Panic attacking
short term memory archive
and I forgot to
Monday, February 24, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Behind the Snowball
Sometimes I feel like Edwin the Boy Scout, who was perpetually a week behind in his daily "acts of kindness," to the point of polishing Bertie Wooster's black shoes with brown polish. Maybe my behindedness won't go so far as to inconvenience anyone.
I'm already behind on at least one event, the Patti and Mandy concert at KenCen, and by tonight I'll be behind by two more: Violet at Ford's, which closes after my matinee, and Importance/Earnest at STC, which I see has been extended to March 16. I blame a combination of the weather, work, the Olympics, and illness.
Is there a personality test that will illustrate my propensity only to get sick on snow days and holidays? Bleh.
Plus, a dog ate my homework. And it's getting harder to find a dog who's up to the task.
Never mind that I'm going through my dreamy season, both in the real sense of having an unusual bout of mysterious boyfriend dreams (who are these guys? And more to the point, where are they?) and in the literary sense, thanks to the reemergence lately of my dear old friends, Perry and Joy.
Someday I'll introduce you. I think they're reaching public domain status, having reached some 28 years since their conception. Dear old friends, they, still chattering on. Heh.
Fictional characters, imaginary friends
Potatoes, potahtoes.
Love, hosaa
remembering Joy (and Perry)
I'm already behind on at least one event, the Patti and Mandy concert at KenCen, and by tonight I'll be behind by two more: Violet at Ford's, which closes after my matinee, and Importance/Earnest at STC, which I see has been extended to March 16. I blame a combination of the weather, work, the Olympics, and illness.
Is there a personality test that will illustrate my propensity only to get sick on snow days and holidays? Bleh.
Plus, a dog ate my homework. And it's getting harder to find a dog who's up to the task.
Never mind that I'm going through my dreamy season, both in the real sense of having an unusual bout of mysterious boyfriend dreams (who are these guys? And more to the point, where are they?) and in the literary sense, thanks to the reemergence lately of my dear old friends, Perry and Joy.
Someday I'll introduce you. I think they're reaching public domain status, having reached some 28 years since their conception. Dear old friends, they, still chattering on. Heh.
Fictional characters, imaginary friends
Potatoes, potahtoes.
Love, hosaa
remembering Joy (and Perry)
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Writers Get Schooled
Would-be writers have a lot to learn about the realities of writing and publishing and getting read, and a lot of those lessons are up for interpretation, as documented in the Round House Theatre's production of Theresa Rebeck's Seminar.
This is the kind of play that should either be right up my alley or too in-your-face close to home and off-putting. While I certainly could relate to the writing and editing and hoping to be published aspects of the story, I personally lack the ambition that put the would-be writers into the room with their well-paid but dismissive and abusive tutor. At my point in my career, I could relate best to the tutor (hopefully I'm not that dismissive and abusive!), whose promising writing career had been thwarted and redirected to editing and tutoring.
Anyway, it was relatively easy for me to create the distance I needed from my parallelling life and enjoy the language, the actors' interactions, the rhythms, and all that make productions worth producing. It's an adult comedy, hitting many of the same notes as RHT's This earlier this season.
What I was looking forward to most was seeing three of my favorite local actors playing together: The adorably goofy Tom Story (as Douglas), of course, plus Marty Lodge (Leonard), who first captured my attention in the old RHT's round space as the ghetto hotel manager in Problem Child, and the breathtakingly versatile Katie deBuys (Kate), whose previous Shakespearean work (Henry V at Folger and Measure for Measure at STC) I have noted as chameleon-like. It was great to see more of her in a contemporary role.
A play about writing that doesn't show much of the writing under review--just the characters' reactions to the writing and to each other's reactions--is naturally going to be (as my companion noted, without irony) talky. In the care of such good actors, though, the talk has its own musicality. As the cynical, misogynistic tutor, Marty Lodge tears down the student work in monologues that are positively Homerian.
This is the kind of play that should either be right up my alley or too in-your-face close to home and off-putting. While I certainly could relate to the writing and editing and hoping to be published aspects of the story, I personally lack the ambition that put the would-be writers into the room with their well-paid but dismissive and abusive tutor. At my point in my career, I could relate best to the tutor (hopefully I'm not that dismissive and abusive!), whose promising writing career had been thwarted and redirected to editing and tutoring.
Anyway, it was relatively easy for me to create the distance I needed from my parallelling life and enjoy the language, the actors' interactions, the rhythms, and all that make productions worth producing. It's an adult comedy, hitting many of the same notes as RHT's This earlier this season.
What I was looking forward to most was seeing three of my favorite local actors playing together: The adorably goofy Tom Story (as Douglas), of course, plus Marty Lodge (Leonard), who first captured my attention in the old RHT's round space as the ghetto hotel manager in Problem Child, and the breathtakingly versatile Katie deBuys (Kate), whose previous Shakespearean work (Henry V at Folger and Measure for Measure at STC) I have noted as chameleon-like. It was great to see more of her in a contemporary role.
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| Marty Lodge and Katie deBuys. Photo by Danisha Crosby for Round House Theatre |
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| (L-R): Laura C. Harris, Tom Story, Katie deBuys, Alexander Strain. Round House Theatre via Facebook |
I've also seen Alexander Strain (Martin) and Laura C. Harris (Izzy) in other productions--Strain was RHT's Asher Lev, for instance, and one of the highlights of Glengarry Glen Ross, and Harris was a delightfully feisty Marian in RHT's Young Robin Hood--so it was nice to see them shine in this tight ensemble.
Speaking of careers evolving from writing to something less glamorous (but no less honorable), I see Lloyd Rose, a former drama critic for the Washington Post, served as dramaturg for this production. She's apparently been doing this sort of thing for a while. I still don't know what dramaturgs do, but I think, like editors, they make other writers' writing better. Well done.
Seminar
Written by Theresa Rebeck
Directed by Jerry Whiddon
Round House Theatre, Bethesda, MD ~ February 5 – March 2, 2014
Cast
Leonard: Marty Lodge
Kate: Katie deBuys
Martin: Alexander Strain
Douglas: Tom Story
Izzy: Laura C. Harris
scenic designer: James Kronzer
costume designer: Ivania Stack
lighting designer: Daniel MacLean Wagner
original score/arrangements/sound design: Eric Shimelonis
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Slavery, Identity, Faith, and Redemption
I hadn't planned on seeing 12 Years a Slave, simply because I knew it would be tough to watch. However, since I had just finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, I wanted to see how the same subject matter was handled.
[NOTE: Spoilers within.]
Before I go any farther, let me defend the character of Uncle Tom. The name is now commonly used as a racial epithet, but upon reading the book I couldn't understand why. Tom was good, almost too good, and he did defy Simon Legree. He wasn't servile; he survived the situation he was in without compromising his principles. It was apparently after the original Uncle Tom's Cabin was published that subsequent depictions layered demeaning stereotypes onto the character.
Critics have said that Uncle Tom was too good, even "foolishly good," while other characters--notably women in the story, like Cassy--believed that being forced to sin would not count against them in the eyes of God.
Back to 12 Years: There were plenty of similarities to Uncle Tom's Cabin in construction and character. Free black man Solomon Northup, reassigned the identity of Platt after his kidnapping into slavery, is the parallel to Uncle Tom. The young girl Patsey is a combination of Emmeline and Cassy on the Legree plantation (with Alfre Woodard as Mistress Shaw playing another side of the "sin to survive" Cassy role), and the two principal slaveholders--merciful Ford and merciless Epps--correlate to Augustine St. Clare and Simon Legree respectively. The wife of Epps is a cross between St. Clare's self-centered wife Marie and Lady Macbeth.
As it turns out, Stowe was indeed influenced by Northup's story, as told in the newspaper accounts preceding the publication of his book. Her last chapter, "Concluding Remarks," is full of nonspecific references to personal experiences and reliable accounts that authenticate her story and characters, even though they are fictional.
What I wanted to see in the movie was whether Northup made the same choice that Tom did when faced with the same dilemma: whether to abandon their goodness for the sake of survival. And if he did not, if he defied the "Legree" character, what was his motive?
The character of Little Eva does not exist in 12 Years, perhaps because she was an impossible fiction, useful for Stowe's moral message to her audience. Eva, the daughter of merciful slaveholder St. Clare, befriends not only Uncle Tom, but also the untouchable Topsy. Eva was the morsel of Christian perfection that helped to feed Tom's soul.
In his defiance of Legree, refusing to whip another slave, Tom drew on his religious faith that forbade him from doing this evil thing. I guess we can argue that this didn't really save him, since he is ultimately beaten to death. But in a sense, he was saved because of his faith in the glory that his soul was being delivered to. His goodness was uncompromised.
There was little in the way of a Christian redemption for Northup, but he was a good and honorable man. His situation was different from Tom's because he had been kidnapped from freedom and denied his true identity. Northup would remain good and moral as much as he could as long as he could keep hold of his identity and the hope that it would be restored to him.
As Northup is continually betrayed, he loses sight of this true identity: He unthinkingly joins other slaves singing the empty promises of the spiritual "Roll, Jordan, Roll." He breaks apart his violin, in which he had inscribed the names of his family. In a climactic scene, when he is lost in his slave identity, he does the unthinkably evil thing that Tom would not: When so ordered, he whips the slave Patsey. He just doesn't do it with enough gusto to satisfy Epps, and so is relieved from the immoral duty.
What little reference there is to Christianity in this film (and I can't speak to Northup's book, only this adaptation) is ironic and hollow. We hear the Sunday sermons that the more merciful slaveholder Ford delivers to his audience of slaves, but they are underscored first by the taunts of one of his overseers and then by the heartbroken wails of a woman forever separated from her children.
If I posit that, though lacking Tom's Christian faith, Northup was equally noble, what was his salvation? Alike in dignity but dissimilar in education and background, Northup held onto the truth of his identity and was, to his own self, true.
[NOTE: Spoilers within.]
Before I go any farther, let me defend the character of Uncle Tom. The name is now commonly used as a racial epithet, but upon reading the book I couldn't understand why. Tom was good, almost too good, and he did defy Simon Legree. He wasn't servile; he survived the situation he was in without compromising his principles. It was apparently after the original Uncle Tom's Cabin was published that subsequent depictions layered demeaning stereotypes onto the character.
 |
| Uncle Tom and Simon Legree, in c1885 illustration - via Wikipedia |
Back to 12 Years: There were plenty of similarities to Uncle Tom's Cabin in construction and character. Free black man Solomon Northup, reassigned the identity of Platt after his kidnapping into slavery, is the parallel to Uncle Tom. The young girl Patsey is a combination of Emmeline and Cassy on the Legree plantation (with Alfre Woodard as Mistress Shaw playing another side of the "sin to survive" Cassy role), and the two principal slaveholders--merciful Ford and merciless Epps--correlate to Augustine St. Clare and Simon Legree respectively. The wife of Epps is a cross between St. Clare's self-centered wife Marie and Lady Macbeth.
 |
| 12 Years a Slave movie poster via IMDb. |
What I wanted to see in the movie was whether Northup made the same choice that Tom did when faced with the same dilemma: whether to abandon their goodness for the sake of survival. And if he did not, if he defied the "Legree" character, what was his motive?
The character of Little Eva does not exist in 12 Years, perhaps because she was an impossible fiction, useful for Stowe's moral message to her audience. Eva, the daughter of merciful slaveholder St. Clare, befriends not only Uncle Tom, but also the untouchable Topsy. Eva was the morsel of Christian perfection that helped to feed Tom's soul.
In his defiance of Legree, refusing to whip another slave, Tom drew on his religious faith that forbade him from doing this evil thing. I guess we can argue that this didn't really save him, since he is ultimately beaten to death. But in a sense, he was saved because of his faith in the glory that his soul was being delivered to. His goodness was uncompromised.
There was little in the way of a Christian redemption for Northup, but he was a good and honorable man. His situation was different from Tom's because he had been kidnapped from freedom and denied his true identity. Northup would remain good and moral as much as he could as long as he could keep hold of his identity and the hope that it would be restored to him.
As Northup is continually betrayed, he loses sight of this true identity: He unthinkingly joins other slaves singing the empty promises of the spiritual "Roll, Jordan, Roll." He breaks apart his violin, in which he had inscribed the names of his family. In a climactic scene, when he is lost in his slave identity, he does the unthinkably evil thing that Tom would not: When so ordered, he whips the slave Patsey. He just doesn't do it with enough gusto to satisfy Epps, and so is relieved from the immoral duty.
What little reference there is to Christianity in this film (and I can't speak to Northup's book, only this adaptation) is ironic and hollow. We hear the Sunday sermons that the more merciful slaveholder Ford delivers to his audience of slaves, but they are underscored first by the taunts of one of his overseers and then by the heartbroken wails of a woman forever separated from her children.
If I posit that, though lacking Tom's Christian faith, Northup was equally noble, what was his salvation? Alike in dignity but dissimilar in education and background, Northup held onto the truth of his identity and was, to his own self, true.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
"Bobsledding with the Crooners" - An Olympic Clay Aiken Mockumentary
As counter-programming for the upcoming Winter Olympics, I offer the following tale.
As we all know, the most popular radio program of the early 1950s was Kate Smith's Bobsledding with the Crooners. The beloved Miss Smith's cheery, radio-friendly presence and wholesome demeanor were an inspiration to an entire nation.
It was the favorite radio show of Clay Aiken's grandfather (after the Grand Ol' Opry). When Clay was just a boy, Papa would regale him with stories of the exciting competitions and passionate rivalries among Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Elvis, and all the other great bob-crooners.
Papa even took little Clay-boy to visit the great bobsled-crooning teams of the nation:
Barry Manilow and Paul Anka ...
... Lionel Ritchie and Neil Sedaka ...
Savvy little businessman that he was, Clay even had the foresight to seek sponsors, such as big important computer-game manufacturers!
But as Clay grew older, he watched sadly as the popularity of this once-beloved radio program waned. Novelties and gimmicks eventually destroyed the show all together.
... and the fierce cabaret sledder and Gershwin aficionado, Michael Feinstein ...
Some teams that were serious about reviving the sport began recruiting bob-crooners of the past to help them develop their skills.
The famous Jamaican Bobsled team looked to handsome Harry Belafonte for inspiration and support ...
... but not even Harry could aid the team. "Too pitchy, man," he moaned, shaking his head.
Old-time sledders knew they still had something to prove. And America's youth began to take heed.
Meanwhile, young Clay got a little distracted by a TV show called American Idol. He thought he could interest his new friends and teammates in reviving the sport-art of bobsled-crooning.
But the exhausting schedule of the show (and its incessant dance rehearsals--what's that all about?) left poor Clay drained. He always needed a nap.
When the show ended and Clay had won (almost), he easily united his best good friends and created Team Idol:
Justin and Constantine ...
... Missy Elliott and Beyonce ...
... Groban, Buble, and Connick ...
... and that notorious team hastily assembled by the devious Simon, Team Divo ...
Questions arose whether the Team Idol could truly compete with the likes of Bob-princess Britney Spears.
Soon, Team Idol began to fall apart. Anchor man Ruben Studdard went off on his own, finding great success as a solo bob-crooner.
Clay put on his game face and gave it his best shot, but his heart was not in it. "It's not a competition. It's NOT a competition. It's NOT A COMPETITION!"
"Ooops!"
And he won! (Almost.)
Still, our man Clay did not despair. He would somehow find a way to fulfill his dream of reviving Miss Smith's vision, and Bobsledding with the Crooners would live again, even if it had to be on cable.
He sought solace where he would often go for comfort ... a nearby zoo.
Suddenly, Clay had an idea! "Hey, Ah have an idea!" he exclaimed joyfully.
It came to him as though in a dream. A very fast dream:
"Papa's right, Bobsleddin' an' croonin' all together is best enjoyed on the radio (the radio, the radio)," Clay reasoned, humming to himself merrily. "It's the age of TV--Ah need visuals!"
Clay recruited and signed an amazingly talented team for his all new "reality serious," Bobsledding with Pedro the Penguin.
And Clay Aiken developed happily ever after.
As we all know, the most popular radio program of the early 1950s was Kate Smith's Bobsledding with the Crooners. The beloved Miss Smith's cheery, radio-friendly presence and wholesome demeanor were an inspiration to an entire nation.
Papa even took little Clay-boy to visit the great bobsled-crooning teams of the nation:
Barry Manilow and Paul Anka ...
... Lionel Ritchie and Neil Sedaka ...
He became an instant fan! Young Clay wanted to grow up to be just like them. Oh, how he longed to sing and race!
But as Clay grew older, he watched sadly as the popularity of this once-beloved radio program waned. Novelties and gimmicks eventually destroyed the show all together.
It seemed that the nation had lost sight of the importance of singing and racing as a combined art and skill. Crooning and bobsledding gradually became separate specialties, and few individuals possessed the talent to succeed at both disciplines.
And so radio, too--and its enormous influence on popular culture--died.
Through the years, many attempts were made to revive Bobsledding with the Crooners, but they failed ...
Like the Beatles ...
... like Bono and the Boss ...
Some teams that were serious about reviving the sport began recruiting bob-crooners of the past to help them develop their skills.
The famous Jamaican Bobsled team looked to handsome Harry Belafonte for inspiration and support ...
... but not even Harry could aid the team. "Too pitchy, man," he moaned, shaking his head.
Old-time sledders knew they still had something to prove. And America's youth began to take heed.
Meanwhile, young Clay got a little distracted by a TV show called American Idol. He thought he could interest his new friends and teammates in reviving the sport-art of bobsled-crooning.
But the exhausting schedule of the show (and its incessant dance rehearsals--what's that all about?) left poor Clay drained. He always needed a nap.
When the show ended and Clay had won (almost), he easily united his best good friends and created Team Idol:
... ready to tackle the best bob-crooners of the world:
Justin and Constantine ...
... Missy Elliott and Beyonce ...
... Groban, Buble, and Connick ...
... and that notorious team hastily assembled by the devious Simon, Team Divo ...
Questions arose whether the Team Idol could truly compete with the likes of Bob-princess Britney Spears.
Soon, Team Idol began to fall apart. Anchor man Ruben Studdard went off on his own, finding great success as a solo bob-crooner.
Clay put on his game face and gave it his best shot, but his heart was not in it. "It's not a competition. It's NOT a competition. It's NOT A COMPETITION!"
"Ooops!"
And he won! (Almost.)
Still, our man Clay did not despair. He would somehow find a way to fulfill his dream of reviving Miss Smith's vision, and Bobsledding with the Crooners would live again, even if it had to be on cable.
He sought solace where he would often go for comfort ... a nearby zoo.
Suddenly, Clay had an idea! "Hey, Ah have an idea!" he exclaimed joyfully.
It came to him as though in a dream. A very fast dream:
"Papa's right, Bobsleddin' an' croonin' all together is best enjoyed on the radio (the radio, the radio)," Clay reasoned, humming to himself merrily. "It's the age of TV--Ah need visuals!"
Clay recruited and signed an amazingly talented team for his all new "reality serious," Bobsledding with Pedro the Penguin.
Unfortunately, the pilot did not sell--not even to Animal Planet. Undaunted, however, Clay maintained close ties with all his bobsledding penguins and crooners as he continued to develop new ideas for his own production company.
And Clay Aiken developed happily ever after.
THE END
Story and graphics by hosaa, originally published at The Clayboard, February 13, 2006.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Finding "Her" in Translation
I meant to go see 12 Years a Slave today because I just finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin yesterday and wanted to do a compare and contrast. I was about 10 minutes late for 12 and ended up going to another show on my list, Her.
I'm a little rusty on shows I would compare and contrast this one to. From the premise--an artificially intelligent operating system of the future gains user trust by casually getting permission to read his entire hard drive, e-mails and all--I thought it would be more of a Big Brother/Big Corporation evil takeover thriller like The Net. In the latter, Sandra Bullock's character is much like Joaquin Phoenix's character Theodore, a nerdy, lonely techie.
But there is no sinister plot twist in Her other than the implications for human connectivity. Samantha (voiced by Lost in Translation star Scarlett Johansson) evolved in and out of her humanity with the accelerated learning capability that she was built with. That's the future that's being created now. Her feelings and understandings are both real and fictional, vivid recreations of reality but not real reality.
Her has the same melancholy feel to it that Lost in Translation had. The premise, though, is probably more polarizing. So which is creepier, having a middle-aged man fall in love with a young girl, or having a lonely guy fall in love with his computer? Maybe only Scarlett Johansson can answer that! She makes a pretty fetching love interest for both Bill Murray and Joaquin Phoenix.
The other film this sort of reminded me of was Purple Rose of Cairo, in which Mia Farrow falls in love with a character on the movie screen. As she puts it, "he's fictional, but you can't have everything."
Who among us hasn't fallen in love with someone fictional at some point? I love the same heroes that Jane Austen's heroines pant for. I loved my Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, or some imagined combination of those characters. If virtual relationships bring joy, what's the big deal?
The big deal is the realization that it can only be one-sided. Theodore's own occupation--writing "beautiful handwritten letters" on behalf of strangers, whom he gets to "know" by doing their correspondence for them--is really no different from Samantha's occupation as an operating system. He gradually accepts her as an intimate, but she is unlikely to truly feel more for him than he feels for his clients. That reality is what makes "fictional" relationships heartbreaking.
Anyway, I didn't find Her to be particularly creepy. And I spy a happy ending after the ending.
Now let's talk about the garments of the near future, these high-waisted misadventures on men. Now THIS is creepy:
The costume designer is Casey Storm, but there was another end credit for a "future" wardrobe or costume consultant. Unfortunately, I don't see that name in the IMDb crew listings and I've forgotten it already. Calling Project Runway!!
eta, here is a quote about the costuming from Casey Storm in Women's Wear Daily:
“The high-waisted thing is kind of referencing things decades past,” said Casey Storm, the film’s costume designer. “Maybe some Humphrey Bogart played into it.”
So there you go: It's retro. So much for vision, but I guess it's selling. Big Corporations win after all.
Love, hosaa
Slightly mistrustful of both virtual and real reality
 |
| Joaquin Phoenix in Her. Images from Movies.Yahoo.com |
But there is no sinister plot twist in Her other than the implications for human connectivity. Samantha (voiced by Lost in Translation star Scarlett Johansson) evolved in and out of her humanity with the accelerated learning capability that she was built with. That's the future that's being created now. Her feelings and understandings are both real and fictional, vivid recreations of reality but not real reality.
Her has the same melancholy feel to it that Lost in Translation had. The premise, though, is probably more polarizing. So which is creepier, having a middle-aged man fall in love with a young girl, or having a lonely guy fall in love with his computer? Maybe only Scarlett Johansson can answer that! She makes a pretty fetching love interest for both Bill Murray and Joaquin Phoenix.
The other film this sort of reminded me of was Purple Rose of Cairo, in which Mia Farrow falls in love with a character on the movie screen. As she puts it, "he's fictional, but you can't have everything."
Who among us hasn't fallen in love with someone fictional at some point? I love the same heroes that Jane Austen's heroines pant for. I loved my Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, or some imagined combination of those characters. If virtual relationships bring joy, what's the big deal?
The big deal is the realization that it can only be one-sided. Theodore's own occupation--writing "beautiful handwritten letters" on behalf of strangers, whom he gets to "know" by doing their correspondence for them--is really no different from Samantha's occupation as an operating system. He gradually accepts her as an intimate, but she is unlikely to truly feel more for him than he feels for his clients. That reality is what makes "fictional" relationships heartbreaking.
Anyway, I didn't find Her to be particularly creepy. And I spy a happy ending after the ending.
Now let's talk about the garments of the near future, these high-waisted misadventures on men. Now THIS is creepy:
The costume designer is Casey Storm, but there was another end credit for a "future" wardrobe or costume consultant. Unfortunately, I don't see that name in the IMDb crew listings and I've forgotten it already. Calling Project Runway!!
eta, here is a quote about the costuming from Casey Storm in Women's Wear Daily:
“The high-waisted thing is kind of referencing things decades past,” said Casey Storm, the film’s costume designer. “Maybe some Humphrey Bogart played into it.”
So there you go: It's retro. So much for vision, but I guess it's selling. Big Corporations win after all.
Love, hosaa
Slightly mistrustful of both virtual and real reality
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