphony and being caught up in a vivid and very visual narrative. Some call that daydreaming; others call it plot development. The result was a treatment, a story line, for a ballet. There was enough light in the Concert Hall's orchestra seats to let me scribble notes throughout the rehearsal, which apparently broke for an intermission before completing all five movements.

I know this because, ignorant as I am about music, I never demur from asking stupid audience questions when given the opportunity. And I got that opportunity, so this gave me a bonus delight from yesterday's experience. A woman sitting in the row in front of me appeared very knowledgeable about what was going on, and I overheard her tell her seatmate that the conductor left something out. There was something wrong about the movements and the order in which they were rehearsed.

And this expert in the audience also happened to notice me scribbling in my Handy Dandy Notebook. She assumed I had some musical knowledge and would be able to answer her question about the missing Mahler movement. I oh-so-casually said, No, I never heard this piece before. I'm just writing a ballet here. Heh.

We had a lovely conversation after that. My new friend, a violinist, was happy to hear how I, as an audience member, responded to the music. (I won't lie, I don't know how proficient any particular musician is except how he or she makes me feel; that Mahler piece, despite all the interruptions, had me in tears.)

So at the end of the working rehearsal, I got to ask my Stupid Audience Question, something that had been niggling at me since last year's NSO working rehearsal with clarinetist Martin Fröst and guest conductor Osmo Vänskä, performing a clarinet concerto by Finnish composer Kalevi Aho. I noticed that the musicians were very busy scribbling notes on their sheet music so as to execute Vänskä's instructions on the obviously difficult piece. So my question was, Do the musicians get to keep the sheet music?

The answer, my friend informed me, is No. The sheet music used by the NSO is returned to the orchestra's library, where someone erases all the pencil marks scribbled by the musicians. Mystery solved! I love it.

Next time - Notes on a Ballet inspired by Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

Love, hosaa
dancing in my mind

Living, Working, Resting with Vanya

I'm behind, but before I get more behind, a quick mention of Round House Theater's opening of Uncle Vanya.

promotion art for Round House Theatre, via Facebook

The best thing about Chekhov is the talent he attracts, and the talent on RHT's stage last night was virtually a who's who of Washington theater (alphabetically): Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey, Kimberly Gilbert, Mitchell Hébert, Mark Jaster, Nancy Robinette, Ryan Rilette, Eric Shimelonis, Jerry Whiddon, and Joy Zinoman.


The production was beautifully laid out, with characters entering and exiting from normally underutilized voms, and the language was updated accessibly by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Annie Baker.

Pre-performance discussion at Round House Theatre, via Facebook.

But even all this talent couldn't keep me from nodding off in Act One. It's not their fault, and it's probably not even Chekhov's fault, though he is probably one of my least favorite Russian writers (below Gogol, ahead of Pasternak). As it so happens, this week I rejoined the working Vanyas, Sophias, and Marinas of the world, and rest will have to wait.

That's sort of the gist of the story: We all work, sort of, and we all live, sort of. Some of us "work" a little uselessly, like the professor (Alexander, Jerry Widdon) who basically writes about what others have thought and written about, but who ranks above the brother-in-law (Vanya, Mitchell Hébert) who manages the estate that provides income for the family.

As for the women, we can be beautiful and desired but ultimately bored and useless (Yelena, Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey), or we can love passionately but futilely, plain and ultimately accepting (Sophia, Kimberly Gilbert). The only two characters who seem to go about finding their own way to happiness are the doctor and forest-saver (Astrov, Ryan Rilette) and the nanny (Marina, Nancy Robinette). They both live useful working lives that seem to fulfill them.

I guess that's as much as I can ask for out of life: a useful and fulfilling one. Funny to feel like a "minor character" in a play (Yelena's complaint). At least you're in the play.

love, hosaa
from somewhere in row D

Psycho Spoiler

Okay, I know it's a 55-year-old classic and everyone's seen it, but why in the world would Comcast/Xfinity give away key details in its plot description for Psycho?

Here is how it describes the movie (spoiler alert):

A psychotic motel owner obsesses over his late mother while becoming the prime suspect in a murder case involving one of his recent guests--a pretty secretary who checked into the motel and never checked out. An undisputed horror masterpiece.

Never mind the run-on sentence. We're not supposed to know the mother is dead until the end of Act II, or that the motel owner is psychotic until the climax of the film. Arghh!

Here's my rewrite:

Lonely motel owner obsessively protective of his mother has fateful encounter with a pretty secretary on the lam after stealing money from her boss to be with her boyfriend.

Or:

Pretty secretary impulsively steals $40,000 from her boss to be with her boyfriend. While on the lam, she has a fateful encounter with a lonely motel owner who's obsessively protective of his sick mother.

Or:

When a pretty secretary disappears after stealing money from her boss, her sister and boyfriend trace her to a motel owned by a lonely mama's boy. 

Seriously, Xfinity, or whoever writes your program descriptions. Do better.

Love, hosaa
Shocked and appalled.

Much Ado about No Shakespeare

Back from yesterday's matinee performance of Much Ado About Nothing at Synetic Theater in Crystal City. This was the 11th of Synetic's renowned wordless (not silent) Shakespeare productions, an oxymoron that produces varied reactions (not unlike those when revealing that one is a Clay Aiken fan), ranging from bemused condescension to moral outrage.

Ben Cunis as Benedick and Irina Tsikurishvili as Beatrice. Program art for Much Ado About Nothing, Synetic Theater.

Shakespeare, of course, offered the world more than poetry, and the gift of the Synetic approach is that it winkles out the subtleties of character development and the nuances of situation comedy--and tragedy--that is also all Shakespeare. A wordless theatrical production of Shakespeare is every bit as legitimate as the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet or the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream, and music and dance are among my favorite tools in the artistic toy box.

It's interesting that a lot of the updates of spoken Ado are set in the black-white-silvery worlds of Art Deco, leaving all color to the language, whereas the text-free Synetic production is all color and movement and music. Set in Fifties-era Las Vegas, with showgirls and motorcycle gangs (wearing "Syneticon" gang leather jackets), this Ado drives a harsher wedge between light and dark, farce and ferocity, through sheer physical power--not just the athleticism of the dance and pantomime, but also the attention given to details in props, costumes, lights, and music. All senses are on alert and fully, energetically engaged.

There is, appropriately, a parental advisory on this production, which goes a bit beyond the bard's usual bawdy humor: "This production is recommended for ages 14+ for some drug use and stylized sexual content." It's not for those squeamish about hypodermic needles, either.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
Synetic Theater (1800 South Bell Street, Crystal City, Virginia 22202), through March 22, 2015
Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili, choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili

Blistered, Burned, Enraptured

Back from last night's first preview performance of Gina Gionfriddo's Rapture, Blister, Burn, at the Round House Theatre, and the only glitch in the proceedings was that they brought the houselights up when the audience was trying to give the cast a standing ovation. I felt a little cheated out of showing them the love.

Previously in Hosaa's Blog, I reported very little about my experience with Gionfriddo's last play on the RHT stage, Becky Shaw. Didn't like it. The characters were just not people I wanted to spend two hours of my life with. With RBB, however, I had more in common with the characters: two 40-something women--one married and the other a single, successful academic--and the lunk of a husband/love interest they shared, plus the 70-something mother of the single scholar, and one wiseass 20-something babysitter/would-be reality-TV developer.

Oh, exactly which character did I "relate" to? "Cathy" (Michelle Six), the single, successful academic, you say? Ha Ha Ha! Well, actually, the part about her that I did relate to was her relationship with her mother, "Alice" (Helen Hedman), and the realization that no man would ever love her the same way that her mom did. That part is true, and a lot of us just don't realize that until mom dies. That's a shame.

I could actually connect a bit with the lunk of a husband/love interest, "Don" (Tim Getman), because at the root of his problems is his own self-defeating awareness that he can't live up to other people's expectations of him or to his own sense of potential. He resorts to pot and porn to soothe his sagging ego and goes on letting down the two women who (inexplicably, IMO) love and compete for him. (I guess I know what I resort to--not pot and porn, though. *g*) 

The stay-at-home wife, "Gwen" (Beth Hylton), is the judgey recovering alcoholic who yearns for the presumably better life of the single friend whose boyfriend she stole and married rather than completing grad school.

And for a generational perspective to balance that of the not-dead-yet heart-attack-surviving mom, we get the babysitter "Avery" (Maggie Erwin, my new great actress to watch). The wise-beyond-her-years free spirit is appreciative of the freedoms won by our feminist ancestors but can't really relate to the problems of an earlier era. We can vote because suffrage was obviously right. Duh.

Maggie Erwin. Publicity photo via RHT Facebook.

The characters are not quite caricatures, but do come off as stereotypes. Or maybe archetypes. And the business of women yearning to switch lives with each other is nothing new (see Turning Point with Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft, for example). Then there's the ridiculous plot device of having the wife and babysitter as the only students of the single-scholar for a seminar on feminism and female portrayals in popular culture--a seminar that takes place in the mom's house so we can get all the females in the same place together, relating their personal experiences to academic observations.

But the direction by Shirley Serotsky and acting by all (seriously, Erwin is a revelation) more than made up for these contrivances. The historic and cultural references (Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlafly, the messages behind slasher movies) all brought out touchstones to touch and mull on. And instead of just being angry and making the audience angry (or defensive), the dialogue, the conversations, invited a lot of self-reflection. What do we want as women? And what happens if we get it? Or don't get it? And what do men have to do with it anyway?

I go back to the relationship between the mother and the grown daughter. My mother was just that supportive and nurturing (in her own weird, narcissistic way--that's another blog). Mothers teach their daughters that love means being supportive and encouraging, so we expect that in a husband. When the men turn out to expect that of their wives but not of themselves, that's where the frustrations start.

Avery is the one with the answer to all that crap. Maybe you just outsource it.

love, hosaa
Still thinking a butler would be better than a husband, in many ways.

The Prettiest Snow Melts the Fastest

Today, this happened in my town.

Credit: C. G. Wagner

Credit: C. G. Wagner

Credit: C. G. Wagner

Credit: C. G. Wagner

love, hosaa
catching snowflakes