Extra Criticum

Serendipity and Meryl Streep at the Quad Cinema

On Tuesday afternoon, my plan was to take my Mom to see Claude Berri's THE TWO OF US at the Quad Cinema. About an hour before we headed out I learned that -- oops! -- in a last-minute scheduling change, that time slot would be filled instead with a screening of Ai Weiwei's Oscar-nominated doc, HUMAN FLOW. The film interested us both just as much so we grabbed our coats and headed the two blocks to the Quad.

I was surprised to see a big crowd filling the lobby of the tiny multiplex at 4PM on a Tuesday and apprehensively asked if there were two tickets available. There were. We went in, grabbed our seats and waited as virtually every seat in the theatre (70 total?) was slowly filled. 

The Quad's programming director walked down to the front of the theatre. As he did so, I realized that there was probably going to be a Q&A and I briefly recalled the time in 1999 when I had been called to the front of one of the Quad's screens to introduce my film, ALL THE RAGE. I remember still what I said that night. The film had already screened at dozens of film festivals across the globe and throughout the U.S. but that screening at the Quad would be its New York Premiere. And I made a joke about my delight at finally getting the opportunity to screen my film in "the center of the universe."

"We have a great honor this afternoon that the filmmaker, Ai Weiwei is here to introduce his film. And..." And he paused and cleared his throat for dramatic effect. "And I can hardly believe I'm saying this but to introduce Weiwei we have three-time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep."

STREET THEATRE: Oh Mr. Albee, Aren't we all just hanging by a thread?

Something strange happened yesterday at the Quad Cinema on 13th Street. I'd taken Mom to an early-evening screening of the filmed version of Edward Albee's A DELICATE BALANCE. If you haven't seen the film, it's a rare treat. And if you know the play, there are some interesting adjustments. But more or less, Albee, who wrote the screenplay himself, stuck pretty close to the original.

In any event, Mom and I had just thoroughly loved it. It was such fun to just sort of bathe in Mr. Albee's acerbic wit, lines that make you laugh and shudder all at once. I was so glad to have the Quad Cinema so close to home.

About 5 min. into the film, a guy who had been sitting right behind me, slithered around and past our row and into a seat in the row just in front of us. At 5PM on a Thursday it was a sparsely filled house. I wondered for the briefest of moments whether he was moving to get away from us but neither I nor my Mom are particularly tall, so I dismissed the thought and forgot about him.

As the lights came up slowly as Mom and I watched the credits roll, I heard him speaking very loudly.

The Day I Became a Composer

When I was eight or nine I'd been taking piano lessons for a couple of years. One day I arrived at my weekly lesson unprepared and my teacher noted the fact that it seemed as though I hadn't practiced much since our previous lesson.

 

At first I was shy to admit it but eventually she teased it out of me.

 

I had started to make things up at the piano through improvisation. And had been having too much fun playing my own "songs" to practice my Mozart.

 

As I look back this was a key turning point in my life as a musician.

 

Some teachers may have responded to my confession with anger. But Ruth Steincraus Cohen did something so simple and so inspired that it changed me forever.

Lessons from Actors: Alvin Epstein

Alvin Epstein, actor and director, has been one of my mentors. Over the 40+ years I've known him he's taught me many lessons. I'd like to briefly describe three of them here.

1. The Sign of a True Professional = More Rehearsal.

Alvin appeared in my film, We Pedal Uphill, which we rehearsed in New York but shot in various locales all across the country. It's a tapestry film, composed of thirteen short slices of life, each with a specific point of view set in a specific context chosen as a reflection of some aspect of the culture of fear that permeated the landscape in post-911 America. Alvin and Molly Powell's scene was all about the commercial railroads, their decay, graft, neglect and we shot this portion of the film in Omaha. We spent a few weeks rehearsing in New York, then our tiny crew flew to Omaha for about 4 days of shooting, most of which involved Alvin driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck with Molly in the passenger seat and Yours Truly in the backseat shooting. Although I had known Alvin for years and had even written one stage role with him in mind I had never had the pleasure of directing him in a performance. I quickly noticed something kind of wonderful about him.

Alvin could never get enough rehearsal. 

Transcending a Natural Need for Certainty

At the midway point of a summer teaching gig at Hollins University in Roanoke, I find myself thinking a lot about uncertainty and how damned uncomfortable it makes us, particularly when faced with new ideas or new areas of exploration. At the end of a recent class in which I was attempting to introduce a group of graduate students pursuing their MFAs in Playwriting to the theatrical genius of Mozart one student sheepishly asked whether we'd be learning "the do's and don'ts of writing musicals."  One thing I know for sure about my approach is that I cannot be prescriptive. It's just not in my DNA as a teacher. I don't honestly think it's the way we best acquire new skills. I think there's so much more to be learned in the doing, failing and examining and dissecting the failure than in handing out a how-to instruction manual. 

As is explained to Dorothy at the end of the Wizard of Oz, being told you simply have to click your heels three times and think of home ain't the same as making the frightening trek yourself. Who tells her that? I can't recall. Is it the Wizard or the Glinda the Good Witch? 

But I digress. This morning I awoke with a vivid memory from my days at the Santa Fe Opera. And I'm pretty sure that's what's inspired this post. I was working as the House Manager there for two summers during college. And one of the fringe benefits for me was that whenever there were rehearsals called on the mainstage, I got to sit in the empty house and watch.

My first summer there Charles Ludlum (of Ridiculous Theatre fame) was there as a guest director; he was directing Die Fledermaus, a lighthearted operetta by Johann Strauss, (the accessible Strauss, not to be confused with Richard, the Nazi.)

Everyone's a Critic

At the multiplex in Roanoke.

Waiting for the feature presentation to begin, an action-packed trailer pops up for a movie called KIDNAP. We see Halle Berry as a mother-warrior fighting what looks to be an army of humanity (criminals, bystanders, doubters, cops, liars, thieves, truckers, lovers...) getting in the way of this mother's fevered pursuit of her adorable innocent bespectacled little boy who has suddenly inexplicably been stolen from her at an amusement park.

As the title KIDNAP splashes its intention across the screen, I hear this from a guy in the row behind me:

Oh dear. That is so NOT the right role for her to come back in.

Now, if this were Chelsea and he were a gay man, I wouldn't be surprised. But I'm in Roanoke and he appears to be on a date with a woman.

When did the entire country turn into Rex Reed?

Discuss.

STREET THEATRE: "Next" in Exile.

File this one under STREET THEATRE. Ever since some overpaid suit somewhere woke up to the epiphany that customers did not react kindly to a shout of "NEXT!" from behind a cash register, we Americans have been suffering under a tsunami of flowery and oddly ill-suited language.

We are called "guests" and "members" and we are never the "next" guest, we are the "following" one. Not sure how exactly it was determined that following is more pleasant than next... Maybe it's a simple matter of one syllable with crushing consonants at its end vs. three flowing watery (flowery?) ones.

At Citarella, where the staff has been carefully schooled to call us to their registers with May I help the following guest? I recently heard this shouted at me:

"Following!"

I love it! At last, we've come full circle! It was "NEXT!" that got us here. With a little luck, it will be "FOLLOWING!" that finally tears it.

Guest Post: Guy Kettelhack "Notions about the Notion of a 'Studio"

For the past couple days, as I seem more than usually to have awakened to accepting I actually have one, I've been musing on the power and marvelous mix of comfort and strangeness of the activity that goes on in any kind of (art, music, writing, academic) "studio." I've gathered pics of what my agent & friend Connie Clausen always called "the usual suspects" (well-known editors to whom we'd most usually send a book proposal) -- that is, my own usual suspects, who I of course very much more than suspect loved - ah, a bit tougher to come up with a single word for it -- let's provisionally say "their work." Work in the widest, deepest and least stultifying sense. "Say what you've come to say," Quentin encouraged us. And/or do what you've come to do.

What just triggered some sense I was ready to write about this was an exchange I just had with my friend Richard Blumenthal on Facebook about what I called his remarkable "eye" for appreciating and parsing out the particulars of the visual - especially visual art. Richard replied he once sat in on an art course in college his roommate had encouraged him to attend whose professor was so taken with Richard's comments & response he wanted to give him a high mark in the class - but could find Richard's name nowhere on the class roster since he'd attended only as auditor. To which I found myself replying & to which reply Richard replied (a lotta replies goin' on):

The Playwright Has Left The Planet (And Who Do I Want By My Side?)

So a cool pal of mine who will not want to be named here (because she is genetically predisposed to modesty and discretion) managed to snag me a "plus one" invite to today's memorial for the greatest playwright of our time, Edward Albee. If you occasionally visit Extra Criticum, then you know what this man meant (No, "means!") to me.

As soon as I opened the email I wondered who I might ask to go as my "plus one." Now, I'm not the type to need to cast about for a "plus one" for anything, certainly not a funeral, but these past few months have been some of the loneliest on record, due in large part to a severe back injury which still threatens to put me under the knife, something I am trying desperately to avoid at all costs. The result has been days of isolation. And so I find myself feeling hopeful that my slowly healing lumbar vertebrae might show some restraint this afternoon, at least long enough to make it up to Times Square for the memorial. Incidentally, although my invite guarantees me a seat the memorial is technically open to the public so if you're an Albee fan, try your luck in the line. Doors at the August Wilson Theatre (245 W. 52nd Street) open at 12:30PM for the 1PM "show." (And yes, I do feel safe in my assumption that Mr. Albee would have enthusiastically endorsed use of the word "show" in this context.)

I am also keenly aware of an unmistakeable emotional pull to skip today's "show." If it only manages to touch on one or two of his unique character traits, today's memorial is sure to bring up all sorts of unresolved feelings, existential questions, doubts, fears, regrets in me. Put simply, Edward Albee looms large in my psyche. I once heard him say that if we're asked to drop upwards of a hundred bucks on a Broadway show, then surely it ought to shake us to our very core. I do feel on some level that every time I sit down to write a new play, I'm chasing Albee's example. Hoping my characters might each speak with their own clear voice rooted in an intuitive honest faithful devotion to human nature. Also hoping to bite off something larger than an "issue of the moment" but reach for something universal, something deeply human by delving bravely into the darkest corners of the individual, the specific. And finally, hoping to make something memorable, arresting, and defiantly unafraid. And so, of course, I want the person seated beside me to share a deep appreciation of at least some of the ways his work was hands-down in a category all its own.

The Death of Edward Albee and Possibly Some Part of Me

When the news broke that our greatest living playwright was no longer living, my social media filled with people sharing it. And as I watched the comment threads on facebook unfurl I did not add one word.

Why not? Hard to say. Certainly anyone who knows me knows that I adored both the man and his art. Anything he ever had playing I had to see at least once. On the face of it, one could say I barely knew Mr. Albee... so much so that whenever I addressed him directly that was how I chose to do it. And yet, the two times he spoke to me and/or about me elevated him to unique status for me as so much more than the brilliant artist I admired, but as a champion for bravery in the face of cowardice with an unwavering dedication to telling it like it is, consequences be damned.

I first met Mr. Albee at the theatre conference that was named The Edward Albee Theatre Conference for about a minute until he protested and it was renamed Last Frontier. Held each June in Valdez, Alaska, this strange and wonderful gathering brought together 50 playwrights and countless actors for about 10 days of what felt like theatre summer camp in one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on Earth. My play, BODILY FUNCTION, took the top prize that summer but before that happy surprise, I had the pleasure of sitting through two readings of the play. It was back to back readings all day every day and the odds of Edward Albee himself actually attending my own seemed slim. Yet, there he was seated conspicuously in the front row for my first reading and that is how about 90 minutes later I found myself scarfing down a sandwich in the hallway eyeing him from a distance of about 30 feet and wondering what he thought.

Hadestown vs. The Total Bent (or) The Importance of a Good Book

In the past week I happened to see two musicals built in similar ways -- HADESTOWN at NYTW and THE TOTAL BENT at The Public. One really grabbed me, whipped me around, shook me up and spit me out the door of the theatre a limp wet rag. The other one left me cold.

Both have wonderful songs, clever and razor-sharp lyrics and musical risk-taking that I always find both appealing and moving.

Still Life with Bus Driver

            Back when I was an undergraduate, approximately a million years ago, I visited my friend Miles in Boston. We had shared a house together in England the year before and were currently finishing up college, he at Boston University and I at Sarah Lawrence. So one weekend, with no particular agenda or expectations, I hopped on a bus and went up there.

            I remember that I was studying The Iliad at the time, which made for very poor bus reading. When I got there, Miles and I weren’t sure what to do with ourselves. There were no movies around we wanted to see. So Miles, who was a huge jazz fan (he was named after Miles Davis), suggested we go to a jazz club. I at least liked the idea of jazz, so I agreed.

            It was a smoky club (as I said – a million years ago). We got a seat near the front. Sitting to my right was a small African-American man with tonsure-pattern baldness. He looked old to me, but almost everyone did back then. My guess is he was in his 50s. He was a bus driver, which I could tell because he was still in uniform. I don't recall the name on his nametag, but I remember what was on the table in front of him.

Seduce. Destroy. Heal. The Magic of Carol Lipnik

The other night, my pal Ro treated me and two of our friends to see the wonderfully talented Carol Lipnik at Joe's Pub. I'm not saying anything out of turn when I say that Ro is one of the most adventurous people I've ever met when it comes to seeing performers and shows that he knows little to nothing about except that someone he likes recommended them.

I've been fortunate to be on many of those expeditions over the years and, as you might expect, there have been uhmmm mixed results. Sometimes the show is great, sometimes not -- and we do this to each other... usually about five to ten minutes in, depending on who has invited whom, will turn to the other if it's bad and say "I'm sorry" to which the other shrugs and grits their teeth and orders another drink (Heaven help us if we're at a show without a bar; I generally try to focus on my 'to do' list) LOL . If you live in New York City, you owe it to yourself to get out and at least sample as much of what is out there as possible because you never know when you're going to find a gem.

The Challenge of Being Cable - Free

You might remember that back at the end of May I gave up my commercial TV business with Time Warner. I had had it with poor customer service coupled with jacked up prices - my last bill was $180.00. Seriously, even if I won the lottery, I would not feel that commercial TV is worth $180 a month. I should mention that internet service did come with this, but, as I would find out, that's only a $60 value.

Even though I'd given up commercial TV, I still needed internet both to send emails, update Facebook, post blogs, etc but also to catch various shows. AT&T, my cell phone provider at the time, promised a pretty sweet deal - my cell phone and internet service for about $100. That was one of those "can't believe that" and without going into all the details, it wasn't true. This is why AT&T was my cell phone provider at the time, but not after this problem.

So, I was back to square one and so I sucked down my pride and went back to Time Warner for my internet. That would cost me $60/month which is also a little pricey but I was willing to go with it until I could find a comparable service.