The Brighton Festival Fringe continues and each day brings more bon-bons to enjoy. The Marlboro has featured some unforgettable shows this year. Julia Asling and Ian Angus Wilkie starred in TALKING HEADS, two exquisite Alan Bennett one acts, A CHIP IN THE SUGAR and A LADY OF LETTERS. Most of the presentations I see on the fringe are mediocre at best, always enthusiastically presented and always of some value but never great theatre. However, this production had everything for me. It was presented by the Britt Forsberg Theatre 21. A LADY OF LETTERS was about a lonely older woman who had nothing to look forward to in life but to observe the life of others . Her only communication with the world was through the letters she wrote. Watching Julia Asling’s sensitive and moving portrayal of a lonely woman searching for something to look forward to in day after empty day reminded me of too many older women I know today who have nothing but their favourite TV programs and their grievances to keep them going. The other one act, A CHIP IN THE SUGAR is a magnificent piece of writing because it pinpoints the walls that older people crash into when they try to live their lives and chase their dreams. An old woman wants to pursue a vivid and exciting romance with a man her son knows is a philanderer. The son cannot understand that when you are in your eighties or nineties, any fling is a glorious one and it need not last forever because, indeed, you will not last forever. Ian Angus Willkie played the outraged son relating the story and he hit just the perfect note. The production was one of the finest I have seen in a very long time because it was truth shown instead of told; truth as powerful and important today as it was when it was first written.
Last Monday, I attended Julian Caddy’s phenomenal workshop ACTING AND CREATING A CHARACTER. On the surface this evening seems to be one dedicated to aspiring actors, but it is so much more than that. Julian Caddy is a talented and innovative actor, thrilling to see on stage in an amazingly wide variety of roles from David Mamet to Tennessee Williams. In his workshop, he discussed the secret to creating a believable character and as he spoke, I could not help but think, “This man is talking about how we view ourselves. He is giving me tools to live a better life.”
“All of your life experience makes you who you are,” he told us. “In life you should always be finding out. We all are products of all we have been.”
Caddy explained the secret to becoming the character you are portraying on stage: “You need to dissect all the unsaid purposes of the person you are being,” he said. “Acting is thinking the thoughts of the character.”
It was then I understood why so many plays I see don’t quite make the grade for me. The actor hasn’t really figured out who he is portraying. Instead, I am seeing the actor himself on the stage and that is why he does not convince me that what I am seeing is real.
The workshop was a beautiful experience in learning to understand myself and in understanding the motivations of others. No one is either horrible or wonderful to himself. He is just who he is. Once you get that, you can analyse what you are watching on stage and can understand why it seems false to you. Julian Caddy is presenting another acting workshop Monday May 21 and if you can get to The Marlboro at 8:30, you will learn a bit more about the plays you are seeing and a lot more about who you are.
I loved THE RIGHT PAIR, Bette Bourne and Peal Shaw’s story, also at the Marlboro Theatre. These two have lived together for over 40 years and although they never thought of it as a marriage, it certainly was a partnership that made their lives whole. The hour contained music, dance and a bit of nostalgia laced together with delightful humour. For me, the show gave me a rare glimpse into what love really means.
If you want to get an overview of the exciting things that are happening every day in May in Brighton, tune into Jeff Hemmings show on Reverb Radio, 5-6pm on Thursdays, 8-10 am on Wednesday mornings. You will get some chat, some reports and a bit of opinions from a guy who swears he knows what he is talking about. But then, isn’t that what all guys say?
The drama is not dead, but liveth,
and contains the gems of better things.
William Archer

In May, Brighton is transformed into a town filled with art, music and drama on every corner tucked into churches, cellars and the backs of bars. People from all over the country and indeed the world gather to sample the best and the worse performance art can offer. This is my fourth year performing and experiencing the excitement of the Brighton Festivals and it has been by far the most invigorating….so much more is happening….so many new venues and special events are popping up.
Much of the bustle and hoopla has been generated by the new director of the Brighton Fringe, Julian Caddy. His own enthusiasm for this marvellous yearly extravaganza has infused new excitement into all of us who are part of the event. Rachel Strange is managing the weekly Fringe City and you can preview most of the shows there every Saturday afternoon to see what you want to check out and what might interest you if only there were 28 hours in the day.
I arrived May first and went to see Des O’Conner in VIVE LE CABARET at Komedia that Thursday. Des O’Conner is producing several outstanding shows at Komedia this May including M. B, The Gentleman Rhymer and Mat Ricardo’s THREE BALLS AND A NEW SUIT, the show that the Herald and Fringe guru gave five stars. All these shows are polished entertainment, and a treat to see. Mr. B. has his audience jumping up and down and singing along as if they all had ingested Mexican Jumping Beans for dinner. Des O’Conner himself is a master performer and charms an audience the moment he steps on a stage. Whenever |I see his name I run to get a ticket and you should do the same. At his solo show last Monday I sat next to his partner who is about to give birth to their baby girl. Whenever the baby’s daddy took to the stage, the infant-to-be kicked and bounced with such vigour, I thought she would choose that very moment to emerge into the world clapping and cheering for Daddy Des as well he deserved….I was all ready to rush to the kitchen for boiling water and towels, but the tiny foetus of a girl decided it was prudent to remain in utero waiting out the next couple weeks before she will emerge no doubt singing, dancing and playing the guitar. It’s got to be in those genes.
I managed to fit in Rose Collis’s TROUSER-WEARING CHARACTERS that Friday at the Marlboro Theatre. This is a well-paced, fact filled one woman show about women who liked to wear trousers and men who did anyway…all connected to Brighton in some way or another. Collis tells us about her favourite Brighton personalities in a mix of music, quotations and monologue. My favourite part of the show was Collis singing and playing the banjo. She has a charming voice and a delightful delivery. I could have done with a little less dialogue…it was often a bit lengthy …..but all in all the show has just about all anyone can ask: interesting content, great energy and music that makes you beg for more. TROUSER-WEARING CHARACTERS continues through May 20 at The Marlboro Theatre. Collis has books to sell and endless stories about Brighton. Be sure to chat with her after the show. …and don’t forget to wear your trousers….that’s what all independent women have a right to do these days. Collis reminds us of the days when female attire was strictly proscribed and trousers, white shirts and ties were not an option…they were an outrage.
In all the years I have been coming to Brighton I have never seen THE LADY BOYS and decided this year to bite the bullet and see what all the hysteria was about. I grabbed my landlady and off we went to see a lot of pretty boys in ladies’ finery. The entire experience is the most commercial I have experienced in Brighton. At every turn we are assaulted with souvenirs to buy, Thai food to eat and loud music pounding in our ears. Fortunately, both my landlady and I are deaf so we managed to avoid the head aches I am sure the rest of the audience suffered the morning after. The show itself is fast paced, loud and bursting with glitz. The costumes are glitter, feathers and flounce and the lady boys are decked out like the tarts they wish they were. Sadly, these young men cannot speak English and the songs they sang meant absolutely nothing to them. They parroted the sounds some director taught them and went through the motions like robots, not quite getting into it because, poor souls, they had no idea what “it” was.
The audience cheered and laughed and smirked at the smutty innuendos just like a good audience should, but it felt like I was at the zoo or in a circus watching well trained animals jump through hoops. I had to keep reminding myself that these were human beings singing and dancing. As I watched them, I realized that although they were indeed giving us plenty of song and dance with all the decorative flash and flutter we deserved for £25 pounds a head, those young lads in burlesque skirts weren’t having fun. Somehow, the whole experience seemed hollow and empty to me. I had the same reaction have when someone has taught their dog to beg: How clever, how cute…but I wouldn’t pay £25 to see him do it no matter how fancy his collar.
I know I am greedy, but I want my entertainment to be fun and I want the people on stage to know what the hell they are saying so they get the expression right. My landlady left at the interval but I stayed hoping I would find a bit of substance in the second act.
I did not.
And I will be back with more observations next time on some marvellous drama , the best I have seen ever at a fringe venue.

Mike Butcher explains this practice of real time web disclosure: “The idea behind a real-time Web is to create technology that doesn’t require an Internet user to actively seek out something they’re interested in. That could mean anything from getting pinged when an article about your favourite sports team is posted to an alert when you’re mentioned in someone’s blog.”
There is something decidedly uncomfortable about the world knowing you like surfing or are interested in pursuing calligraphy…but it is a lot MORE disturbing if your partner finds out you have just joined e harmony to see if someone more exciting awaits or that you like to watch porn while he is selling computers at Frye’s. That is all YOUR business,…or is it?
A Brown has more to say on the subject: “There are more reasons to want to protect your privacy than can be named. The important principal is that you have a right to privacy as long as that right is used within the bounds of the law. Seeking privacy should not make you feel guilty. Privacy should be expected, and demanded. The reasons might be as simple as preserving your right to express unpopular opinions without being subjected to persecution, or as serious as communicating sensitive business information, revealing credit card numbers, legal discussions with your accountant, or hiding your true identity from a secret government. Regardless of your reasons, privacy is your right. Contrary to what some governing bodies might want the public to believe, not all those concerned with security and privacy are hackers or terrorists.”
The fact that A Brown is just another computer user who has made these observations on a non-technical site is even more unsettling. The “experts” in computer technology probably know how to find out your eating habits, your sex addictions and your regularity….Why do they care? Perhaps it is to use the information to tempt you to buy a product. It could be to garner statistics on the potential success of a new product. Or it could be to harass you and accuse you of something they think you might do…such as drug dealing or behaviour that “disturbs the peace.”
Facebook says, ‘Privacy is theft,’ because they’re selling
your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day
Jaron Lanier

Ashland is a charming place to visit in the spring. The daffodils are blooming; the airs is clear and clean without the turgid heat of summer …and the plays…ah the plays…… There is never bad theater at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The acting is superb, the sets amazing and professional, the directing gifted. When one reviews their productions, it is well to keep in mind that the worst of their efforts represent the best in theater everywhere else. The actors that get their training it this festival have graced bay area stages again and again and always when they are in a play, they outshine everyone in the cast. Remi Sandri will be seen shortly in Marin Theater’s God of Carnage. Aldo Billingslea stole the show as Othello on that same stage. Both men polished their craft in Ashland. Marco Barricelli thrilled us all in innumerable ACT productions including a memorable interpretation of David Mamet’s American Buffalo and Richard Elmore’s performance in Moon over Buffalo at TheatreWorks was comic genius at its best.

This season is an interesting one and I was only able to sample a few of the plays being offered. Animal Crackers by George S Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, with music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, directed by Allison Narver is a delightful musical farce that originally featured the wild antics of the Marx brothers. The pace is swift, the music delightful and the production leaves you smiling and whistling favorite tunes like “Three Little Words” as you leave the Bowmer Theater. The White Snake also directed by Allison Narver was my favorite of the productions I saw this spring. It is based on an ancient Chinese tale that tells the story of a snake who transforms herself into a woman and of the man who unwittingly marries her. The beauty of this production is its combination of symbol with reality woven into a beautifully choreographed and captivating drama. We see relationships that are beautiful in unexpected ways and the perversity of human nature determined to get what they expect and ignore what they have. The production is exquisite on every level and a memorable one.

Seagull is Libby Appel’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s beautiful play about a dysfunctional mother and her son. “What may seem a little hard to tackle is that most of the real feelings of these characters are largely unspoken;” says director Libby Appel. “They are below the text, which may make the characters seem elusive or inactive.. . but make no mistake; these people are seething with action.” The production is beautifully paced and Allison Horsley’s literal translation loses none of the impact of Chekov’s amazingly modern play about turbulent emotions, intense loves and the timeless conflicts of being human in an unfeeling, demanding world.

I saw two Shakespeare plays on this visit as well, Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and Cressida and my question is, why can’t OSF stick to doing what they do best: Shakespeare plays in the original language, with Elizabethan staging. Their Romeo and Juliet in 2007 was exquisite with Catherine Coulson most memorable as the nurse. In this current production, set in Alta California, directed by Laird Williamson, the nurse is a caricature, neither sympathetic or meaningful, a comic figure that inspires no one. Sadly, the Juliet is too old and the Romeo not very exciting. Elijah Alexander as Juliet’s father steals the show for me. He manages despite the artificial Spanish lilt he adds to his speech to convey the nobility of his character. The other actors go through their paces and do the best they can with the adaptation but at the end, not a tear was shed because the production failed to do what every production Romeo and Juliet has always done…touched the audience’s heart.

Troilus and Cressida was more interesting to me despite the decision to take its inspiration from the looting of the Baghdad Museum during the U. S. invasion of Iraq. “We are seeing the Trojan War as the beginning of a long history of East-West conflicts,” explains director Rob Melrose. This production held together a bit better for me than Romeo and Juliet. The staging in the New Theatre was stark yet beautiful and the charcters were both real and convincing.

All in all, despite some reservations, the plays were well done and always worth the drive to southern Oregon. Every time I visit Ashland and see the work of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival I understand why theater is so important to our culture and to our understanding of the world we live in. The festival continues until November 4 and you can check the schedule as well as the other plays on the roster at www.osfashland.org, 800 219 8161.

The stage is a magic circle
Where only the most real things happen
P. S. Baber

My friend Mary married a man twice her age when she was 35. The couple met in Madrid and who wouldn’t have been captivated by the way Bob lavished her with clothes and gifts, took her to fine restaurants and insisted on booking at least two cruises to exotic lands each year. When Bob proposed, Mary glimpsed a glorious future…not just during her marriage but one day… one gilt edged day….when Bob was six feet under and she could ascend to an opulent cloud nine. She married her lover within the month and told her friends, “It was love at first sight.” No one dared to question her.

Mary’s parents were delighted with their daughter’s new prospects despite the fact that Bob was their senior by almost twenty years. After all, Bob had a huge bank account, very valuable properties and even though his arthritis seemed to hamper them when they went dancing, he seemed to have a lot of life left in him. His parents of course neither approved nor disapproved of the match. They were dead.

The two moved to California and almost immediately Mary became a caregiver. Once Bob gave up responsibility for his own well being, his heart started to act up, diabetes kicked in and renal failure loomed on his horizon. Poor Mary spent the next twenty three years keeping Bob alive. Mary and Bob explored natural medicine supplemented by conventional cures and holistic methods. The two lavished themselves with the most luxurious, opulent cures and retreats money could buy. And why not? Bob was a wealthy man. Indeed, the cost of keeping Bob breathing and functioning became all consuming. Forget about those cruises and theater. Forget society parties and hobnobbing with the upper crust. If they manage to go to a play, Mary would have to wheel Bob into the theater, haul him onto a seat, drag him to the men’s room and wipe his chin when he drank with no time at all for the champagne he had promised her at intermission. The stress of seeing her inheritance dissolve into pills and medications, prostheses and exotic therapies for her husband was so terrifying that Mary began to suffer from nightmares, nausea, hot flashes, and unexplained muscular spasms.

As the years progressed, Mary’s vision of wedded bliss was whittled down to the reality of waking Bob each morning and this was not easy: Bob was a deep sleeper and often seemed almost dead at dawn. Mary had to do a great deal of massaging, rubbing, patting and vaporizing to get his body moving. (But then, wasn’t that what married couples did for one another?).

Once Bob was out of bed and standing on what was left of his two feet, Mary organized his medications for the day before she took her own pills, tranquillizers and moisturizers and lubricants (just in case). Then she prepared a salt free, fat free tasty breakfast for the two to share in the lovely sunny kitchen Bob built for his child bride (if you can call a thirty-five year old fortune hunter a child bride.) The minute Bob digested his healthy properly balanced, tasty breakfast and eliminated it at the expected time in the expected place (and Mary did the same) our lovebirds were off to an exciting and stimulating afternoon devoted to Bob’s therapies. His blood needed to be drained every month, his system purified, his heart stimulated, his kidneys exhilarated and his temper calmed. While Bob was receiving the care he needed, our Mary was getting HER blood purified, her bowels cleansed, her excess hair waxed and her nails done so she could be beautiful and provocative when she served Bob his nightly tasty, salt-free candlelight dinners.
On weekends, these two would vacation from their ablutions to go to a movie or entertain Bob’s friends from his other life before he discovered Mary and ROMANCE.

And speaking of romance, the ailing man became so decrepit within a month after they married that he didn’t dare make any demands in the bedroom. Not that Mary wouldn’t have loved that but the truth was that he was so frail, the act might kill him. (and that wasn’t such a bad idea either, but Mary wanted to wait till property values were high and the interest rates more secure before she donned black lace and exotic perfume to excite her lover.)

When Bob reached his 90th birthday, Mary was so involved with maintaining his precarious health, rushing him to hospital after hospital and sanatorium after sanatorium not to mention her own health farms, psychological retreats and meditations, that she barely had time to buy a new dress or book a cruise. This was so upsetting to our Mary that she decided to divorce Bob. The minute she threatened what was left of Bob with a separation, he made uncomfortable noises about his will and what where his properties and securities would go if the two were not legally bound. Mary, now frantic with the premonition that she would have to maintain this lifestyle another ten years found herself stuck, unhappily sustaining Bob until he breathed his last.

He did this 4 years ago when Mary was a young (although sadly vibrant no more) 58. NOW she could have that life she thought she would get five years after their marriage. However, that was not to be. After twenty three years of keeping Bob in a semi-conscious state, with every conversation the two had, shouted to make herself heard, Mary’s emotional stability had gone down the drain along with her vision of being a wealthy dowager with young men hanging on her every word in the salons she would hostess each week (in her dreams).

Bob had ruined her life and dashed her hopes and what was worse, she didn’t know what to do with herself now that she wasn’t counting someone’s pills, making doctors appointments, driving to therapies and preparing salt free candlelight dinners to spoon feed to her husband. She was bored, at loose ends and miserable.

At last, the fates solved Mary’s problems: She got Breast Cancer. It was an exhilarating moment for Mary. She called what friends she had (mostly her doctors, therapists, instructors and her Yogi) with tears in her eyes and discussed what she would do to cure herself. She knew she didn’t want to do chemotherapy or radiation. IT was too uncomfortable. What she wanted more than anything was to find someone to love her and take care of her the way she took care of her Bob.

So it was, Mary went to Mexico for an unconventional, unproven natural cure that involved a sauna each day, main-lining vitamin C three times a week, daily enemas, massaging the malignant lump, drinking disgusting herbal concoctions and preparing the very same salt free meals but only for herself with no candlelight or shouted conversation. Her appetite has gone. “Sometimes all I can stomach is cabbage and potatoes,” she said, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. Our Mary is determined to be brave. “The trouble is I don’t know what I want to DO with myself, if I get well.”

At the rate she is spending, Mary won’t have many choices to give herself new direction anyway. The cost of her treatments are over $4,000 a week and her inheritance, the one she was going to spend on God knows what (because I assure you Mary does not) is fast disappearing.. Her dreams of selling the house Bob built for her (valued at well over a million dollars) is gone because the market is tight. Her vision of getting someone to love her and be there for her at three in the morning to rub her back and dry her tears doesn’t seem to be getting any closer to reality either, even though Mary has posted on Match .com, OK Cupid, Plenty of Fish and E-Harmony. The problem is that no one wants to massage her breast for health reasons and Mary doesn’t want any other kind of massage at this point. She is too tired.

What a waste!!! Bob was a vigorous healthy seventy when he married but the minute he got himself a young bride he gave the reins of his life to his wife and let her make his decisions. Once he lost control of who he was, senility crept in, inevitable as the dawn. His rapid decline was enhanced by his wife’s secret eagerness to accelerate his disabilities in the hopes that her marriage would be brief and reap her the benefits she felt she deserved for being his unpaid caregiver. (Mary did not consider Bob’s considerable wealth and luxurious style of living a salary…after al,l once married his wealth was hers too, wasn’t it?)

Even worse is Mary’s inability to fashion any kind of independent life for herself. She spend 23 years doing her husband’s bidding and corroding her disposition with anger, guilt and depression. Now she has absolutely no idea what her soul wants her to do. She lost touch with her dreams. The only thing she knows how to do is take care of someone who is sick. Luckily for her, she is sick now and her entire day is taken up with exactly the same activities she did for her husband. Only this time they are for her.

What on earth is she keeping herself alive for?

Do not say she deserves her fate because she was a fortune hunting bitch…we all marry for a variety of reasons that we label love. Do not say that Bob‘s demands ruined her life. We each are the only ones responsible for the quality of own lives. No one else can destroy us or make us happy. We are the only ones who can do that.

In contrast, my friend Ursula lived happily and productively with her husband Hans for 43 years. She was a good wife but an independent woman who wrote books, did garden tours, staged benefits for the needy, traveled alone and with her husband and followed their shared dream. When Hans died, she mourned for a month and then off she went to tour Hawaii, give speeches in Germany and write another book. She had a good married life because she made it fruitful and now she is having a marvelous old age. She isn’t lucky. She is smart.

Would we could all learn for poor Mary. Would we could all profit from clever Ursula.

In order to change we must be sick and tired
Of being sick and tired.
Anonymous

OF MICE AND MEN

By John Steinbeck

Directed by Robert Kelley

Starring Jos Viramontes and AJ Meijer

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle

One of the highlights of 2010 Bay Area theatre is TheatreWorks current production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. It is based on Steinbeck’s novel written in 1937 and is as meaningful today as it was when it was first published.  “Of Mice and Men  endures because it is many things: a hymn to friendship and brotherhood, an indictment of prejudice, an ode to the dispossessed, a protest against poverty, a cry for  help for the developmentally disabled, and a defense of dreams,” says director Robert Kelley.  “It is a vision of life at the bottom of a society preoccupied with rising to the top, a tragedy whose fatal flaw is not found in an individual but in a culture too unforgiving to care for its own.“

The story was originally written so it could be performed as a play.  And indeed it was first produced, that same year, from a script taken almost verbatim from the novel.  George S. Kaufman was the director, and it opened in San Francisco before moving on to Broadway, where it won the Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best American play.  This year is the 75th anniversary of the play as well as the book.

Of Mice and Men is the story of two Chicano migrant workers, George and his companion Lennie.  Lennie is big, strong and not very bright.  Yet, he is a gentle soul who loves to pet soft things, mice, puppies, velvet and women’s hair.  He doesn’t know his own strength, and has trouble controlling his actions or foreseeing their consequences. It is this very love of softness that has gotten the two men in trouble over and over again as they travel from farm to farm to help harvest crops.   As the play opens, Lennie has accidentally killed a mouse he kept in his pocket to stroke; later he accidentally kills a puppy.

George complains that Lennie is always getting them both in trouble.  Still, George is devoted to Lennie and feels it his duty to protect him.  His dream is to become independent and for the two of them to have their own place where they can realize the fruit of their labor.  He fuels this vision both for himself and Lennie by making it into a bedtime story for Lennie.  He paints a verbal picture for them both of that wonderful day when they can buy a small farm with alfalfa, a cow and rabbits for Lennie to pet instead of breaking their backs working for someone else and never having enough money to rest.

Of Mice and Men is a tragedy in the strict definition – the protagonist is inevitably destroyed, by a flaw in himself.  Lennie is brought down by his weakness of mind; George by his devotion to Lennie.  One of the themes of the play is the heartbreak of shattered dreams.  In fact, the title, taken from Robert Burns’ line “The best-laid plans of mice and men/Gang aft aglae.” is the essence of the plot.  The play is based on Steinbeck’s own experience. “I was a bindlestiff myself for quite a spell,” said Steinbeck in 1937.  “I worked in the same country that the story is laid in.”

The play is tightly structured and beautifully balanced.  The dialogue is a prose poem, strong, simple and almost musical.  Robert Kelley’s direction highlights Steinbeck’s strong, symbolic text   with spare, controlled direction – just the approach needed to protect this delicate work from becoming maudlin or melodramatic. Jos Viramontes and AJ Meijer do well in the key roles of George and Lennie.  Meijer told an interviewer “Lennie is like a big kid.  Other people have played him like a big lug, but I’m a big child. I like laughing and am playful, and that’s the direction I wanted to go in.”  Gary Martinez and Charles Branklyn give outstanding performances as Candy, the ranch worker who lost a hand, and Crooks, the black stable hand.  Chad Deverman is a convincing Slim, and there’s an ancient hound dog that will break your heart.  Tom Langguth’s scenery works very well, as does Allison Connor’s costumes. They are true to the time and enhance the action.  All these elements combine to create a magnificently memorable evening of theatre.  “The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit,” said Steinbeck in 1962 when he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature.  “-for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love.  In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and emulation. “

Do not miss this moving production…it is unforgettable.

The heroic cannot be common, nor the common heroic.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Of Mice and Men plays at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 650 Castro Street, Mountain View, until April 29.  Performances are at 7:30 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8:00 Thursdays through Saturdays, 7:00 on Sunday, and matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:00.  For tickets call 650-463-1960, or go to www.theatreworks.org.

MAPLE AND VINE

By Jordan Harrison

Directed by Mark Rucker

The fifties – they seem to have taken place on a sunny afternoon that asked nothing of you except a drifting belief in the moment and its power to satisfy.
Elizabeth Hardwick

This beautifully crafted production takes a new twist on bringing the past to life.  Jordan Harrison’s MAPLE AND VINE does a thoughtful and provocative job of juxtaposing 1955 with the present. This reviewer remembers the pointy bras, the killer waist cinchers, and the bouffant crinolines.  In those days,  men endured reddened chafed necks created by starched white shirt collars with a formal  four-in-hand tie.   Alex Jaeger’s costumes contrast the mood of both eras and Ralph Funicello recreates the décor from  a present–day breakfast table with each person absorbed in his laptop  to the tacky pictures on the fifties’ living room wall.   Funicello can remember the fifties and he does not see it as the idyllic existence Dean (Jamieson Jones) paints in the first act of this play.  “I remember that it was a time of incredible segregation, sexism and anti-Semitism,” he says.  “. …..even though the sense was that everything was fine, certainly for white America.”

“(In MAPLE AND VINE) Jordan Harrison asks us to look at our contemporary lives, filled with an infinite variety of choices and ask why the plethora of options we find before us often makes us feel paralyzed rather than pleased,” says ACT Artistic Director Carey Perloff.  “And if we are unhappy with our lives today, are we willing to sacrifice some of our hard-won freedom to regain that elusive feeling of happiness?  As a die-hard feminist, I was mystified at the thought that a woman like Katha (superbly realized by Emily Donahoe) the professional editor in MAPLE AND VINE, would choose to give it all up to become a 1950’s-style homemaker or that her husband Ryu (Nelson Lee who gives his role a sensitive and authentic portrayal)  an Asian American man used to living in a progressive society, would even consider returning to a moment in American history just after we had interned  hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans.”

The 21^st century is not a happy one for so many of us.  “We are paying for increased affluence and increased freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of social relations,” says sociologist Barry Schwartz.  “We earn more and spend more but we spend less time with others.”

Indeed, we have lost a sense of community and the feeling of belonging that once was the hallmark of every neighborhood.  We all feel like Alice running as fast as we can toward a nirvana we can’t really define, never getting anywhere.  Families are fragmented; religion is fighting for validity; we live with our eyes glued to a computer screen.  What happened to face to face conversation?

This is the dilemma all too prevalent in a society where we all are under unbelievable pressure to live the expectations we have been told we have a right to expect.  We see the “good life” on our television screens…we dip into the conflicts, the mishaps and the frustrations of people in so-called reality shows and documentaries, but we are no closer to each other.

MAPLE AND VINE opens with Katha and Ryu in bed trying to figure out what is missing in their lives.  Katha says “Happiness is not having enough time to wonder if you’re happy.”  Her editorial job eats up her day, her recent miscarriage adds to her sense that she has lost control of her life and even her love for her husband feels rushed and superficial.  She is overwhelmed with depression, cannot face what has become of her life and quits her job.  She is sitting on a park bench trying to come to terms with who she really is when Dean, a man in a fifties suit and hat stops to talk to her.  He is the ambassador for the Society of Dynamic Obsolescence (SDO).  He and his wife Ellen (Julia Coffey)  are living in a gated community that has recreated life in 1955 and they are happy there.    Modern-day conveniences were ruining their lives, he tells Katha.   “In the twenty first century, you hardly have to interact with anyone,” he says.  “Today, people are not quiet in their minds.”

And Ellen explains, “There was no one watching over you in the fifties and telling you how to live.“   Katha thinks this sounds like a perfect world.  She determines to give the 1950’s life style a trial run but Ryu is reluctant to leave the 21^st century. He is a plastic surgeon now,  but in the fifties his Japanese American heritage would prevent him from becoming a professional.   He is swayed however because Dean says that the SDO is a great place to raise kids and Ryu believes that a baby would heal the rift that seems to be splitting his marriage apart despite the efforts of both he and his wife to continue their relationship with the satisfactions it should be bringing (but isn’t.)

The second act of this play peels away the artificial veneer of the era and we see its downside. Katha becomes the “little woman,” cooking, cleaning and caring for her man.  When she recalls her life in the second millennium she says “It was so easy to get what they wanted that no one wanted anything.  In the 1950’s  you had to keep it together.” And the audience knows that she means, “You have to put up a proper front.“ In those days, you never discussed unwanted pregnancies, the coat hanger abortions, the job opportunities that did not exist for anyone of any color but white.  You dressed the right way with a smile on your face and brought casseroles to the neighbors.  If you were gay, you were illegal.

As the plot develops, Harrison digs into at the superficial neighborliness tainted with prejudice and cruel stereotyping that was so much a part of that era.    Katha (now Kathy) speaks to the SDO Authenticity Committee and complains that she and her “Oriental” husband are not really experiencing the reception they would have received in a 1955 community.  They were neither harassed nor discriminated against enough: no vandalism, no attempts to make them move from the neighborhood.  The resolution is unbelievably sad to this reviewer because it rings so true. Kathy and Ryu buy into the fifties and believe that they have found happiness at last despite the narrow limitations of acceptability and the undercover prejudices that are acted upon but never spoken.

I graduated from college in 1955.  At that time, in the Midwest, women went to college to get married.  The only professions open to them were the helping professions: a teacher, a librarian, secretary, nurse, home maker or prostitute and they all involved pretty much the same tasks and responsibilities.  I believed then that  men were supposed to be breadwinners and their women shut up and took it.  The idea that any rational human being would accept the lifestyle that I believe mutilated the psyches of us all is inconceivable. And that is the real point of this wonderfully paced and beautifully directed play. Harrison shows us the cracks in the fifties life style by dramatizing the need to be something you were not to  survive.   The characters in the play may say they found heaven in the fifties, but the audience knows better.

There is no doubt that so much of what we do, say and expect of ourselves is wrong these days, but it is a lot more right than the limitations, the prejudices and the rigidity of the fifties.  The idea that men are men and women are their toys or servants doesn’t work in today’s world.  In the fifties, your life was mapped out according to  iron-clad but  unspoken rules;  today we have  choice.  In today’s world, we can always stop where we are and try something new. Life can be what you make it and the good thing is you have the power to make it just what you like.

Would YOU like to return to the past?  Do  you really understand what you would lose?   See MAPLE AND VINE and decide for yourself.

I felt trapped and fabricated in the fifties

 Living up to other people’s expectations.
Rosemary Clooney

MAPLE AND VINE continues through April 22, 2012

415 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94108

Tickets begin at $10.00

Information:  (415) 749 2228 or act-sf.org

Every woman should have four pets in her life.

 A mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage,

 A tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything.
Paris Hilton

The more difficulty we have relating to humans, the more we revere our pets.  AND the more we adore Fluffy and Buster, the more we attribute human emotions and reactions to them.  I love my dogs, but they are DOGS.  I do not think they have opinions and I do not dress them in fancy dresses and cute suits.  When my dog licks my face, she isn’t kissing me.  She likes my face cream.  When she has an “accident” it isn’t an accident.  She is relieving herself.  She is neither punishing me nor rewarding me.  She is doing what dogs do.

I would be willing to guess that not more than 1% of pet owners agree with me. They firmly believe their pet has opinions, preferences and an agenda. Take my friend Adele.  She is 78 years old and lives alone with her Yorkie, Sissy.  She combs Sissy’s hair every morning and adds a colorful ribbon appropriate to the season to the dog’s top knot so that Sissy will feel good about herself when the two of them venture out for a walk.

Adele is very religious.  The only communication she has with anyone other than Sissy is her God.  She firmly believes that this God of hers can heal people and punish the nasty pit bulls and boxers that lunge at Sissy when the two of them stroll along the boardwalk.  All Adele needs to do is pray and God will spring into action.

Not long ago, Sissy dined on most of Adele’s lunch at a famous French Restaurant.  Adele felt a bit bilious after lunch but Sissy did not fare so well.  Her overindulgence resulted in a persistent, painful (Adele says) case of diarrhea.  Adele immediately cancelled all her appointments for the day (these included a Bible Study Class where no one talks to her, a visit to the grocery store where the clerk is disgustingly rude and three of Adele’s favorite daytime television shows …she loves General Hospital and would never miss Katie Couric and The Talk.  She gave up these activities willingly because Sissy needed her and Adele is always there for her dog no matter what.

So, instead of stocking the fridge, learning more about what God wants of her or satisfying her need to observe a world outside her own, Adele got down on her knees (and this was not easy because Adele has terrible arthritis that God has been ignoring for years) with Sissy (her bottom securely encased in a small incontinence pad) and prayed for Sissy’s bowels to solidify.

Sadly, God was preoccupied with other things like a murder in Brazil and a massacre in Greece not to mention finding that lost baby in California and he simply couldn’t take time out of his busy week to deal with Sissy’s indigestion.

When Adele called me, she was frantic.  “Sissy has been sick for ten days,” she said. “ I have prayed and prayed and even hired a healer to touch Sissy with her hands (not a pleasant visual, I can tell you) but Sissy is worse than ever.”

Now, I do not like to tamper with anyone’s religious belief and I will never diminish someone’s concern for an ailing living thing.   If Adele prefers God to a licensed veterinarian that is fine with me, but common sense told me that Sissy’s  problem could be remedied with very little effort on Adele’s part while she waited for God to respond.    So it was that I counseled Adele:  ”First, boil some rice, add a bit of chicken and feed it to Sissy. Then, pray.”

Adele called me the next day.  “I know you won’t believe me!,” she said. ”But God finally answered my prayer.  Sissy is romping around like a puppy today.  She is cured!!!”
“What a miracle!! “ I said.  “Did she eat the rice?”

“She did and she loved it,” said Adele.

All of us organize our lives with the rules we believe give each day a sensible structure.  But sometimes, those very rules narrow our lives instead of opening new windows that expand our horizons.  When we reach our seventies, our lives have given us new perspectives on what we once believed were our limitations. Some of us break down the barriers we have created and take a chance on something new .  Many more of us are afraid to wander into the unknown.

Adele wants to be a singer.  She loves music and dreams of performing on a big stage somewhere.  That is as far as she has gotten with her vision.  She dreams about it.  She does not actually sing.  I asked her why she didn’t join her church choir and she said. ”They have rehearsals twice a week and perform every Sunday.  I can’t leave Sissy that long.”

Adele has always wanted to travel.  She sees herself on the Italian Riviera in a tiny little bikini strolling along the beach and raising eyebrows and a few other things. She has plenty of money for a ticket to this paradise of pasta and permissiveness, but she cannot bring herself to make the reservation.    “How can I leave Sissy for that long? “ she said.  “I could never put her in a kennel.  She might get a cough.”

She didn’t mention that bikinis tend to sag in the wrong places and are too skimpy to cover the essentials these days.  She also didn’t mention that if anyone she doesn’t know calls her, she hangs up immediately.  “It’s one of those crank calls,” she says.  “I can always feel it.“  In her dream, she sees herself going out with a tall, ageless Italian lothario and…well, if it happens, it happens…but that is only in her dream.  She knows that the footnote to her sybaritic vision is:  I am afraid of strangers, even Italian ones. And so she tells me of her wonderful travel ideas and shakes her head as she explains that she would leave in a minute if it weren’t that Sissy needs her.

Adele has lost the world and the world has lost Adele.  Think of the wonderful music she could contribute to her church; think of the children Adele could tutor and help master reading.  She was, after all, a school teacher in her other unretired life.  Think of the events she could see if she ventured away from her living room one evening.  Think of the new horizons she would discover.   The real tragedy is that Adele doesn’t think of these exciting things at all.  She only thinks of Sissy.  Her dog is more human to her than human beings.  Sissy is a person to Adele, a person she can control, one that doesn’t frighten her and one that stays with her in a tiny little comfort zone all their own.

Sadly, there are millions of Adele’s in this world of ours.  She has never figured out that the older we are the less we need to limit ourselves or use our animals as an excuse to keep living the same day over and over again.  The good news is that every day, there is another person who figures out that Fido is a dog and that the real action is with the people in his world.  And I think that is a very good thing.

Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

Ann Landers

By

Lynn Ruth Miller

Burlesque is just vaudeville with tits

Sophie Tucker

It was in 1942 that Johnny Mercer recorded what was to become my favorite song of all time THE STRIP POLKA.  I was 9 years old and we were in the midst of a horrific world war.  Americans spent a lot of time collecting tin cans and paper, juggling ration stamps  for gasoline, sugar, butter and meat and rallying to the cause.  Children were expected to make their own entertainment, because parents were too busy surviving or rolling bandages for the Red Cross and entertaining soldiers in their homes.

Our house had a huge backyard and my mother had an extravagant supply of clothes she didn’t like anymore.  My cousin Jessica and I loved to put together crazy costumes  and create glitzy shows for our neighbors after we did our homework and finished our chores.  We thought we were wonderful and our neighbors thought we were a welcome relief from the tension of bombings, battles and not enough sugar or butter to make a decent cake.   We would spend hours sitting at the kitchen table making posters to paste on all the trees in the neighborhood.  Then, on a Saturday afternoon to my mother’s horror and the other children’s delight, we would sing, dance and serve free Kool-Aide.  Jessie’s dog Dell was an immense boxer who drooled all over our improvised stage and our terrier Junior was our one-man band.  He  barked and danced to the music while everyone clapped and stamped their feet.  We sang “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”; we recited poems, did somersaults and  always closed with my favorite finale: THE STRIP POLKA.    I never really understood why the lady was taking things off and I never was sure WHAT she was removing,  but I loved the jazzy beat.  Jessica and I would romp around the improvised stage with Junior barking a rag time rhythm while we ripped off hats, coats, shoes, and hair ribbons and Dell crashed through the audience showering them with his unique brand of enthusiasm.   You couldn’t beat it for a fantastic finish.

When I was sixteen years old, my date took me to a burlesque show in Toledo Ohio in an attempt to encourage me to give him what he wasn’t getting.  The theater was on Superior Street tucked in between a pawn  hop and a greasy spoon.  It was dark and narrow and looked as if no one had touched it with a dust rag or a broom in 20 years.  We groped our way through the dimly lit lobby, and I was hit in the face with an odor so dense and heavy, I almost fell to the floor.  It was a combination of sweat, popcorn, semen and cockroach droppings.  “I want to go home,” I told my optimistic date.  “It stinks in here.”

“Give it a chance, “ said my lothario.  “You will really love this show.”

I wiped off my seat with my head scarf and tried not to touch the arm rest while my date settled down to enjoy a bit of 1950’s burlesque. The music began to play, the lights dimmed and the breathing of the sparse, totally male audience accelerated.  The curtains parted and there she was:  a 1950 Burlesque Beauty.

Except she wasn’t.  Not at all. The woman that appeared on that filthy stage framed in a tattered red velvet curtain was not the glamorous gloriously built vision I had expected.  She looked like the before in a weight watcher’s ad or the center fold of a Health Magazine entitled THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. She gyrated around the stage, the music’s beat slowed to a throbbing pulse of drums and clatter and she removed one shabby article of clothing after another as she moved across the stage more like an elephant on crack than a dancer on a high.

The men in the audience, gasped, sighed and moaned as each article of clothing fell to the floor and when the song ended, our tarnished queen stood before me, a living example of why my anorexia made sense.  “Let’s get out of here,” I said to my date.  “Zip up your pants.”

Tempest Storm said, “ I’ve always said that a woman’s greatest weapon is a man’s imagination” but that was West Coast Burlesque.  In the Midwest you needed more than an imagination.  You needed to be drunk, desperate and horny.  That sums up

1950’s burlesque in the boondocks.  Even in San Francisco, women like Blaze Star and Tempest Storm might have better figures than that demented woman I saw.  Indeed they spent a bit more on their costumes, but the theme was the same: a lot of wiggling and bright smiles while women who looked lousy in a Chanel suit did the very thing I did every night before retiring: they took off their clothes. Of course, I didn’t caress myself to music.  I let my dates to that.

That experience cemented my vision of what Burlesque actually was and it did not tempt me in the least.  I preferred a good opera or a stage play that made me cry.  I certainly never associated what I saw in that filthy theater with THE STRIP POLKA, a happy, adorable romp with cute words that didn’t make a lot of sense but always pepped up a party.

As I got older and life took me on different journeys, I always remembered that catchy song.  Whenever there was an entertainment or a community-sing, I would perform it because I knew all the words and it had an infectious sound. I sang it at sorority shows, family dinners and even at funerals.  I thought it would cheer everyone up. I never thought of myself as an entertainer…my Master’s Degree was in education.  And besides it took a couple Brandy Alexanders or a Gin and Tonic to get me to make a fool of myself in front of people who, once they heard me, might never again be my friends.

Before I knew it, it was 2000.  My life had changed.  I no longer taught.  I wrote books and stories and read them aloud at book stores. However, one performance led to another and everyone knows that once you give a Jewish ham a microphone, it is going to go downhill very fast.

And indeed it did.

By 2004 I found myself on stage telling jokes and wondering what I could do at the age of 71 to get people to notice me.  After one of my comedy shows at Winters Bar in Pacifica, a few of us were getting drunk trying to forget how small our audience was and how little they laughed when a young man named Ian said to me, “Have you ever thought of adding music to your act?” and I remembered ….you guessed it…THE STRIP POLKA.  “You know,” I said.  “I  have a song…………………….

And that is how it all began.  One song expanded to a parody and that bloomed into a full scale cabaret show.  At every show, I did my shtick, sang my songs and then for the finale, I did the one number I knew could never fail; THE STRIP POLKA.”  I was 40 Mason Street in San Francisco, when Susan Alexander saw me and said, “Here comes the Stripping Granny.”

Another performer said, “Have you ever thought of Burlesque?”

I closed my eyes and remembered that disgusting theatre in Toledo, Ohio and shook my head.  “I try not to,” I said.

And he said, “You know, the scene is very different these days.  It is funny and entertaining and sexy in a very different way than it once was in the days of Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand.”

“I’ll bet it is,” I said.

That was when I met Maxwell Wood.  “I know some people who would LOVE your act,” he said.

And you know the rest.

Burlesque is about….  knowing how to

Shake what you have and being proud of it.

Baby Doe