Christmas Extension

Back from the penultimate performance of this year's round of A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theatre. Since the final performance starts in a little over an hour, I'm glad no one is looking to me for go/no-go advice. For the record, it would have been "GO!!" - it's a wonderful, life-affirming story, sprightly told.

Edward Gero as Scrooge, with James Konicek as 

Marley's Ghost (in the portrait).

Photo by Scott Suchman for Ford's Theatre 

Cast, A Christmas Carol. Photo by Scott Suchman

Hard to believe this was my first CC at Ford's, since they do it every year. I don't know whether the production or staging changes from year to year - I suspect so. But I really liked this one a lot. The "twist" I hadn't seen before in this CC telling was the use of multiple casting such that the debtors whom Scrooge terrorizes pre-Marley's-ghost turn up later as ghosts past, present, and future. This gives it that same dreamlike quality of "you look familiar..." that you get from the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion in Wizard of Oz.

Sometimes you just get lucky and find very pleasant seatmates. Had a nice convo with a couple in town to see all the shows they could - Les Miz at National, White Christmas at KenCen, and this. Discovered also that the seat I purchased for this (as well as for the remaining two shows in this Ford's season, Hello Dolly and Our Town) is probably the most perfectly perfect seat I've sat in yet at Ford's, where as I have said before there is no good seat in the house. (Still haven't topped that second-to-last-row in the balcony where I first saw Edward Duke....)

So I was happy even before the show started. The show began with the villagers wandering through the aisles of the theater introducing themselves. I love that. The balcony was decorated with the same Christmas decor as the set. And one of the cast members I recognized right away was that adorable Tom Story I'm well on the way to having a crush on. (His last hilarious turn was as one of the unsuitable suitors of the ingenue in Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare Theatre Company.)

The show was a wonderful tribute to the spirit we strive for, or at least we think we do, most of the time, when we're not all being Republicans and Democrats about this sort of thing. Humanity is our business, isn't it? So leave the decorations up awhile longer and let the season last at least as long after December 25 as it does before.

love,
hosaa,
spirit-visited

The Clay Aiken Christmas Experience

I fell a little behind in my recapping. Totally skipped the lovely evening of ballet (Suzanne Farrell), courtesy of a friend with season tickets, and the very interesting world premiere of Young Robin Hood at Round House (as always, I liked the dancer the best). Autumn just gets busy, you know?

I didn't have to travel nearly as far as some of his more dedicated fans, but the two Clay Aiken Christmas concerts I was able to attend were just far enough away to prompt me to splurge on hotel reservations. Shippen Place in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, was quite lovely, as was the venue, Luhr's Center on campus of Ship-U. Very classy place. The town, a bit run down, however, though I'd be happy to go again sometime.

That is, unless of course Clay promises to come closer to home: e.g., the Birchmere, Strathmore, Kennedy Center, National, Warner, Constitution Hall, and the forthcoming Bethesda Blues and Jazz Club, opening (they say) in February. (I already called dibs on front-row center when Clay plays there.)

Just four days after Shippensburg, Clay played at Easton, Maryland's historic Avalon Theatre (which I have yet to type without adding a g on the end - Avalong). It looked down-in-the-dumps in the Google Street photos I saw, but in real life it was quaint and cozy inside. And the town of Easton is exactly the kind of small town I'd love to live in. I'd totally go back, even if Clay played all of those above mentioned venues in the same tour.

Those who know nothing of these things and still sneer with an air of superiority ask why in the world one goes to more than one Clay Aiken concert in the same tour. Not to mention the fact (which they wouldn't know anyway) that the 2012 iteration of the Joyful Noise Tour (JNT) is more or less a "Best of" previous versions (but without dancers, truckloads of sets and equipment, and elves and heh-heh fairies).

The venues, the towns, the pick-up musicians, the condition of Clay's voice, and the vicissitudes of Clay's hair all make for completely different experiences from one night to the next. Even his banter, dependent on the same basic sets of tall tales, writhes to hilarious alterations.

This year's big audience interaction bit involved someone being chosen to pull a random Christmas carol out of the bowl and see how much of the lyrics they get right. It's funny because Clay himself has a tendency to rely on his own "random-lyric generator," as it has been lovingly named. I was all set to do dramatic interpretations of "Little Drummer Boy" or "Rudolph, the Reindeer with the Red Nose" (using person-first language here), but he didn't call on me.

Those who know nothing of these things and still sneer with an air of superiority actually think Clay ought to know me by first name by now, since I'm apparently his "number-one fan." In fact, even with two "meet and greets" now, and two group photos at the charity galas, I still haven't made eye contact with the guy. I'm not nearly vivacious enough (that's a nice word for it - vivacious) to get his attention. Those who are and do, well, that's entertaining, too. All part of the Clay Aiken experience.

The other reason to go to multiple venues is to see what works on my camera. Camera settings I borrowed from other "clack" gatherers worked pretty well in the gorgeous and spacious auditorium at Shippensburg, but not at all in Easton's tiny Avalon. (Pause to delete another g.) And for video, I just totally used the wrong format (AVCHD) in Shippensburg; switching to mp4 for Easton worked pretty well, except for having the "up my nose" view from the second row.

So here is just a little taste of the Clay Aiken Christmas Experiences.

Shippensburg:

And Easton:

Phantom of the Chem Lab (aka Jekyll and Hyde)

Back from the limited run of Jekyll and Hyde playing at the Kennedy Center through tomorrow.

So I'll lead with the good news, which was that it got a standing ovation, orchestra and first tier, and I didn't hate it.

Truthfully, I just wasn't in the mood for a big overwrought Victorian melodrama. At least the production, which initially just looked cheap to me, was evocative and economical, using sets of moving scrims and projections to recreate the lab, brothel, board room, parlor, as needed. The projections also fairly successfully recreated the internal turmoil, the madness.

And with the main attraction, Constantine Maroulis (he of American Idol season four - the one who played the rock star on TV), you knew what you were going to get: ham and cheese and the whole blue plate special. I will say he delivers the goods.

What I hate about any musical that basically only has one good song is when they put it in the wrong place in the program. "This Is the Moment," one of the greatest show songs of all time, comes somewhere in the middle of Act One and is all chewed up with Constantine's hammy acting.

I'm a sucker for a great Act One finale, and the brilliant number given to co-star Deborah Cox as Lucy (the Prostitute with the Heart of Gold), "Someone Like You," again, was buried in the penultimate position before intermission.

As I said, I just wasn't in the mood this afternoon, but Cox's performance really was the only thing that hooked me. I'll be checking out her albums.

As for the story, really, why let the great morality fable of "Jekyll and Hyde" (how to extract and eliminate evil from humanity) languish in Victorian goth? (Even Round House's brilliant Dorian Gray a couple of years ago brought the aesthetic up to mid-20th century.) With all the hopeful-yet-playing-god controversy that today's mad scientists are dredging up in the transhumanism movement, isn't a 21st century update in order? And the takeaway is the same, to me: You conquer evil with kindness.

Love, hosaa

ETA link to the cast recording of the 2012 J&H "Concept" album.

Survivance and the American Indian

The little red squiggly line underneath the word "survivance" tells me that it is not an accepted English term, but it is the dominant theme of the National Museum of the American Indian, one of Smithsonian's less-traveled treasures. It's a block past the Air and Space Museum as you come from the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station. It stands between Air and Space and the Capitol dome.

All photos by C. G. Wagner; please credit and link if used.

Some takeaways, including the official museum book and a button commemorating today (Nov. 23) as Native American Heritage Day

View from the fourth floor.

Maidu Creation Story (2001) by Harry Fonseca

Background: Kiowa moccasin leggings

Inset: Kiowa Aw-Day (beaded sneakers) by Teri Greeves, 2004

The term "survivance" is attributed to Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor in the 1994 book Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance and means "more than survival," according to the museum exhibit notes. "Survivance means redefining ourselves. It means raising our social and political consciousness. It means holding onto ancient principles while eagerly embracing change. It means doing what is necessary to keep our cultures alive."

I admit I came to the museum today with no idea that it was Native American Heritage Day (or even American Indian Heritage Month). The day after Thanksgiving is just a good day to explore the unknown parts of my own neighborhood. And I take the broadest sense of that word: the cultures I walk among that are largely strangers to me.

So ignorant am I of this subject matter that, literally, the first I'd ever heard of Squanto was just last night, watching the Peanuts Thanksgiving special (the "Mayflower Voyages" half). So I was happy that the first exhibit I saw today had to do with Squanto, the Patuxet who was kidnapped by Europeans and, upon being returned to North America as a fluent English speaker, helped the Pilgrims adjust to the harsh land and climate.

The signage in the museum directs you to start on the upper floors, where you begin with the beginning, the mythologies of the universe and of creation. I stopped to watch a video presentation of a Cheyenne story about how the Big Dipper was formed. (Down in the bookshop, I could find no book or video or any souvenir of that charming and even tear-inducing story, but here it is at First People's Legends page: "The Quill-Work Girl and Her Seven Brothers.")

You can't help but be impressed by how fully integrated the indigenous peoples of the Americas were (and are) with their environment. It is embedded in the DNA, this reverence and respect for the natural world. I followed the crowd to a display of Alaskan wares, where there was a sheer coat made of an unusual, diaphanous material. Since I was the one standing next to the caption, I identified it for the group as "seal gut." Oooh! was the response. "They didn't waste a thing.... Waste not, want not." We all wondered how it could possibly have kept anyone warm.

"Waste not, want not" needs to apply to people. After having just seen Lincoln and the battle for treating slaves as human beings, I stood there wondering who had been treated worse--Africans who had been kidnapped from their homes and enslaved, or the indigenous peoples whose lands were stolen out from under them and killed outright. (Some of this murder was apparently an accident; the Europeans brought diseases to which natives had no immunity, and their populations were decimated.)

Death and destruction of culture continue even through "modern" times, as Native Americans have had to fight even for the right to educate children in their own languages and customs, and not be confined to a "choice" of either Protestant or Catholic schools.

I have no claims to a religious worldview, but the spiritual connection of humans to each other--and to animals, the land, the elements--makes a lot of sense to me. We are connected to everything and must be, lest we waste whatever it will take for all of our future survivance.

"Limit chaos
And cultivate order:
By singing, dancing, and
Talking to each other.

Realize life is short,
Respect your elders,
And recognize that death
Is a part of living."

--excerpt from "The Maidu Creation Story," told by Henry Azbill, 2002, and put to verse by Judy Allison

Mid-November's Midsummer

Back from (well, last night) A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare Theatre Company's lovely Sidney Harman Hall. It was an official Meet-Up selection of the DC area Shakespeare Explorers group, and the lovely Rosa Mexicano next door offered us a congenial meal and a chance to discuss, not all things Shakespeare, but some things Shakespeare, plus a little Lincoln and politics and parking and other what-nots.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to talk about the performance afterwards. I was up in the cheap seats mezzanine, my pick-up companions scattered as ticket-buying options allowed them, and my real goal at the end of any evening out is to get home. That meant rushing to the subway across the street in the hope of catching a train quickly; missing one means adding another 20 minutes or so to the journey home.

So what I really loved right away about this production was the design (kudos to Lee Savage, set designer, and Jennifer Moeller, costume designer). I thought the choice of a post-war aesthetic for the "real" people brought the story up to a more approachable time, and the shabby burlesque-theater aesthetic for the fairy kingdom was just really interesting. It reinforced the "all the world's a stage" idea that runs throughout Shakespeare, and underscored Puck's end speech about the play being but a dream. Or maybe our dreams are but a play. I just liked it.

Of course, then I had a funny dream afterwards, wherein one of my Meet-up chums left me a hastily scribbled note after the play, not having the opportunity to discuss it. The note just said "Nooooo!"

See, that's why I don't necessarily like to read reviews. It depresses me to be disagreed with. I have no idea what the reviewers are going to make of this odd staging, but I thought it was brilliant. And to give you an idea of how fully I buy into whatever I'm seeing, I didn't even realize that the same actor and actress (Tim Campbell and Sara Topham) played both the real-life royals (Theseus and Hippolyta) and the fairy royals (Oberon and Titania).

Tim Campbell and Sara Topham, in rehearsal.

Photo courtesy of Shakespeare Theatre Company

In the Nov. 9 issue of the STC's Asides newsletters about this production, Shakespeare scholar David Bevington writes about the transformations that happen during the course of the play: "The motif of transformation is inherently theatrical, calling attention to its own devices of impersonation and rapid changing of roles, for the delight of audiences and of the actors themselves."

So calling attention to the inherently theatrical experience by setting the play in a theater makes a lot of sense. Not bad for a play that's all nonsense! *g*

A Midsummer Night's Dream plays through December 30 at Sidney Harman Hall.
Directed by Ethan McSweeny

Cast:
Tim Campbell: Theseus/Oberon
Sara Topham: Hippolyta/Titania
Adam Green: Puck/Philostrate
Robert Beitzel: Lysander
Amelia Pedlow: Hermia
Christiana Clark: Helena
Chris Myers: Demetrius
Bruce Dow: Bottom
Ted van Griethuysen: Quince
David Graham Jones: Flute
Herschel Sparber: Snout
Robert Dorfman: Snug
Christopher Bloch: Robin Starveling
Lawrence Redmond: Egeus (Hermia's father)
Nancy Anderson: First Fairy
Maxwell Balay, Rohan Saxena (alternating): Changeling Boy

David Graham Jones (kneeling) and Bruce Dow rehearse as Flute and Bottom.

Photo courtesy of Shakespeare Theatre Company

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

A Little Charity That Could: National Inclusion Project

Back from the National Inclusion Project's ninth annual Champions Gala, held for the first and probably last time ever in Washington, D.C. Beautiful venues - the J.W. Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue, adjacent to the National Theatre - probably came at too high a price for the organization and its base of supporters, which continues to consist almost entirely of project co-founder Clay Aiken's fans.

The 2012 event benefited from the added star power of Arsenio Hall, Debbie Gibson, and Ruben Studdard, all of whom did their duty tweeting to their own followers to support this event. I was a little surprised, though, that there was, to my knowledge, no local coverage.

As is the case whenever one is involved with an earnest organization like this, one thinks it is the most important thing in the world and that its work should inspire, impress, and engage everyone. But the thing is, charities like this are a dime a dozen in D.C., and it's next to impossible to get attention. You do your best to tell the story (and the stories of the honorees were all inspiring and impressive), but if there is no audience, there is no communication.

I spoke informally with one of the NIP's leaders, and learned that the PR work for this event was coordinated by a third party, whose efforts to engage the local media were less than productive. Despite the organization's efforts to stand on its own merits (originally called the Bubel/Aiken Foundation, it renamed itself National Inclusion Project to clarify its mission and rely less on Clay Aiken's spotlight), the local media suits saw celebrity dollar signs and offered only some kind of expensive promotional package.

Excuse me, but WTF?

I don't work in public relations, but I do work in a small, earnest organization that, like NIP, hopes to better the world. We know how hard it is to get attention, but we have our own communications director who puts a lot of work into message building and outreach. He shapes the story to the audience he is addressing. Press releases are not one-size fits all anymore. And it is important that the organization be the one to tell the story itself, not job it out.

(The National Inclusion Project's story, by the way, is a timely one. All of its honorees last night shared the same basic message that inclusion conquers the social segregation that produces bullying. The theme of "Let's ALL Play" overcomes the fear of differences.)

I have learned a lot from watching the National Inclusion Project grow from the mind of a college student working on an independent project to complete his degree in special education. The Project's biggest strength is the partnerships it has built. In my opinion, that partnership ought to have included the media in a more personal and direct way. Put a TV anchor on the program, or even emcee; tell the same stories that inspired the supporters in the first place. Those kinds of stories are extremely appealing at the end of an evening news broadcast.

Maybe I'm naive (or old fashioned). But as an editor for a nonprofit organization's magazine, I simply don't believe in paid content. We don't buy stories, and we certainly don't sell them. Either transaction is a disservice to our readers, who are our members and supporters. I believe there are still members of the for-profit media that share this principle. Those are partnerships worth cultivating.

Edited to clarify: My "WTF" was about the package deal that this consortium of local stations wanted to offer to give NIP coverage. It's not a criticism of NIP or its PR efforts. They didn't take that stinky deal, nor should they. I simply don't want to live in a media environment where the feature stories on the news are paid content. 

Yet, just look at today's local listings on the TV schedule: hours and hours of "paid programming." Sigh.