#political prisoners theatre portrayal

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday the Scottish actor Peter Mullan born 2 November 1959 in Peterhead. I love Peter’s work and rate him as highly as Brian Cox and If ever there was a story of rags to riches it is Peter Mullan, born in Peterhead the family later moved to Mosspark in Glasgow. Mullans father was a drunken violent man but despite this Peter did well at school, at least till the age of 14 when the climate at home forced him out onto the streets and into a gang, spending less and less time at school. In his own words he was aggressively lobotomising himself but admitted he kept up his reading on the sly “You couldnae tell the gang you were reading Carl Jung.” he said. I’m not sure his heart was in the gang culture as he says he was “kicked out” after a couple of years, he returned to school and sailed through his Highers and started at Glasgow University at 17. His dad died of lung cancer on his first day. Mullan studied economic history and drama and despite suffering a nervous breakdown in his final year still managed to graduate. He went on to teach drama at Borstals, prisons and community centres while becoming involved in the left-wing theatre movement that flourished in Scotland in the 1980s. In 1987 he made his professional acting debut with the Wildcat theatre company in a political pantomime. Bit parts in Scottish films and TV series followed, The Steamie, Taggart, of course, and Rab C Nesbitt, as well as The Big Man and in Braveheart, he uttered the words, “We didn’t come here to fight for the” Danny Boyle, Shallow Grave and Trainspotting were another two films that Mullan served his apprenticeship in. The breakthrough came when Ken Loach chose him in the title role of “My Name is Joe” he gave a brilliant portrayal Jekyll-and-Hyde character , a recovering alcoholic whose humanity and warmth masked a frightening capacity for brutality. He won his first award at Cannes as Best Actor for the role. Around the same time Mullan was starting to get into directing, three surreal comic dramas set in the Glaswegian working-class world and then his first full length film, he not only directed but wrote the excellent Orphans an odyssey of four working-class siblings roving round Glasgow in the 24 hours after their mother dies. Channel Four, who funded the film chose not to distribute it as they didn’t think it would attract a large commercial audience. The film however was shown at Film festivals around Europe and won numerous awards, in interviews, Mullan has said that once Orphans started winning awards Channel Four apologised and asked if they could distribute it, an offer he refused. Since then Peter Mullan has not looked back, directing and penning The Magdalene Sisters and Neds as well as starring in amongst others, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, War Horse, Hector and Tommy’s Honour, on the small screen he was one of the main characters in ITV series The Fixer, The BBC Two drama Top of the Lake, and in the excellent drama series Gunpowder. More up to date Peter has appeared as Jacob Snell in the first two seasons of the Netflix series Ozark, all three series of the BBC Two sitcom Mum and a recurring role in the popular TV reboot of Westworld. He has also starred in the Netflix fantasy drama Cursed. We will next see Mullan alongside Colin Farrell and Tom Courtney in the BBC series The North Water. Peter was also one of the participants of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Scenes For Survival project, which featured talents from the country’s arts industry making lockdown-related short films as a response to the country’s theatres having to close during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mullan has been busy in the past few years, appearing in TV shows Liaison, Payback, After the Party and LOTR: Rings of Power, as well as the film, Baghead a Horror film which has average reviews on IMDb. Outlander fans look out for him in the spin off series Outlander: Blood of My Blood, a prequel to the popular Starz show, it follows the parents of both protagonists from the original series. Tony Curran is also cast as a younger Lord Lovatt. It is follows the parents of both protagonists from the original series it is expected to premiere in 2025 on Starz. He has a few oter projects on the go, the most hard hitting will no doubt be an ITV mini series called Lockerbie which will focus on the investigation into the crash on both sides of the Atlantic and the devastating effect it had on the small town and the families who lost loved ones.

[cometomecosette]

Video Revew: Les Misérables, 3rd National Tour, 2000, Act I (long)

In honor of Barricade Day, I’ve decided to re-share the review I wrote some time ago of an outstanding complete Les Mis performance from yesteryear. The multi-part upload I originally reviewed has been taken down, but the whole performance can still be seen on YouTube in a single video here.

This performance by the US 3rd National Tour (a.k.a. the Marius Company) was filmed at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, February 7, 2000.

Main Cast

Jean Valjean: Ivan Rutherford

Javert: Stephen Bishop

Fantine: Joan Almedilla

Thénardier: J.P. Dougherty

Mme. Thénardier: Aymee Garcia

Marius: Tim Howar

Enjolras: Kevin Earley

Éponine: Sutton Foster

Cosette: Regan Thiel

Grantaire/Bamatabois: Trent Blanton

Young Cosette: Stephanie Mieko Cohen

Gavroche: Christopher Carlson

“Work Song,” “On Parole,” “Valjean Arrested, Valjean Forgiven,” “Valjean’s Soliloquy”

Ivan Rutherford’s Valjean lives up to all my positive memories of the three times I saw him onstage. His voice is excellent for the role: bright, rich and mellow, yet with a hint of grit that suits the convict, and effortlessly capable of both sweetness and power. Acting-wise, he’s subtler than some other convict-Valjeans, but still portrays a fully realized, nuanced and engaging character. Other actors are more aggressive to Javert and more visibly ecstatic on “Freedom is mine…” but Ivan’s portrayal seems a bit truer to Hugo’s Valjean, who was always a quiet, self-contained man and whose hardening from his years in prison makes him even less inclined to show emotion. Yet his anger becomes clear with his increasingly fearsome responses when others reject him. The growing darkness in him is evident when he shouts at the innkeeper’s wife, especially with how delicate, polite and frightened she’s portrayed as being. Then at the Bishop’s house we see him disturbingly become “a thief in the night,” as he plots the theft of the silver in a sneering, calculating tone, and then bows his head before the Bishop in feigned abject gratitude, only to steal the silver with a sneaky, quietly growled “…flight!” rather than a wild shout. The theft definitely feels like a premeditated, malevolent act rather than an impulsive, desperate one. Yet he still conveys sympathy-earning vulnerability too, with the abject, beaten dog-like fear he shows when the Bishop first approaches him and when he thinks he’s about to be sent back to the galleys. And at the end, he gives us a truly impassioned Soliloquy, full of rage, anguish, confusion, and ultimate determination to change.

Stephen Bishop was my first Javert and his performance here is exactly the way I remember him. Tall and imposing, with a rich, robust baritone voice, and just the right attitude of dignified condescension. Well I remember his snide, disdainful “No” in response to Valjean’s ‘Yes, it means I’m free!” I remember that Arlene C. Harris, the author of the Les Misérables sequel series Pont-au-Change, wrote in her review of this cast that his Javert was too smug, too much like ‘Gaston (from Beauty and the Beast) in a police uniform,” and I’ll admit I can see a little of that here. But at the same time, he’s very professional and avoids needless aggression. He’s the only Javert I’ve seen so far who doesn’t intimidate Valjean with his nightstick on “Do not forget me, 20601!” and despite his disdain, he hands Valjean his yellow passport in a civil way, not playing the games with it (e.g. smacking it against his chest, pulling it out of his reach at first, or dropping it for him to pick up) that other actors do.

The Bishop has a very nice voice and gentle, serene bearing, though he doesn’t make as strong an impression as some others.

The 3rd National Tour was always known for its outstanding ensemble and they do indeed seem excellent so far. One thing that stands out for me, though, is their subtlety. They don’t do too much shouting when Valjean turns aggressive, nor treat him with too much physical brutality. Compared to some other productions in more recent years, the crowd scenes are definitely understated here. But it works: sometimes less is more. That said, the warders in Toulon have a more brutal edge than in some other productions, noticing every time a convict stops working and either kicking him or shoving him with a gun butt. Even later performances in this same tour toned that business down.

If I’m not mistaken, the short and stocky yet gorgeous-voiced convict who sings “The sun is strong…” is Randal Keith, who at the time would have been understudying Valjean, but later became the final Valjean of both this tour and the original Broadway production, as well as the first Valjean I ever saw in 2001.

“At the End of the Day,” “I Dreamed a Dream,” “Lovely Ladies”

Joan Almedilla was my first Fantine, and while she’ll never be my favorite in the role, I do like her. In its lower and middle registers, her voice is warm, sweet, and excellently suited to the role. Unfortunately, when she belts in the upper register, her tone becomes nasal and strident, and this annoying quality becomes more pronounced as Fantine falls into poverty and disgrace. Still, her Fantine is solidly sung and effectively acted. After a soft-spoken, frightened factory scene, she vividly depicts Fantine’s tragic transformation, infusing “I Dreamed a Dream” with raw anguish and desperation, and then endures her slow degradation through “Lovely Ladies” until it culminates in her pitifully gagging from the strong drink the ladies give her and desperately stumbling into her laughing client’s arms, the re-emerging to sing a truly fierce, bitter final verse, her former ladylike manner gone. My only quibble about her acting is that, apart from holding her chest/stomach as if in pain (although that’s something, at least), she doesn’t do much to convey her declining health.

I like the way she kisses her locket after “He filled my days with endless wonder.” It shows that the locket was a gift from Tholomyes and makes the fact that she still wears it symbolize her dream that someday he’ll come back to her, which she renounces once and for all when she sells it.

Ivan’s Valjean has excellent new dignity in his brief appearance as Monsieur Madeleine.

The ensemble work is once again outstanding. The Foreman is just as imposing and nasty as he should be, while the Factory Girl is excellent in her initial feigned friendliness as she first peers at Fantine’s letter and in her true venom as she reveals her secret. The poor sick whore in “Lovely Ladies” seems genuinely agonized and the Pimp is a nasty piece of work, grabbing her by the hair to force her to keep selling.

You’ll notice a certain tall, thin young woman whom the camera subtly yet repeatedly focuses on, particularly during “Old men, young men, take ‘em as they come…” where she’s the fierce-looking whore in yellow striking an animalistic pose on the ground. That’s a pre-stardom Sutton Foster, whom we’ll see later in this performance as Éponine.

“Fantine’s Arrest,” “The Runaway Cart,” “Who Am ?” Joan’s Fantine is still compelling, even though her voice still tends to sound nasal. Her fear of Bamatabois and her screams of pain as he abuses her are heartrending, as are her pleas to Javert and her anguish over Cosette, but she also shows spirit and ferocity when she fights Bamatabois off and in her furious “M’sieur, don’t mock me now, I pray!” Yet again, though, she doesn’t make any real attempt to seem sick until she faints as the constables pick her up. Although I notice that just before that happens, she reaches out her hand – possibly implying that she’s already slipped into delirium and seeing Cosette. Trent’s Bamatabois is excellently nasty. The way he erotically strokes Fantine’s arm but then roughly yanks her to him makes it clear why she wants to escape, and his subsequent throwing her around and grabbing her by the hair is brutal.Stephen’s Javert still sings with a handsome, imposing baritone voice and cuts an appropriately stern, stolid figure. Ivan’s Valjean is dignified and generally reserved at this point, but still believable. It’s interesting that on “…that I am not your man?” he holds out his hands for Javert to handcuff then and there if he sees fit. His “Who Am I?” is excellently sung and conveys his inner turmoil subtly yet convincingly. By the way, is it just me, or does he look a little bit like Ernest Hemingway? Of course this is irrelevant to his portrayal of Valjean, but I just happened to notice it.

“Fantine’s Death,” “Confrontation,” “Castle on a Cloud”

Joan’s Fantine is poignant to the end. I like that she doesn’t lie still at the beginning, but turns feebly yet restlessly from side to side: it enhances our sense of her pain and delirium. Her deathbed desperation to ensure Cosette’s future is vivid and moving.

Ivan and Stephen’s “Confrontation” is very effective, with both initially remaining calm and dignified, but the tension on both sides gradually growing until it literally bursts when Valjean smashes the chair. They both sing outstandingly too. I also like the way Valjean’s threatening Javert with the chair leg is handled – instead of being intimidated, Javert just points his nightstick right back at Valjean, and for a moment they stand frozen in “Who will strike first?” tension. But then Valjean lowers the chair leg as if he suddenly feels ashamed of himself and is now choosing to be the bigger man and avoid needless violence. Unfortunately, though, Javert won’t let him avoid necessary violence.

The video skips ahead to “Castle on a Cloud” just as Valjean and Javert start to fight, so we don’t see Valjean knock Javert out and escape, or the scene change where our last sight of Fantine’s body is juxtaposed with out first sight of Young Cosette. I’m not sure if this is a technological error or if the filmmaker did it on purpose to make the scene change more cinematic. It looks more like the latter, though.

Stephanie Mieko Cohen’s Young Cosette is an appropriately sweet, delicate waif with an adorable little voice.

Aymee Garcia is a physically and vocally imposing Mme. Thénardier whose bullying of Cosette and cooing over Young Éponine are spot-on. I’m glad she was my first. (This is a recurring theme in this performance – by the time I first saw the show in 2001, the tour had a new Valjean, Marius, Éponine, Cosette and Enjolras, but Javert, Fantine and both Thénardiers were the same.)

“Master of the House,” “Well Scene” and “The Bargain/Waltz of Treachery”

Now we reach the Thénardiers’ Act I comedy showcase scenes with the first Thénardiers I ever saw.

By this performance, J.P. Dougherty had been playing Thénardier in this tour for over ten years and he would stay another two years before finally leaving. I remember from the reviews I read as a new fan that many tour followers were thoroughly sick of his performance by the end of his run. Fortunately, I only saw him in the role once, so I can still appreciate what he does with the role. I’ll admit that compared to other Thénardiers he’s a bit lacking in energy (maybe back in 1989 and ‘90 he would have had more), but he still manages to be funny and colorful without overacting – at least apart from his goofy high-pitched wail after “Like our own, M’sieur!”

As for another complaint that reviewers sometimes aimed at his Thénardier, that he was too comic and lacking in evil vibes, I don’t think that’s a problem so far. While of course Thénardier needs to become more sinister in the later Paris scenes, I think a genuinely amiable facade is entirely fitting at first. To a lesser extent the same is true for his wife. We should believe that Fantine could have trusted this couple to take care of her precious daughter, even if we can see how slimy they really are.

Aymee’s Mme. Thénardier is excellent. Brash, crude and funny, with a big, rich, attention-grabbing voice.

Ivan’s Valjean continues to make a great impression. He knows full well that the Thénardiers are conning him and offers excellent annoyed expressions and deadpan line delivery, as well as a flash of his temper when he slams the money onto the table after Mme. T.’s verse. Yet he’s so tender and sings so sweetly with little Cosette, and his big, hearty laugh and beaming smile as he spins her around at the end is infectious. He’s truly ecstatic to become her father.

It’s nice to hear the complete preamble to “Master of the House,” especially the subsequently-cut lines about Thénardier at Waterloo.

“Look Down,” “The Robbery,” “Stars,” “Éponine’s Errand”

Comparing this video to a video I shared in the past of the same year’s London cast performing “Look Down” and “The Robbery,” I can definitely see the ways in which the London production was subtly darker and more intense than the US tour. The beggars here don’t seem as harsh or as quick to turn on each other, the pimp doesn’t abuse the prostitute when he breaks up her fight with the old beggar woman, Éponine’s entrance has her cheerfully palling around with Gavroche instead of fighting off Montparnasse’s advances (although she and Montparnasse do have such a moment off to the side later), and Marius only jostles Cosette when he bumps into her, whereas in London he knocked her down. Not that this production feels tame in any way; it doesn’t. But there’s still a clear difference.

Christopher Carlson’s Gavroche is fine, but he doesn’t have quite as much character in his voice as I’d like to hear. He sings strongly and acts well enough, but he’s just a little bit nondescript.

Kevin Earley’s Enjolras commands instant attention with his rich, powerful baritone voice. His tone is slightly reminiscent of Michael Maguire, but decidedly less trumpeting and more elegant. Between his singing, his dignified ardor, and (on a shallower note) his good looks and Hugo-accurate curly blond hair, he definitely makes a strong first impression.

I like the touch of his giving a coin to a beggar woman on the bridge. It shows that Enjolras is no poseur or detached idealist, but striving to help the poor here and now as well as fighting for a better future for them.

Eighteen years before his controversial Phantom of the Opera, Tim Howar makes a likeable first impression as Marius, with his darkly shaded, gentle yet rich voice, and his warm interactions with Éponine and newfound passion for Cosette. The fact that he’s a fairly short man alongside a 5′9″ Éponine lets them add some fresh humor to their exchange in “The Robbery,” with her holding his book high above her head, out of his reach, until he makes her let it go by tickling her stomach, and to “Éponine’s Errand,” when he kneels before her to beg her to find Cosette, only for her to effortlessly and unsentimentally yank him to his feet. Of course Hugo’s class-conscious Marius and Éponine would never be so physically forward with each other, but in the musical it’s endearing.

This brings us to the person who, for many viewers, is undoubtedly this video’s raison d’etre: Sutton Foster as Éponine. Right away it’s no surprise that of all the cast members here, she’s become the biggest star. First of all, there’s her gorgeous voice. Then there’s her fully believable acting. Her Éponine is a true street urchin: tough, scrappy, intelligent, cheeky and playful, yet with brooding moments when she’s alone, and with (thus far) subtle hints of pathos yet not a trace of syrup. I like that she seems to deliver “Little he knows, little he sees” with a bittersweet smile: she wishes he returned her love, but is still happy just to know him and be his friend. The real angst will only come when he falls in love with someone else.

J.P. and Aymee still do a good job as the Thénardiers, although some of the others in other videos I’ve shared of this scene have been more distinctive.

Even though it doesn’t get a closeup, I notice one detail that I remember reading about in reviews of this cast. Regan Thiel’s Cosette doesn’t passively let Marius shield her from Montparnasse during the robbery, but struggles to break free from his protective arms and run back to her imperiled father. At one point she has both her feet kicking in the air!

Last but far from least, Stephen’s Javert is still as stern, imposing, driven and rich-voiced as ever. The dark lighting in “Stars” unfortunately makes him hard to see on camera during his own solo, but we can hear him perfectly well, and his sumptuous, impassioned baritone gives us a magnificent rendition of the song.

“The ABC Café/Red and Black,” “Do You Hear the People Sing?” “In My Life”

Whenever Kevin’s Enjolras and Ben Davis’s Feuilly are in the same shot, I can’t help but think “Look, twins!” If I hadn’t already known that Ben was Kevin’s understudy, I would have probably guessed it from their similar curly blond hair. Since the actor playing Joly also looks similar to Tim’s Marius, whom he would have understudied, I assume whoever chose this cast had firm ideas of what they wanted both Enjolras and Marius to look like.

Kevin is a natual-born Enjolras. Idealistic, dignified yet passionate, stern yet devoted to his friends, handsome and Antinous-like in appearance, and with a gorgeous baritone voice. His sound combines some of the earthy power of Michael Maguire’s with some of the elegance of Anthony Warlow’s, so if you’ve always thought your ideal Enjolras would combine the traits of both, look no further. I also notice that as he goes around the café and sings, he touches his friends more than any other Enjolras I can remember. So many shoulder pats! It’s a small detail, but it does enhance the sense of intimacy between Enjolras and his friends, making him more than just an aloof idealist without detracting from his dignity.

Trent Blanton’s Grantaire is deliciously wild. The audience gives him a good laugh, and rightfully so, when he opts to perch on the back of Marius’s chair and drape his whole body over Marius on “I am agog, I am aghast…” Then we get the infamous “Don Juan” business, first with the rolled-up paper, then with the wine bottle, both of which are snatched away in turn by an embarrassed, indignant Marius while all his friends applaud.

Tim’s Marius is endearingly earnest and serious about his new passion in “Red and Black,” and then overwhelmed with joy when Cosette is finally within his sight. A bit too much so, as when Éponine is taking a moment to look at her former foster-sister through the gate, he inconsiderately grabs her and pulls her out of the way so he can gaze at Cosette himself. As Hugo said, love makes a man forget both to be evil and to be good. At least he means well, as a moment later he pours out his gratitude to Éponine and gleefully spins her around.

As far as I know, Regan was the first blonde Cosette in a replica production. I can only assume that a brown wig wouldn’t have suited her complexion. It’s a little bit strange to see her after both Fantine and Young Cosette were not only both brunette, but both Asian. Still, she does a fine job in the role. Her voice is a sweet, pretty soprano, although her vibrato is slightly heavy and her high notes are ever-so-slightly strident, and she fully inhabits the character, portraying her with a gentle, earnest demeanor, yet with spirit too, brimming with yearning and excitement for her new love, and convincingly angry and frustrated on “In my life, I’m no longer a child…” yet without being bratty.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: I don’t care much for the way Ivan angrily grabs Cosette’s shoulders on “You will learn!” His Valjean always did this no matter when or where he performed the role. Still, it is clear how deeply he cares for her, and the warm, earnest way he grasps her hand on “There are words that are better unheard…” shows that he doesn’t want just to shut her down, but to make her understand that his secrets are for her own good. The shoulder-grab is just a burst of desperation when she persists.

Sutton’s Éponine is beautifully poignant in her few lines, and the ensemble work is excellent, as always.

“A Heart Full of Love,” “Attack on Rue Plumet,” “One Day More”

I remember from the reviews I read as a middle schooler that Tim and Regan’s Marius and Cosette were a much-beloved pairing. Not least because they were dating in real life, although it didn’t last long after they left the show. (Tim’s eventual first wife was another beloved Les Mis alumna – Ruthie Henshall.) At any rate, they offer a lovely rendition of their romantic duet: gentle, earnest, full of sweet disbelief and subtle rapture, and beautifully sung.

Sutton’s Éponine is touching in her quiet heartache,then beautifully fierce and powerful as she defends the Rue Plumet house from her father and the gang. I love the way she leaps onto Thénardier’s back to stop him from reaching the gate, and her raw, screechy scream is an epic moment.

It’s nice to see Éponine’s subsequently-cut exchange with Montparnasse. It’s certainly a good character moment for this Montparnasse (Matt Clemens, I think), who seemingly considers it perfectly normal to grope Éponine with his knife to her throat while talking about a completely different subject.

J.P. does an excellent job of shedding the amiable facade of his earlier scenes and showing us Thénardier’s ruthlessness. At first he plays the affectionate father he always has on “Éponine, get on home…” but when Éponine rebels, he shows his true colors as he yanks her away from the gate by her belt and snarls “Don’t interfere!” and then in the horrifying moment when he slaps her to the ground.

Kudos to Ivan for how panicked he sounds on “My God, Cosette! I heard a cry in the dark!” That’s the true voice of a father who thinks his child is in danger!

Unless I’m mistaken, Brujon is Randal Keith – my first Valjean a year after this performance. I think he’s also the unnamed student who carries Gavroche on his shoulder in “One Day More” (let’s say it’s Bahorel, though he wouldn’t have been credited as such).

“One Day More” is exhilarating, just as it should be.

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Shostakovich researcher here. In terms of his acts of charity towards other artists, there are several documented cases of him using his political ties and artistic prestige to support his contemporaries financially or to save them from persecution. I've already written about how he supported Prokofiev after the Zhdanov decree despite their artistic disagreements, but another fascinating anecdote is his support for the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg.

Weinberg was a Jewish composer who fled Nazi-occupied Poland to the Soviet Union in the 1940s. (He's also sometimes known as Moishe, Metak, or Moisei Vainberg, but I tend to use his Polish name.) He became friends with Shostakovich, and while it was known for a long time that Shostakovich's style influenced his own, music scholars now believe the influence was mutual, and that there are elements of Weinberg's style in Shostakovich's works.

In the late 40s and early 50s, Stalin carried out a series of anti-Semitic purges due to the so-called "Doctors' Plot," a conspiracy that suggested Jewish doctors and intellectuals were planning to kill many prominent Soviet political officials. Among those killed during the "Doctors' Plot" purges was Solomon Mikhoels, a Yiddish theatre actor and Weinberg's father-in-law. Soon after, Weinberg was also arrested. According to Weinberg's wife, Natalya Vovsi-Mikhoels, Shostakovich wrote a letter to the infamous Lavrenti Beriya pleading Weinberg's release- something she notes was incredibly risky, given Weinberg's Jewish identity during the "Doctor's Plot" purges and the fact that his father-in-law had been assassinated as a result of them, along with Weinberg's status as an "enemy of the people" at the time. Shostakovich and his wife Nina had even made arrangements to adopt their daughter Viktoria if Vovsi-Mikhoels was also arrested. Fortunately, after Stalin's death in 1953, Weinberg was released from prison (although I haven't been able to find whether or not Shostakovich's involvement contributed to this).

In Vovsi-Mikhoels' own words (Source- Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered):

Anyway, I definitely recommend in-depth music history research for those who have the time and interest! You'll find that despite the popular misconceptions and portrayals of many composers that were out there, many of them lived very fascinating and complex lives- Tchaikovsky, for instance, was a much more multifaceted and nuanced figure than he's commonly perceived.

As for Shostakovich recommendations, my favorite works of his include Piano Trio no. 2, Violin Concerto no. 1, Symphony no. 13, and Quartet no. 9. There's also the Antiformalist Rayok, which I wrote a post about here.

Most heartwarming things about every composer ❤️

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Mendelssohn: the profound respect he had for others

The way he’s so cordial with strangers and even the people he dislikes

Man always remembers his manners and acts cordial as his family has taught him

And on occasions, his bursts of excitement to the point of switching languages highlights his joy to see who his loves

From the 1830's when he was in his 20s: “his excitement was increased so fearfully … that when the family was assembled … he began to talk incoherently in English.”

“His attachment to Mademoiselle Lind’s genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success.” About Mendelssohn’s attitude to his wife

The amount of passion letters he wrote may be destroyed, but how his wife described him spoke it all: “He was the only person who brought fulfilment to my spirit, and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again.” ๐·°(৹˃̵﹏˂̵৹)°·๐ the feels bro

Recommended piece: Op. 34 No. 2

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Chopin: his love for family

Despite his disrespect and uncalled for criticism towards other composers, he still cares about his homeland

Even in his deathbed, he asked a soprano to sing the Polish national anthem

And he sent his siblings letters everyday when he was out of town

And through his ‘love’ letters to his friend, Tytus, you can tell he was passionate (;

“You don’t like being kissed. Please allow me to do so today. You have to pay for the dirty dream I had about you last night.” 👀 Chopin to Tytus — his ‘best friend’

We might never know if he actually meant it or if it was social etiquette back then, but the speculation is still there

Recommended pieces: Op. 22

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Liszt: everything about him

this man truly was an underrated jewel in the classical word

He was generous to the point where he went broke from teaching music free of charge and holding charity concerts all the time

People from his and our time both misunderstand him for being a womaniser, but he was more than that

He never disrespected any female composers and even when he criticised by his contemporaries, he always kept his cool and even complimented some of them

When Chopin criticised him for playing his nocturnes the wrong anr demanded an apology, Liszt still continued to admire him

Composer chivalry fr.

Recommended pieces: Totentanz

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Tchaikovsky: his devotion and mellow kindness

He was sweet and shy. Unlike Chopin.

Having only a few close friends and a tightly-knit family, he was fiercely loyal and to whom he loved.

As a gay man in the conservative 19th century Russia, he could only seek solace with his closest friends — his sister being the closest.

When his sister passed, all he could was to dedicate the entire Nutcracker Ballet to her as a part of his self-expression died with her.

And she meant a lot to him. Not only a part of himself was buried, the fact he loved her so much despite his depression and dissatisfaction towards his life, showed how close he was to his family.

Recommended piece: Pas de Deux (it showed his lonely yearning for love in my interpretation; those whimsical melodies and how he missed both sisterly and romantic love)

⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰

Beethoven: man pulled 2015 pranks in the 19th century

Even though he scowled and raged throughout his life, he pulled pranks and laughed when his guests fell for it

He hid behind the door and scared his guests whenever they went through it

Laughing at their annoyed faces, he continued to turn annoyance to offence when he made his friends the butt of his jokes

To further gouge tears from his grumpy little face, he made more short songs solely as jokes about them

Besides being a hopeless romantic who made Fur Elise as a way to diss Elise, he wrote lyrics, “we all agree that you are the biggest ass” when joking about his violinist friend

Beethoven was either a great or absolutely horrible friend to have

⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰

Shostakovich: a genuinely good guy

Every lonely person’s wet dream

Showing up on time, being nice back to everyone who was nice to him alongside living life the normal way despite being a composer, he never raised any aggression tendencies like other composers (take notes Beethoven :/)

Love extended beyond family and friends. He threaded and worded his letters with kindness and manners, especially to those who asked him for advice

Even under his intense stress and anxiety during the Soviet Union’s surveillance, the man loved his family.

And that in itself was impressive.

┗━•❃°•°❀°•°❃•━┛

Author’s note: I may not have written a recommended piece for all of them because I am not well-versed in most of their pieces yet

Do tell me what composers to do. I am happy to write about them <:

Much feedback is appreciated ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚

[hannibal-obsessed]

30 REASONS WHY THE LAMBS ARE STILL SCREAMING!!!

- Celebrating 30 years of The Silence of the Lambs Movie -

The Silence of the Lambs is a pop culture phenomenon, who’s influence is still being felt today. It is considered one of the best horror/terror/thriller movies of all time!

Released in 1991 on February 14th, The Silence of the Lambs evoked a blood curdling Valentine’s Day scream!

Happy Valentine’s Day

1991-2021

Author – Harris worked the cop beat for a Texas newspaper and had an interest in the macabre, often freelancing for Men’s Magazines (Argosy, True), writing about some of the most gruesome stories.

1. Thomas Harris – As the author of The Silence of the Lambs and creator of Hannibal Lecter, none of this would be possible without Harris. He’s an impeccable researcher, studying the cases of the most notorious serial killers at the time. Harris was seen at parts of Ted Bundy’s Chi Omega trial taking notes.

Actors

2. Jodie Foster – Foster’s portrayal of rookie FBI in training agent Clarice Starling, is a spot on performance. Foster shows Starling’s vulnerability and how her abandonment issues and need to advance in the FBI, bring her under Lecter’s spell.

3. Anthony Hopkins – Hopkins portrayal of Hannibal Lecter left an indelible mark that still haunts us 30 years later. Thomas Harris wrote Lecter...Hopkins brought him to life. The duality of Lecter, which Hopkins plays to perfection, leads you into a false sense of security...that perhaps he’s not that bad...until he lets loose on the police officers during his escape from custody.

4. Scott Glenn – Glenn plays the head of the Behavioural Science Unit at Quantico, Jack Crawford aka the Guru by his agents. Crawford uses his father like status to entice Starling to interview Lecter thus hopefully gaining access, which Lecter had denied other agents.

5. Ted Levine – Levine‘s portrayal of Buffalo Bill has a creep factor that is impossible to put out of your mind, especially when the song Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus plays...and he dances...

6. Anthony Heald – Heald’s portrayal of Dr. Frederick Chilton oozes contempt and arrogance, which doesn’t make you feel a bit sorry him when he becomes Lecter’s meal.

7. Brooke Smith – The all American girl who’s kidnapped by Buffalo Bill and held in a pit for the harvesting of her skin. Catherine Martin is a clever one though and hatches a plan to escape using Precious the dog as a hostage.

8. Frankie Faison – The only actor to appear in 4 of the 5 Hannibal Lecter movies. Barney Matthews survives Lecter with his politeness as Lecter abhors rudeness. Lecter believes whenever feasible, one should eat the rude.

Art/Symbols/Theme

9. Basements – The basement is an underlying theme in The Silence of the Lambs: The BSU of the FBI work out of the basement at Quantico; Hannibal Lecter is kept in the basement of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and Buffalo Bill’s sanctuary is the basement of the former Mrs. Lippman's house.

10. Death Head Hawk Moth/Transformation – The theme throughout The Silence of the Lambs is transformation. The Moth represents Buffalo Bill’s transformation from a pupae/chrysalis/cocoon into a beautiful butterfly.

11. Salvador Dali/Philippe Halsman – In Voluptas Mors/Voluptuous Death (1951), the most scandalous photo of it’s time was the brainchild of Dali and Halsman. Dali arranged seven naked women into a macabre skull. This skull is used as the marking for the Death Head Hawk Moth on the poster for The Silence of the Lambs, which has become synonymous with the movie.

12. Cannibalism – Lecter doesn’t keep trophies in the usual sense, he eats his victims ensuring they will be part of him forever and leaving no evidence behind.

13. Sketches – Hannibal Lecter is a gifted artist and uses his talent to escape the confining basement walls of The Baltimore State Hospital with sketches of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo as seen from the Belvedere in Florence.

14. Music – Hannibal Lecter has an appreciation for the finer things in life like classical music in particular Goldberg’s Variations Aria. Catherine Martin rocks out to Tom Petty’s American Girl and Buffalo Bill dances to Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus.

Behavioural Science Unit – It was a new age of criminal behaviour which needed a new type of agent...a profiler.

15. FBI – The Federal Bureau Of Investigation was formed to combat the criminal Mob element by J. Edgar Hoover. It was only upon Hoover’s death that the FBI started exploring other avenues to catch a new type of killer, the serial killer. After Hoover’s death the FBI would start to hire female agents, which would spur Harris to write a story about an up and coming female agent in training.

16. John E. Douglas – Douglas is the real Jack Crawford, an agent who helped in the development of Behavioural Sciences to catch the newly ordained serial killer. Douglas was a consultant for The Silence of the Lambs movie and is an author of many serial killer/profiling books.

17. Robert Ressler – Crawford is also based on Ressler who was in charge of developing the BSU and was instrumental in the creation of profiling serial killers by interviewing them behind bars. Ressler is responsible for writing some of the best profiling books.

Production

18. Jonathan Demme – It’s Demme’s vision as Director of The Silence of the Lambs which is the magic that has cemented The Silence of the Lambs in the minds of all who watch and re-watch and re-watch...

19. Orion Pictures – The little studio that took a big chance. Unfortunately The Silence of the Lambs wouldn’t save Orion from bankruptcy and they’d be bought out by MGM, who would acquire their movie catalogue.

20. Ted Tally – The man who would turn Harris’ novel into a great screenplay, hitting all the major marks. Tally would pass on the Hannibal screenplay; being lured back for the Red Dragon screenplay.

21. Dino De Laurentiis – If not for De Laurentiis passing on the movie rights to Harris’ novel, The Silence of the Lambs, after the bad box office return of Manhunter, and for allowing Demme to use Hannibal Lecter, we wouldn’t even be discussing this 30 years later.

Quotes – The Silence of the Lambs gave us a few extremely recognizable quotes!

22. Chianti and Fava Beans – “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

- Hannibal Lecter

23. Lotion – “It rubs the lotion on it’s skin or else it gets the hose again.”

- Buffalo Bill

24. Friendship – “I’m having an old friend for dinner.”

- Hannibal Lecter

Serial Killers – Harris based Lecter and Buffalo Bill on some very real killers...

25. Ed Gein – Buffalo Bill is part Gein for without the crimes of Ed Gein, Buffalo Bill wouldn’t exist. It was Gein’s skinning of corpses and his two murder victims that would inspire Buffalo Bill...

26. Gary Heideck – If Buffalo Bill is part Gein, he’s also part Heideck, who’d kidnap women and then tortured them in a pit in his basement.

27. Ted Bundy – Buffalo is also part Ted Bundy, who would lure his victims with injuries like an arm in a cast; he would seem vulnerable seeking help with books or a canoe and in Buffalo Bill’s case a chair.

28. Ed Kemper – What do Hannibal Lecter and Ed Kemper have in common? A high IQ., a fondness of co-eds and a love of cars.

29. Alfredo Balli Trevino – Harris met Trevino in a Mexican prison, mistaking him for a doctor who worked in the prison; Trevino was actually an inmate working in the prison.

Trevino was convicted of murdering then dismembering his lover. It was this encounter that would set the tone for Lecter.

30. Alonzo Robinson – Lecter has been compared to many serial killers over the decades, many of who’s crimes are too late to be included in The Silence of the Lambs novel (1988). It was most likely the story of Alonzo Robinson/James Coyner/William Coyner that planted the seeds of a cannibal killer in the young mind of Thomas Harris.

Influence – Every Serial Killer book written after The Silence of the Lambs was released in theatres, has a reference to it...even BTK referenced Buffalo Bill in his essay to FBI Profiler, John E. Douglas, among an impressive list of serial killers...Ted Bundy, Son of Sam, Ed Kemper, Steven Pennell and Gary Heideck.

Conclusion: Thomas Harris’ first Lecter novel, Red Dragon, turns 40 in October, so Hannibal Lecter has been part of our literary world for 40 years. Although Manhunter was released in 1986 as the first film featuring Lektor (spelling in the movie), it was Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs that will be remembered as bringing Lecter to the masses. Even though Hopkins would play Lecter two more times in Hannibal (2001) and in the remake of Manhunter, Red Dragon (2002), it’s Hopkins Oscar winning portrayal in The Silence of the Lambs that we will always remember and keep the lambs screaming...

Shannon L. Christie

[rptv-jamesbond]

Obituary: Sir Sean Connery

BBC•October 31, 2020

-

For many, Sean Connery was the definitive James Bond. Suave and cold-hearted, his 007 was every inch the Cold War dinosaur of the books.

He strode across screen, licensed to kill. He moved like a panther, hungry and in search of prey. There was no contest. His great rival, Roger Moore, by contrast, simply cocked an eyebrow, smiled and did a quip.

But whereas Ian Fleming's hero went to Eton, Connery's own background was noticeably short of fast cars, beautiful women and vodka Martinis - either shaken or stirred.

Humble origins

Thomas Sean Connery was born in the Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh on 25 August 1930, the son of a Catholic factory worker and a Protestant domestic cleaner.

His father's family had emigrated from Ireland in the 19th Century; his mother traced her line back to Gaelic speakers from the Isle of Skye.

The area had been in decline for years. Young Tommy Connery was brought up in one room of a tenement with a shared toilet and no hot water.

He left school at 13 with no qualifications and delivered milk, polished coffins and laid bricks, before joining the Royal Navy. Three years later, he was invalided out of the service with stomach ulcers. His arms by now had tattoos which proclaimed his passions: "Scotland forever" and "Mum & Dad".

In Edinburgh, he gained a reputation as "hard man" when six gang members tried to steal from his coat. When he stopped them, he was followed. Connery launched a one-man assault which the future Bond won hands down.

He scraped a living any way he could. He drove trucks, worked as a lifeguard and posed as a model at the Edinburgh College of Art. He spent his spare time bodybuilding.

Too beautiful for words

The artist Richard Demarco, who as a student often painted Connery, described him as "too beautiful for words, a virtual Adonis".

A keen footballer, Connery was good enough to attract the attention of Matt Busby, who offered him a £25-a-week contract at Manchester United.

But, bitten by the acting bug when odd-jobbing at a local theatre, he decided a footballer's career was potentially too short and opted to pursue his luck on the stage. It was, he later said, "one of my more intelligent moves".

In 1953, he was in London competing in the Mr Universe competition. He heard that there were parts going in the chorus of a production of the musical South Pacific. By the following year, he was playing the role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams, made famous on Broadway by Larry Hagman.

American actor Robert Henderson encouraged Connery to educate himself. Henderson lent him works by Ibsen, Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw, and persuaded Connery to take elocution lessons.

Connery made the first of many appearances as a film extra in the 1954 movie Lilacs in the Spring. There were minor roles on television too, including a gangster in an episode of the BBC police drama Dixon of Dock Green.

The ladies will like him....

In 1957, he got his first leading role in Blood Money, a BBC reworking of Requiem for a Heavyweight, in which he portrayed a boxer whose career is in decline.

It had been made famous in America by Hollywood legend Jack Palance. When Palance refused to travel to London, the director's wife suggested Sean.

"The ladies will like him," she said.

A year later, he was alongside Lana Turner - proper Tinsel Town royalty - in the film Another Time, Another Place. Her boyfriend, the mobster Johnny Stompanato, reacted badly to rumours of a romance.

He stormed on set and pulled out a gun. Connery grabbed it from his hand and overpowered him, before others stepped in and kicked him off set.

He was praised for his role in the BBC drama, Blood Money

-

The name's Bond...

And then came Bond. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had acquired the rights to film Ian Fleming's novels and were looking for an actor to portray 007.

Richard Burton, Cary Grant and Rex Harrison were all considered, even Lord Lucan and the BBC's Peter Snow.

It was Broccoli's wife, Dana, who persuaded her husband that Connery had the magnetism and sexual chemistry for the part.

That view was not originally shared by Bond's creator, Ian Fleming. "I'm looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stuntman," he insisted.

But Broccoli was right, and Fleming was wrong. The author quickly changed his mind when he saw him on screen. He even wrote a half-Scottish history for the character in some of his later works.

A director friend, Terence Young, took Connery under his wing, taking him to expensive restaurants and casinos; teaching him how to carry himself, so the slightly gauche Scot would pass as a suave and sophisticated secret agent.

Connery made the character his own, blending ruthlessness with sardonic wit. Many critics didn't like it and some of the reviews were scathing. But the public did not agree.

The action scenes, sex and exotic locations were a winning formula. The first film, Dr No, made a pile of money at the box office. Even abroad it was hugely successful; with President Kennedy requesting a private screening at the White House.

More outings swiftly followed - From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967).

It was exhausting and occasionally dangerous. At one point, he was thrown into a pool full of sharks with only a flexi-glass screen for protection. When one of the creatures got through, Connery beat the hastiest of retreats.

There was other work, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie, and The Hill, a drama about a wartime British Army prison in North Africa.

But by the time You Only Live Twice was completed, Connery was tiring of Bond and feared being typecast.

He turned down On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with the role given to Australian actor George Lazenby, whose career never recovered.

Saltzman and Broccoli lured Connery back for Diamonds Are Forever in 1971, meeting the actor's demand for a then record $1.25m fee. Connery used it to set up the Scottish International Education Trust, supporting the careers of up-and-coming Scottish artists.

The film had mixed reviews, with some critics complaining the film relied too much on camp humour, a theme that would continue and develop under his successor, Roger Moore.

Connery starred in the Rudyard Kipling tale The Man Who Would Be King alongside his great friend Michael Caine, but most of the next decade was spent in supporting roles, such as in Time Bandits, or as part of an ensemble cast in films like A Bridge Too Far.

Never Say Never

Having lost a lot of money in a Spanish land deal, he accepted a lucrative offer to play Bond again, in Never Say Never Again. This time 007 was an ageing hero; older, wiser and self-deprecating but ultimately still as hard as nails.

The title was suggested by Connery's wife, who reminded her husband he had vowed "never to play Bond again".

He continued to play other parts, winning a Bafta for his performance as William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

A year later, his performance as a world-weary Irish beat cop, albeit with a definite Scottish accent, in The Untouchables, won him an Oscar for best supporting actor.

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, he played Harrison Ford's father, despite being only 12 years older. And there was a knowing nod towards James Bond alongside Nicolas Cage in The Rock, where he was a British secret agent kept imprisoned for decades.

There was box office success for The Hunt for Red October, The Russia House and Entrapment; although First Knight and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen failed to take off.

And he turned down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings in 2006, declaring himself tired of acting and sick of the "idiots now making films in Hollywood".

Exile

He was briefly considered for the role of the gamekeeper in the 2012 Bond film Skyfall, but the director, Sam Mendes, wisely felt it would be distracting to have a previous 007 appear with Daniel Craig.

Always hating the Hollywood lifestyle, he preferred to play golf at his homes in Spain, Portugal and the Caribbean with his second wife, Micheline Roqubrune, an artist he had met in Morocco.

His previous marriage, to the Australian actress Diane Cilento, had ended in 1975 amid allegations he had been violent towards her and had a string of affairs. They had one son, the actor Jason Connery.

He claimed he remained true to his Scottish roots despite living abroad

-

Despite his exile, he retained a full throated passion for Scotland, despite once misguidedly endorsing a Japanese blend of whisky.

He attributed his short fuse and his "moodiness" to his Celtic genes. "My view is that to get anywhere in life you have to be anti-social,'' he once said. "Otherwise you'll end up being devoured."

A long overdue knighthood, finally awarded in 2000, was reportedly held up by the Labour government because of his support for Scottish independence.

In truth, his Bond is now a museum piece; the portrayal of women impossibly dated. The action scenes are still thrilling, but the sex too often bordered on the non-consensual. ***

Thankfully, it's been a while since 007 slapped a woman on the backside and forced a kiss. But Connery's performance was of its time, enjoyed by millions of both sexes and gave the silver screen a 20th Century icon.

He leaves behind him a body of work that any actor would be proud of and, not least, a vacancy for the title "Greatest Living Scot".

-

***[silly nonsense by politically-correct BBC writer. It’s a freaking movie, not a public service announcement]

https://news.yahoo.com/obituary-sean-connery-122642503.html

[theparanormalperiodical]

11 Weird Events that Happened on Halloween

It’s that time of year again:

Your local Tesco’s has officially begun stocking christmas-related food items, cheap cat ears have completed their invasion of every female-directed fashion shop, and thanks to global warming the temperature has barely dropped since mid-summer.

That’s right - it’s nearly Halloween!

And we all know what Halloween means: striking moments of political change!

Oh, wait, is that one just me?

Yep, thanks to British politics, the most wonderful day of the year could potentially be tarnished by Brexit.

But it got me thinking: what other major events have happened on Halloween?

And has anything spook-tastic ever coincided with All Hallow’s Eve?

Clearly the 31st of October has an aura of frightful goings-on.

In basic terms, Halloween is believed to be the only day of the year when spirits can cross over from the afterlife and wander with the living once more.

So, could these events be a coincidence, or sparked by the spirits crossing back over into this world?

Today’s edition of the Paranormal Periodical is going to be all about every event - from the political to the paranormal - that has happened on the 31st October.

Let’s get spooky!

We start with the political side of things.

And let me tell you, there’s like, a lot of things.

So, no, Brexit will not stand alone as a political memory on the best day of the year.

In fact, it honestly seems like a large chunk of American history just decided to, like, happen, on this one day of the year.

But we start with something less spooky, more sad.

It’s the Wreck of the Monmouth.

Take yourself back to 1837. 

It’s - yes, you guessed it, you understand the basic premise of this post - Halloween night. It’s also the moment from which the forced deportation of Creek Native Americans from their homeland begins, shortly following a war in 1836. 

This deportation used a number of boats, including the one that titles this tale: The Monmouth.

The story goes that it crashed into another steamship, and that the sheer force of the collision sent it to the depths of the Mississippi river. 

It is estimated that 400 Native Americans drowned in this collision. It has even been regarded as the worst American Steamboat accident to date.

But there seems to be more discussion surrounding this tale than simply its occurrence on All Hallows’ Eve:

It ignited a wider discussion of the portrayal of Native Americans among the population and in the press. As it was in a remote area and ceased to include white people, it was simply ignored by the press.

As I said before, American politics does seem to dabble on doing things in late October, but it really specifies a niche for itself by having yet another disaster with a ship.

Only this was to have much more global consequences. 

The USS Reuben James - created to protect supply shipments during WW2 - was sunk during conflict on Halloween.

It lost two thirds of its crew, and even earnt the honour of being the first ship sunk during the conflict.

Indeed, this occurred only a month before Pearl Harbour, cementing itself as part of one of the most iconic moments in modern American history.

Happy Halloween?

But before we get tangled up in American history, how about we move to the next crazy event that coincided with the spookiest day of the year?

Well, I’m afraid that’s going to involve getting knotted up in another country’s political history to do so… 

It was 1922 when Mussolini - the first European dictator to start the mid-20th century political trend - marched on Rome. 

Having created a coalition government, he decided to consolidate his power by (you guessed it) this infamous march on Rome. 

Bolstered by a sea of Blackshirts, his fascist supporters, his control symbolically began.

Keep your horror films, and hold onto your ghost stories: this scares the living shit out of me.

Our final event takes us back only 4 years before this march, and back across the borders to American history.

However, this does shed a more positive light on the darker moments already detailed.

It was October 1918 when the affectionately named ‘Death Spike’ of the Spanish Influenza hit the USA.

And with a death toll topping 50 million around the globe, it certainly seems to stick to the darker themes so far discussed in this episode.

(Look, I’m sorry history happened, I can’t control fascists or stop people dying.)

In October, 200,000 Americans from the Influenza died. This accounted for nearly a third of the total death toll in America for the Influenza.

The positive side to this story? It was Halloween that actually ended this month.

Yep, Halloween ended the Death Spike.

Well, phew, that’s over.

Can we finally get onto some cool, spooky yet awesome stories now?

What about some stories with less death and hatred and pure evil?

Maybe a handful of quirky coincidences to liven up the depressing stories already listed?

Nope, the next ones are just as awful.

Now we turn to the spooky shit that coincided with Halloween.

We start with possibly the most ironic death… ever.

Harry Houdini is the most famous magician - okay, fine, you can keep Merlin, whatever - that’s ever existed.

Yet it’s not actually his life that features on this list - it’s his death.

It was October 1926 when Houdini gave a lecture to McGill University students about fraudulent spiritualism.

Hahaha well this is awkward hahaha.

Basically, he invited some students to his dressing room at one of the theatres in Montreal. For some reason, one of these students decided to score several hard blows at his stomach.

One abdominal infection later, and he was dead. 

And so the death train continues.

Our next stop is still as deathy, but a smidgen more spooky. And a splash more serial killer.

In 1981, a couple was murdered. 

They were beaten, shot, and the house was left ransacked. The police even claimed it had the looks of an execution.

Initially it was believed to be related to drugs, but the tone of the case quickly shifted when it was discovered the murder was predicted by an prisoner.

Serial killer David Berkowitz gave an eerily accurate description of the murders mere weeks before it occurred.

Clearly, this would make him a give-away suspect in this case, but as he was in prison during the murder, this removed him from the list.

We now turn to a similarly ghastly murder.

In 1977, a baby girl went missing. She was snatched from her own cradle.

And the first terrifying detail of this case starts with her abduction - which okay, fine, that definitely counts as creepy enough but somehow it gets worse: as the doors and windows were found to be locked, it is believed the abductor was hiding in the closet.

Oh, and it only gets worse and weirder - her body was found in a fridge.

I suppose you could assume that the murderer, I don't know, panicked and hid the body in a pretty ordinary un-suspicious object. 

But this is when things get interesting. Prior to this, two young girls were also abducted and lured into a fridge, confirming that a fridge is somehow a prominent prop for a serial killer who may still be lurking among us.

One of these girls died during the abduction, and it was the surviving child that claimed it was the babysitter who attempted to abduct them. 

The babysitter was found to be innocent, especially considering the surviving child was so young.

We now move from deaths to a disappearance:

Even now, no less than 18 years later, information regarding Hyon Jong Song is scarce.

Following a Halloween party in 2001, Song made it home at 4am, still decked out in a traditional Halloween bunny costume, after a lift from a friend.

The last evidence we have of her is her belongings which were dropped off in her house - she had even managed to remove her eyelashes!

But this was to be the final trace of this grad student.

Our penultimate tragedy takes us to Indiana, and brings us swinging into the sixties.

During the Indiana State Fair, an ice skating exhibition was on display for hundreds of visitors. 

But it was during the finale that disaster struck.

Unknown to the managers of the event, propane gas was leaking from a tank in a room nearby. You don’t need a chemistry degree to tell you this wouldn’t end well.

The fire utilised in the finale’s effects set it alight, causing an explosion that killed 74 and injured over 400. 

We now turn to an occurrence that seems uncomfortably common for Halloween.

I take that back - I suppose it suits the time of year well...

In fact, I’d like to call this section: 

when Halloween decorations were not Halloween decorations but were actually dead bodies. 

Brace positions, everyone. 

The most famous case only take us back 5 years.

In 2014, a man dragged a fake corpse out of his apartment on Halloween in front of a crowd of unsuspecting onlookers, and kicked the head across the street in a jest.

Only it wasn't a jest.

And it wasn't a fake corpse.

It was his decapitated mother. He had killed her shortly before this.

A similarly tragic event - which doesn’t sound dissimilar to any old urban legend is the death of William Anthony Odem.

The 15 year old was hoping to embellish the theme of his haunted house by staging a Gallows scene in the basement.

Unfortunately, he hung himself in the process.

In fact, hangings in particular - accidental, or not - often have ended up as decorations.

Suicide victims has often gone unnoticed during All Hallow’s Eve, disguised as the ghosts and ghoulish figures hanging on trees across streets and suburbs.

And so we arrive at our conclusion.

Depressed and scarred for life.

So much for a horror film binge and thought out costumes - these real events should scare you enough for Halloween! 

[nellynog]

Marius Goring as Leutnant Felix Schuster in ‘The Spy in Black’ (1939). As Stormtroop Leader Fritz Gerte in ‘Pastor Hall’ (1940). As Oberst Günther von Hohensee in ‘So Little Time’ (1952). As Major General Karl Kreipe in ‘Ill Met By Moonlight (1957). As Rudi Siebel in ‘The Treasure of San Teresa’ (1959). As Oberst Elrick Olberg in ‘The Angry Hills’ (1959). As General Harras in ‘The Devil’s General’ (1960). As a German major in ‘Up From the Beach (1965). As Oberst Muller in ‘The 25th Hour’ (1967). And as Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg in ‘Fall of Eagles’ (1974).

He was interviewed by Stars and Stripes in February 1965 while filming ‘Up From the Beach’. The italics in bold are my own.

Marius Goring: A German only in the movies by James Gunter (10 February 1965) Stars and Stripes

MARIUS GORING was a homicidal maniac before World War II. He has been a Nazi officer since the war.

A character actor whose name sounds German but who is as English as afternoon tea, Goring said he once took the part of a mad killer in a London play and was immediately typed.

"From then on, it was homicidal maniacs for me," he said. "Then the war was over and I suddenly found myself a German."

Goring was in France to act the role of a Wehrmacht major in a new film about the Normandy invasion of 1944, "Up From the Beach." It makes about a dozen times that he has performed the role of a German in World War II uniform, starting as a colonel in "So Little Time" with Maria Schell. (Incorrect. He played a German submarine officer in 1939 in ‘The Spy in Black’ and a stormtroop leader in 1940 in ‘Pastor Hall’.)

"I keep going up and down in rank," he said. "Mostly I have played officers."

Actually, Goring thinks he has too much rank in his present film portrayal of a captured major who was occupation commandant of a small French village.

"It's a gross error," he said. "I should have been a sergeant."

Of his German roles, he remembers best the general he played in a picture called "Ill-Met by Moonlight" and the Luftwaffe general he did in a television film, "The Devil's General."

He said most of his own countrymen think he is German because his name is similar to that of Hermann Göering who headed the Luftwaffe in World War II.

"Goring is a completely English name," he said, pointing out such place names in England as Goring on Thames, Goring Gap and Goring on Sea in Sussex, where he came from. (Incorrect. He was born at Newport on the Isle of Wight).

"Göering came to London in 1938 and tried to find a connection with the Goring family for political reasons, but he couldn't," he said.

Adding to Goring's German image is his German wife, Lucie Mannheim, a leading actress in Germany before 1933 and after the war. Also he speaks German so well that he has appeared in Berlin theatrical presentations. (And German films such as ‘Nachts auf den Straßen’ (1952) and German TV productions).

"I was in Munich for more than a year as a student," he said. "During World War II, I talked to prisoners and got to know a certain type of senior officer and the way that they thought.”

During World War II, Goring was an enlisted man in the Queen's Royal Regiment. (He enlisted on 26 July 1940 in the Queen's Royal (West Surrey) Regiment which was the oldest line regiment in the British army, established in 1661. Regimental Service Number: 6099377). Later, he was connected with the British Foreign Office as a political commentator making broadcasts to the German-speaking countries under the pseudonym of Charles Richardson. (His father’s first name was Charles and his maternal grandmother was a Richardson). In 1944-45, he was a member of the intelligence staff of SHAEF.

"I was then a full colonel," he said. "I used to pray, ‘Dear God, let me meet up with my old regiment. They would have had to present arms.”

Goring was trained at the Old Vic dramatic school and played with that company as well as the Royal Shakespeare company in Stratford. He still makes regular appearances in London theatres.

The actor is a big man with blond hair (actually red gold) and blue eyes. In a German uniform, he is a model for soldierly bearing.

"I trained as a dancer in the beginning and I go back to dancing class when I am in London to keep in shape," he said. "It's a form of discipline.”

How long does Goring think he will continue to be a German officer in the movies?

"Well, I hope it goes on, because I understand it," he said. "But, of course, I don't want to do it until I drop.” mariusgoring.com

[queerwelsh]

Glad to Be Gay - Tom Robinson Band - 6/1/1979 - Capitol Theatre

‘Glad to be Gay’ was written by Tom Robinson, the openly gay singer of the Tom Robinson Band, in 1976 for London Pride. It was released in February 1978, and reached #18 in the singles chart, but was banned on the BBC Radio 1 Charts Show.

The original version discussed police raids of gay pubs after the 1967 partial decriminalisation of homosexuality, ‘Gay News’ (a newspaper by GLF and CHE) being prosecuted for obscenity, the portrayals of LGBT people by the media, extreme violence against LGBT people and prosections and violence as a result of the then age of consent of 21. (The latter he pointedly reinstated at the Secret Policeman’s Ball, an event by Amnesty International, who then refused to classify LGBT prisoners as political prisoners.)

The final verse attacked complacency of gay people but for the released version, the final verse was changed to be a rallying call for solidarity. There have been 10 versions of the song released by Tom Robinson, updated to reflect curent events, addressing Aids, tabloids and Tom Robinson’s bisexuality.

“You don’t have to be gay to sing along on this song ... But it helps.”

[thehandmaidstalehulu]

Samira Wiley is modernity defined. While Elisabeth Moss, her co-star in The Handmaid’s Tale, rose to prominence in prestige television dramas such as Mad Men and The West Wing, Wiley has built a reputation almost entirely in shows made by streaming sites.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision,” says the 30-year-old over the phone, “the shows that are being written on streaming sites have surpassed anything seen on television traditionally.” After four seasons playing Poussey in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, she now plays Moira, an activist and lesbian – in a world in which homosexuality is punishable by torture and death – in The Handmaid’s Tale, made by US streaming site Hulu.

Both shows were game-changers. Orange Is the New Black broke new ground for myriad reasons, dealing with drug abuse, mental illness, and the experiences of bisexual, lesbian, queer and transgender women in an infinitely more complex and sophisticated way than had been seen in mainstream entertainment before. It also featured a large cast of relatively unknown actors, most of whom did not conform to the Hollywood stereotype.

“In the past, on television, the ‘ideal woman’ was thin, white and always looked perfect, the farthest thing from any woman on Orange,” says Wiley. “Now we know that audiences don’t want to see some ‘ideal woman’, they want to see women who look like themselves, or look like their friends, their aunts, their mothers, their children.” The Handmaid’s Tale, meanwhile, would likely have always found an audience, thanks to Margaret Atwood’s seminal novel on which it is based. But, given the political context in which it has aired, the dystopian programme has thrust itself into popular discourse in a way that few series have managed in recent memory. “For something to resonate in this way is just overwhelming,” Wiley agrees. “And to have it happen twice in row … that’s just unheard-of.”

Wiley grew up in Washington DC, studied drama at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, and spent the first few years post-college working in theatre in the city (she played Maria in Love’s Labour’s Lost for the city’s Public Theater company). Her career was never something carefully planned or strategised, she says, recalling an early meeting with her agent. “I remember going to his office and frantically telling him: ‘I just want you to know that I can do anything. I will do anything,’” she laughs. “Now, I think it is important to have some discernment.”

Her close friend from Juilliard, Danielle Brooks, had already been cast as fellow inmate Taystee in OITNB when Wiley auditioned for the show’s debut season. “Orange gave me my life,” she says, emphatically. “Not just in terms of my career, but it’s also where I met my wife.” When she married Lauren Morelli, a writer on the show, earlier this year, her parents officiated (they are both pastors).

The show also dealt Wiley an unprecedented level of recognition overnight. When it launched in 2013, it was one of the first Netflix Originals. All 13 episodes were released at once, enabling audiences across the globe to binge the entire first season and connect with Poussey. “I didn’t know how to handle the success at first,” she admits. “I was scared. I had people following me home. I spent a few days not leaving the house because I couldn’t deal with it. It was a huge shock.”

Wiley’s warm, funny, empathetic portrayal of her character soon became a fan favourite. “Poussey’s the definition of a lover not a fighter, and that is what people connect to,” says Wiley. “She’s a genuinely good person and she’s looking for love in prison, in such a pure way. When we look at her, we see potential, we see hope. We feel like, when she gets out, she is going to immerse herself back in society and have some success.” Consequently, the dramatic climax of the show’s fourth season – (spoiler alert!) Poussey’s death at the hands of a prison officer exerting undue force during a peaceful protest – was one of the most shocking and pivotal plotlines thus far.

“Everyone in the prison is affected by it,” says Wiley. Indeed, season five is all about the turbulent three-day aftermath of her death. Even though Poussey’s final storyline was inspired by the recent deaths of black men – including Eric Garner and Michael Brown – at the hands of US law-enforcement officers, Wiley says that at the denouement of the episode, race “suddenly goes away”. “The other prisoners finally see Poussey as a person. Not as a member of the ghetto dorm or the black girl in that clique that they don’t talk to,” she says. “They think: ‘Oh my God, if this happened to her, then this could happen to me, too.’”

For the actors playing the scene – Wiley motionless on the floor, Brooks sobbing beside the body of her best friend – it was no less highly charged. “Danielle and I were wiping each other’s tears,” she told the Hollywood Reporter.

Her metaphorical prison in The Handmaid’s Tale is no less bleak, brutal or dehumanising: the fictitious Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, where environmental factors have reduced the global birthrate to almost zero. The country is under military rule and fertile women have been rounded up, forced to become handmaids for the ruling elite and their barren wives. Homosexuals meanwhile are branded “gender traitors”. Her character, Moira, is, she says, “So many minorities, and she is all of the minorities that I am: she is a black, gay, woman. And the experience of walking through the world being a black, gay woman is such a specific experience. Sometimes, you can’t even talk about all of the things you go through, with that as your reality.”

In the original text by Atwood, Moira’s colour is never divulged, but the Republic of Gilead is one of white supremacy: Jewish people were given the choice of converting or leaving for Israel, and ethnic minorities have been removed and “resettled”. Bruce Miller, who adapted the story for television, tweaked that detail. “If the TV show itself is an all-white world, then you are making a racist TV show,” he reasons. “It was more interesting to me to have a world where fertility trumps everything, including race.” Moira’s colour does not prevent her from being used a sexual slave by the Commanders of the Faith, albeit in a somewhat different way to Moss’s character, Offred.

Where Poussey was a lover, Moira is most definitely a fighter. “Moira has such strength, she is such a spitball of fire, and Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is boosted just by the idea of her,” says Wiley. “She has lines like: ‘Moira wouldn’t take this shit,’ and, ‘Moira wouldn’t be like this.’ When Offred says: ‘I intend to survive,’ I think she gets that Moira is always going to survive.”

Wiley adds that she “really identified” with that. “Growing up,” she reflects, “I have been that person who pushes the envelope and is doing things that other people are not as ready to. I even think about my journey as being an out member of the LGBT community. I felt very connected to Moira in that way.”

When the show went into production in the summer of 2016, no one could have predicted that by the time it was on telly, the US would be be under an administration where the rights of women, immigrants and the LGBT community would be suddenly and dramatically, under threat.

“We started filming before the election,” notes Wiley, “and after it had happened, we realised how much more prescient it all was. I suddenly thought: ‘We’re doing something very important here, we’re doing something that needs to be done.’ “At the end of the day,” she continues, “it is just television. But if we treat television in the right way, if we treat it as art, it can elicit real conversations and real change. I have seen it happen with Orange, and now I see it happening with The Handmaid’s Tale.”

A second season of the show has already been commissioned, and since the first season ends faithful to the book, no one knows where the new material will go. But fans of the original text should take comfort that Atwood, a creative consultant on the show, will remain closely involved with its direction. Wiley admits that she was so nervous about meeting the esteemed 77-year-old author at their first team dinner that she switched places with Moss, to avoid having to speak to her. Now, however, the pair are firm friends. “If you go to my Instagram,” she says, “Margaret Atwood likes all of my pictures. She usually comments on them. It’s not like she writes in Atwood prose; they’re usually just emojis.”

She still sounds somewhat disbelieving: “I put up a picture of me kissing my wife, and she just responded with a tongue emoji.”

[scotianostra]

Happy  Birthday the Scottish actor Peter Mullan born 2 November 1959 in Peterhead.

I love Peter’s work and rate him as highly as Brian Cox and If ever there was a story of rags to riches it is Peter Mullan, born in Peterhead the family later moved to Mosspark in Glasgow. Mullans father was a drunken violent man but despite this Peter did well at school, at least till the age of 14 when the climate at home forced him out onto the streets and into a gang, spending less and less time at school. In his own words he was aggressively lobotomising himself but admitted he kept up his reading on the sly “You couldnae tell the gang you were reading Carl Jung.” he said.

I’m not sure his heart was in the gang culture as he says he was “kicked out” after a couple of years, he returned to school and sailed through his Highers and started at Glasgow University at 17. His dad died of lung cancer on his first day. Mullan studied economic history and drama and despite suffering a nervous breakdown in his final year still managed to graduate. He went on to teach drama at Borstals, prisons and community centres while becoming involved in the left-wing theatre movement that flourished in Scotland in the 1980s. In 1987 he made his professional acting debut with the Wildcat theatre company in a political pantomime.

Bit parts in Scottish films and TV series followed, The Steamie, Taggart, of course, and Rab C Nesbitt, as well as The Big Man and in Braveheart, he uttered the words, “We didn’t come here to fight for the” Danny Boyle, Shallow Grave and Trainspotting were another two films that Mullan served his apprenticeship in.

The breakthrough came when Ken Loach chose him in the title role of “My Name is Joe” he gave a brilliant portrayal Jekyll-and-Hyde character , a recovering alcoholic whose humanity and warmth masked a frightening capacity for brutality. He won his first award at Cannes as Best Actor for the role.

Around the same time Mullan was starting to get into directing, three surreal comic dramas set in the Glaswegian working-class world and then his first full length film, he not only directed but wrote the excellent Orphans an odyssey of four working-class siblings roving round Glasgow in the 24 hours after their mother dies. Channel Four, who funded the film chose not to distribute it as they didn’t think it would attract a large commercial audience.

The film however was shown at Film festivals around Europe and won numerous awards, in interviews, Mullan has said that once Orphans started winning awards Channel Four apologised and asked if they could distribute it, an offer he refused.

Since then Peter Mullan has not looked back, directing and penning The Magdalene Sisters and Neds as well as starring in amongst others, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, War Horse, Hector and Tommy’s Honour, on the small screen he was one of the main characters in ITV series The Fixer, The BBC Two drama Top of the Lake, and in the excellent drama series Gunpowder.

More up to date Peter has appeared as Jacob Snell in the first two seasons of the Netflix series Ozark, all  three series of the BBC Two sitcom Mum and a recurring role in the popular TV reboot of Westworld. He has also starred in the Netflix fantasy drama Cursed. We will next see Mullan alongside Colin Farrell and Tom Courtney in the BBC series The North Water.

Peter was also one of the participants of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Scenes For Survival project, which features talents from the country’s arts industry making lockdown-related short films as a response to the country’s theatres having to close during the coronavirus pandemic.

 Of late we have seen Peter in the excellent mini-series The Underground Railroad, the dark comedy-drama Skint and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, he has a few projects on the go just now, the pick of which, for me anyway, is Payback, it is being filmed in Glasgow and Edinburgh and is a  six-part crime thriller.

[cometomecosette]

US 3rd National Tour, Los Angeles, February 7, 2000: Part 1 ( “Work Song,” “On Parole,” “Valjean Arrested, Valjean Forgiven” and “Valjean’s Soliloquy”)

Ivan Rutherford as Jean Valjean, Stephen Bishop as Javert.

This complete performance from the 3rd National Tour, filmed in 2000 at the Ahmanson Theatre in LA, is one I’ve been meaning to watch for some time. Now that I’ve started my Tumblr video review project, and now that the once-missing Prologue and Epilogue have been uploaded, I’ve decided to share one video from this performance a day until I’ve shared it all.

Ivan’s Valjean lives up to all my positive memories of the three times I saw him onstage. His voice is excellent for the role: bright, rich and mellow, yet with a hint of grit that suits the convict, and effortlessly capable of both sweetness and power. Acting-wise, he’s subtler than some other convict-Valjeans, but still portrays a fully realized, nuanced and engaging character. Other actors are more aggressive to Javert and more visibly ecstatic on “Freedom is mine...” but Ivan’s portrayal seems a bit truer to Hugo’s Valjean, who was always a quiet, self-contained man and whose hardening from his years in prison makes him even less inclined to show emotion. Yet his anger becomes clear with his increasingly fearsome responses when others reject him. The growing darkness in him is evident when he shouts at the innkeeper’s wife, especially with how delicate, polite and frightened she’s portrayed as being. Then at the Bishop’s house we see him disturbingly become “a thief in the night,” as he plots the theft of the silver in a sneering, calculating tone, and then bows his head before the Bishop in feigned abject gratitude, only to steal the silver with a sneaky, quietly growled “...flight!” rather than a wild shout. The theft definitely feels like a premeditated, malevolent act rather than an impulsive, desperate one. Yet he still conveys sympathy-earning vulnerability too, with the abject, beaten dog-like fear he shows when the Bishop first approaches him and when he thinks he’s about to be sent back to the galleys. And at the end, he gives us a truly impassioned Soliloquy, full of rage, anguish, confusion, and ultimate determination to change.

Stephen was my first Javert and his performance here is exactly the way I remember him. Tall and imposing, with a rich, robust baritone voice, and just the right attitude of dignified condescension. Well I remember his snide, disdainful “No” in response to Valjean’s ‘Yes, it means I’m free!” I remember that Arlene C. Harris, the author of the Les Misérables sequel series Pont-au-Change, wrote in her review of this cast that his Javert was too smug, too much like ‘Gaston (from Beauty and the Beast) in a police uniform,” and I’ll admit I can see a little of that here. But at the same time, he’s very professional and avoids needless aggression. He’s the only Javert I’ve seen so far who doesn’t intimidate Valjean with his nightstick on “Do not forget me, 20601!” and despite his disdain, he hands Valjean his yellow passport in a civil way, not playing the games with it (e.g. smacking it against his chest, pulling it out of his reach at first, or dropping it for him to pick up) that other actors do.

The Bishop has a very nice voice and gentle, serene bearing, though he doesn’t make as strong an impression as some others.

The 3rd National Tour was always known for its outstanding ensemble and they do indeed seem excellent so far. One thing that stands out for me, though, is their subtlety. They don’t do too much shouting when Valjean turns aggressive, nor treat him with too much physical brutality. Compared to some other productions in more recent years, the crowd scenes are definitely understated here. But it works: sometimes less is more. That said, the warders in Toulon have a more brutal edge than in some other productions, noticing every time a convict stops working and either kicking him or shoving him with a gun butt. Even later performances in this same tour toned that business down.

If I’m not mistaken, the short and stocky yet gorgeous-voiced convict who sings “The sun is strong...” is Randal Keith, who at the time would have been understudying Valjean, but later became the final Valjean of both this tour and the original Broadway production, as well as the first Valjean I ever saw in 2001.

[mastcomm]

Things to Do in N.Y.C. This February

Looking for even more reasons to get out of the house? Visit our Arts & Entertainment Guide at nytimes.com/spotlight/arts-listings.

Feb. 1

‘Lunar New Year Festival: Year of the Rat’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This daylong celebration includes a parade, performances and family-friendly art activities. (While in the area, head to Rumsey Playfield in Central Park for the free winter sports festival Winter Jam, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; metmuseum.org.

Feb. 2

BAMkids Film Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A range of international works, from live-action features to animated shorts, should appeal to children of all ages. A carnival rounds out the weekend-long festivities. Feb. 1-2; bam.org.

Feb. 3

‘Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work: The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection’ at the Grolier Club. With more than 200 items, the Grolier Club’s latest exhibition documents the history of women making an independent living. Among the works are one of the first books printed by women, a 1478 history of Rome’s emperors and popes, and a copy of Mary Seacole’s 1857 autobiography, the first by a black woman in Britain. Through Feb. 8; grolierclub.org.

Feb. 4

The Moth StorySLAM at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The writer Dame Wilburn will host this iteration of StorySLAM in which 10 Harlemites will be selected to share their stories on the evening’s theme: “Only in Harlem.” Doors open at 7 p.m.; eventbrite.com.

Feb. 5

Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ at Le Poisson Rouge. The Brooklyn ensemble Darmstadt performs its interpretation of this 1964 landmark composition ahead of the musician and composer’s 85th birthday this summer. At 8 p.m.; lpr.com.

Feb. 6

Art in Dumbo’s First Thursday Gallery Walk in Brooklyn. Galleries will stay open late so visitors can browse the Triangle Arts Winter Open Studios and other galleries on their own, or join an Insider’s Tour, a free guided tour of exhibitions on view at Janet Borden and A.I.R. Gallery. (Then stroll along the East River to take in Antony Gormley’s “New York Clearing,” a monumental public work piece called “drawing in space,” at Pier 3 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.) From 6-8 p.m.; artinDUMBO.com.

Feb. 7

‘Cane River’ at BAM Rose Cinemas. Horace Jenkins died shortly after finishing this 1982 romantic melodrama tackling issues of colorism, the legacy of slavery and deceitful practices against African-American landowners. After a negative was found and painstakingly restored, the film is now getting its theatrical release. Feb. 7-20; bam.org.

Feb. 8

Animation First Festival at the French Institute Alliance Française. Award-winning features, immersive exhibits, video game demonstrations and more are the heart of this festival. For those Academy Award-minded fans of animation, the Oscar-nominated feature “I Lost My Body” will be shown on Feb. 8 at 11 a.m., followed by a behind-the-scenes panel discussion with the film’s editor, Benjamin Massoubre. Feb. 7-10; fiaf.org.

Feb. 9

‘Visions of Resistance: Recent Films by Brazilian Women Directors’ at the Museum of the Moving Image. Stories of resilience and uprising are the focus of this series, which pays particular attention to the lives of black Brazilians. Feb. 8 and 9; movingimage.us.

Feb. 10

‘Hamlet’ opens at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Ruth Negga received rave reviews for her portrayal of Hamlet in Dublin. Now she will reprise the role that she says “cracks you open,” for New York audiences — and it’s a very tough ticket. Feb. 1-March 8; stannswarehouse.org.

Feb. 11

‘The Mother of Us All’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Virgil Thomson’s opera, with a libretto by Gertrude Stein, is rarely performed. All the more reason to see one of the performances of this work this month. Feb. 8, 11, 12 and 14; nyphil.org.

Feb. 12

‘Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures’ opens at the Museum of Modern Art. After its inaugural exhibitions, the newly renovated museum begins its rollout of new shows. Among the first up is Lange’s photographs, which sharply reflect the human condition. It’s the first major MoMA exhibition of Lange’s career in 50 years. Feb. 9-May 9; moma.org.

Feb. 13

Artist Talk and Book Signing: Rachel Feinstein at the Jewish Museum. In her first museum retrospective, the artist and fashion muse Rachel Feinstein presents fanciful works with a core of steel — a balance of the whimsical and the grotesque. On this night she’ll speak about her exhibition, “Maiden, Mother, Crone,” and the inspirations for her art, which underscore that there is no reality without fantasy. From 6:30-8 p.m.; thejewishmuseum.org.

Feb. 14

‘High Fidelity’ premieres on Hulu. The latest adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel, Mike Hale wrote, “gender-switches the record-store-owning, Top-5-list-making protagonist, who’s now played by Zoë Kravitz.” She plays a record store owner in the gentrifying Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. hulu.com.

Feb. 15

20th anniversary screening of ‘Love & Basketball’ at BAM Rose Cinemas. Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, and teenage hoop dreams: See Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2000 classic on the big screen as part of the “Long Weekend of Love” series. Make it a Valentine’s double-feature: “The Photograph,” a new Issa Rae-Lakeith Stanfield vehicle reminiscent of 1990s black love stories, arrives in theaters Feb. 14. bam.org.

Feb. 16

Irina Kolesnikova in ‘Swan Lake’ at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Russian prima ballerina and the St. Petersburg Ballet Theater make their United States debut in Tchaikovsky’s beloved classic. Feb. 15 and 16; bam.org.

Feb. 17

‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ open at Classic Stage Company. Kate Hamill reimagines Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Tristan Bernays adapts Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” for this repertory cycle of two Gothic tales. In repertory through March 8; classicstage.org.

Feb. 18

Toni Morrison’s ‘The Source of Self-Regard’ at 92nd Street Y. André Holland and Phylicia Rashad perform a dramatic reading of the writer’s 2019 nonfiction collection, consisting of works written over four decades that still resonate socially and politically. Morrison would have turned 89 on Feb. 18. At 8 p.m.; 92y.org/event/toni-morrison.

Feb. 19

‘Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks’ at the Brooklyn Museum. For this exhibition, the artist, who is of Choctaw and Cherokee descent, has selected items from the museum’s collection to be presented alongside his recent work. The result: a rethinking of institutional categorizations and representations of Indigenous peoples and Native American art. (Also on view: “Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas,” an exploration of the effects of climate change on Indigenous communities. It includes more than 60 works spanning 2,800 years and cultures across North, Central, and South America.) Both shows opens Feb. 14; brooklynmuseum.org.

Feb. 20

‘West Side Story’ opens on Broadway. New moves and plenty of tattoos: Ivo van Hove’s approach to this beloved musical is finally here. Jerome Robbins’s choreography has been replaced by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s; “I Feel Pretty” is gone; and this production has an intermission-free running time of 1 hour and 45 minutes. Open run; westsidestorybway.com.

Feb. 21

‘It’s All in Me: Black Heroines’ at the Museum of Modern Art. On the heels of Film Forum’s four-week “Black Women” festival, MoMA presents this intriguing series with works both familiar and obscure, including “The Watermelon Woman,” “Support the Girls,” “Sambizanga” and “Lime Kiln Club Field Day.” Feb. 20-March 5; moma.org.

Feb. 22

‘Platform 2020: Utterances From the Chorus’ at Danspace Project. “If contemporary dance holds a certain allure yet still seems intimidating,” Gia Kourlas wrote recently, this series “is a way in.” Ideas about performance and protest will be explored by its organizers, Okwui Okpokwasili, a MacArthur recipient, and Judy Hussie-Taylor, Danspace’s executive director and chief curator. Feb. 22-March 21; danspaceproject.org.

Feb. 23

‘Countryside, The Future’ at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The museum turns over its rotunda to Rem Koolhaas’s long-awaited exhibition. In addressing environmental, political and socioeconomic issues, it will examine changes to what Koolhaas calls the “countryside” — that is, rural areas not occupied by cities. Feb. 20-Aug. 14; guggenheim.org.

Feb. 24

‘Cambodian Rock Band’ opens at Signature Theater. Lauren Yee’s music-infused work, featuring songs by Dengue Fever, follows a Cambodian-American woman trying to prosecute a Khmer Rouge prison warden. Previews begin Feb. 4; signaturetheatre.org.

Feb. 25

‘Dana H.’ opens at the Vineyard Theater. Lucas Hnath’s latest is personal: It’s the story of how his mother came to be held captive by an ex-convict who kept her trapped in a series of Florida motels, disoriented and terrified — for five months. Previews start Feb. 11; vineyardtheatre.org.

Feb. 26

‘José Parlá: It’s Yours’ at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. For his first solo museum exhibition in New York City, Parlá presents new paintings that explore his connection to the Bronx. Expect works that “address the suffering caused by redlining policies, the waves of displacement imposed by gentrification, and structural racism,” according to the exhibition news release. Feb. 26-Aug. 16; bronxmuseum.org.

Feb. 27

‘Pioneering African-American Ballerinas’ at the Museum at FIT. This event focuses on some of the ballerinas who paved the way for Misty Copeland, who, in 2015, became the first African-American woman to be named a principal at American Ballet Theater. The panelists include Virginia Johnson, now the director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem; Lydia Abarca, first prima ballerina of the Dance Theater of Harlem; Debra Austin, the first African-American female dancer at New York City Ballet; and Aesha Ash, former ballerina with City Ballet. At 7 p.m.; fitnyc.edu/museum.

Feb. 28

‘Intimate Apparel’ previews begin at Lincoln Center Theater. Lynn Nottage’s 2003 play has been adapted into a chamber opera, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon. Nottage wrote the libretto and Bartlett Sher is directing. Set in 1905 New York, the story follows an African-American seamstress who through letter writing courts a laborer working on the Panama Canal. Previews begin Feb. 27; opening night is set for March 23; lct.org.

Feb. 29

‘Brendan Fernandes: Contract and Release’ at the Noguchi Museum. A collaboration with the dance and visual artist Brendan Fernandes is the focus of Saturday programming at the museum this month. Dancers engage with Isamu Noguchi’s works as well as with Fernandes’s “training devices.” Saturdays through February; noguchi.org.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/entertainment/things-to-do-in-n-y-c-this-february-2/

[how2to18]

Fame, if you win it, Comes and goes in a minute. 

— Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green, “Make Someone Happy” 

The pure products of America go crazy.

— William Carlos Williams, “To Elsie”

¤

DRIVE DOWN some of Hollywood’s major thoroughfares or visit some of its celebrated tourist attractions, like Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and you’re bound to see at least one mural featuring  bona fide pop icons like Marilyn, Elvis, and James Dean. Depending on the artist, the players joining Marilyn might include Sinatra, John Wayne, or Chaplin. If Duke Haney, the author of Death Valley Superstars, commissioned his own mural, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce might not approve. Yes, Marilyn would still be there, but her supporting cast would be a bunch of troublemakers as obscure as she is famous — Steve Cochran, Sean Flynn, Mark Frechette, Christopher Jones — as well as the notorious Lee Harvey Oswald and William Desmond Taylor, the victim of one of Hollywood’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

The personalities on Haney’s mural are just some of the subjects he profiles in his engrossing new collection of essays, Death Valley Superstars: Occasionally Fatal Adventures in Filmland. All but one of Haney’s pieces were originally published on Brad Listi’s literary website The Nervous Breakdown, where I discovered his work in December 2013. Familiar with Haney’s experience writing screenplays and acting in low-budget films, Listi, who had published Subversia (2010), Haney’s first collection of essays, invited him to begin writing about Hollywood. Haney twice demurred, not wanting to be known as just another Kenneth Anger. “I had been struggling to start a novel for two years to no effect,” Haney recently told Listi on his podcast, “and it might rejuvenate me to work instead on a quirky tour of a neglected career and colorful life [tough guy actor Steve Cochran] — an appreciation with elements of biography.” He accepted Listi’s invitation and began writing biographical essays on some of destiny’s darlings, and a number of also-rans who briefly achieved a measure of fame only to see it undone by scandal, misbehavior, or malign fate. Superstars isn’t restricted to luminaries of the screen: Hugh Hefner, Jim Morrison, and the aforementioned Lee Harvey Oswald show up in its pages. Haney’s deep research, fresh insights, and engaging prose bring these subjects to life. He also includes several lively accounts of his own experiences working for legendary cheapjack producer Roger Corman and even more marginal Hollywood operators.

Haney leads his book with a powerful memoir, “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth,” a real cri de coeur recalling how the New Hollywood films of the ’70s celebrated in Peter Biskind’s book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls inspired him to journey to Hollywood to make the same kinds of films, only to discover that the blockbuster success of Star Wars and its successors had already killed the New Hollywood movement, torpedoing the career Haney had imagined for himself in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he had immersed himself in movies screened at the palatial Paramount Theater and a local revival house. There, he discovered the Holy Trinity of Method acting — Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean — and their ’70s equivalents — Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, and Dustin Hoffman — all of whom he had hoped to emulate once he hit Hollywood.

Haney’s essay could easily be titled “Star Wars and Its Discontents.” He spends a hefty chunk of “Dinosaurs” expounding on the detrimental effect of that beloved franchise. Star Wars did more than merely change Hollywood’s commercial ecosystem, infantilizing movies. It became a cultural Death Star, Haney contends, whose puerility pervaded society, reducing adults to Peter Pans who are not ashamed to line up at the box office for movies that would once have been considered strictly kid’s stuff and to buy “adult” coloring books.

In the powerful conclusion of “Dinosaurs,” Haney recalls his childhood self going to see a movie (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth [1970]) for the first time:

I can picture him now, about to see a movie alone for the first time. He walks up the long corridor, carpeted in red, of the Paramount Theater, pausing at the concession stand to gawk at thumbnail photos of the posters for sale, and a voice in his head says, Don’t look. God doesn’t want you to look. But the voice is quiet in the darkness of the auditorium, where the boy watches a girl in a fur bikini cavort anachronistically with a dinosaur, and the boy thinks, Man, I would love to be that dinosaur, never dreaming that, when he’s a man, a dinosaur is just what he’ll be.

Someone once wisely said that participation in sports doesn’t create character, it reveals it. The same can be said of the effects of fame and its pursuit, something personified by Marilyn Monroe and Lee Harvey Oswald, Haney’s most famous subjects. They were both pathetic wretches who thought that fame would enable them to escape the pain of anonymity. Monroe was a perpetually unhappy woman who never knew her father and whose mother had a disordered mind. The response she got for modeling for some rather chaste cheesecake photos set her direction. With considerable effort, she became a worldwide sex goddess, but her fame only exacerbated her unhappiness. She finally found release in a bottle of Nembutal one lonely night.

In “Golden State Girl,” Haney argues that Monroe was a genuine artist whose greatest creation was her inimitable screen persona.  “There’s no pathos in the image they propose,” Haney writes, after describing several instances of her hateful behavior,

but there’s pathos aplenty in the image of Marilyn as a wounded stray, as the candle in the wind of Elton John song, as a martyr of celebrity, of Hollywood, of men and patriarchy and the male gaze. This image — and it’s finally a single image — excludes those traits it can’t, and doesn’t want to, accommodate: opportunism, toughness, willfulness, petulance, all of which, and then some, can be found in a convoluted woman with a genius for appearing the opposite.

Lee Harvey Oswald was born two months after his father died. His mother was a kook. He believed that he deserved to be a major actor on the stage of history, not just some nobody sweating his life away stacking boxes of schoolbooks in an old warehouse. The secret delight he must have enjoyed after making himself the focus of the world’s attention lasted only two days before a .38 bullet in his belly ended his life. In “Oswald Has Been Shot,” Haney explores the possibility that three movies that Oswald saw — We Were Strangers (1949), Suddenly (1954), and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) — may have inspired him to kill the president.

As his essay on Oswald demonstrates, outsiders fascinate Haney. And that fascination extends to Hollywood’s outsiders, the nearly forgotten actors who were deserted by fame in their own lifetimes. Haney is their champion. In Superstars, he tells the stories of Sean Flynn, Mark Frechette, Steve Cochran, and Christopher Jones in captivating detail and provides us with the most complete biographies these men are ever likely to get. 

Sean Flynn inherited the handsomeness of his father, legendary screen swashbuckler Errol Flynn, but lacked his casual élan in front a movie camera. Sean sought adventure as a photographer in war torn Vietnam and Cambodia, where he disappeared in 1970. Steve Cochran possessed a kind of oily charisma that suited his portrayals of shady characters in films like White Heat (1949) and Private Hell 36 (1954). He was an uncomplicated man who cared only for masculine luxuries — exotic sports cars and boats — and women: he had an insatiable sexual appetite. He could also be physically violent with them. He died horribly when a mysterious disease suddenly struck him as he was sailing his yacht Rogue in the waters off Guatemala, while a crew of barely legal Mexican women he had hired to help him promote a film project could only look on helplessly.

Mark Frechette never wanted to be an actor. He didn’t know what he wanted to do until he fell under the spell of cult leader Mel Lyman in Boston. After a talent scout for director Michelangelo Antonioni spotted Frechette in New York, Antonioni cast him as a campus radical running from the law in Zabriskie Point (1970). Frechette often sparred with Antonioni during the shoot. It didn’t matter; he was only doing it for Mel. Frechette’s misbegotten idea of a revolutionary political statement was to rob a bank, which got one of his accomplices killed. Frechette died in prison when a barbell fell on his neck, asphyxiating him. He was only 27.

Christopher Jones rocketed to stardom in only his second film, Wild in the Streets (1968), a political fantasy about a 22-year-old rock star who becomes president. He bore a striking similarity to James Dean, with the same mesmeric ability to seduce an audience. Jones quit acting abruptly after filming Ryan’s Daughter (1970) and became an enigmatic recluse until his death in early 2014 at age 72. In what may be the most fascinating piece in Death Valley Superstars, Duke Haney does much to unravel the shadowy mystery of Jones’ post-Hollywood years for the first time.

“I think Hollywood is the true Death Valley,” says Haney, “because it’s where dreams go to die, and sometimes the dreamer.” Fortunately, Haney is still with us — and we owe him our thanks for Death Valley Superstars, a dream of a collection.

¤

Peter L. Winkler is the author of Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel (Barricade Books, 2011) and the editor of The Real James Dean: Intimate Memories from Those Who Knew Him Best (Chicago Review Press, 2016).

The post Hell Down in Hollywood: On Duke Haney’s “Death Valley Superstars” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://bit.ly/2UITses via IFTTT

[allofbeercom]

‘Progress is painfully uneven’: Baltimore, 15 years after The Wire

From its first episode in 2002, the HBO TV drama documented the poverty, politics and policing of a city. We visit its memorable locations and talk to the people trying to rebuild scarred communities See more of JM Giordanos photographs of Baltimore locations used in the wire here

In black jacket, checked shirt and white trainers, eight-year-old DAngelo Preston is riding his bike while his sister, Alicia, 11, gives chase. They are playing outside the Baltimore Montessori public charter school, where they would be pupils if they had the chance. Their teachers dont yell at them, says Alicia matter-of-factly. Their teachers let them do whatever they want.

Alicia aims to be a maths teacher when she grows up; DAngelo wants to be a professional football player. They live barely a minutes walk from the Montessori school but, having lost an enrolment lottery, instead take a daily bus to Dallas F Nicholas elementary school, which has fewer resources. The siblings father, Shawn Preston, 38, a mechanic, says: It has a good reputation and I wish more local kids could go. I tried to send Alicia but they told me it was all filled up. I was disappointed. I thought they could have got her in there somehow: were in the neighbourhood.

This is Greenmount West, a community striving to put distance between itself and its portrayal in one of televisions most indelible dramas: The Wire. The Montessori school building was previously home to a beleaguered government school and starred in the fourth and arguably finest season of the show. A nearby design college is still recognisable as where the corner kids hung out. A couple of houses near Prestons were used during filming. Even the name DAngelo strikes a chord as the name of a principal character in the first season.

But as the disappointment over school places illustrates, progress is painfully uneven. While some parts of Baltimore are thriving, others have gone into reverse. In 2015, the death of an African American man in police custody triggered widespread unrest, while the total murder rate of 344 was the highest per capita in the citys history. Last year the figure was 318. In 2017 so far (up to 10 May), there have been 124 murders, outstripping Chicago and putting Baltimore on course for its bloodiest year ever.

Michael Olesker, an author and former Baltimore Sun columnist, says: Its turf wars. Its a battle for street corners. Youve got 18-year-old kids killing each other. Many are from broken families. Wed like to think art can move the world but this problem is so intractable on so many levels its going to be with us for a long time.

This was the world of The Wire and it is still very much intact. From June 2002 to March 2008, the epic HBO series mapped the citys geography, society and soul, charting the never-ending street battle between cops and drug lords. It was a study of the havoc wrought by the drug war on trust between black communities and police. Its hard-boiled realism included a scene of four minutes and 40 seconds in which the dialogue between two detectives consists entirely of 31 fucks, four motherfuckers and one fucking-A.

Bodie and DAngelo Barksdale (right and second right) in season one of The Wire. Photograph: BBC/HBO

The Wire never won an Emmy award or gained a mainstream audience; its acclaim rests largely with critics and fans, including Barack Obama, who named it his favourite show. It stands undiminished in the cultural pantheon. In 2015 Jonathan Bernstein wrote in the Guardian: The temple of the US one-hour TV drama has four pillars: The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, novelistic shows that indicted America for its failures but refused to condemn their complex, emotionally crippled leading men.

When British actor, director and writer Kwame Kwei-Armah moved to Baltimore in 2011 to head the Center Stage theatre, he had not seen The Wire so he caught up via iTunes. Recently he met its creator, David Simon. I think its magnificent television, Kwei-Armah says. I think it was voted one of the best pieces of television of the 00s and, as a document, it will be remembered. Baltimore was just a metaphor; it depicted post-industrial America.

The Wire was intricately, unforgivingly plotted, capturing the prosaic nature of police procedural work, the brutal dynastic politics of drug kingpins and the corruption and grubby compromises of civic life. Simon has memorably said: Our model when we started wasnt other television shows. The standard we were looking at was Balzacs Paris or Dickenss London, or Tolstoys Moscow.

Befitting a novel, the characters were richly realised archetypes that leapt off the screen. There was the hard-drinking maverick cop Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), the world-weary detective Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters), the aspirational, smooth gangster Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), the quietly heroic recovering addict Bubbles (Andre Royo) and the enigmatic, gay Robin Hood figure Omar Little (Michael K Williams), whose distinctions include a facial scar, quaint turn of phrase and being Obamas favourite character.

And in police detective Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn), we had American TV dramas first major portrayal of a black lesbian. In a phone interview, Sohn recalls: I cant say that I thought she was going to be iconic in any way, but I do think she has become so. I think she is a character I started seeing a lot more in cop shows. Whos the tough female cop, person of colour?

I think its unquestionable the impact that the show has had not only on my career but many of the principal cast. The climate was very different at that time than it is now in terms of the availability of roles for people of colour in the business. So it was quite an anomaly to see a show that would require a predominantly black cast. That in itself was unusual and something that caught the attention of us all.

But there were detractors, she adds. One thing that was disappointing was the city officials. They really were not pleased with the depiction of Baltimore and some of them took the storylines personally. David has always said the issues and stories of The Wire exist nationally.

Bodies hangout: DAngelo Preston, eight, outside the Honey Carry-Out store the spot where Bodie was killed in season four. Photograph: JM Giordano

Baltimore is the Maryland city where Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner, Edgar Allan Poe is buried and, in 1910, the first residential racial segregation law in any US city was enacted. Once a thriving port, hundreds of thousands of small, two-storey terraced houses were built in the Victorian era as the population climbed to a million. But since the mid-20th century that number plunged and now stands at 614,664, according to the US Census Bureau the lowest for nearly 100 years.

The series, though mostly set in the west of the city, was largely filmed in the east because the number of trees in the west made it awkward to shoot through changing seasons. Numerous houses still lie abandoned and boarded up, a few with roofs collapsed under their own weight. Pavements are cracked and smeared with graffiti. Broken bottles and other rubbish pile in gutters. On a typical Sunday afternoon, a patrol car crawls by, an officers tattooed arm trailing out of a window. At night, strobing police lights are alarmingly routine.

In Greenmount West, at what was Bodies corner in the series, customers have to be buzzed in to the Honey Carry Out convenience store. Inside, most of the products M&Ms, Starburst, Skittles, earphones, Butterfinger, Almond Joy, Mounds, KitKats, Snickers, Hersheys, Dove soap, Colgate toothpaste are piled behind bulletproof glass like an art installation. All transactions are final. No refund, says a scrawled sign. Making a purchase requires placing money on a turntable, which revolves to exchange it for the product, a process reminiscent of jail.

Nearby, when we approach one resident, he explains that he returned here last year after a stretch of 24 years in prison and does not want to talk.

Yet this neighbourhood, designated an arts and entertainment district, is slowly but surely gentrifying. The school had shut down in 2001, before The Wire film crew moved in. The building was vandalised, had asbestos and copper pipes removed and was used as a homeless shelter in the winter of 2007. The following year, the Montessori school took over.

Today the colourful jungle gyms and live chickens in its backyard are a world away from the grim vision of ill discipline and desperate teachers seen in The Wire. Allison Shecter, its founder and director, says: We have younger kids here whose parents come from every zipcode in the city. We do bring kids in at every age. They come in when it [their schooling] isnt working : they have a hard shell so it takes a while to win their trust. Even when they come in at eighth grade, its transformational.

The Montessori has 425 pupils and a waiting list of 1,200. It draws pupils by lottery from across the city, many from middle-class homes, while kids in the surrounding, struggling neighbourhood often do not make it and go to Dallas F Nicholas instead. The dynamic has provoked debate about parental choice, the lack of resources for government schools and the dangers of rivalries.

Shecter, 47, says: Families are looking for choice. If there are schools struggling, I think looking at why schools are struggling and helping them needs to be the answer rather than pitting them against each other.

She acknowledges that Greenmount West continues to have problems. Its still very much a neighbourhood in transition: there are still drugs and gangs. There was a hold-up with a gun at eight oclock yesterday morning. Crime in Baltimore is out of control.

But Tina Knox, 57, whose nearby backyard also featured in The Wire, is upbeat. At one point in time this community was down to nothing, she says. You dont know if a fights going to break out or theyre going to start shooting. But once they started tearing down the vacant properties, investors started coming in, buying the houses and fixing them up. The community is coming back up. Now you couldnt pay me to live in any other neighbourhood.

Cuttys boxing gym: the building that housed this location is now derelict. Photograph: JM Giordano

Her friend Stewart Watson has lived here for 15 years and runs an art gallery. Today she is out walking her two great danes. I didnt watch The Wire because I felt I was living it, Watson recalls. It wasnt relaxing to me because of what was happening in my community at the time. The one about schools would probably break my heart.

The closure of the school was a heavy blow, she recalls. All the kids got sent to other schools. Not having a school in the neighbourhood was really tough. It changes the dynamics of the families and breaks up the camaraderie of a neighbourhood. It was the school where Tina went: that kind of loss you cant recover from.

Watson, 48, is optimistic but also worried about the future of Greenmount West. There are difficulties with the gentrification process that any community has. Gentrification is a half-dirty word. Ive said if it means I dont have spinning bulletproof glass up the street, thats great. Its about whats fair and accessible: the racial divide that plagues this city were still trying to figure out.

A short drive away, reminders of that divide are everywhere at some of The Wires most fondly remembered locations. The boxing gym where Dennis Cutty Wise (Chad Coleman) gets back on the straight and narrow is abandoned, its windows broken, cesspools and debris on the concrete floor, the silhouette of a boxer painted on the wall a reminder of its ghosts. (There is talk of a food co-op moving in.)

The TV repair shop that was run by drug kingpin Proposition Joe and the bar that belonged to Omars confidante Butchie have both closed down. Michelle Sponaugle, 53, whose father owned the latter, says: It makes me sad. I used to work behind the bar. We had a good clientele but the crime got rough down here. My father had a gun put to his head a couple of times so we put up a bulletproof wall.

And the convenience store where Omar, the seemingly invincible stick-up man (You come at the king, you best not miss), was gunned down by a boy has vanished altogether after a blaze set off by the unrest of 2015 and the construction of an apartment complex for the elderly. Over the road is a park bench that proclaims without a hint of irony: Baltimore: the greatest city in America.

One of its occupants, Alfred McDaniel, 59, says he never saw the series because he does not watch TV. Time is too valuable to waste so why would I do something like TV? Im in a house that should be condemned, so why would I watch TV? Im in court trying to get them to fix it. I need surgery but Im trying to deal with the rats and the mice. Where I live, the stupid landlord wont even fix the goddam door.

McDaniel, a home repair man on medical leave, is in his fifth home in five years in the city. I aint seen no improvement in Baltimore. You call the police to report a crime and they tell you theyre not going to file a report, so what police can you depend on in this city? So the next person who breaks in your room, you should kill them.

Beside him is John Williams, 56, who used to work on the docks, which featured in the shows second season. He says: Baltimore is struggling the same. Its good for some people but if you live on this side of town its not that good. Houses have been vacant a long time so theres no reason for homelessness in Baltimore. The city could try to renovate these houses and make them affordable to people.

Sonja Sohn (detective Kima Greggs) now helps children break the cycle of crime. Photograph: Icon Sports Wire/Corbis via Getty Images

Williams says that, in his first week as a resident of Baltimore in 2013, some 35 people were killed. The cops are overwhelmed to a certain degree. Relations are strained. The community doesnt believe in the cops. There are people who know who committed murders but they dont want to come forward. Youve got murderers walking among you and its dangerous, basically. If youre working as a taxi, youve got to be careful where to pick up.

Similar sentiments are expressed in another neighbourhood by Janet Worsley, 57. They still have gangs and mobs. You take your life in your hands if you walk these streets at a certain time of night. If I get off work, I walk home, but to come out otherwise? No. She describes an incident when her car was stopped by police. All I could do was humble myself: Sorry, officer. Im still afraid for my son being mishandled by police because he has a mental illness.

For Sonja Sohn, such issues resonate with her own childhood and remain intensely personal. After production wrapped on the fifth and final season she co-founded ReWired for Change, a Baltimore-based nonprofit organisation that works to help young people break the cycle of crime. It often uses cast members and material from the show to get its message across.

For a while, it seemed this portrait of a city in crisis might sting officials into action, but the power of art has its limits. Sohn says: I think that the city leadership did begin to make an effort to look at the issues that The Wire brought to life, particularly because of the fourth season, which focused on the children and the schools.

As much as the city leadership couldnt stand The Wire, they were forced to address the issues because, I believe, they wanted to prove that their city was better than what was depicted. So ultimately The Wire impacted this city in a positive way in my opinion.

But then came a hammer blow that appeared to destroy any putative gains made in crime reduction and community-police relations in Baltimore. Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American, died of neck injuries suffered in police custody in April 2015. The city erupted in weeks of mass demonstrations and a day of rioting. Six police officers were charged in connection with Grays death but none was convicted. A justice department report found a huge racial disparity in enforcement, especially in stops, searches and discretionary misdemeanour arrests, including those of people congregating on street corners. It also observed that residents believe there are two Baltimores one wealthy and largely white, the second impoverished and predominantly black.

Sohn says: I was not surprised but the most visceral reaction I had was one of support of the people. I was so tired of pounding the pavement, of spending my extra time and extra dimes to help lift up under-served communities in Baltimore. After I started the nonprofit, I started to see how challenging that work is, and I also started to see how it quite possibly is this never-ending clusterfuck. I had stepped away to reassess how I could be useful, in fact, when the whole Freddie Gray situation happened.

When I saw the people rise up and express their anger in the way that they did even though I did not want the city to burn down, I did not want lives to be lost the very core of me said, what else could they do to get your attention? To let you know you serve them? That you have not served them for decades, and theyre not tolerating it any more? They put you in office, the city taxpayers pay their salaries, and theyre not being served. And when talking no longer works, what else do the people have?

That part of me said, burn it down, burn the whole motherfucker down. If theyre not going to fucking listen, burn it. Theres that revolutionary radical in me. But at the same time thats more of a sense than it is an intellectual choice Im telling people to make. Im saying yes, act from that sense. We dont want them to take it literally but I see you acting from that sense and, symbolically, this is what we need to do. We just need to find a way to do it differently.

Relations with the police remain strained despite efforts and initiatives on both sides. Sohn is eager to dispel the myth that young men hanging out on streets corners or residents sitting on stoops outside their homes are all selling drugs. I think what people dont understand is when you live in these communities, this is your tribe, this is your home, the streets are a part of your property, its a part of your culture.

Omars death: Alfred McDaniel, 59, stands across the street from the location of the shop where Omar was shot dead in season five. The building burned down during the riots following the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015. Photograph: JM Giordano

We sit on the stoops, we say Hey! to Miss Mary down the street and see the little kids coming home. If theres a fight, somebody jumps off the stoop and runs and breaks up the fight. We might not use drugs or deal drugs but we know the drug dealer, we babysat him when he was eight. Or maybe we know hes 20 and hes dealing drugs but we went to school with him He was in my eighth grade class. These are just people we know. We know your mama, I date your sister, she cool.

Whats going on on the street isnt always drug dealing. Its a community thats gathering and taking care of itself. If you dont understand it and youre only looking at TV, what youre thinking is people are dealing drugs and everybodys just depressed and sitting on the stoop drinking beer. And though that may be there, it is certainly not all of whats there. Theres a community gathering and communing with one another.

Nevertheless, the toxic mix of drugs, firearms and joblessness chronicled by The Wire in 2002 still persists. Last month, the mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, appealed to the FBI for extra help to combat the soaring homicide rate, explaining: Murder is out of control. There are too many guns on the streets.

Rafael Alvarez, an author and screenwriter who worked on the show, writes in an email: The rich and cruel supply of American fucked-up-ness will never run dry in Baltimore, so yes, The Wire could be made 15 years after it originally aired. I suspect give or take 50 homicides and a new wave of corruption and ignorance it could be made again 15 years from today.

Olesker is similarly short on optimism about the citys future. I think you could do the same show today. Its still out there on the street corners: you can go to countless neighbourhoods and see street after street of abandoned houses that have sat there for years.

Youve got all these kids who are rootless, who dont have families, who are joining gangs. Theyre figuring out very early the game is stacked against them. Theyre not going to get to college like middle-class kids do, so they have a choice: they can work in McDonalds for $10 an hour or they can make multiples of that from the drug trade, and theres no mother or father around to tell them otherwise.

Indeed, Donald Trumps pledge to be a law and order president stressing blue lives matter rather than black lives matter, and his attorney general Jeff Sessionss retro approach to tough sentencing only seem likely to fan the flames in Baltimore, a majority black, staunchly Democratic city. The Wire was sometimes accused of implying that its characters were locked in a hopeless cycle; events seem to bear out this sense of fatalism.

But Kwame Kwei-Armah offers hope. One of the things Ive learned since Ive been here is that people of Baltimore care about Baltimore in a rather profound way. Im talking about the philanthropic community in particular: they actually put their money back into the community. Community means something, and Im not just saying that to blow smoke. We had to raise $36m in order to renovate our theatre and we were able to do that in what is a relatively small city. Were not the only people out with a capital campaign. Actually, after the uprisings of 2015, there was a lot of money that came from within Baltimore to start looking at creating solutions for the problems that are endemic here.

Sonja Sohn, too, feels some optimism. Ive been around, Ive been on the planet a little while, she says. I never trusted the establishment anyway so the face we are seeing now is not a surprise, and Ive also been around long enough to see people and movements come and go. By no means do I believe that evolution goes backwards. Evolution goes forwards. No human being can defy the laws of nature, so Im not worried about Donald Trump and Im not worried about Jeff Sessions. Im on my mission, Im on my grind, Im on my purpose and we are all collectively moving forward, I guarantee you that.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/progress-is-painfully-uneven-baltimore-15-years-after-the-wire/

[twolassesinlondon-blog]

Enjoying my near daily dose of the Etcetera Theatre, Hatch gave me a fresh 45 minutes of entertainment, which not only challenged me but took me on a journey to a world I’ve only ever seen on Netflix. I suppose it is quite fitting I write this having just finished the new series of Orange is the new Black, since the show (performed solo by Sarah Carton) was set in one prison cell. A well researched portrayal of just one story of many in a women’s prison, Sarah combines poetry, spoken word and live mixed music, styling which made this show ever so slightly different from any other fringe show I have seen so far. It’s rhyming was luscious, its soul was prominent. Keeping it’s style of electronic yet lyrical music means this show can effectively reach to a younger, fresher audience, which has the potential to keep fringe theatre cutting edge, politically relevant – even disruptive (now doesn’t that give you the belly butterflies?).

The script boldly and unashamedly tackled relationships, how they can be affected by drugs, mental health and separation. Sarah gave a gritty and heartfelt performance, which she took in her stride as she clearly had a lot of fun on the stage. I love seeing performers genuinely loving what they do. It really does resonate into the audience and everyone gets on the same page. During the show, you know where you are, where the character is physically and emotionally and you really can’t ask for anything else. You don’t leave wanting more, because you feel quite content with what you’ve been given. Short yet sweet, it pushes the boundaries of what can be achieved by one woman, one laptop, one microphone and one fold up camping bed on a stage. It delves into each theme just enough for you to empathise with the scenario, then leaves just at the right moment to show the passing of time, particularly in a prison. Very well done, a great way to spend the minutes between 6.30 and 7.15.  

Hatch is showing at the Etcetera Theatre until the 12th of August. Oh, and the tickets are reasonably priced too. Good Call.

Hatch, by Rose Eye Productions, at the Etcereta Theatre, Camden Fringe Enjoying my near daily dose of the Etcetera Theatre, Hatch gave me a fresh 45 minutes of entertainment, which not only challenged me but took me on a journey to a world I’ve only ever seen on Netflix.

[newyorktheater]

As “Pipeline” begins, we learn that a black teenager has gotten into a physical scuffle with his teacher and is in danger of being expelled, and arrested. But playwright Dominique Morisseau masterfully upends the tired assumptions that might attach to such a drama, in a play that is not just smart and engaging; it is also the most literate of any I’ve seen this year.

The teenager, Omari (Namir Smallwood), attends a mostly white private boarding school. The encounter occurred, as Omari later explains to his mother, after a discussion of Richard Wright’s novel “Native Son,” when the teacher kept on asking him questions about the African-American protagonist of that novel, the killer Bigger Thomas. “’What made Bigger Thomas kill that woman? What were his social limitations? What made the animal in him explode?’ And who he lookin’ at when he askin’ all these questions, Ma. Who he lookin’ at?”

“Omari,” his mother replies.

“Like I’m the spokesperson. Like I’m Bigger Thomas. Like I’m pre-disposed or some shit to knowing what it’s like to be an animal.”

“Pipeline”is no polemic. The play focuses less on Omari than it does on his mother, Nya, portrayed by the wonderful actress Karen Pittman (Disgraced, King Liz) – and, truth be told, she too has questions and concerns about her own son…and other mothers’ sons. She is a teacher herself, in what is euphemistically called (but not in this play!) an “inner city school.”

Nya is also a single mother – but, again, that doesn’t mean what some people would assume. Omari’s father Xavier (Morocco Omari) is a successful businessman, who is paying for Omari’s schooling. We even piece together, in passing, that it was Nya’s actions that destroyed the marriage.

Again and again, in other words, the playwright insists on the specificity of her characters. This long has impressed me about Dominique Morisseau, who in addition to her playwriting is a writer for the Showtime series “Shameless,” about a struggling family in Chicago, and whose previous plays include “Skeleton Crew,” about a financially-threatened group of Detroit auto workers, which was given a terrific production last year.

Off stage, Morisseau is passionate and outspoken about a range of social and political issues, but her beliefs never seem to interfere with her integrity as a playwright . She doesn’t use her characters to score points; she allows them their lives – which are as full and complicated as any of the characters we are more used to seeing on stage. It is refreshing, for example, that “Pipeline” features a character, Dun (Jaime Lincoln Smith), who is intelligent and caring and flirtatious and adulterous…and works as a minimum wage school security guard.

All six characters in “Pipeline” are given their due, aided immeasurably by some outstanding performances under the fine direction of Lileana Blain-Cruz.

The title of Morisseau’s play is an oft-used term among educators, employed as a metaphor for the fate awaiting school children. The students labeled “gifted” go into one pipeline. The term is commonly used these days to describe what happens way too often to poor children of color — “the school to prison pipeline,” which was the subject of Anna Deavere Smith’s documentary drama, “Notes from the Field.”

There is no mention of this term in the play itself (although there’s an explanation of it in the accompanying issue of the Lincoln Center Theatre Review.) The problems in education are presented obliquely but effectively, and not downplayed: In between scenes, Hannah Wasileski’s huge video projections of what look to be real-life chaos and violence inside an actual school cover the institutional wall of a set that looks like an especially forbidding high school gymnasium.  Nya’s colleague Laurie (the gloriously in-your-face Tasha Lawrence), has just returned to school after facial reconstruction surgery to repair the damage from an attack by the parents of a failing student. “I’ll outlast ‘em all,” she barks. (Bythe end of the play, we’re not so sure.)

Nya most eloquently expresses her worries about her son when she is teaching the 1959 poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool: The Pool Players Seven at the Golden Shovel”:

  We real cool. We

Left school. We

  Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

  Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

  Jazz June. We

Die soon.

  Nya teaches the poem to her class, and to the audience too. It’s a testament to the skills of Pipeline’s playwright, director and performers how much this poem winds up meaning to us, and moving us.

There may not be a traditional story arc in “Pipeline” — as the play progresses, we dig deeper into the characters — and no clear-cut resolution at its end, but that to me speaks to Morisseau’s integrity. She’s telling us like it is; a pat ending would ring false, given the circumstances. Any hopefulness is unlikely to exterminate the frustration and resentment and uncertainty.

Along the way, we are treated to Morisseau’s gifts, which include not just her compassionate portrayals and an easygoing grasp of literary poetry, but her exquisite ear for the delightful everyday poetry in the way people talk, such as in the dialogue between Omari and his boarding school girlfriend Jasmine (Heather Velazquez.) Her parents (like his) thrust her into this alien environment to get her out of the neighborhood and its bad influences. In a scene in her dorm room, Omari has just announced to her that he’s going to run away from school.

“Yo, this could be our last time,” he says, making a move. “You kiddin’ me right now?” she says, darting up out of the bed. “I’m just seeking intimacy.” “You seeking to get socked in the eye. I don’t turn on and off like no stove.” “You mean a faucet.” “I mean a stove. One minute you got me hot. Next minute fire’s out…”

Later, using a lesson he learned in “Mr. Peterson’s Science Class,” Omari compares Jasmine to “Metamorphic rocks. They change in form. Made from heat and pressure. That’s what makes ‘em so rare and interesting. “

That sounds like a good description of all the characters in “Pipeline” – and of the play itself.

  Pipeline

Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

Written by Dominique Morisseau; Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz Set design by Matt Saunders, costume design by Montana Blanco, lighting design by Yi Zhao, sound design by Justin Ellington. Cast: Tasha Lawrence, Morocco Omari, Karen Pittman, Namir Smallwood, Jaime Lincoln Smith and Heather Velazquez Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission. Tickets: $87 Pipeline is scheduled to run through August 27, 2017

Pipeline Review: A Mother and Teacher Worries About Her Son As “Pipeline” begins, we learn that a black teenager has gotten into a physical scuffle with his teacher and is in danger of being expelled, and arrested.