A Tale of Two Bethesdas

The only subatomic physics joke I ever made up is that charm decay accelerates over time. It's true at the macro level, which we see now almost daily in my hometown of Bethesda, Maryland.

In today's Washington Post is an article "The future ghosts of downtown Bethesda" that focuses on three of the charm particles that are slated to go missing, possibly by the end of this year: the Tastee Diner, the Farm Women's Market, and the Barnes and Noble.

There are a few other old Bethesda places still around, though in the case of our Art Deco landmark Bethesda Theatre now under a different name and business model, the Blues and Jazz Supper Club. On my side of town we still have Strombolis, Vace's, and Pines of Rome to feed my pizza and lasagna urges. We do still have the Montgomery County Thrift Store, which is not only my destination for making donations after spring cleaning, but also where I can pick up classic-styled garments that department stores won't carry (pencil skirts and oxford shirts).

But no doubt if the developers have their way, these hangouts will go missing, too. I moved into my apartment when there was a seafood restaurant on the first floor, when my view was of the parking lots of Wisconsin Avenue businesses, and when there was a railroad track where the Crescent Trail now is. The place that is now (for the moment) Barnes and Noble was a Pfaltzgraff Factory Store. There was a concrete company down the street, Second Story Books, and a place where you could buy a muu-muu.

So Bethesda's transition has been ongoing for decades. The first thing to go since I moved back here after grad school was the McDonald's Raw Bar on Old Georgetown Road. It's where Dad proposed to Mom and where we went for their anniversary dinner for many years.

The biggest sign of the end-times in Bethesda was when nobody in charge had the brains to convert the historic Post Office into a visitors information and cultural center. With gift shop. It is to become instead a yoga studio.

For those of us who are middle income (I do NOT use the expression "middle class"), Bethesda's a tough place to be anymore. The million-dollar condo units have raised rental market rates. I've always accepted paying the premium for the charm and convenience, the energy and liveliness of this exact spot, but the charm decay is indeed accelerating.

With a break in the bad weather today and the prospects of an art festival, I walked up Woodmont Avenue toward the Triangle. As I approached a busy intersection I heard a loud altercation across the way: Pedestrian yelling at bicyclists on the sidewalk, pointing out that there's a bike path on the street that they should be on, and bicyclist pointing out the bike path goes between parked cars and moving cars and is dangerous. I slipped past them as each called the other a fucking idiot, canceling out each others' path to the moral high ground.

It's hard for me to take sides in the Marriott and Tastee Diner hoo-hah. As kids we used to go to Hot Shoppes (the Marriott property) and Tastee, both. Marriott International was the first stock I bought. I eat breakfast at the Diner every Sunday, just about. I just would like to see Marriott and Tastee treat each other well as neighbors.

The pedestrian and the bicyclist today leave me little faith in my neighborhood.

Love, hosaa,
observing charm decay at the neighborhood level

Haiku: Morning

Morning

Memories and dreams

evaporate, making way

as new moments wake.

-----------------------

Annotation: This is slightly revised from the version I posted on Facebook yesterday, but it still doesn't quite satisfy. Due to an unexplained shift in my REM cycle, I've been dreaming closer to when I'm supposed to wake up, so the images are lasting longer. The music and news from the radio alarm mix themselves into a dream-soundtrack, and I remember my dream images of crashing planes and refugees.

The thing about dreams and memories is that they play on the same psychic field. Am I remembering that correctly, or did I dream it? As I've gotten older, I'm finding it harder to remember my dreams. I'm finding it harder to remember my memories. I'm sad when I forget the song I composed and sang in a dream, but I'm sadder when I forget experiences that really happened. 

The time between both dreams and experiences and their evaporation is getting shorter with the amount of time ahead for new ones to wake.

love, hosaa

remembering dreams, at least temporarily.

Garden art, Strathmore Mansion (Bethesda). Credit: C. G. Wagner

The Art of the One-Person Show

Back from Round House Theatre's penultimate performance of I Love to Eat, the one-man tribute to famed American chef James Beard. Normally I see RHT's shows during preview, so it seems a little pointless to give a recap of a show that's ending as I write. But this was a show that a friend wanted to see, so I took advantage of my subscriber's free bring-a-buddy ticket and selected the only date that was  convenient for both of us.

That's one reason I go to shows alone; it's either something nobody else wants to see, or it's never a good time.

Anyway, the well-known D.C. area director Nick Olcott took to the stage as actor for this production and did a poignant job portraying the jolly TV chef and author. The 70-minute monologue revealed a man whose love of life was palpable, but unrequited. With an openly gay actor portraying an openly gay man, it almost seems silly to even append the modifier "openly." But the life of a gay man in the 20th century was very different from that experienced in the 21st century, and Beard died alone. His passionate desire to connect was fulfilled only via the telephone, which interrupted the monologue frequently to Beard's delight: "Oh, goody goody!"

Nick Olcott as James Beard.
Photo: ClintonB Photography for Round House Theatre

Okay, so I'm the opposite of James Beard on so many levels. I am sooo not a foodie. Hate to cook, hate the phone, not many connections, and the ones I do have are often problematic. But the one-man show is something that always seems to move me. I can relate to it.

Afterwards, since the show was short, my friend and I dashed across the street to Starbucks for a chat, and then she dropped me off at home. It was still a short evening (thank you, "fall back" standard time), so I headed across the street to Mon Ami Gabi, where it's nice to get in a little ahead of the Sunday night crowd.

The table-for-one requests are honored graciously these days, but there's no way to avoid being seated among parties of more than one. Actually, that's kind of nice. Too many soloists invites consideration, appraisal. I get self-conscious. Parties of more than one are talking amongst themselves and need not concern themselves with the likes of me. 

I was in an unusually reflective mood, I guess, and didn't mind overhearing bits of conversation around me. I was thinking about the various diners (mostly middle-aged and above, but one or two families and at least one moderately youthful gay couple) and their various relationships. One couple on the other side of the room were happily sitting side by side; another couple two tables away from me were across from each other and exuding strain:

"I will not talk about it," the man said. The woman leaned forward. "I will not talk about it," he repeated. She leaned back. They didn't speak the rest of the time I was there.

Sometimes I wonder about the one-person show I'm in. I wonder about the alternative scenarios. What would it have been like if I had ended up with any of the boyfriends I had been so hopelessly in love with. 

I think it would make a good play. Heh! What would Neil Simon do with this material! A three-act tragicomedy. In the end, she dies alone.

love, hosaa
monologuing

Doubled (over) Indemnity

A day or two late in posting my recap of the Thursday night preview performance of Round House Theatre's rendition of the noir classic Double Indemnity.

First of all, I was absolutely thrilled to open the program and see that the production would star one of my all-time favorite RHT actors, Mr. Marty Lodge.

Marty Lodge, via IMDb

I've been a fan of Marty's since RHT's 2001 production of George F. Walker's Problem Child, and my admiration was cemented with his tour-de-force performance in The Drawer Boy (2003). Marty has a sly, wry, hangdog overcoat covering a sincerely sinister underbelly.

The problem with this production is that its surprises invoked laughter. I'm not sure why. The sexual tension between Marty and co-star Celeste Ciulla never sparked for me, so the mutual seduction between the characters Huff and Phyllis erupted too suddenly. Rather than taking our breaths, it punched out  a surprised rumble of laughter in our audience.

The obvious comparison is to the classic film version of Double Indemnity, which grips you by the throat and never lets go. There is not a single laugh in the picture, though the exchanges are incredibly witty. Sample dialogue (not occurring in the RHT production; and ignore the name change, Huff/Marty Lodge versus Neff/Fred MacMurray):

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then.

Walter Neff: Who?

Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren't you?

Walter Neff: Yeah, I was, but I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.

Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.

Walter Neff: How fast was I going, officer?

Phyllis: I'd say around ninety. 

Walter Neff: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket. 

Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time. 

Walter Neff: Suppose it doesn't take. 

Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles. 

Walter Neff: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder. 

Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.

Walter Neff: That tears it. 

(A side note from the audience: I'm pleased with myself for being the one in our area who, during intermission, could answer the question of who starred in the film: Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. I even remembered Edward G. Robinson as the insurance guy, Fred MacMurray's supervisor, investigating the case.)

So I'm not sure what to tell you about this production. I liked it, but don't go in expecting a live, 3-D recreation of the movie. The ending is even different, though I don't exactly recall the movie's ending. I just know this wasn't it.

Double Indemnity plays at Round House Theatre in Bethesda through June 24, 2012.

Written by James M. Cain
Adapted for the stage by David Pichette and R. Hamilton Wright
Directed by Eleanor Holdridge

Cast:
Marty Lodge as Huff
Celeste Ciulla as Phyllis
Todd Scofield as Nirlinger and Keyes
Molly Cahill Govern as Lola and secretary
Danny Gavigan as Nino, Jackson, and Norton

ETA, Happy 10th Anniversary, RHT-Bethesda!

photo by C. G. Wagner - permission to reproduce is granted provided credit is given

Autumn in Bethesda

Just a few pix. Click to enlarge.

Credit all: C. G. Wagner

After a storm:

Setting sun on autumn leaves:

Morning illumination:

and the new public art installation at Union Hardware:

Bethesda's Shame

Just minutes from now, the beautiful, historic, Art Deco treasure, the Bethesda Theatre, goes on the auction block. Rumors suggest it could be converted to a retail space.

Shame, shame, shame on so many levels.








First of all, look at this building, a living monument to a culture, an age, when design mattered. Art Deco wasn't just about architecture, it was a style that crossed into fashion, home furnishings, film making











Second, there is no need for additional retail space in downtown Bethesda. Look around at the shuttered windows.

And look at the humanity left behind by the neglect of our less-humane interests:













Photographs by C. G. Wagner


Shame. Damn shame.

Save the building, and save the culture and the community it honored. Turn it into an educational and cultural center, a gallery, a ballroom, a bandstand, theater, cinema, reception hall.

Or turn it into a homeless shelter until our town gets back on its feet again.


Love, hosaa
Lifelong Bethesda resident, ashamed

ETA, later that same day... Bought by the lender for $2 million. Apparently only the bank itself wanted to buy the debt. I'm assured that "they know" Bethesda Theatre is a treasure, but it will be some time before it will glow again. It's the economy. Still.

"From Orchids to Octopi"

Okay, a play commissioned by NIH and performed before an auditorium of scientists doesn't set one's aesthetic expectations very high, but "From Orchids to Octopi: An Evolutionary Love Story" was inspired.

Performed at my beloved, beleaguered Art Deco landmark, The Bethesda Theatre (whose official Web site is apparently down right now), the play is in the late stages of early development (evolution!) before moving on to Boston. I didn't stay for the post-play discussion, though I probably could have benefited from it. I got most of the science content of the play, but not all. (But hey, I noticed I was the only one who laughed at the one line from "The Wizard of Oz" during one of the dream sequences - "People come and go so quickly here....")

Since the play was commissioned to celebrate the bicentennial (last year) of the birth of Charles Darwin, it's logical to include Darwin as a character in the play. What we see are two couples - Charles and Emma Darwin - and their modern parallel, the twenty-first-century Emma and Charlie, illustrating the evolution of relationships and love into a society of career conflicts and the demands and fears of bringing a new baby into the world.

21C Emma (played by Kortney Adams) is a painter commissioned to paint a mural honoring Darwin, so she throws herself into researching Darwinian theory and Darwin's life. Her impulse is first to find a design principle, but she is frustrated and confused by her dreams of the carnival freak-show that shows life and change as a game of chance.

Domestic scenes with the nineteenth-century Darwins (Wesley Savick and Debra Wise) entertwine and echo with those of 21C Charlie (Tom O'Keefe), an entrepreneurial chef, and wife Emma. There are equal parts tension and tenderness, and a surprisingly sweet treatment of the question, Is love an evolutionary imperative for survival because of the helplessness of the human infant?

The dialogue is smart not just in the science content, but in its playfulness. Stand-out for me was O'Keefe's depiction of the nasty, beligerent tuberculosis, an ever-evolving supermicrobe who demanded to be included in the mural tribute to evolution. (It is the vile TB bug who takes the life of 19C Darwins' young daughter Annie, played fetchingly by Kira McElhiney.)

The ideas bound across disciplines - not just the sciences, but also language and the arts, incorporating even what I will generously call "dance," though it is more accurately stage movement (the lithe and lovely Adams emulating the first species to grow a neck and stretch itself out to a form that is adaptable to new environments).

The set pieces comprised seven tall, multi-paneled columns that the actors switched around to create parlors, doctors' offices, freak-show attractions, scientific displays, and - evolving throughout the play - the beautiful mural of which Darwin himself becomes the centerpiece, integrated into the Tree of Life.

In the end, it is neither design nor chance that defines us, but inspiration.

Other Credits
Playwright: Melinda Lopez
Director: Diego Arciniegas
Set/Puppet Designer: David Fichter (Puppets? Didn't I mention the giraffe?!)

For more information about "From Orchids to Octopi: An Evolutionary Love Story," visit http://www.undergroundrailwaytheater.org/ or Central Square Theater.

Bethesda Snow, Feb. 3, 2010

It was just so pretty this morning....

Wandering Souls: Winter's Tale Well-Told

I cannot praise Wandering Souls highly enough, a small troupe of players bringing to passionate life both the comedy and drama of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale." It was a seven-actor, 20-character tour de force by the peripatetic Wandering Souls, performing their "outreach" production in the beautiful art deco Bethesda Theatre in downtown Bethesda, Maryland, for a limited three-show engagement.

Pared down to its 90-minute essence (the play is perhaps best known for having the greatest stage direction of all time: "Exit, pursued by a bear"), "The Winter's Tale" was accessible to the small audience who was privileged to see it. Though the company did its own marketing, the booking at the between-seasons theater was apparently spur-of-the-moment; the first signal of its existence was the change on the marquee on the day of the first performance.

The vibrant young cast (could any of them have yet seen his or her 30th year?) brought conviction and energy to their multiple roles; the awkwardness of female casting in male roles was deftly handled (Kristen Garaflo as Florizel, Karen Novak as larcenous rogue Autolycus, and puckish Kelsey Meikeljohn as sons of a king and a shepherd), all effusing great charm. One could even hold a warm spot for the irrationally jealous Leontes (JJ Area), for his beliefs, though misguided, were so utterly heartfelt.

The soul of Shakespeare's tragicomedy belongs to the gracious queen Hermione, unjustly condemned for that very graciousness, and her outcast daughter Perdita raised as a shepherdess, parts played with equal helpings of irreproachable nobility and pastoral gaiety by Betsy Rosen.

Kudos to director Adam Jonas Segaller's smart adaptation and clever "stripped down" staging. As actors dart behind a curtain to make a costume (and character) change, or sit on folding chairs off to the side to await their next entrance, there is no attempt for realism except through our connection to the emotions portrayed. This was how Shakespeare often introduced audiences to the staging of his works--suspend your need to see the great battlefields or the passage of time--and the beckoning to use our imaginations is a compelling invitation to adventure.

Kudos also to the Bethesda Theatre and facilities director Tom Davis for offering Wandering Souls the run of the place. The use of the professional venue was intended to show the larger theater-going community what this intrepid band of players is committed to doing elsewhere on its tours of churches, homeless shelters, nursing homes, detention facilities, and community centers.

According to the Wandering Souls' mission statement, printed on the back of the single-sheet program, the troupe is driven by "a belief that the arts can fuel our imagination, engage our personal growth and help unite individuals and communities. Yet, the richness of the arts is often considered a luxury. By bringing stripped-down, high quality, energetic performances to those who have little or no access, we hope to break down that misconception and provide opportunities for a broader cultural exchange."

As the company's Artistic Director Becky Peters was giving her introductory speech before the play--explaining how important it was not just to make the arts more accessible but to actually go into the communities who would not otherwise benefit from these experiences--I commented to my companion, "This was what I wanted to do 30 years ago."

The final performance at Bethesda Theatre is tonight (September 19) at 8 p.m.

links
Bethesda Theatre
Wandering Souls

love, hosaa,
soul still wandering

Footscapes

"My Pedestrian Documentary" by the World Future Society:



The big-picture thinkers often look at a broad landscape and forget to watch their steps. You need to see where you're going, yes, but you also need to get there.

The video ends with a wry lesson. A schlemiel is someone who falls on the slippery ground. A schlimazel is someone who trips on the "Slippery When Wet" sign.

love, hosaa
stepping cautiously into the future