What brought The American Theatre Critics Association to Sarasota, Florida, for their annual conference last week?  This small city on Florida’s west coast is best known as the winter home of the circus, initially Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, now 16 smaller circuses.  John Ringling wanted to put his adopted home town on the map and his influence has culminated in Sarasota Opera, Sarasota Ballet, a world-class museum, and a varied selection of live theatre.

          The conference opened with a dual reception by two of the city’s largest theatres.  Asolo Repertory Theatre’s board president Ron Greenbaum and wife Rita opened their breathtaking gulfside home for a cocktail party where we watched the sun sink over the yardarm.  Then we went on to the Florida Studio Theatre’s satiric cabaret, “Laughing Matters”, created by Rebecca Langford and a wickedly talented young cast, directed by Richard Hopkins, FST’s Artistic Director.  FST has three stages and we saw excellent productions in each of them during our stay.

          Our keynote address “Perspectives on Criticism” was delivered this year, not by a critic, but by Michael Reidel, theatre columnist for The New York Post, who also chairs “Theatre Talk” on PBS.  If you thought after Walter Winchell they broke the mold, think again.  Although he claims Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen ranged from sentimental to scalding, Reidel’s column is pure show business.  Astute, funny and dedicated, he likes face-to-face interviews.   He writes about plays that he believes are in tune with his readership but comes down hard for a point of view.

          The Asolo (pronounced Oslo) Repertory Theatre comes not from Norway but from Italy.  It’s a beautiful 19^th century space, spotted by John and Mabel Ringling on one of their talent and artifact collecting trips.  They brought the whole thing here where it housed live theatre until the needs and programs grew and now is preserved in the Ringling Museum for lectures, etc.  Its name lives on next door in a huge state-of-the-art theatre space which presented smooth professional productions of Shaw’s “The Devil’s Disciple”, Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” and Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Murderers” during our visit.

          The Ringling Museum is really three museums.  There’s the classical art collection of Ruebens, Van Dyck, Titian, Gainsborough and others, artfully hung on many-splendored brocade walls.  There’s Ca d’Zan (House of John in Venetian dialect), the Ringlings’ opulent gulfside mansion inspired by the Doge’s Palace in Venice, and there’s the Circus Museum, which contains costumes and artifacts from Ringling’s historic circus world. 

One of the most amazing is the monumental model circus layout, created over 50 years in exquisite detail by Howard Tibbals who was there to talk to us about it.  Before you ask, yes, the Ringling circus goes on but it’s not under a Big Tent any more, it’s in indoor spaces large enough to hold the trapeezes and the animals.

          At the Golden Apple, the longest-running dinner theatre in America, we experienced the pleasures of eating, drinking and a well-staged production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat”.

          Performance and creative arts spread to the littlest Sarasotans.  There are classes in circus skills.  We met Steve Smith, former Dean of the Clown College which is based here, and were reminded that only in the U.S. is circus regarded as a children’s art form.  Not so in Europe where, in Italy alone, there are 500 circuses. 

Among the conference panels was one on jobs in theatre criticism, work on the internet, the future of dramatic criticism, the future of arts organizations and how Sarasota became Florida’s cultural capital.  That panel included Jim Ragona, Managing Director of Circus Sarasota who told us about the touring life of a circus today.  Deborah Walk, Curator of the Museum Circus Galleries, Rodney Huey, former Ringling Brothers VP for Public Relations, Patty Campbell, director of PAL Sailor Circus, a 60-year-old youth circus, Peggy Williams, first female graduate of The Clown College and the hilarious Steve Smith made a dynamic panel.

The Florida Studio Theatre has spearheaded the Write A Play program which includes Under Six, written by kids sixth grade and under, and, to date, has reached over a million students.  We saw a sample of their dramatic and touching plays Saturday afternoon with teen-age performers who were among the most ebullient and delightful casts all week.

          Saturday afternoon and evening wound up the conference at The Florida Studio Theatre, whose emphasis is contemporary theatre.   We saw “Blackbird” by Scottish playwright David Harrower, the 2007 Olivier Award-winner for Best New Play, which explores child abuse from many unusual angles. Although it started over the top, giving the actors nowhere to go dramatically, it was so fascinating and strongly done by Dan Patrick Brady and Sarah Stockton that it held the stage.

In “Black Pearl Sings!” by Frank Higgins, a songseeker (Forrest Richards) tries to unearth songs from an African-American prisoner (Alice M. Gatling).  Richards, who has done mostly cabaret, played a dramatic role here.  We were dumbfounded to learn that Gatling, a professional actress, made her singing debut in this role, and is a talent to watch.

          We shoehorned in time to enjoy the hotel’s pool with its waterfall and the silken aqua waves of the Gulf of Mexico with their white sand beaches.

          For those who had never been to Sarsota, it was an amazing revelation.  It’s a great place to visit and, judging from the circus people who have made their homes there, a great place to live.  Two journalists in our group interviewed the famous Flying Wallendas who have been trapeze artist royalty for generations.  The scenic beauty and the circus influence which gave birth to a proliferation of classic, contemporary and musical theatre make Sarasota a unique theatre town in the tropics. 

You’ve hit lay-off time in this shrinking economy and you’re sick of of waiting to be wanted. You’ve always been an executive but your job has been abolished and there don’t seem to be any new ones out there with your name on them.  You’ve always been a journalist but newspapers, if not folding, are slicing staff down to the bone. You’ve always been a good salesman but nobody’s buying and a lot of companies where you had contacts aren’t selling enough to hire anyone new. 

It isn’t fair!  No, it isn’t, but it’s reality at this point in the 21^st Century.  Life’s not a beach, at least not one that you can sit on with no income.  You’ve called everyone you know, scanned the want ads and on-line job boards daily, sent out numerous resumes.  “It takes 8-9 months,” runs the conventional wisdom.

It seems you’re busy searching all the time but you feel intrinsically passive.  Something inside is beginning to writhe in frustration.  You want to spread your wings and fly.  You feel like you have to be practical.  You’ve always dreamed of being an entrepreneur but you’re not quite ready for that, whether because of lack of money or lack of experience.

The old saying, “Do what you love and the money will follow” isn’t so pie-in-the-sky as it sounds.  You probably were already doing it.  Whatever you studied in school, whatever jobs you held probably drew on some element of your affinities.  The more you can use the things you like and do well, the better you’ll do at anything.  Start from there and you’ll widen that road until it gets you where you want to go.

Example:  Dana was a journalist who couldn’t find a writing job but had a never-used degree in education.  She taught an arts journalism class at The Learning Annex, an alternative school, and always made it a practice to go out socially and professionally to almost anything to which she was invited that appealed to her.  One day, sitting around a friend’s pool with a group of women she barely knew, she heard one raving about a class she’d taken at an adults-only college.  Dana sent her resume to the dean and was called in for an interview. 

“I don’t think many of our students would be interested in your journalism class,” said the Dean as the interview wound down, “but we do need someone to teach our Film Appreciation Class.  That teacher just quit.”  Although Dana had never taught that or even studied it, she was something of a film buff, had reviewed film and knew a lot of people in that industry.  When the Dean found out Dana knew more about Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious” than she did, she hired Dana on the spot.  Dana found a nice salary, students she loved who loved her back and creative satisfaction in a field she never dreamed of entering..  All from getting out there with an open mind and initiative.

Make a list of things you love, things you’re good at and get out there, either as a volunteer or a part-timer.  Do things on spec.  Your passion, curiosity and persistence will open doors you never dreamed existed.

• Slumdog Millionaire

   

            I must be the last person in town to see this film which I avoided for, perhaps a snobby reason, that I never watched the game show and, a squeamish one, that I can’t watch torture scenes.

            One day, my 90-year-old girlfriend, an actress who gets screeners, wanted to watch it and I agreed, feeling it would be easier to escape the bad parts in a corner of her living room than a theatre lobby. 

  The torture was brief and mild, by movie standards.  The game show was used to drive the plot, an incredibly far-fetched concept which was overcome by the brilliant cinematography and Danny Boyle’s direction.

   Jamal (Dev Patel), who survived the slums, gets on a Millionaire quiz show because he knows the love of his life, Latika (Frieda Pinto) will be watching.  By an absurd coincidence, all the questions summon childhood memories which provide him with the right answers.  But dramatically this works and the story of his life, told with dazzling speed by Boyle from Simn Beaufoy’s screen adaptation of Vikas Swaraf’s novel “Q & A” sweeps us along.  Despite the violence and squalor which are a very real part of Boyle’s story, the film brims with the color and excitement of boys who are too young to find life anything less than amazing and of India itself.  I spent a few weeks with a film company in India some years ago and, though it was in a very different milieu, I’ve never forgotten the vivid exoticism of that huge sprawling country.

            My first introduction to India came from a book given to me by my godfather as a Christmas present.  It was Richard Haliburton’s “Book of Marvels” and I thought the Taj Mahal was the most beautiful building I ever saw.  It plays a pivotal role in this film and its dedication to the love of a man for a woman is a symbol and theme of the movie.

            I’m glad I saw it but what makes me happiest is the way the mainstream American public has embraced a foreign film, something they too rarely do.

   

   

Waltz with Bashir

January 5, 2009

The satirical title of “Waltz with Bashir” is reflected in the form of this unique and stunning animated feature from Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman. The documentary is based on his own repressed memories of his role as a 19-year-old soldier in the attack on Lebanon in the early 1980s. After the assassination of Lebanese president-elect, dynamic young Bashir Gemayal, retaliatory massacres occurred at the Palestine refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, spearheaded by a group called the Phalangists supported by the Israeli Army.
The film begins with vicious dogs of war charging head-on almost off the screen straight at the audience. They’re the recurring dream of a former Israeli soldier who remembers being compelled to shoot dogs whose barking would alert the enemy. As he tells this story to the filmmaker, the man realizes he can’t remember his part in the Lebanese invasion and goes on a pilgrimage of self-discovery, interviewing fellow soldiers who were there. Their stories, climaxing in the massacre which the filmmaker witnessed, are drawn in brilliantly innovative ways, combining fantasy, guilt and the painful unearthing of the past.
Annimation proves to be the perfect form for this story, allowing us to see the surreal side of investigative journalism. The characters are drawn with expressive realism and the imagery is beautiful. This brave film by an Israeli filmmaker with the support of the Israel Film Board climaxes with archival footage of sobbing Palestinian women fleeing the camps, mourning their losses.

Last Chance Harvey

Whatever’s happening around him, Dustin Hoffman creates a fully-rounded character. In “Last Chance Harvey”, he plays the title character, an uptight businessman who is compelled to answer his cell phone even in the middle of his daughter’s wedding rehearsal dinner to deal with trifles that eventually have no significance. His daughter has asked her stepfather to give her away and, upon losing his job, this is the worst day of Harvey’s life. So he tells Kate (Emma Thompson), a woman who has become so low key that her natural charm and empathy is drenched. They meet at a Heathrow airport restaurant and, although she’s had a hell day of her own, including being rejected by a blind date and riddled with phone calls from her lonely mother, Kate agrees that he wins the misery stakes.
Predictably, Harvey and Kate wind up spending the day together. He admits he feels his wife and daughter look better with the more sophisticated stepdad, played by James Brolin, and that his workaholic obsessiveness manufactured to overcome his insecurity has destroyed his family life. Kate’s part is more thinly written. She feels guilty about an early abortion but, apart from that, it’s Thompson’s charm that carries her through.
Writer/director Joel Hopkins has molded this predictable vehicle around his stars and Hoffman and Thompson are a pleasure to watch. They are so sharp, perceptive and humane in their characterizations that it’s an inspired lesson.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Scott Fitzgerald’s short story takes 10 minutes to read on the internet. The same topic of reverse aging is the subject of an excellent full-length novel “And Again?” by noted Irish writer Sean O’Faolain.
Brad Pitt plays Fitzgerald’s title character who ages backwards. He meets Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett, the love of his amazing life when he is an old man physically, though a 10-year-old chronologically, and she is a child. They journey down the years together on separate aging tracks and come together for a brief joyous time when they are both physically and psychologically the same age. Their reunion brings a daughter, played in adulthood by Julia Ormond.
Set in New Orleans which, over the decades, reverberates like another character, this version, directed by David Fincher and written by Eric Roth, is no more than inspired by Fitzgerald’s whimsical plot line. The performances are exemplary, the New Orleans setting which begins in 1918 gives an initial flavor of Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age world and the question of where you go when locked in an irreversible tragedy with the love of your life is one which resonates, no matter what the situation.

The Reader Kate Winslet gives the best performance I’ve ever seen from anybody as Hanna, an illiterate 35-year-old woman who has an affair with teen-age Michael (David Kross). Later, as a law student attending Nazi trials, he discovers that she was a concentration camp guard and complicit in an even worse tragedy revealing a deep moral illiteracy, in the words of director Stephen Daldry who did a Q&A after the screening I saw at the Directors Guild. I told him the last time I’d seen him at a Q&A was after “The Hours” (another film he directed about a woman) and I was just as blown away by this one. Winslet’s character ranges from the 35-year-old erotic tutor of young Michael to a woman on trial to an old prisoner. David Hare, who also adapted “The Hours”, adapted this screenplay from Bernhard Schlink’s novel, a best-seller in Germany. The story uses books and reading as a deepening medium, expanding the story beyond the lives of one woman and one man. Bruno Ganz, the superb German actor who starred in “Wings of Desire”, plays Michael’s professor and interlocuter. Ralph Fiennes gives a subtle portrayal of Michael as an adult who, 20 years after Hanna’s conviction, still, like many Germans, wrestles with questions of national guilt and how long the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the next generation. The film’s questions about the borders of love and values make this one of the best in a year of great movies.

Gran Torino Clint Eastwood who produced, directed and stars could qualify for the award of Grand Old Man of American Movies. In this story by first-time screenwriter Nick Schenk, Eastwood unabashedly plays his age as grim retired factory worker Walt Kowalski whose wife has just died. He resists all efforts of young Father Janovich (Christopher Carley) to be his friend and bring him back to the church, as his beloved wife wished. He resents the Vietnamese families moving into his neighborhood and they don’t understand why he doesn’t leave with the other white homeowners. His teen-age neighbor Thao (Bee Vang) is instigated to steal Walt’s treasured 1972 Gran Torino as his initiation into his cousin’s gun-toting gang. When Walt catches him, Thao’s humiliated family begs him to let Thao work for him as penance. Alienated from his boring, greedy children and grandchildren, Walt finds himself drawn into the life-affirming neighbors (and their wonderful cooking). Funniest is Grandma (Chee Thrao) who bests Walt in a spitting contest. The two try to outstare each other before becoming friends. The neighborhood is becoming a fighting ground for gangs, including one who tries to jump Thao’s pert Americanized sister Sue (Ahney Her) and her hunky boyfriend Trey (Scott Eastwood). Walt intervenes but later the spunky Sue is beaten and raped by her cousin’s gang who resent her independence.
Walt sees only one way to protect the two young people he has come to love. Those who expect an Eastwood shoot-out may think they see one coming.
Eastwood, who calls this his last movie as an actor, expands his tough-guy repertoire with wonderful tight-lipped snarls and the portrait of an American veteran who is set in his ways and scarred by memories of the Korean war in which he had to kill kids Thao’s age. The script is a portrait of a specifically American man and his time. Probably no one but Eastwood could have gotten it made and he does it justice, delving deep as an actor and carving the movie with his customary chiseled and astute directoral style.

Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, says the dictionary, means that a part stands for the whole or vice versa. For example, “suits” means movie executives. Charlie Kaufman’s new film, his first as a director, follows one man, Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) a theatre director in upstate New York, who receives a genius grant. Caden is so obsessed with staging an immense work of art that will reflect his own life that he fails to see the world falling apart around him. Buildings disintegrate, streets decay, cities are abandoned. Their synecdoche reflects Caden’s self-obsession that leaves him with an empty and deteriorating world.
One thing Kaufman’s new film has in common with writer/director Woody Allen’s work is an abundance of beautiful women in the hero’s life. Caden’s wife Adele (Catherine Keener), a painter, goes off to Germany where she is declared a genius, too. Caden re-marries an actress (Michelle Williams), has an intriguing relationship with his receptionist (Samantha Morton) and plunges into his mamouth creation staged in a warehouse. He builds various spaces, hires many actors, rehearses countless scenes from his own life.
How often do we think, if only we could live our life over and do things differently, what would it be like? While the real world falls apart into deserted streets and shabby buildings, he worries at his personal past, casting and re-casting characters from his life. There’s no resolution, no happiness. If Aristotle declared “The unexamined life is not worth living”, one of Kaufman’s points seems to be the uselessness of nothing but self-examination. Kaufman often uses his own world of theatre or screen-writing as a metaphor for trying to solve the riddle of the universe by acting it out. Here he seems to be trying to show us the futility of enlarging the world by subtraction. The more he ignores the world in favor of his personal explorations, the more it dies.
Anything Kaufman does is worth seeing: “Being John Malkovich”, “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and, a personal favorite, “Adaptation” starring Nicholas Cage. This film has the pleasures of Hoffman’s work and the rigorous, if elongated, trail hewn by the author.

Rachel Getting Married

Jonathan Demme, Oscar-winning director of “The Silence of the Lambs”, is back with another woman in jeopardy in an entirely different genre. This one takes place at a wedding. The theme of family relationships and long-buried tensions enriches the story of this bi-racial family, by first-time screenwriter Jenny Lumet, daughter of director Sidney Lumet and granddaughter of singing legend Lena Horne.
The story follows the character of Kym (Anne Hathaway), Rachel’s sister, who has a week-end pass from a rehab facility for the wedding. Kym has been on drugs since she was a teen-ager and the death of her little brother is a subject that has never until now been thoroughly aired between Kym and her mother, played by Debra Winger. Winger retains her ability to hold the screen with anybody, projecting dignity and sensuality.
Hathaway shows a range she hasn’t had the chance to display before, boding well for a long and rich career. Demme gives this the feel of a home movie by using a hand-held camera to cover the rehearsal dinner. That feeling is augmented by having the speeches go on a tad too long, just as they do in real life.
Many treasures in this one. It’s going to take its place in movie archives.

Let The Right One In (Sweden)

This Swedish thriller is a very special vampire story. 12-year-old Oscar (Kare Hedebrant), a lonely only child of divorced parents, is bullied by classmates and never fights back. He thinks he’s found a friend when a pale 12-year-old girl, Eli (Lina Leandersson) and her father move into the next apartment. But when a rash of bloody killings sweep their town, he realizes she’s a vampire. This film doesn’t shrink from Eli’s necessity to feed on people but she’s just what Oscar needs. She encourages him to stand up to the bullies and he does, damaging the ear of the instigator.
After a particularly gruesome disaster involving Eli’s father, she knows she has to move on. A lonely Oscar is attacked in a swimming pool by the brother of the boy he has wounded, leading to an enthralling climax.
The combination of vampire lore, suspense, violence and the pure deep love between Oscar and Eli, he on the cusp of adolescence, she frozen in time forever, is unique. Set in winter in a soulless Swedish apartment block which emphasizes today’s alienation, the bloodlust of the little vampire stands out in vivid relief. Hedebrant, whose fair hair and white skin make him look like a medieval angel, is completely credible as an average kid who lives a reserved and withdrawn life. Leandersson projects the mystery and sadness of a little vampire who is trapped for eternity in a lifestyle that leaves scant room for the precious happiness that she knows exists. Directed by Tomas Alfredson from John Ajvide Lindquist’s script based on his novel, it swept European film festivals and is enjoying a long run here at the Laemmle theatres.

Doubt: The Movie

John Patrick Shanley’s play swept the awards boards in 2005, garnering Tonys and a Pulitzer, but transferring to the screen with equal success was problematic. Many movie-goers don’t read or care about theatre reviews. The story of a priest and a nun debating over the priest’s possibly predatory attitude towards a boy in his charge has made headlines repeatedly, so the theme is not exactly surprising. And that brilliant funny playwright John Patrick Shanley’s foray as a director of his own film script “Joe vs. The Volcano” didn’t save it’s wry whimsy from confusing both audience and critics.
So thank whatever gods may be that this movie and its writer/director got the green light to go together where they ought to go. Shanley chose a completely different cast from the Broadway production and, no slight intended to the Tony-winning Broadway cast, it’s fascinating to see new people interpret these roles.
Set in 1964 in the kind of Catholic school the playwright attended, it centers on the conflict between flinty principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) and charismatic young Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The sister suspects the father of preying on boys, particularly the vulnerable Donald Muller, first Negro child to be admitted to the school.
Streep as Sister Aloyisius is a traditional authoritarian who believes in her instincts almost more than in her God, with an asperity leavened by surprising flashes of dry humor. Hoffman is brotherly and charming as the charismatic Father Flynn. Viola Davis, in the unforgettable character of Mrs. Muller, is apprehensive but quivering with determination to do whatever she must for her child. It’s one of the most powerful scenes Shanley has written and Davis does it full justice. Amy Adams peels away the innocence of Sister James, the young idealistic teacher whose values are shredded by the play’s end.
There’s no trace here of the heightened language Shanley has used to such dazzling effect. This is the pared-down speech of every day but the playwright’s imagination inspires Father Flynn’s sermons and his humanity glows through Sister Aloysius’s wit. Shanley brings out the humor in the characters and, through his emphasis, new nuances in Father Flynn’s sermons. Doubt is already in play in Father Flynn’s mind, as he makes that subject the focus of his initial appearance in the pulpit. Shanley keeps the story as tightly in the confines of the school as it is on stage, with only one break-out scene where Sister Aloyisius walks Mrs. Muller back to her job along a cold grey November street. The walk heightens the sense of urgency because of the tightness of Mrs. Muller’s lunch hour and her conflicted desire to run away from what she has to say. The director also brilliantly contrasts the priests’ dinner table with its dim lights, laughter and wine to the nuns’ brightly-lit austere dinner table where only milk is served.
The film further expands by using visualization in Father Flynn’s pillow sermon in which the gossiping woman is actually depicted watching the feathers from her pillow fly irretrievably across the city. The director further his scope by including glimpses of the young students in this school.
Although Sister Aloysius believes she has the proof she needs, her final words summarize the theme of the play: “Oh, Sister James, I have such doubts, such doubts! “. She’s not referring to Father Flynn necessarily or even to Mrs. Muller’s revelations. She’s referring to the whole cusp of the world, as it lurches from the prim dogmatic 1950s into the fragmented openness of the 1960s. Not that she would ever go there but the fact that the crack in that door is opened by her is a testament to the nun’s character. The playwright will never give you a reading on what the play means but he doesn’t need to.
It’s all beautifully there with the questions, the passions, the conflicts and the spirituality of real life.
When I e-mailed my reaction to Shanley, whom I’ve known since the National Playwrights Conference in 1983, he replied, “It’s been a journey!”

Frost/Nixon (The Movie)

Peter Morgan’s dramatization of the famous interviews between British talk show host David Frost and former American president Richard Nixon began as a play, with video monitors augmenting the experience.
However, the big screen is where this really belongs and where it’s at it’s best. The screen is the medium where both Frost and Nixon made their mark.
Director Ron Howard is a child of television and has an innate sensitivity for the use both Frost and Nixon make of the media. He intercuts brilliantly, making a fascinating suspense story out of raw material.
Though a little drawn-out, the story of how Frost overcomes his talk show host persona to take down the more experienced Tricky Dick is the an intricate one. The final close-ups, in which Nixon finally admits he let the American people down, are powerfully expressive. But the telling line that we’ll all remember is when Nixon, driven to the wall, hisses arrogantly: “It’s not illegal when the President does it.”
Frank Langella and Michael Sheen repeat their Broadway roles. Although neither man resembles the person, both express the essence of their personalities. Langella lends Nixon a modicum of warmth that lurked in his feelings for his children and animals. No one is totally one-dimensional and Langella is too fine an actor not to find some sympathy in his character. Sheen plays Frost with sprightly sleaziness, but brings out the determination of a man who’s willing to risk his own fortune on interviews nobody else will back.
Rebecca Hall lends dry humor and off-hand sensuality to the role of Sheen’s girlfriend, Caroline Cushing. Sam Rockwell plays a fiercely determined James Reston, Junior, out to get Nixon and Oliver Platt adds heft and character to Bob Zelnick. Kevin Bacon fully inhabits Nixon’s militaristic aide, Jack Brennan, with a redeeming loyalty to his boss. Michael McFadyen is attractive and honorable in the thankless role of Jack Brit, Frost’s producer, a part with as little range for his talents as the real Brit.
Pat Nixon is played with ladylike resignation by Patty McCormick, who debuted on Broadway as a child murderess in “The Bad Seed”. Who would have thought she’d grow up to be Pat Nixon?

Milk offers a glowing performance by Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first homosexual city councilman in San Francisco, who was murdered by colleague Dan Black, another fine characterization by Josh Brolin. It seems over-long and sometimes repetitious but Gus Van Sant’s film, with a screenplay by Dustin Lance Black, brings out the tragic oppression experienced by homosexuals. Episcopal Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori said, “They’re the latest group but they won’t be the last.”

Remember the pure joy of the holidays when you were a child?

You can experience that joy again – no matter your age – with the seasonal festivities of Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

All four of Disney’s parks – the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom – undergo magical transformations to celebrate the yuletide season. You might just feel like your Fairy Godmother waved her magic wand and turned you into a kid again…

Start your visit at the Magic Kingdom, where the sight of a Cinderella’s castle aglow takes your breath away. More than 200,000 twinkling lights transform the iconic castle into a glistening ice palace.

Moving about Main Street U.S.A., snowflakes swirl about the glowing lights and giant Christmas tree in Town Square. And what Christmas party would be complete without hot chocolate and cookies? Be sure to help yourself to a rare “freebie” from Disney.

On select evenings at the Magic Kingdom, “kids from 1 to 92” are cordially invited to attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. You’ll be treated to holiday themed shows featuring Disney characters, “Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade,” and “Holiday Wishes” fireworks spectacular.

Castle Dreamlights

On to Epcot, where the Lights of Winter, a breathtaking arch of twinkling lights, welcomes you to “Holidays Around the World” at World Showcase. Here the young and “young at heart” can learn about holiday traditions and the many ways Santa (or his counterparts) visit children all over the world.

To celebrate the “reason for the season,” Epcot’s Candlelight Processional features the traditional Christmas story read by a celebrity narrator, and the memorable music of a mass choir and 50-piece live orchestra. You may find the upbeat “Rejoice with Exceeding Great Joy” has replaced the theme from “It’s a Small World” as that tune you just can’t get out of your head.

A few of this year’s narrators include Marlee Matlin, Abigail Breslin, Edward James Olmos, and Monique Coleman.

The star attraction in Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights, where the Streets of America glow with millions of dancing lights, animated displays and falling snow. Most of the featured 3-D displays and nearly 4 million dazzling lights are from the home of the Jennings Osborne family from Arkansas. Their display includes twirling carousels, marching toy soldiers, musical angels and Santa and his reindeer moving to the music.

Other not-to-be-missed spots are Disney’s Animal Kingdom featuring “Mickey’s Jingle Jungle Parade” and Downtown Disney, where your dog can have a photo opportunity with Santa!

You won’t just find holiday fare in the parks. Each Disney resort has its own unique holiday appeal. Celebrating its 10th anniversary is the life-sized gingerbread house in the lobby of the Grand Floridian hotel.

December is a great time of year to stay on property. In addition to the mild weather and moderate crowds, Disney offers its lowest rates for on-site rooms during the first three weeks of December.

So if you’re considering a destination holiday, Walt Disney World has something for everyone.

However you celebrate your holidays – at home or away – a little pixie dust is bound to make them that much sweeter.

Amity Hook-Sopko is a freelance writer and long time Disney enthusiast. She just returned home after celebrating the holidays at Walt Disney World with a group of “kids from 3 to 57” – her parents, husband, and two sons.

The end of a holiday week-end. A little tango in Westwood on Friday night, a holiday party yesterday at the home of my 89-year-old girlfriend, wonderful actress Frances Bay, where we met everyone from the director of her new movie “Bare Knuckles” to neighbors and relatives to the chance to catch up with Fran again, already planning her next party, her 90th birthday in January.

December 25, 2008

Christmas Day was a traditional family day in the usual weird and wonderful ways. All morning I was on the phone with far flung relatives. I went to Christmas dinner in the beautiful new home of a treasured friend, classified as a historic home. Many small rooms which she has with great sensitivity and taste heightened with warmth and color. Burnished wood floors, just a few well-placed pieces of furniture positioned in the right places, artworks that range from Victorian etchings to small exotic sculptures from many countries.
Dinner was potluck, conversation varied, directed by a guest who had spent time at The Esalen Instiute (as a former staff member, I recognized the style). He did it superbly and it was much more interesting than free form. There was one clash but there usually is on Christmas, whether it’s family or a new family of friends. I treasure families of friends. They’ve been through recent life with you. I treasure Christmas, cards dribbling in from old and distant friends, Christmas carols, the heightened sense of community, whatever you call it. We are human, we are loving, we are here and, God willing, will be here and human and loving for a long, long time!

December 24, 2008

When I opened my door today, I discovered a large white tent stretched across the patio of my building. Heaters and tables were being set up. My Italian-American neighbor announced he was having a Christmas Eve dinner and invited me to drop in.

Having a previous commitment to help a friend’s diversified family light a Hanukah candle, trim the tree and bake Christmas cookies, it was late in the evening by the time I got home. There was maybe half an hour to visit with neighbors and chat up new faces before heading out to midnight Episcopal Mass at All Saints Church. Despite two parties and driving through the rain, I was very glad I went. The music was beautiful, the poinsettias glowed, and the love and hope implicit in the Christmas message were more welcome than ever this year. As was the chance to wish a Merry Christmas to friends there. And take this chance to wish a Merry Christmas to you.

Greetings to you, far and near,
At the turning of the year.
May your Wassail Bowl be brimming
And your friends come round for trimming
Of your Christmas tree or palm
On a night that’s bright and calm.

O be joyful, near and far,
Underneath the Christmas star,
May your own New Year unfold
Treasures, pleasures, hands to hold
And delight in where you are.

By and From
Laura Hitchcock
Christmas 2008
Value-Magazine.org
CurtainUp.com
Laura-Hitchcock@sbcglobal.net

(323) 656-6309

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December 22, 2008

My kind of week-end. Tango Friday and Sunday, a play on Saturday. The performance was “Smokey Joe’s Café”, a rousing revival at El Portal in North Hollywood, featuring two Tony-nominated Broadway cast members, DeLee Lively, who does a sizzling shimmy, and her real-life husband Robert Torti, who is a suave singer-dancer. Full review on CurtainUp.com.
Friday stopped in at Linda Valentino’s practica to dance with some of the great social dancers she’s trained. Limbered me up for the Ministry of Tango’s Christmas millonga Sunday at a private home in Bel Air. The music was superb, I saw many old friends and made new ones, and had a wonderful evening of dancing, talking and listening.

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December 18, 2008

The Hollywood Arts Council’s holiday party was hosted in the charming Los Feliz Hills home of the publisher and editor of Discover Hollywood Magazine, Oscar and Nyla Arslanian. Guests ranged from John Holly and Ed Murphy, Chairman of the Board and Managing Director respectively, of The Blank Theatre to journalist Rena Dictor LeBlanc.

Between ogling the view from the Arslanians’ balcony, sampling the exotic and delicious buffet, and hanging out at the bar off the dining room to chat with whoever bellied up next, there wasn’t a dull moment.

December 14, 2008

The Oscar Goes To…Because I’ve seen so many new movie screenings lately, I’m giving them a category all their own. You’ll find it under the Arts category.
Otherwise, the week-end included Friday night tango practica welcoming back Linda Valentino, teacher par excellence, where I had many excellent partners and learned to follow the new steps Linda taught them.
Saturday’s highlight was an open house posted by my actress neighbor Peaches, featuring her usual bountiful spread and beautiful friends, including actors and others. Despite dubious rumbling about the possibility of a SAG strike, most of them doubted it would come to that. On a happier note, there were lots of stage appearances and screen triumphs, most notably the nomination of the hostess’s friend Viola Davis for best supporting actress by several awards shows.

December 11, 2008

My last Film class was bitter-sweet. I’ll miss all my students but their assurance that they’ll miss me, too, and the thoughtful gifts they gave me will carry me through until next summer when I may be back teaching a new and different class.
For our farewell holiday screening, I chose a personal favorite: “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” Holidays, whatever your persuasion, are permeated with family memories. You can’t get away from it. You can’t walk down a street without being more aware of children and festivities. But lots of us don’t have our families close by at Christmastime and lots of us have developed families of friends that give a new meaning to the sense of community. That’s why I chose this film that follows a group of friends who have been tight since schooldays through the weddings of some, the funeral of one, the suppressed love of one for another, the romantic confusion of the leading characters who marry the wrong people and somehow manage to make the right lives for themselves. Written by Richard Curtis and directed by Mike Newell, Hugh Grant, Andie McDowell and Kristin Scott Thomas play the fun, the laughter, the sorrow, the joy, and the romantic confusion of the characters in this 1994 British hit. There’s lots to laugh at and identify with in this delightful movie.

December 10, 2008

Charlie Kaufman is the only screenwriter/director whose subject is the mind: its fantasies, the use it makes of reality, imagination, will. The first film he has directed, “Synechdoce, New York” is more obsessed with this subject than any of his previous films. The surreal is as strong an element as he can get away with in most of his films and, in this latest one, where he holds the reins, it’s very much in play. The title is a rhetorical term in which the whole of a thing stands for a part or a part for the whole. Thus, star Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays stage director Caden experiences and is inflicted by everything that afflicts humanity. Too self-involved to make either of his two marriages work, he spends 17 years directing a play, subsidized by a MacArthur grant, alternating only with hypochondriacal illnesses. Caden is the only man in the play. There’s something Woody Allen-ish in the way Kaufman surrounds him with adoring blond actresses. Although Kaufman has made the film true to his own vision, his previous films, directed by others, had more pace, character development and sense of timing. This one is redeemed by Hoffman’s humanity which makes Caden constantly sympathetic, no matter how limited his behavior.

December 7, 2008

My head and heart are so full of “Revolutionary Road”, Sam Mendes’s film starring Leonardo de Caprio and Kate Winslet. At first I thought, “Oh, I don’t want to see a film about a dysfunctional marriage. Been there, done that.” But the acting, direction and depth of this story put it, in my mind, on a list of 100 Best Movies Ever Made. Credit, the cast say, must be given to Richard Yates because they all love his novel on which the film is based. Michael Shannon, who plays the exceptional role of Richard, a man who has had a nervous breakdown, 37 shock treatments and a maddening mother (Kathy Bates), gives a vivid cameo performance. Full review under Arts on this web site.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Premiere of “Santa Must Die!” at Tim Robbins’ always avant-garde Actors Gang Theatre. Playwright/director Angela Berliner turns Dickens’ traditional Christmas Carol and its characters inside out. Life on the seamy side includes hedonistic porn (no nudity), homosexuality, cruelty, crudity, and irreverence. David Harris plays Scrooge with manic nastiness. Berliner directs her excellent cast with vitality, though the porn scenes become somewhat repetitious. It narrows down at the end to a heartfelt solo by Chris Schultz that reluctantly expresses latent spirituality. Full review on CurtainUp.com.
Opening night reception at the theatre, followed by Michael Espinoza’s tango millonga at LA Dance Experience on Westwood.

Friday, December 5, 2008

“Jane Austen Unscripted” by the remarkable Improv Theatre at Hollywood’s Theatre Asylum. This group improvises a different story every night from the core narratives and characters of Jane Austen’s novels. They’ve toured the world successfully with unscripted versions of Shakespeare, Dickens, Tennessee Williams and Stephen Sondheim. As Jane Austen wrote in “Emma”, “Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.” Full review on CurtainUp.com.
Being in Hollywood, I wound my way to the Hollywood Dance Center for Linda Valentino’s tango practica. I danced all the time with wonderful dancers, old friends and new.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Christmas season is a good excuse to show my film class John Huston’s 1988 film “The Dead”, based on James Joyce’s most famous short story from “The Dubliners”. It begins at a Christmas party in Dublin in 1904, includes an Irish poem recited by the famed actor Sean McClory and a solo by Frank Patterson, at that time Ireland’s leading tenor. Anjelica Huston as Gretta is her father’s leading lady. Renowned Irish actor Donal McCann plays her husband. At the party’s end, when the two are alone in their hotel room, Gretta speaks feelingly of her first love, Michael, who died at 17 and her husband realizes there are many things he never knew about his wife. He looks out the window at the falling snow and has a sense of the isolation that is part of every life, described by James Joyce in words more beautiful than these.
The class was divided between those who thought it was too slow and those who thought it was unique, special and wonderful. Having interviewed Tony Huston when he wrote the screenplay for this movie, I was glad to hear his work appreciated. John Huston raised Tony and Anjelica in Ireland. “Someone from a different environment wouldn’t have had the ear,” said Tony with a soft Irish accent.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Journeyed downtown to interview Ty Giordano and Michael Arden who will co-star in the Deaf West/Center Theatre Group revival of the 1970s hit musical “Pippin” opening in January at the Ahmanson. Ty played Huck Finn in the award-winning production by the same group of “Big River” which then went on to Broadway. Jeff Calhoun is again directing and, though Pippin is, in his words, “much more sophisticated and abstract” than Big River, it’s also the most exciting prospect to open the 2009 theatre season. Full interview to be published in L.A. Stage Magazine.

Friday is tango with favorite partners and some surprising erotic moves from unexpected persons. One of the wonders of the tango world is that you never know what the night will bring.

Saturday morning we visited our great and good girlfriend, Frances Bay, 89 years old and every inch
a star. She’s best known as “Hollywood’s Grandma” because she played Fonzie’s grandmother in “Happy Days” and Adam Sandler’s grandmother in “Happy Gilmore”. I took Frances out to lunch the other day and when the check came, she snatched it out of my hand. “I’m an old lady!” she told me fiercely “and I get residuals!”

the rock opera “Lovelace” about the late star of “Deep Throat”, still America’s best-selling movie in the porn genre and maybe any other. This 90-minute sung-through popera was very well done, with a fine cast directed by the excellent Ken Sawyer, in the little Hayworth Theatre on baja Wilshire Blvd. My full review is on CurtainUp.com.

Although I never met the late Linda Lovelace, I have met Georgina Spelvin, star of the original “The Devil in Miss Jones” who was recently spotted signing her memoirs at Book Soup, the dishy book store on the Sunset Strip. Georgina dashes off a sprightly memoir about a life unlike most others. She survived it and is currently enjoying a happy marriage and accepting awards at Adult Film Conventions.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

The morning I’m on the phone with far-flung friends and relations. The late day there’s a glorious Thanksgiving dinner with a family of friends. Traditional food, untraditional people and a lot of new ones. Hope you all had a HAPPY THANKSGIVING, too, and found things to be thankful for.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Culver City has blossomed into something far more than a bedroom community and home of that giant studio once known as MGM, now same lot, same place as Sony. The heart of town now offers restaurants of every nationality, a multi-plex and two, count them two, world class live theatres: Tim Robbins’ The Actor’s Gang at the charming Ivy Sub-Station, once a city facility, and The Kirk Douglas Theatre, operated by The Center Theatre Group, named for a major donor, legendary movie star Kirk Douglas, usually seen there on opening nights. It’s located in a former movie theatre, renovated in gleaming red that would make Nancy Reagan proud, and practically spitting distance from the former MGM where Mr. Douglas made his bones.
Today the Douglas opened Douglas Carter Beane’s “The Little Dog Laughed”. Beane won a Tony nomination for this Hollywood satire and Julie White won the Tony itself, as deadly chic agent Diane who manipulates her gay client and the play he’s bought into heterosexual megaplex country no matter what lives are warped along the way.
To quote from my full review on CurtainUp.com: “At an awards show, Diane says, “We’re in New York, which we of Los Angeles love, accepting awards from critics, which we love even more so.” Here the show is, in Los Angeles, accepting applause from an industry audience which doesn’t mind being laughed at, knowing that without them, there would be no humor, no money and no play.”
Glimpsed at the after-party were Larry Pressman, who played Woodrow Wilson in the Douglas’s recent play “Of Equal Measure”, and Victor Garber, who starred as Frederick in “A Little Night Music” at the Ahmanson and will be seen next week in the film “Milk”, starring Sean Penn as the late Harvey Milk.
Garber will play the handsome, charming, unaffected San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, murdered by Dan White the same day as Milk. Moscone would sometimes drop in at the writers’ watering hole, The Washington Square Bar and Grill (known as The Washbag) in North Beach, have a drink at the bar and affably chat with anyone who met him. Luckily for me, an old friend had gone to high school with the mayor and I have a brief but warm memory of this progressive public servant. He was just the sort of Mayor San Francisco deserved and just the sort of guy you always hoped to meet at the Washbag.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Friday morning is sacred to reading the reviews in both The New York and Los Angeles Times, making it an excuse for café/croissant at Farmers Market in Los Angeles. Though more crowded and upscale than it was when it started out, I guess that’s true of everything. Among the rising prices you can always find a bargain, like Starbucks wonderful Almond Brioche for breakfast or, for lunch, a slice of Patsy D’Amore’s pizza or a hand-selected lunch from the Pampas Grill’s buffet. Some old Hollywood directors still make it a breakfast must on a certain day each week and it holds great memories for many Angelenos and a whiff of multi-culturism for visitors.
Friday night is sacred to tango. Of the many opportunities, all listed on Tango Afficionado, tonight’s stop was Michael Espinoza’s millonga, following his class at L. A. Dance Experience on Westwood Boulevard. The emphasis tonight was on the music of Nuevo tango and it was delicious. The dancers are all ages and all nationalities. Their common bond is a love of the dance. Tangueros look sinister and dashing in black pants and shirts. Tangueras enter the spirit of the dance with something elegant and sexy, showing the curve of a good leg or the slope of a sweet shoulder. You’ll see people listening, watching, at the hors d’oeuvres table, greeting old friends, making new ones. There’s the mystery of a new partner, the pleasure of a familiar one. Above all, there’s the night and the music and being part of a dance that embodies passion, communion and a wonderful sense of being in the world.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Thanksgiving movie day for my film class. Screened several trying to find the one they would like best. Was leaning towards “Pieces of April” starring Katie Holmes, now unfortunately best known as Mrs. Tom Cruise, who does a lovely job in the title role, playing a hippie girl in New York who can’t cook but bravely invites her estranged conventional New Jersey family to Thanksgiving dinner. Her mother, played unforgettably by Patricia Clarkson as a terminally ill bitch, leads this dysfunctional (what else?) family to Manhattan. A plus in its favor was being written and directed by Peter Hedges, who wrote the marvelous “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?”
But the film I chose, one I’d seen many times before, was Woody Allen’s Chekhovian “Hannah and Her Sisters” because, although also featuring a dysfunctional family at Thanksgiving, it’s Allen’s best. His customary neurosis is leavened by love at its most irrational and forgiving, by a hilarious exploration of death and comparative religions, by the warm décor of Hannah’s apartment and one of Allen’s intuitive nostalgic classic pop music scores, featuring Cole Porter and Gershwin.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The first holiday movie for me is “”A Christmas Tale” and it’s home for the holidays in France for a group who give a new meaning to “dysfunctional”. Mother Junon (Catherine Deneuve) is facing looming leukemia which can only be cured by a bone marrow transplant and finding a donor among a group she thought she got rid of by giving birth to them proves to be challenging for any number of reasons. Still haunted by the memory of her six-year-old son who died of leukemia long ago because no donor could be found, she resents her daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), a successful playwright, because she wasn’t a compatible donor, never liked her second son Henri (Mathieu Amalric) and condescendingly considers third son Ivan Melvil Poupaud) her pet. Ivan was pathologically shy until his brother and cousin Simon (Laurent Capelluto) fixed him up with beautiful Sylvia (Chiara Mastroiani, daughter of Deneuve and Marcello Mastroiani who looks as much like her father as Isabella Rosselini looks like her mother Ingrid Bergman). When Sylvia learns about the fix-up, she confronts Simon with their blighted relationship and they try to heal it under the same roof as Sylvia’s husband and children who take it with Gallic equinimity. Elizabeth’s hauntingly handsome teen-age son Paul (Emile Berling) is as neurotic as Henri. Junon’s husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon), a troll-like man of infinite charm, is much older. When asked why by Ivan and Sylvia’s two little boys why, he says he likes younger women.
The warm décor of this family home and the Christmas play the children put on are at curious variance with the inner conflicts of the family but the movie, co-written and directed by Arnaud Desplechin, is consistently fascinating, maddening and curious.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Over the hill to the Valley to visit one of my favorite small theatres, Theatre Banshee, which focuses, though not exclusively, on Irish plays. Co-producers are husband and wife Sean Branney and Leslie Baldwin, graduates of Valencia. That night they were presenting one of famed Irish pubkeeper/playwright’s productions, “The Year of the Hiker”. Only in Ireland! The fine actor Barry Lynch heads a very good cast in this uniquely Irish story which plays on universal themes: father/son, husband/wife, those who stay and those who run away. Worth a visit to quiet Magnolia Blvd, where you won’t have to fight the Melrose traffic. Full review on CurtainUp.com.

Friday, November 14, 2008

When I first moved here, Melrose Avenue was the sleepy main street of a quiet West Hollywood residential neighborhood. A few shops who wouldn’t dream of calling themselves boutiques, a couple of restaurants known mostly to locals. That was Then. Now is WOW, if you like Wow. Every block is lined with, let’s call them shopping opportunities or Shop Ops, restaurants ranging from mid-price like Louise’s Trattoria to high-priced like Citrus, and three or four little theatres, all with soaring standards.
I went over there Friday for my first visit to the Meta Theatre and finding it was my first challenge. The publicity material gave its address at 7401 Melrose Avenue. Actually the entrance is around the corner on Ogden Street and I literally stumbled across it because I had parked on a side street and was walking down Ogden towards Melrose.
Here we saw an excellent production of Keith Bunin’s “The Busy World Is Hushed”. The set’s production values in the tiny space were warm and evocative. The only minus was the acoustics in the little theatre. They may be hampered by the fan but it’s something that needs work. Full review is posted on CurtainUp.com.

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THE DUCHESS 

          Outstanding and original playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen have done an astute job on converting Amanda Foreman’s biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, into a screenplay.  This 18^th century ancestress of Princess Diana was similar in the ways that count to mainstream audiences.  She was a gorgeous fashionista, locked into an arranged marriage with a member of the nobility who not only took a mistress but chose Georgiana’s best friend, Lady Elizabeth (Bess) Foster, and moved her and her three sons into their mansion. 

          Georgiana, whom her husband calls “G”,  is too spirited to take that lying down.  Drinking and gambling can only take you so far.  It’s inevitable that she takes a lover, childhood friend Charles Gray, an ambitious politician.  When she becomes pregnant with his baby, a cruicifying conflict ensues.  Will she abandon her three children with the Duke or her child with Charles? 

          This screenplay makes the conflict all about children which makes these shallow beauties barely bearable.  Bess tells G she has become the Duke’s mistress because he is the most powerful peer in England and the only person who can wrest her three sons from her abusive husband to live with her.  She also stands up to the Duke and accompanies Georgiana to the country when she gives birth to Charles Gray’s child who is turned over at the Duke’s insistence to Charles’s father or else Charles’s career will be destroyed and Georgiana will never see her children again.

          In typical 18^th century style, Georgiana manages to have her cake and eat it, too.  She remains Duchess of Devonshire and visits Eliza, her daughter with Charles, on the sly.  The Duke is played by Ralph Fiennes with an autocratic droit de seigneur but Fiennes is too fine an actor not to display touches of humanity, even in a man who is basically interested in nothing but his dogs and having his own way.  He always has, he always well.  He has his mistress, he has his Duchess and when she dies, he marries Bess with Georgiana’s blessing.

          One wonders how Princess Diana’s life would have played out.

          As written G has a certain survivalist toughness, a desire from early youth to be a Duchess and a star, and a strong maternal instinct which humanizes her.  Beautiful Keira Knightley takes her that far and no farther.  Her Georgiana is a shallow ambitious beauty whose disappointments made her a gambler and an alchoholic.  There’s no hint of the Duchess’s supposed with, intelligence and political passion. 

Dominic Cooper is dashing as Charles Gray but it’s hard to imagine him as the inspiration for our delicate and beloved Earl Grey tea.

Hayley Atwell as Bess is not well served by her costumes but interprets Hatcher’s vision of a woman who is grounded, sympathetic and a survivalist with an eye to the main chance.

          It’s a gorgeous film to watch.  Director Saul Dibbs lingers voluptuously on the luscious costumes and lofty rooms, conveying the sense of 18^th century royal life .  If the film has a message, it’s to make life work any which way you can.

          People tell me I have an interesting life.  Because I’m an arts journalist, many have suggested I write an arts journal about the theatre and opera beat I cover here in Los Angeles.  They’re also interested in my personal passion, tango, and the Film Appreciation course I teach at a local college.

          Hallowe’en, my favorite holiday, seems like an auspicious time to start.  I always loved dressing up like a person from another planet and wandering dark streets, even past the trick or treat age.  Metaphorically, I do it still.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

          Today is the day I teach Film Appreciation and I’ve been sifting ghost movies all week. Not horror stories but really good films, both classic and contemporary.  I’ve debated “The Innocents” starring Deborah Kerr, “The Sixth Sense” starring Bruce Willis, “Somewhere in Time” starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, Jack Nicholson’s “The Shining”.  I had a first choice but none of these were it and I couldn’t find my first choice. 

I took my back-up, the wonderful 1944 thriller “The Uninvited”.  Based on a novel by Irish writer Dorothy McCardle and scripted by Dodie Smith (“I Capture the Castle”,), it stars Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey as a brother and sister who buy a beautiful house on the cliffs of Cornwall and find they’re sharing it with a pair of beautiful ghosts. Gorgeous young Gail Russell is the object of one’s malevolence.  Other actors include Donald Crisp, Alan Napier and Dorothy Stickney in a cameo turn as dotty Miss Bird.  Considered the first real film ghost story, its noted for its film noir cinematography and Victor Young’s classic ballad “Stella by Starlight”.  In addition to these two values, I always loved the charming old house that was as much a character as any of the cast.

The villainess is played by stage great Cornelia Otis Skinner, also a writer who, with college roommate Emily Kimbrough, wrote a book about their trip to Europe called “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay” which was a best-seller and became a movie starring Diana Lynn as Emily and, as Cornelia, Gail Russell!  There’s a story in there someplace.

Fortunately, after trying four video outlets, I found my first choice favorite ghost movie:  “Truly, Madly, Deeply” the first film written and directed by the late Anthony Mingella, who won an Oscar for “The English Patient”.  He wrote it for English actress Juliet Stevenson and paired her with the magnificent Alan Rickman.  For anyone who has ever lost a loved one, this tender funny poignant film is consoling and unforgettable.  Mingella’s photography and lyric original script make one wish he’d been able to do more of his own things.  It was an especially fitting tribute to a sensitive original artist who died way too soon of a brain hemorage last spring at age 54.

Tonight was the premiere of “Spring Awakening”, the multi-Tony winning musical about teen-age angst based on Frank Wedekind’s 19^th century play.  My guest was my friend Paul, a professional actor/singer/dancer whom I call my artistic adviser.  The Ahmanson Theatre.  always has a special buzz on opening nights with the paparazzi carefully herded into photo-op area next to the press desk.  Autumn’s in the air and a starlet in a strapless black sequined sheath tossed her coat to an assistant just long enough to smile and pose for the cameras and then dashed shivering back to put it on.  Jane Seymour, gorgeous in a red silk shirt and slinky black-and-white print pants, sat in our row.  She made me glad my leopard print dress wasn’t any slinkier, as I contemplated losing weight again.  Cheering me up was Marisa Janet Winokur, pudgy stair of “Hairspray”, who tossed weight to the winds.

New York production values were intact with a new young cast that interpreted them vividly.  The score for this rock popera didn’t make our ears bleed and some of it, like folk music, had charm and energy.  I missed any hint of the joy and curiosity that leaven the life of teen-agers occasionally, no matter how dark their lives.  This lack made the characters one-dimensional, perhaps partly because there were so many of them.  My full review, along with our New York reviews, is posted on CurtainUp.com. Com, so I’ll just echo Paul who said, “This is a production that should bring young people into the theatre.”

Friday, October 31, 2008.

          Hallowe’en has always been sort of the national holiday of L. A.  I remember librarians at UCLA wearing billowing black capes. I think of them every time I see a “Harry Potter” movie.  The first Hallowe’en I was down here I drove 30 miles to see Vincent Price give a one-man show that featured Edgar Allen Poe readings.  Those two were made for each other and it was illuminating to hear him read Poe with respect and a sure instinct for subliminal values beyond the camp he used for his movies.

Tonight my Hallowe’en begins at home when I open my door and look up to the costumed recent college grads who live next door.  My black-haired 6’3” neighbor wears a blonde page-boy.  His date looks like Paris 1900.  One neighbor is having a party and they’re dropping in, before casing the scene on Santa Monica in West Hollywood, the gay capitol of L.A.  Buzz was that a large percentage of guys are going to that as Sarah Palin.

          I’m wearing white because the TANGO MILLONGA of my choice is featuring black lights which make women in white glow.  The room is so dark I can’t see who my partner is until I’m in his arms.  Try it sometime!  My first partner Michael has been studying with an Argentine teacher and has perfected the art of the pause.  One thing I’ve finally learned in my dance studies is not to fear waiting.  It’s a beautiful part of the dance.  Another highlight of this particular millonga hosted by Michael Espinoza at LA Dance Experience is a soul-shattering flamenco guitar performance with vocal accompaniment by the incomparable Bill Freeman.

          Other tango ops for Hallowe’en include the Tango Masquerade, hosted by Orlando Paiva, Junior, and Laura Tate at the Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, a three-day extravaganza with many classes, millongas, master teachers, costume competition and a fashion show.  There was also a class in the wonderful sensuous Canyengue, a dance preceding tango, expertly taught by Robert Schafer and Vivian Wong at Linda Valentino’s class in the Hollywood Dance Center.  Full info on the wonderful world of tango in Los Angeles can be found on Tango Afficionado.

Granted, you have to fight Hallowe’en traffic which this year is compounded by Friday night traffic.  Everybody is out and you’re right in the middle of it.  Don’t be in a hurry, absorb the scene, and play something you love on your CD/tape deck, either music or a truly scary detective novel, anything from Margery Allington to Jeffrey Deaver, from your local library.  By the time you get home you’ll be ready for the nightcap of your choice, whether it’s peppermint tea or a martini on the rocks.  And so to bed with your favorite haunting companion.

Saturday, November 1, 2008.

          Another day, another premiere, this time at The El Centro Theatre, one of the many small theatres in Los Angeles.  This one is located a block from Paramount Studios and when both venues have events, street parking is scarce.  Actors who come here for the film/TV work feed their souls in these little venues and many of the productions are excellent, like this one, the west coast premiere of Christopher Durang’s “Miss Witherspoon” by the West Coast Ensemble Theatre under the inventive direction of Joel Swetow. 

          Miss Witherspoon is the nom de plume assigned to Veronica by her after-life guide, a beautiful Indian named Maryamma.  Proud at having rid herself of her earthly life by committing suicide, Miss Witherspoon is bent on controlling her after-life, too, but Maryamma has other ideas.  Although Miss Witherspoon wants no part of reincarnation, that’s what she gets and the journeys she takes are pierced with Durang’s signature hilarity.  He gently spoofs all organized religions, as well as such fictional guides as Gandalf the Grey from “The Lord of the Rings”.  Full review posted on CurtainUp.com.

          We stopped by the after-party at a small Mexican restaurant, Pueblo Viejo, which served fabulous empanadas as well as the opportunity to dish with cast and audience.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

          Hallowe’en is followed by All Souls Day which reminds us that after all the trick-or-treating and the masquerades, the holiday was originally intended to honor the departed.  Nowhere is that commemorated more gorgeously than at All Saints Episcopal Church, Beverly Hills.  It’s their patronal or saints day when the congregation celebrate all the saints for whom their church is named, renew their pledges and hear a necrology read.  A necrology is a list of names submitted by the congregation of people who have died in the last year.  It’s particularly poignant to hear familiar names ring out in company with all those others and acknowledged by the congregation.  Some of the church’s most beautiful hymns are sung: “For all the saints who from their labors rest”, “Ye watchers and ye holy ones”, “Ye holy angels bright”, with dazzling brass, drums and organ accompaniment composed by All Saints Associate Director of Music and Composer-in-Residence Craig Phillips.  The nationally known and commissioned composer celebrates his 20^th anniversary at All Saints tonight with a concert christened Phillips Fest.

November 3, 2008

          I get behind on movies but fortunately I’m only blocks away from one of our city’s second run theatres, THE REGENCY FAIRFAX, on the corner of Fairfax and Beverly.  It’s in the traditional Jewish part of town, across the street from CBS Television and spitting distance from Farmers Market and the Grove where you can eat and shop in that order.

          Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, would have loved it.  The movie I caught up with was “The Duchess”, based on Amanda Foreman’s biography of this gorgeous  18^th century fashionista and ancestress of Princess Diana whose life paralleled hers in many other ways.  Both were married to members of the nobility who flaunted their mistresses.  The Duke actually took his, formerly best friend of “G” as her husband called her, to live with them.  The screenplay, by outstandingly original playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen, focuses on children as the motivating and humanizing influence of these women.  Keira Knightly makes a gorgeous duchess, though, under Saul Dibbs’ direction, she conveys none of the wit, intelligence and political passion of the real G.  But her gowns are magnificent and the movie is a visual treat, enhanced by Hatcher’s screenplay and Ralph Fiennes beautifully calibrated performance as a distant Duke, the living definition of droit du seigneur, basically interested in nothing but his dogs.  Full review posted on Value-magazine.org.

November 4, 2008, Election Day

          I stood in line for TWO HOURS up behind the Chateau Marmont waiting to get into somebody’s family room and vote, while the fog glowed around the towers below. The Paparazzi were there but they didn’t take any pictures that I saw.  The crowd was very patient and good-tempered.  Nobody left.

          The streets were extremely crowded.  The air was sizzling.  Of course, I had the TV on all day.

          11,000 people had RSVPd for The Democratic Gala at the Century Plaza Hotel.  Doubting I could even get a parking place, I opted to walk down the hill to the local Democratic office, a storefront on Santa Monica at Crescent Heights.  The election party was scheduled to start at 8:00 PM but at something like 7:57 Obama was declared President-Elect.

          Horns hooted and people screamed up and down Sunset Blvd., more jubilation than New Year’s Eve, more excitement than Hallowe’en.  A man stood at the door of the little office pouring champagne.  It was a real working office and I know they’d been working the phones up to the last minute because somebody called me.  McCain was giving his concession speech when I walked in and the workers applauded him and then applauded Sarah Palin and thanked them for their hard work.

          The crowd hushed when Obama spoke, as silent as the crowd in Chicago.  His speech was not triumphalist.  He reached out to those who hadn’t voted for him.  When his family and Biden’s family came out afterwards, tears sprang to my eyes.  We have a remarkable young President and a First Lady with Flair.  So strong, so charismatic – so American!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

          “By the Waters of Babylon,” by Pulitzer-Prize winner Robert Schenkkan, opened at the Geffen Theatre tonight.  The combative passionate relationship between a Texas widow (Shannon Cochran) and the Cuban refugee she hires to work in her garden (Demian Bichir) becomes a metaphor of guilt, pain, confession and, ultimately, acceptance and absolution.  Schenkkan has worked in the metaphorical mode before, specifically in “Heaven on Earth” which I saw labbed at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference in the 1980s.  A literate humorous writer who is not afraid to try many approaches, it was a pleasure catching up with him again.  Full review is posted on CurtainUp.com.

          The after-party honored the Latino influence with a delicate but finely-spiced buffet catered by Loteria, the Farmers Market based Mexican restaurant, which my guest swears is the best in town.  The Chicken Mole Poblano spoke for itself.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

          My Film Appreciation class deserved a dose of Americana after several weeks of English movies, and I showed them the highly-praised “The Visitor”, written and dircted by Tom McCarthy whose first feature was the quirky, moving “The Station Agent”, starring Peter Dinklage and Patricia Clarkson.

          In “The Visitor”, a widowed 60-something college professor, Walter, played by Richard Jenkins, is so withdrawn he has no compassion or even communication with anyone:  his students, the elderly lady he hires to give him piano lessons and fires almost immediately for no reason.  Returning to the long-abandoned apartment he still keeps in New York to give a paper at a convention, he is dumbfounded to find a black girl from Senegal in his bathtub and her boyfriend Tarek from Syria also in residence.  They’ve been conned into renting the apartment.  Walter relents and lets them stay and they change his life.  Walter learns piano, his late wife’s instrument, isn’t his.  It’s the drums, which Tarek teaches him and coaxes him into performing.  The young couple are illegal immigrants and when Tarek is picked up and put in detention, their lives change.  Tarek’s beautiful mother, who has been living in Michigan, comes to New York where she and Walter embark on a desperate odyssey to save her son.

          My class loved this movie and it seemed strongly appropriate in this historic Election Week to see a film in which fear of other races plays a cruicial role.  Unlike the movie, in real life, we have what the cover of this week’s The New Yorker illustrated:  light at the end of the tunnel.

Friday, November 8, 2008

          “Song of Extinction”, by E.M. (Ellen) Lewis, is one of the most beautiful and important plays of the season.  Presented by Moving Arts, it premiered at the John Anson Ford as part of their Winter Partnership Program to give three small companies with no permanent performance space an opportunity and support.

          Lewis won this year’s $10,000 Primus Prize for an emerging woman theatre artist, awarded at the American Theatre Critics convention last summer in Washington, DC, where I first met her.  Since I interviewed Ellen for L. A. Stage Magazine, a review by Cynthia Citron will be posted on CurtainUp.com.

          Lewis wanted to write about science exploration but this play is about much more than that with vivid, believable and unforgettable characters.   Max, a teen-age musician, suffers from the approaching death from cancer of his mother, Lily, and the neglect of his biologist father, Ellery.  Ellery is obsessed with trying to save a rare insect species he discovered in Bolivia from the land development planned by Gil Morris.  Morris reminds him of the jobs and income his work will bring to the needy country.  As well as the conflict between science and development, the play deals with Khim Phan, Max’s Cambodian science teacher, whose family suffered extinction from the Khmer Rouge.  Khim is the only person who perceives Max’s dilemma but, frozen for 40 years in his own grief, has a journey of his own to undertake before he is able to help.  Lewis tells this story with beautiful economy and compassion. 

          What a coup for Los Angeles theatre to be in on the premiere of a world-class woman playwright!  Watch for her work!

          There was the after-party and a little tango for me at Linda Valentino’s practica at the Hollywood Dance Center on Highland Avenue but I want to leave this at the feet of Ellen Lewis who deserves it.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

          The New Mark Taper Forum opened the American premiere of English playwright Peter Whelan’s “The School of Night”, inspired by the mysterious murder of Shakespeare’s contemporary, the dazzling playwright Christopher Marlowe.  The fine cast portrays other famous Elizabethans, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Kyd and Shakespeare himself.

I wrote:  “It’s a brave playwright who puts words in the mouth of another playwright, particularly Christopher Marlowe, as famed for his lyricism as for his dramatic passion, but Peter Whelan pulls it off gorgeously.”

          The first act is a little long but, having spent two years in Japan where I happily sent through day-long productions of Kabuki Theatre, that doesn’t put me off.

          Bill Alexander, who directed many of Whelan’s plays, helmed this particular production, with an intuitive sense for its suspense and passion.  Russell H. Champa’s shadowy film noir lighting design projected a cell’s barred windows on the floor.  Full review is on CurtainUp.com.

          The after-party drew such English thespians as actress Joan Collins and James Warwick, now President of the American Academy of Dramatic Art West.