Debra Messing in ‘Birthday Candles’ brings a tasty treat to Broadway
Birthday Candles by Noah Haidle, directed by Vivenne Benesch allows Debra Messing to shine as the aging Ernestine who moves from 17 to 107. As she traditionally bakes her birthday cake, over the years, first taught by her mom Alice (Susannah Flood), she gradually understands that she can only realize her dreams by being herself. And all along, getting married, raising a family, getting a divorce and finding the love of hr life, she has achieved her goal, taking her rightful place in the universe.
Haidle’s Birthday Candles, at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre, is poetic and complex with multiple themes. The most salient one focuses on Ernestine’s spiritual journey as the “every woman” sustaining emotional pain, trauma, loss, moving from weal to woe and finally reconciling a belated love with great joy in her 80s. As she moves quickly through time, she “looks through a glass darkly” without understanding, until she finally accepts the love and divinity in herself in her relationships with her family and partners. By her 107th year, she misses everyone and wishes them back as she has each time she gives the one passing (mother, daughter, son, grandchildren, etc.) up to the cosmos. Finally, her family spiritually appears and it would seem waits “in the wings” for her to accompany them on the next leg of her journey with them.
Haidle’s conceit about time and life’s passage in the “twinkling of an eye” (in the play 90 years in 90 minutes with some decades speeded up and others truncated) is most wonderful holistically as the characters live in the moments which they can’t fully appreciate. In this play the adage “life is short” is on steroids. Indeed, living one’s life while observing it alters it (a very rough comprehension of the Uncertainty Principle).
Thus, dramatically the play magnifies each character, present in their most vital of moments with Ernestine to heighten her life’s purpose in being herself, a mosaic of moments which come together at the conclusion. It is then that the audience and Ernestine reflect upon her life’s work and the revelation of Ernestine’s beauty is clarified. Of course, at that juncture when her work is finished, she moves to another realm in the starlit space/time continuum.
With the exception of Messing’s Ernestine, the actors portray multiple generationaly linked roles from mother Alice (Susannah Flood), to great grand daughter Ernie (Susannah Flood) with husband Matt (John Earl Jelks), son Billy (Christopher Livingston), daughter (Susannah Flood), grandchildren and forever sweetheart Kenneth (impeccably played by Enrico Colantoni). All these escort Ernestine through the years.
The dialogue and sounding of a bell for the passage of time clues us in to each generation as they come to celebrate Ernestine’s birthday while she bakes her plain butter cake over the 90 minutes of the play. Though birthday candles are never placed on top of the cake, nor is it iced, the title is enough. Indeed, Messing as Ernestine is both the icing and the candles, her soul and spirit, which are invisibly lit for eternity.
Importantly, every word of the dialogue is paramount and must be heard to appreciate Haidle’s depth of meaning, the poetry, the wisdom, the beauty and the sweet golden threads that bind from one generation to the next. In the performance that I saw (Wednesday evening), sometimes the dialogue was muffled and the words, not projected, slung together like a nondescript house salad without dressing. This was tragic because Haidle’s play is brilliant and achingly timeless and heartfelt. The humor is multi-layered and ripe. The conflicts which (if the actors don’t enunciate precisely) appear rather sparse. However, upon review, they are exceedingly well drawn and acute in each twinkle of time over the fast procession of years that transpose and spool Ernestine’s life.
Messing who is an accomplished TV (“Will & Grace”), film (The Mothman Prophecies) and stage actress (Outside Mullingar) is in her glory onstage throughout with “no rest,” (a meme in the play), a veritable tour de force. She is strongest and most poignant in the section of the play when Ernestine reaches a ripe seventy. She has negotiated life on her own terms, has become an entrepreneur, traveled to far flung places and is only taking care of herself. It is then when her granddaughter Alex (Crystal Finn) introduces the next surprising chapter in her spiritual evolution and she learns about reconciliations and renewals, and the fruition of faith and love.
Enrico Colantoni and Messing create the emotional grist for this section of the play which brings a sigh of relief to audience members and shouts from her children. They are truly stunning together and force us to look at those elements that Haidle insists upon in Birthday Candles, the spiritual, the ineffable, the timeless, the eternal. Their relationship which has been growing unseen for Ernestine, always felt to Kenneth, is breathtakingly conceived by the playwright, authentically manifested by Messing and Colantoni. It is the high-point, and Haidle has cleverly made us wait for it, so when it comes we are happily stunned and gratified.
Kudos to the cast when they projected (Colantoni and Messing had no problem) and the creatives: Christine Jones (set design), Toni-Leslie James (costume design), Jen Schriever (lighting design), John Gromada (sound design), Kate Hopgood (original music).
Birthday Candles is on limited engagement. See if before May 29th when it closes. For tickets and times go to their website: https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2021-2022-season/birthday-candles/performances
‘Take Me Out,’ the Revival Strikes Deep With Bravura Performances by an All-Star Cast
Once again, twenty years later, Take Me Out, the revival for the love of baseball running at 2nd Stage, strikes a pacing home run with bravura performances by Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mason Marzac), Jesse Williams (Darren Lemming), and Brandon J. Dirden (Davey Battle). Richard Greenberg’s dialogue in the minds, mouths and hearts of the cast never seems more acute, dazzling and dangerous in this “piping time” of Red State/Blue State, as he pumps up the themes of machismo, homophobia, religious bias, gender bias, racism, identity conflicts with color blindness, celebrity privilege, corporate hypocrisy and much more. The second act really takes off, soaring into flight after a perhaps too long-winded first act, whose speeches may have been slimmed a bit to make them even more trenchant and viable.
There is no theme that Greenberg doesn’t touch upon which is current and heartbreaking, except #metoo. That is refreshing because one’s personal rights vs. accountability to the public good are paramount to all spirits inhabiting various bodies whether male, female, transgender, or other. The importance of human rights, human decency and love are crucial in this play because the incapacity of all the characters to embody these qualities remains one of the focal points.
Finally, one does hope that the success of the production will remind all lovers of baseball (the most American of games), that it is the only sport where an active major league player has not come out as gay. As a matter of personal choice and risk, of course, such a decision would be momentous as it becomes for the star of the Empires (think Yankees), Darren Lemming, superbly played by Jesse Williams.
Scott Ellis’ direction is spare and thematically charged. Importantly, “sound” (thanks to Bray Poor, responsible for sound design), heightens the excitement. The emphasis is on the crack of the ball on the bat and the cheering fans. The lighting (Kenneth Posner), is spare. Florescent thin blue lines, representing team colors, square off the space to suggest the players’ emotional confinement. The staging elements rightly place front and center the social dynamic, arc of development and relationships between and among the players.
Initially, team camaraderie is thrown into disarray by Darren Lemming, who drips gold from his pores and walks upright in perfection but admits to being gay. His proclamation sends ripples of “shock and awe” through his envious teammates, who worship Lemming’s “divinity,” his steely cool demeanor and very, very fat salary,
We find his teammates response to be humorous. In order not to appear femme they restrict all their male “locker-room” behaviors because they don’t want to “entice” Darren into thinking they are his sexual “kin.” Only Kippy, his self-appointed buddy and narrator who tells part of the story (the fine Patrick J. Adams), chides him for not alerting anyone before his press announcement. Afterward, Kippy humorously teases his friend that the team lionizes who he is and would love to “be him” or “be with him,” on the down low, except that he is now very public. And that would make them very public. So they must keep their distance. Darren is annoyed at this new leprosy which he never experienced or thought he would experience because he is who he is, the team’s greatest.
Meanwhile, Darren’s announcement has forced all to confront where they stand with their own sexuality and sensitive male identity, which Kippy suggests reveals latent gay repression, and Darren suggests is the opposite. From the initial conflict, the Empires go through a roller-coaster of events and emotions that Darren didn’t foresee when he blithely walked between the raindrops and dropped the bomb on his team and Major League Baseball, assuming that because he could handle it, they should handle it.
When it comes to his devoutly traditional Christian friend Davey Battle (the always excellent Brandon J. Dirden), Darren has a blind spot. Instead of quietly discussing his sexual orientation with Davey, a misunderstanding ensues when Davey encourages him to be himself and be unafraid.
Where certain Christians are concerned, being gay is another feature of Christ’s love. Darren assumes that especially with his devout Christian friend, Christ’s love means acceptance. Greenberg holds back the mystery of Davey’s and Darren’s conversation about his being gay, revealing its importance at the end of Act II, when the stakes are at an explosive level. When we discover the identity of the individual who overhears their conversation is a witness to “the event,” we are surprised at the superb twist. Immediately, we understand the conversation happened. There is no way the “overhearing witness” would be lying. It is this conversation that becomes the linchpin of uncertainty, a tripwire to set off questions with no easy answers. There is no spoiler alert. You’ll just have to see this wonderful production to find out the importance of the witness to the conversation.
Greenberg covers all his bases with runners in this take down and resurrection of America’s “favorite past-time.” There is personal locker room talk where nude teammates “let it all hang out,” as they shower and face-off against each other, responding to Darren’s announcement and humanizing him because of it. Greenberg’s wit and shimmering edginess work best, revealing his spry characterizations in the banter between Kippy and Darren, and in the growing friendship between Darren and his new financial advisor Mason Marzac, the superbly heartfelt and riotous Jesse Tyler Ferguson. As the consummate outsider who becomes a fan, the character of Mason has the most interesting perspective on baseball, the gay community and the events that happen in real time that result in an unresolved tragedy.
Marzac, meets with cool, collected Darren after the celebrity star outs himself. Ferguson’s Marzac is humorously over the moon about Darren’s courage, his performance and the game. Darren states coming out was not “brave,” unless one thinks something bad will happen, because “God is in baseball,” and Darren is in baseball. And “nothing bad happens to Darren.” This Icarus is flying high. He takes advantage, surreptitiously, smoothly crowing about his stature which outshines his teammates and especially the awe-struck dweeby, unathletic, unbuff Mason.
Of course, the conversation carries tremendous irony in hindsight, because like Icarus who gets burned and crashes to the earth, so does Darren. How Greenberg fashions this is surprising and ingenious. Interestingly, not only does Darren take the team with him emotionally and psychically, they are rewarded despite their corrupt Machiavellian machinations to achieve a win. The irony is heavenly. It is Greenberg’s device, savvy and sardonic, which speaks to theme. Sometimes when you win, it’s not a win if your heart breaks and there are no friends or teammates you can share it with because of emotional separation and alienation. So for the team and especially Kippy and Darren, the win becomes a grave loss that no one can ever appreciate, except baseball idolator, Mason.
But I get ahead of myself praising Greenberg’s irony.
As they discuss Darren’s financial picture, Darren clues Ferguson’s Mason in to the finer points of baseball appreciation, for example to keep “watching” the number coincidences. There’s “a lot of that,” Darren implies as Mason rattles off wondrously, “…the guy who hit sixty-one home runs, to tie the guy who hits sixty-one home runs, in nineteen sixty-one, on his father’s sixty-first birthday.” Mason is ignited by speaking to the amazing and surprisingly gay Darren.
Ferguson shines in his Mason portrayal, as he excitedly waxes over the Americanisms of the game, as pure egalitarian democracy. He emphasizes that everyone has a chance when they get up to bat. But then he states that baseball is more mature than democracy. This comment coupled with the arc of development is an incredible irony considering the team takes in a crackerjack pitcher, Shane Mungitt, who is one of the more florid Red Necks to ever appear on stage. Michael Oberholtzer’s Shane is breathtaking, a stellar, in-the-moment portrayal of a bigot you can actually feel sorry for.
Ferguson’s superbly rendered soliloquy about baseball opens a window into Mason’s kind, perceptive and loving nature. He effusively and humorously describes the requisite home run as a unique moment: the game stops and there is a five minute celebration of cheering time for the fans and the hitter, who rounds the bases like a king, though the ball has long spiraled out of the stadium into the universe. From watching the completely unnecessary round of the bases, Mason says, “I like to believe that something about being human is good. And what’s best about ourselves is manifested about our desire to show respect for one another. For what we can be.”
This is the crux of the play because after this eloquent and high-minded speech, everything falls apart. The winning streak of the Empires, the team relationships, the friendships between Davey and Darren, and between Darren and Kippy implode. And sadly, the once silent, “mind my own business” Shane unravels into a hellish state, careening into the other players with a vengeance that he may not be responsible for, given his upbringing. Thus, not even a winning season saves them from the inner reckoning they have brought upon themselves. If this is America’s favorite past time, it would be better to go back to reading.
Greenberg gives his play’s coda to Mason, who has “evolved” into a baseball aficionado. As such he is brimful of hope, yet ironically perceptive. A tragedy has occurred. However, for him the greater tragedy is that he has to wait a whole half year for the season to begin again. Baseball is that tiny thing that takes one out of the misery of life and makes it worth living, even with its tragedies. In Take Me Out, that is true for the fans. For the players, what occurs is an entirely different and terrible consequence.
Kudos to Scott Ellis’ direction and his shepherding of cast and the creative team. These include Linda Cho (costume design), David Rockwell (scenic design), and others already mentioned. Scott Ellis and the cast have delivered a profoundly humorous and vital, resonant work about a game played throughout our country, revealing that no one, regardless of how we prize sports figures, is worthy of the greatness of the game itself.
For tickets and times go to the website: https://2st.com/shows/take-me-out?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjN-SBhCkARIsACsrBz798inP5l5pUV7hZGFHOj0rWRI1spG27oalp8HyLfnArPnBlPauavsaAkcwEALw_wcB
‘The Tale of King Crab’ (De Granchio) is Superb Cinema and a Parable for Today
The Tale of King Crab (De Granchio) is a cinematically rich and gorgeously landscaped parable of forbidden love, identity, classism, soul freedom, and the power of storytelling to communicate wisdom and human fealty that rhetoric cannot. Written and directed by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, De Granchio made its World Premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival-Directors’ Fortnight and was an official selection at the 2021 New York Film Festival. The film went on to win 7 awards out of its thirteen nominations. Stunning and memorable for Simone D’Arcangelo’s cinematography and Vittorio Giampietro’s haunting, striking music, the layered story by de Righi, Zoppis, Tomasso Bertani and Carlo Lavagna moves through conflict and reprisal to suspenseful, eerie adventure before it settles on its mystical takeaway.
The film begins with the image of a bearded man who appears backlit in the shallow edge of a lake, picking up a thin golden hued ornament lying underwater on pebbles. From the shimmering lake image filmmakers transfer to the present evening where Bruno awaits his paesani who are elderly hunters in modern day Tusci, Italy. The established community of friends gather to eat pasta, sing, drink wine and reflect upon generational stories some have heard and others have not, as they enjoy each other’s company and fill in gaps of information for elucidation and edification.
The storytelling and communal singing is a throwback to ancient times when hunter-gathers and indigenous people sat around the campfire and shared lessons which entertained, yet brought a chill of recognition that would heal and uplift in cathartic moments of revelation. Likewise, in their film the directors pay homage to the process of storytelling with their extraordinary images and beautiful shot compositions. The arc of development is surprising because their spare evocative minimalism keeps the viewer enthralled, worried and engaged.
As the filmmakers flit from present to past, they unravel the legend merging the generational aspect of the tale as the elders in the present portray characters from over a hundred years ago. For example Bruno, who is the chief story-teller, singer (Tosca) and local Inn Keeper of Luciano’s village transposes from the present to the past and back to the present when the story takes an incredible voyage to a strange land of monstrous beauty.
As all great stories combine the fascination of the listeners as they build on the fascination of listeners past, the listeners intrude in the beauty of this legend of Luciano (Gabriele Silli) whose name in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese means light. Indeed, this Luciano is a bearer of light. He manifests this treasure because he has experienced great pain. As we watch his journey from weal to woe, we note his perception and growth as a man who has gained the wisdom to receive the timelessness of spiritual love.
The film progresses after the hunters eat. Bruno sings a refrain of the legend of Luciano, a doctor’s son in the town of Vejano, Italy around the turn of the century, near the place where they now hunt. Bruno sings the second refrain which in two lines summarizes the first chapter of events. Filmmakers use the haunting melody of Bruno’s song carried by a lone flute transporting us into the flashback of the past in the remote town in Tuscany, where the tall, massively dark bearded Luciano drinks from a bottle and meanders along the road, whistling the same melody that Bruno sang, as we seamlessly move from present to past. In Bruno’s voice over we note that the townsfolk have labeled Luciano many things, crazy, a drunk, a saint, an aristocrat, and as the film progresses, he is the full measure of all these characteristics and more.
Luciano lives a life of leisure it would seem, as a doctor’s son with possibly aristocratic patronage in a town of the very poor and a prince who lives in a castle. The “prince” is a vestige of feudal times which have just ended with Italy’s unification twenty years before. Immediately, the story moves to Luciano’s classist conflict with the prince who has blockaded a shortcut path through his property to the other side of the village. It is a path which has been accessible for generations. Seeing the gate has been locked and one of the shepherds has been inconvenienced, Luciano breaks open the gate and the shepherd takes his sheep through, even though he warns Luciano the prince will press charges for the damage.
We understand why Luciano accompanies the shepherd. He has a daughter Emma (Maria Alexandra Lungu) that Luciano has known for years and with whom he has formed a love attachment. They meet and talk to each other and Luciano gives her the thin ornament he retrieved from the lake that he tells Emma is Etruscan gold that has great significance. It is then she tells him of a dream she had about him and a desire for her destiny. How her dream comes true by the conclusion of the film is rapturous, if you understand the profound significance.
During the course of the next scenes, we learn that the prince has strengthened the locked gate and has hired two uneducated, crass thugs to confront Luciano in the Inn where he goes to drink, though his father warned him not to. When they tell him not to break the gate again, Luciano’s toast reveals his character and the nature of the town’s burden of class inequity between rich and poor. Luciano drinks to the prince, to their rights and to the Republic. When one of the thugs asks what he means, Luciano says, “Who do you think you are? You’re just pawns!” When the brute goes to respond with a smack, Luciano shows no fear and dares him, receiving a blow which knocks him out.
It is clear Luciano is ahead of his time and could be a leader against the prince’s oppressive, arrogant attempts to hold on to power signified by the ungracious act of locking a right of way his family allowed for generations. However, Luciano’s alcoholism provokes others and causes trouble for his father who takes him home, chides him then comforts him. Luciano humbly apologizes, tells his father he loves him and demeans the greatness of his character by claiming he’s just a “drunk.”
During their talk Luciano reveals he’s in love with Emma. His father gives him a piece of advice, that Severino, despite Luciano’s heritage, will not allow him to marry her. He doesn’t approve of Luciano. Knowing his daughter is fond of Luciano, Severino provokes Luciano with the thought that the Prince is interested in her when she goes to the Prince’s castle to prepare for the procession.
Indeed, Severino has given permission for his daughter to be dressed in feudal clothing as La Donna in the Saint Orsio procession. When Luciano confidently confronts her in the presence of the wealthy at the castle while they decide what she should wear, she admits she doesn’t fit in. One of the prince’s friends arrogantly states that Luciano is “a ghost,” as he speaks to Emma. This nobleman refuses to acknowledge that Luciano takes a rebellious stand in attempting to prove that the prince and the wealthy caste are like everyone else in Italy, even if they have money, since it has become a Republic.
Meanwhile, Severino elicits the help of the thugs to go after Luciano who is now the enemy of Severino and the Prince. Luciano, fueled by the wine from the communion table (symbolic), shows he will not be ruled by the prince in a symbolic act which ends in a catastrophe and horrific incident. Ambiguously, the filmmakers infer that Emma may or may not have been attacked and raped as the thugs take her to the prince, a situation that is unbeknownst to Luciano.
Filmmakers switch to the present and the hunters discuss that the catastrophe forces Luciano to flee the town and go to Argentina where he lives in exile. And they warn that from that point on, the story becomes unreliable. Filmmakers take us from the comfort of the apparently truthful paesano in Italy and launch out across the ocean where the story transports us into the realms of the mythic.
The next time we see Luciano and hear him in a voice over, he is wearing the cassock of a Salesian priest and on a treasure hunting adventure in “The Asshole of the Earth,” an island in the remote and visually fearsome and beautifully barren Tierra del Fuego. Here the music and cinematography meld in a pageantry of images, sounds and silences that create suspense and drama. Luciano must protect himself from vicious pirates who have nothing to lose in their search for gold as they accompany him in the hunt.
Luciano is the map to the gold with the help of a creature who is the most unlikely traveler up mountains and through rocky terrain, spongy tundra and wind-blasted trees. Together, the men look for the lost gold of the shipwrecked Jacinta owned by the Spanish monarchy. The Jacinta’s captain and crew died because they underestimated that death lurked everywhere on the island where they landed.
As the legend creates a life of its own, the hunters in the present fade away. Luciano becomes the hero living his legend before us. Resilient, experienced in fighting off those out to destroy him, Luciano proves to be far from the ghostly figure the arrogant lord described him to be years before. He has matured and stopped drinking. Valiant and on a mission to return home with gold, he delivers the drama, excitement and amazing revelation in this final chapter of his story. And as a legendary hero, he himself learns the significance of the gold ornament that he picked up in the lake in Tusci where we glimpsed him in the first image of the film.
This setting in the second segment of the film, like the tone and mood is stark, desolate and hardscrabble, as the first chapter is romantic, luscious and tragic. Filmmakers add even greater depth to the characterization of Luciano showing he has become more poetic, insightful and ironic in his search for the gold which becomes synonymous with home. Also, the filmmakers continue paying homage to the process of storytelling to uplift and educate in this segment as well. It is through the indigenous peoples’ stories someone wrote down that Luciano learns of the golden treasure on the island and how to find it.
In learning about the gold, Luciano, humorously states words to the effect, “I saw an opportunity. After all, this is America.” We are reminded of the stories that brought the explorers to the new world, and the emigrants who are brought to the Americas because of the streets metaphorically are paved with gold. However, for Luciano, the gold signifies something intangible. Interestingly, the symbolism and multiple meanings of this are revealed at the film’s conclusion. Most importantly, as a result of Luciano’s incredible journey to the other side of the world, he is brought to the greatest depths of his own spiritual growth and golden nature. Of course his greatness was within him all along, he just had to realize it.
The film is just dynamite in its multi-dimensional themes, (one of which is immigrants forever wish to return to home), homage to storytellers who keep legends alive, cinematic beauty, superb music, sound design, pacing and all of what I’ve mentioned above. Filmmakers were anointed ushering in the fabulous inwardly deep performance by Gabriele Silli whose piercing blue eyes seem to have traveled to deeper realms than we can ever understand. As his accompaniment the sweetness and peasant nobility of Maria Alexandra Lungu is graceful and worthy of the object of his forever love.
This is one to see. It opens in New York City on April 15 at Film at Lincoln Center. For tickets and times go to their calendar. https://www.filmlinc.org/calendar/ In Los Angeles The Tale of King Crab opens April 29th.
If you are in NYC why not get a membership to Film at Lincoln Center. With it you’ll be able to get a heads up on some of the finest films in the world as well as Academy Award Winners often predicted at the New York Film Festival.
‘Peace by Chocolate’ Film Review
Starting Over is Bittersweet
Peace by Chocolate, is the uplifting and poignant film telling the story of a family of Syrian refugees who make a completely new life for themselves in Canada. The award winning film written by Jonathan Keijser and Abdul Malik, and directed by Jonathan Keijser chronicles the journey of the Hadhad family through chaos and darkness into warmth, love and light. The film reveals that an open heart which loves others and helps, creates a sustaining fountain of giving that saves lives and encourages kindness, decency and community despite great differences in religion, language and culture.
Like many successful and loving families who are caught up as casualties of war, the Hadhad’s flee the bombing of Damascus in war-torn Syria where they have lost everything, but their lives. They lived in the once beautiful Damascus on the Mediterranean, the last stronghold of the rebel and jihadist groups that have been trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad since 2011. Al-Assad assisted by Putin’s general, the “Butcher of Syria” and other groups, left at least 350,000 people dead, and caused half the population to flee their homes, including almost six million refugees abroad as of October 2021.
The Hadhads who fled when Papa Isam’s factory was bombed and there was a window of escape, ended up in a refugee camp in Lebanon for three years. Upset with their homeless state and their plight there, they gain sponsorship to emigrate to Canada rather than to stay and wait for the war to end then return to their home. Theirs was a practical decision considering the Syrian Civil War is still going on today. However, the decision to leave their culture, identity, language and future in the land where their ancestors lived for centuries is a momentous one.
The result is fraught with sorrow and hardship, however, the film concentrates on the point that the Hadhads are flexible and never look back as painful as that is. The most important factor on their agenda is that they all be together. Thus, with a brief reference to the backstory, the film centers on Tareq (Ayham Abou Ammar) the oldest son who speaks English and is the first to arrive and make the way for the rest of the family. Tareq is disappointed about many things. Foremost is that he was almost done with his studies to be a doctor when the war dislocated his future. Will he be be able to continue his studies in Canada?
As Tareq’s sponsors drive him to his new home, Keijser emphasizes the humor in the tremendous culture and setting shifts Tareq experiences going from the warm Mediterranean to the freezing snow and wind driven Atlantic North. Unhappy and disappointed, he registers the unappealing facts about small town Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. Nothing seems to be happening; there is little business, and there are no Syrians or Arabs. The Hadhads had preferred to stay with friends in Toronto, Ontario which would provide many employment opportunities and which had a large Syrian population. However, that opportunity is closed off to them. They have ended in the backside of nowhere. Is this their destiny?
Tareq does make one Arab friend and his sponsor Frank (Mark Camacho) is absolutely welcoming and kind. When his parents Isam (Hatem Ali) and Shahnaz (Yara Sabri) finally arrive, his father finds it difficult to settle in. He is displaced and bored. Though they receive public assistance, Isam refuses to take it and tries to ingratiate himself with the town’s candy maker, Kelly (Alika Autran) who is frightened when he comes behind the counter to check out her chocolate making operation.
At this point we don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Clearly, Isam was, as Tareq tells Kelly, the finest chocolatier in all of Syria and he is impatient to reveal his secrets to her and increase her business. However, he cannot convey to Kelly what he wishes for her to do to improve the taste of her chocolate and she freaks out. Just in time, Tareq comes into the store and saves his father and apologizes to her. But it is the first of a number of road blocks that the Hadhads must break through in order to begin to feel they can offer their gifts to the Canadians.
Above all, it is very depressing because their language, culture, intentions and differences appear to be an impossible leap for any of them to make to the other side to immerse themselves in a society that is vastly disparate from theirs. The only thing they have in common is that they are human beings.
On top of this Tareq finds the education that he had in Syria to become a doctor differs from Canadian requirements. He doesn’t have the right paperwork. All was lost to him, so he brings one sheet of paper to show examiners which isn’t hardly enough. As if that doesn’t push all of them near the edge, Alaa (Najla Al Kamri) has been detained and her passage to Canada has been denied. The only thing that keeps them going is their love for each other and Frank’s love and great encouragement. Frank has become a friend and his church does everything it can to help the family feel welcome.
As a last resort against boredom and the need to give back to the country that saved their lives, Isam goes to Kelly’s chocolate shop and buys chocolates with the money allotment that the government gives the family, which will run out in a year. He gathers the things together and makes delicious chocolates in the family’s small kitchen. Frank and Isam bring these to the church and they are a sellout. Because the chocolates are incredibly delicious and there’s a high demand, Frank and Isam collaborate and Isam expands.
However, Kelly is resentful especially after she invites Isam to make chocolate in her shop. He declines her offer because her ingredients and method are inferior. He knows if he doesn’t persist in what he can do best, it will be a curse. Isam always relies on God to show him the way and create the best way for him. He cannot leave his first estate. However, he can transfer his gifts to another country. That is a blessing. Of course, Kelly doesn’t understand and later this creates problems.
Meanwhile, Tareq is between a rock and a hard place wanting to become a doctor and helping his father grow the business which is his family’s treasure and legacy. The wedge becomes such a canyon of distrust between father and son, it creates terrible tensions which nearly cost all of them. This is especially so when they learn that Alaa’s husband has been killed in the war and she has yet to receive the proper visa to join her family in Canada.
How the Hadhads overleap the impossible and become known to Justin Trudeau is a miraculous story that has blessed everyone who hears it. Likewise, a blessing arrives to everyone who eats a piece of Isam’s chocolate. Why? It is named for the message the family brings to their new homeland, “Peace by Chocolate.”
Peace by Chocolate // Official Trailer from Magnetic North Pictures on Vimeo.
This is a beautiful film rendered with care. Concerned for the social good, the superb director and wonderful actors. clue us in to what is important in life: family, kindness, decency and hospitality. It shouldn’t be missed especially now that another refugee crises is at our doorsteps and talented, loving individuals are needing to start a new life since their other life has been destroyed. Can we not open the doors to them knowing what they give to us will be a hundredfold of what we give to them?
Peace by Chocolate will be released in select theaters starting April 29th and On Demand thereafter on June 10th.
‘Coal Country’ is Amazing
When money and wealth become more important than the lives of others, that is the time to write a play with powerful, sonorous music. Oh, not to uplift the CEOs who collect the millions like Don Blankenship of Massey owned Performance Coal Company. No. The play should uplift and memorialize the ones who die because of that CEO’s greed, selfishness and refusal to accept accountability for what many have called murder. Above all the play must repudiate the wealthCy’s Puritan assertions that money and power make right. They don’t. Not now, not ever.
Coal Country is a docu-drama with incredibly relevant themes for us today. The riveting, masterful work written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen with original music by Steve Earle in a fabulous encore presentation by Audible and the Public Theater seems more impactful each time it is presented. We can never get enough of this exceptionally performed, shining work which runs at the Cherry Lane Theatre until 17 of April.
Though the worst of human nature asserts its primacy, poignant, moving stories like those in Coal Country are timeless in revealing that love despite tragedy culturally work us toward enlightenment. The voices of those who have been wrongfully snuffed out can resonate with meaning. This is especially so when fine artists like Blank, Jensen, Earle and superb performers effect those voices to channel the great moral imperative. What is good, what is true, what is valuable is never lost. It lives on.
The themes which the playwrights and songwriter ring out in Coal Country focus on the devastating catastrophe known as the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster of 2010, which cost 29 West Virginians their lives. Through family eye-witness accounts cobbled together in a tapestry of poetic beauty, vitality and grace, we learn the facts about the huge machine that operated over- capacity 24/7 on the long wall, sheering off the finest, most valuable coal so Blakenship could get his contract percentage of the mine’s earnings of $650,000 a day.
We learn through the accounts of union miners like Tommy (Michael Laurence), Gary (Thomas Kopache), and “Goose” (Joe Jung), how and why government inspectors never found the broken systems that allowed low oxygen levels to increase the build-up of methane gases and thick coal dust that caused the massive explosion. As the experienced miners relate how the broken sprinklers ineffectively doused the sparks created in machine operations that ignited the coal dust and methane behind the long wall, the final picture of egregious negligence and rapacious lust for money clarifies in the blood of innocents merged with the blood of family bonds.
Tommy, Laurence and Gary discuss how the power of the union to protect and respect the miners’ rights in the past has been subverted by the CEO and company, and government de-regulation. The owners who bought the mine hired a large percentage of non-union men, who didn’t dare “speak up,” to government inspectors and the FBI about extremely unsafe conditions in the mine. They feared reprisals. The question of payoffs arises and dead ends. We learn how those miners who did “say something” were warned and ignored. Miners were rendered voiceless against the inevitability of their deaths, because Blankenship was on a mission. No one was going to stop him.
As families identify bodies on blankets on the gravel, some collapse. Roosevelt (Ezra Knight) who identifies his father, who appears to be “asleep,” remains calm until his mother comes. They weep together. As others express outrage, the families of four missing men wait to hear whether or not their loved ones cheated death. Finally, the wait is over. None make it out. Tommy, who loses his son, his nephew and his father, waits to spill the news, overcome with pain.
Judy (Deidre Madigan), a doctor who lost her brother in the catastrophe rides a roller coaster of emotional expectation. First, she believes her brother died. Then she believes he found refuge. Then, all is finality. She describes that she feels she is an outsider because of her socioeconomic status. But emotion and love transcend economics; she is one of them. Her brother is dead and though the medical examiner tells her not to, she insists on seeing his remains. It is ironic that even her medical background does not prepare her for what the mine did to him. It is beyond calculation. In pieces, her brother is without human form.
One by one seven family members tell their story of a simple, satisfying life before the catastrophe in a community that mined for generations. Indeed, the mountain supported and nurtured them until it was bought over by Massey Energy and a new CEO came to town. We learn of the loving relationships between Mindi (Amelia Campbell) and Goose, and Patti (Mary Bacon) and Big Greg who dies leaving Little Greg traumatized by the loss of his dad and Patti when he is taken away from her. And interspersed with their stories, Steve Earle’s country ballads lyrical and poignant drive home the resonance of their love and remembrances of their dear ones. They live in his songs and echo in the actors’ mesmerizing performances.
Blank and Jensen (the husband-wife team who created The Exonerated), choose to present this dynamic piece as a flashback after Earle (playing guitar), opens with two songs that set the themes: “John Henry,” and Heaven Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” Cleverly, the action begins in the courtroom at the end of Don Blakenship’s trial as Judge Berger (Kym Gomes), states they cannot read their “Victim Impact Statements.” What family could never speak in court, they relate to the court of public opinion (the audience who sees this play).
The flashback comes full circle back to the court, so the audience hears Blankenship only gets one year in jail and a fine of $250,000. Arrogantly, Blankenship uses that money to run Ads and create pamphlets in which he characterizes himself as the victim of government as a “political prisoner.” Nevertheless, in final, moving encomiums, each family member details how they remember their loved ones who live on in their hearts and in this production which has called. out to music the names of all who died in the UBB mine explosion.
With minimalist but trenchant symbolic Scenic Design (Richard Hoover), effective Lighting Design (David Lander), Sound Design (Darron L West) and Costume Design (Jessica Jahn), Coal Country is an amazing revival. It is profound and memorable in scope and power. Don’t miss it this time around. For tickets and times go to their website: https://www.cherrylanetheatre.org/coal-country
The ‘Plaza Suite’ Snark is Disingenuous #metoo
In his snarky review of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, the New York Times’ critic’s “clever,” oh so “entertaining” disposal of the John Benjamin Hickey production into the garbage bin of hideous fustiness seems misguided. To the critic’s dunning I shout, “Au contraire!” The production starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker offers a unique, glimmering reflection of the past. It is a past that we need to be reminded of. If one peers into that reflection, and considers the interactions of the characters, one sees how intelligent females bested their male counterparts with surreptitious abandon, superior wit, and brilliant irony. If one’s view is dim and dark, like the NYT critic, one sees little.
From my humble female perspective, one also considers via this production, that between then and now, with all of the hell raising and insistence on progress, and change between straight men’s and women’s relationships, nothing much has changed. Don’t believe me? Have you read any good Evangelical books lately? Have you lived in the South for any period of time, recently? All right, maybe that doesn’t make sense to you.
Well, I will remind you about that pesky statistic (one in four women are violently abused by their partners), that has yet to budge off its number. Abusing females is alive and well, and that’s despite #metoo which is a meme that only applies to the celebrated, rich and famous, including well-paid male theater critics. In plebian circles if a woman attempts to speak up, a hand often goes upside her head. And what happens after that is anyone’s guess.
That Simon exults in the superiority and cleverness of each of the female characters in the play is lost on the critic which is understandable as he is not a female. He is a male looking in and once again judging the female characters and finding them and the production fusty, dusty and musty. Unfortunately, he shallowly superimposes his #metoo version of the female perspective on the characters, thus making the push to be politically correct all the more hypocritical and disingenuous. And frankly some of it is nonsensical, though there appears to be “logic” in what he is doing because the piece is well edited. Is his editor a male too?
Ah, forget what I just stated. Be overwhelmed by the “smart attitude” of the New York Times critic who displays his own “genius,” sense of privilege and arrogance via his male writerly superiority, which is nowhere near the genius of say, Gore Vidal (a favorite of mine). So caught up in admiring his style in the mirror, he misses the themes and the currency of Hickey’s vision. He also misses the fact that relationships between men and women have gone nowhere because human misunderstanding and fear and inability to confront death and lies by keeping them at bay through self- manipulation is an everpresent fact encompassing the relationships, in Plaza Suite.
But none of that was picked up by the critic to whom the 1960s was such a thing of the past, it doesn’t exist in his imagination; nor does he appear to want to be reminded of it, if it did exist.
Instead, what is of great importance to him, it would seem, is bowing to politically correct memes. Tragically, that is a blindness and acute hypocrisy. Currently, I boycott the New York Times. I am tired of the same pap from this particular NYT critic whose dullness would be raw meat for Noel Coward, if he were alive. I stumbled upon the review clued in by a studio professor, and well-produced playwright who mentioned the tenor of the review because he knows such pablum makes me livid.
The privilege he displays is a long-held tradition at the New York Times. Females, largely absent in theater as critics, directors, etc., commented upon by Director Rachel Chauvin in her acceptance speech for Hadestown is an example of how #mettoo doesn’t work in the theater world. Perhaps the reason is that female critics and reviewers are not #metoo politically correct enough. Perhaps females don’t remind us enough that various productions are not “politically correct.” Shall I discuss LGBTQ?
Truly. Perhaps for future productions directors and producers should wipe out the canon of plays written before 2017 and #metoo, etc., as worthless. What could possibly be learned from them?
Indeed, if critics are to genuinely benefit audiences who see plays, then they must perceive, think and above all go deep. First, understand what the director’s vision is. Is the director presenting that which on first assumption perhaps the critic didn’t get? Does it pass the audience test?
The night I saw the production, Plaza Suite did pass the audience test. They enjoyed it. Thus, I agree to disagree with the NYT and the Wall Street Journal critics. The below review, which also appeared in Sandi Durell’s Theater Pizzaz explains why.
My Review of Plaza Suite: A Female Perspective
Judging by the applause as the curtain lifts and John Lee Beatty’s luxurious, shimmering set for Plaza Suite unveils, director John Benjamin Hickey’s glorious throwback to the gilded Broadway of “yesteryear,” intimates a night of enjoyment. Coupled with its second harbinger of success, enthusiastic cheers at the entrances of the husband-and-wife team Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, the Neil Simon revival emblazons itself a smash even before Karen (Parker) and Sam (Broderick) have their first disagreement.
Not one moment falters in the pacing or mounting crescendo of hilarity in this superbly configured production about a suite of rooms (a conceit knock-off of Noel Coward’s Suite in Three Keys). There, visitors from Mamaroneck, Hollywood and Forest Hills play out their dreams and face their foibles in room 719 at the historic Plaza Hotel. That the place is still standing is a source of Simon witticisms.
Apparently, rumors of its being bought over by rapacious developers to be torn down making way for state-of-the-art buildings even existed at Simon’s writing. The theme of the ugly new replacing the beautiful old and historic as a pounding mantra of New York City is everpresent and a sometime theme in the triptych of playlets about couples.
Hickey shepherds Parker’s and Broderick’s performances, delivered with “effortless” aplomb, gyrating from one comedic flourish to another to the amazing farcical finale. Authentically and specifically (gestures, mannerisms, presence, posture), they hone the characterizations of three disparate couples, breathing into them the humanity we’ve all come to love and loathe. We didn’t want the fun to end, and it was apparent that neither did they.
The few times they broke each other up or comfortably ad libbed, they let the audience in on the endearing fact that they were having a blast. That mutuality between audience and performers was doubly so because they’ve been waiting to perform for two years of COVID hell. Happy to be back in front of a live audience, their enthusiasm was communicated by the ineffable electricity that happens in live performance and changes nightly because of the audience’s diverse sensibilities. The performers vibrated. The audience vibrated back. The circle completed and rolled around for the next laugh which topped the next.
Ingeniously entertaining, incredibly performed, Plaza Suite at the Hudson Theatre which runs for a limited engagement is a spectacular winner. Here’s why you should see it.
Though Neil Simon’s concept that he lifted from Coward has been reshaped and used by playwrights and screenwriters since the 1960s when Simon wrote Plaza Suite, the production gives it a unique uplift because of its specificity and attention to detail. Importantly, viewed through a historical lens, the relationships, character intentions and conflicts ring with comical verities. Wisely, Hickey allows the characters inhabited by these sterling performers to chronicle the values and folkways of the sixties which were a turning point in our society and culture. The understanding that arises from Simon’s exploration suggests why we are where we are today.
Finally, using humor the play deeply touches on seminal and timeless human topics: fear of aging, seduction, loneliness, marriage unsustainability, the generation gap and more.
In the first playlet, Karen’s Mamoneck housewife chafes in a relationship which she unconsciously senses has soured. She books Suite 719 to celebrate her anniversary with Sam and ironically initiates the reverse.
Listening carefully and watching Parker’s Karen, noting her plain outfit and hairstyle and comparing it to Broderick’s Sam, the laconic, dapper, sharp, appearance obsessed businessman, we should anticipate what will happen. We don’t because Simon’s keen, witty dialogue of thrust and parry between Sam and Karen keeps us laughing and because the performances are so spot-on, in the moment, we, like the characters, don’t know what’s happening next. However, of course, Broderick and Parker do. Yet, they are so alive onstage, that the characters’ reactions remain a surprise and the revelations are unanticipated.
Karen’s ironic subtext brilliantly digging at Sam to confess he’s having an affair is wonderful dialogue expertly delivered. A few of Parker’s lines bring down the house with her sharply paced delivery. One is her crackerjack response to Sam’s “What are we going to do.” Without a blink Parker’s “You’re taken care of. I’m the one who needs an activity,” receives audience whoops and hollers. An age-old event of cheating and adultery is born anew.
Simon’s snapping-turtle dialogue in the face of today’s hackneyed insult humor is wickedly scintillating. In the Hollywood seduction playlet, High School sweethearts become reacquainted. Broderick’s smarmy Hollywood producer Jesse Kiplinger decked out in his Mod finest is a classless nerd who confesses his unhappiness with the Hollywood slime set and his three *&$% ex-wives who take not only his money but his guts and soul. Muriel in Parker’s equivalent of her fashionable self in the ‘60s, is enthralled by Jesse’s Hollywood persona, but is in keeping with the innocent, demure women Jesse remembers. The hilarity builds into what becomes a reverse seduction scene by a steaming married woman when they “get down to brass tacks.”
All stops are pulled in “A Visitor from Forest Hills.” The costumes (Jane Greenwood), the hair and wig design (Tom Watson), contribute to building the maximum LMAO riot. The inherent action and zany organic characterizations by Broderick and Parker augment to hysteria when Mimsey refuses to attend her own wedding and ensconces herself in the bathroom.
Norma and Roy implore Mimsey attempting to psychologically manipulate her and each other to get her to come out. Parker and Broderick effectively create the image of their daughter crying, possibly suicidal, as she remains unseen, silent and incorrigible behind the sturdy, unbreakable bathroom door. Desperate to stem a disastrous day, Broderick’s “out of his mind with frustration” Roy even goes out on the ledge and braves a pigeon attack and thunderstorm to wrangle in his wayward child. Broderick’s mien and gestures bring on belly laughs.
What they do to move heaven and earth to get Mimsey to come out is priceless comedy that is easier than it looks. The frustration and fury the actors convey with the proper balance to appear realistic yet crazy and smack-me funny is what makes this over-the-top segment fabulous.
Kudos to the artistic team which includes Brian MacDevitt (lighting design) and Scott Lehrer (sound design). For tickets go to https://plazasuitebroadway.com/
‘Pure Grit’ an Athena Film Festival Review
Pure Grit, written and directed by Kim Bartley focuses on the relationship between Sharmaine Weed and Savannah Martinez who “love each other,” but cannot “live with each other.” It is also about Sharmaine’s definition of herself as a winning bareback horse racer. Bareback horse racing is one of the most dangerous sports on the planet.
Bartley’s interest in these two indigenous women and their relationship reveals the concern and love they have for each other. Indeed, Savannah joins Sharmaine around the time that Sharmaine takes a year off her winning streak bareback riding to care for her sister who was severely injured following a catastrophic accident during a horse race. The love of the entire family to become champion bareback riders is in their bones. It is an inherent love bred in their DNA. Part of the love includes the knowledge of the risk that they take riding bareback. Sharmaine’s sister took the risk and badly injured herself.
So in a matter-of-fact way Sharmaine describes the accident and her sister’s paralysis on one side of her body. With Savannah, Sharmaine takes care of her sister’s children and with the help and support of other family, they make a life for each other. The sister must go through a lengthy rehabilitation process. Her paralysis impacts her ability to ride. But Sharmaine has the goal for her sister to become healed enough so she can get up on a horse again without fear.
Because Sharmaine takes a year off from racing to take care of her sister, she has become rusty and needs to practice racing again. She is in a position of greater danger than ever because she hasn’t ridden bareback on a horse and has been redirected helping her sister and smoothing over her relationship with Savannah. When she realizes the racing championships are coming in months, Sharmaine pushes herself to get ready and refocuses. But first she must earn money to purchase the right horse to help her return to her greatness as a winner.
Bartley uses her camera from the perspective of a friend and engages Sharmaine’s family members comfortably. She informally interviews her mother and her younger brother Kashe and her older brother Brandon. With abundant voice overs and portraits of the family’s activities, we learn about their lives. Additionally, each family member shares their impressions of their lives, the reservation and their commitment to bareback horse racing.
Brandon has taught Sharmaine a lot of what she knows and gives her pointers about getting back into her riding. Kashe has returned, having been caught up with friends in drugs and alcohol. Because family members have established a comfortable and trusting relationship with Bartley, the film approaches an ethnography. We become a part of the setting and identify with the family and enjoy learning about them.
Though Savannah loves Wyoming Wind River Reservation where it is beautiful and peaceful, all is not heavenly there and the stresses of daily living encumber them. Thus, both women decide to go to Denver, Colorado where Savannah lives. On the one hand, the fighting atmosphere on the Reservation becomes toxic, but they will still be together in Denver. However, there, they calculate the change of scene will improve their spirits. Sharmaine will more easily find a job since there are no jobs on the reservation. With the money she earns, she will buy a horse to use in the upcoming races.
Denver brings freedom and opportunity. However, there are many distractions and these become a strain on their fledgling relationship. When racing season starts up, Sharmaine and Savannah hit the road and embrace the risks. With a new horse from her city earnings, Sharmaine sees the potential for a fresh start. She is determined to be a champion and she practices hard and wins a few preliminary races. However, she emotionally feels she is not prepared because in order to make up for a year off her racing, she must train and there never seems to be enough time.
Furthermore, Savannah is insecure about Sharmaine’s love for her. There is an age difference and though Sharmaine feels she is expressive enough, Savannah is needy. She requires constant reassurance about Sharmaine’s feelings. The strain between them grows, perhaps driven by Sharmaine’s overriding concern that the training with the new horse she purchases isn’t yielding the results she wants.
Kim Bartley presents these individuals in all their humanity and their desires. As a result they become family and we are devastated when Sharmaine, who tries her best to win the race for the first time, after a year, doesn’t make it. Additionally, the once close Sharmaine and Savannah split. They do agree that they love each other but fight too much to live with each other happily.
Bartley reveals that life goes on for them. And the title indicates that life isn’t always about winning, it isn’t always about getting along with someone you love. And sometimes, family leaves and there is nothing that can be done. These themes of struggle and the grit it takes to continue in spite of pain and loss are the life lessons that Bartley highlights in this beautifully shot, well edited film that has no beginning or ending. We are assured, like this family, the struggle in life goes on. And we are glad to be a part of it because to be a part of it is to be alive to take risks.
To see this fascinating film, look for it on VOD channels or check IMBD for updates.
‘Strong Female Lead’ an Athena Film Festival Review
One in three Australian women experience discrimination in the workplace. Julia Gillard, Australia’s first and last female Prime Minister ran the gauntlet of misogyny, discrimination, chauvinism and sexism from her own party members, members of the opposition and the media. What she endured, no woman should have to suffer in the workplace. Sadly, not much has changed since she served for three years as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia. Filmmaker Tosca Looby’s Strong Female Lead sets the record straight chronicling Gillard’s war years bravely standing up to men assiduously devoted to destroying her career and her resolve.
The documentary that screened at Athena Film Festival makes a leap in the right direction of supporting and denouncing the attacks and vilification of Gillard, a representative of women in political leadership. The film reveals that their brilliance and personal power frightened men unable to deal with their own personal issues with women. Clips of these craven, which Looby culls from mounds of archived film, TV and radio clips disgrace and humiliate themselves. They slander and excoriate Gillard instead of supporting her governance and properly upholding the rule of law with the integrity and grace due the offices they hold for the sake of Australians.
In her superb, difficult to watch film Looby cobbles together a record of film and TV clips, statements, film clips of protests, radio commentary and quotes in her exhaustive documentary. What she unfortunately reveals is the egregious, childish behavior of the males in their smear campaign to oust Julia Gillard almost from the moment she takes office in 2010. Indeed, she reveals how they worked prodigiously day and night to divide her party so she would be ousted in 2013. That Gillard’s brave leadership as PM got many programs accomplished despite the attacks is to her credit. One wonders how much more she would have accomplished if she had more support from the media.
Unbelievably, the opposition under the leadership of Tony Abbot at the time preferred to abuse her daily, mentoring hatred for the daughters and wives of Australian ministers and citizens. Abbott, a conservative (think anti LGBTQ, same-sex marriage, anti women’s rights) had no problem slamming Gillard’s personal life. Bloodletting was his purpose, not governance. His shameful acts and comments in parliament are recorded historically in Looby’s documentary, for all time, behaviors and comments seen cumulatively in Looby’s film provide a visceral and raw record of behavior antithetical to human decency required of a member of parliament and possibly a future Prime Minister.
Thus, Lobby’s film Strong Female Lead enumerates the level and extent of hatred and insult Gillard withstood in parliament and the media. Brave is not the word to describe her. Anointed, Godly, spirited is more the behavior she demonstrated. If anyone deserved to be PM, it was she. Sadly, the citizens have cretins and blowhards to govern them, a complete joke which rivals the United States insurrectionist blowhards in the Republican Party, one whose own brother and family denounced him, stating he belonged in a mental institution and should be removed from office.
However, the parliament and Abbott were not implying Gillard was a witch alone. They were helped by right wing conservative media who whipped up crowds and protests that Tony Abbott self-righteously appeared before as the savior of Australia, while milking the empaths with statements about helping Indigenous populations in various parts of the country. When there was a spotlight shining on Abbott, he puffed up like a red rooster.
In her commentary before the film Looby apologizes for including the misogyny and hate-filled clips. However, she mentions that out of the resources at her disposal, all archived on television and radio, she selected the ones that were the least offensive. That is amazing. So the signs flashed on TV that Abbott stood next to that read, “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s Bitch” were tame. Ironically, this leaves us wondering, what didn’t she include? Additionally, Looby’s extensive coverage of vile Alan Jones of 2GB radio, now, a former host whose contract has not been renewed by Sky News and who has been repeatedly sued for defamation, is particularly loathsome.
For direct hate-filled sexism and misogyny, Jones rivals the most monstrous. During Gillard’s tenure as PM, her father died. Jones takes a salt mine of vitriol rubs it in Gillard’s grieving wounds claiming her father “died of shame” because of her behavior. Mind you, what horrific things did she do? Disagree with his right-wing, conservative politics? Later, Looby includes his apology which of course rings so insincerely the next time he launches out and spews more venom at her. Indeed, he was Tony Abbott’s good little puppy. That was a deal made in the abyss.
However, one of the most uplifting clips Looby makes sure to include is Gillard’s queenly speech, filled with integrity and grace that answers all of what Abbott attempts to smear her party member (sexism and misogyny). The speech went viral and Gillard will forever be remembered for the power and brilliance with which she spoke.
Looby makes an incredible case for Gillard’s abuse at the hands of the opposition, Abbott, the right-wing media and other’s sexism. She seamlessly edits the pre-existing materials, visual and audio, sourced predominantly from television and radio. Interestingly, the indictment falls not only on these guilty of their bravado of sexism. She makes a clear, defining statement about the inappropriate misogynistic media.
Since Gillard retired from politics and her party lost, Abbott became Prime Minister for two years and then was also ousted from the opposition party. Critics and experts agree that he is one of the worst Prime Ministers in Australia’s history. Meanwhile, Gillard has gone on to remain active. In April 2021, Gillard was appointed chair of the board of Governors at Wellcome Trust, a charitable trust which supports research and innovation in medicine, public health, mental health and climate change. Additionally, Gillard was recently honored by the award of the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun from the Government of Japan. This was formally presented to her by the Ambassador of Japan to Australia. Gillard is the 8th Australian prime minister to receive the award.
Looby uplifts Gillard’s courage to be who she chooses to be. If it rocks the status quo in conservative circles, so be it. She once stated that she could never run for a political position in the U.S. with her lifestyle. She is an atheist, childless and has lived with her partner Tim Mathieson since 2006. They are not married. During her tenure as PM, Looby includes clips by the media during which she receives incredible pressure about her lifestyle and her relationship with Tim and his career. Gillard’s responses were humorous and clever. Of course Jones and Abbott piled on the heat and abused her with her unhousewifely behaviors, choice of partner, not having children and having a career in politics. In her speech credited and included above, she answers Abbott’s sexism.
This is a film to see if you need the courage of convictions in presenting your choices. Gillard’s strength in being proud and standing up for herself by calling out misogyny is an imperative all should follow. Look for Strong Female Lead on VOD and updates on IMBD.
‘Ida Lupino: Gentlemen & Miss Lupino,’ an Athena Film Festival Review
Actress, filmmaker, director Ida Lupino was a force for her time (1940s-1960s). When no other woman in Hollywood was able to get around the discrimination against females in leadership positions Ida Lupino was there! Ida Lupino: Gentlemen & Miss Lupino, a documentary which screened at Athena Film Festival reveals the extraordinary work of this actress/writer/director/producer. In their documentary Julia and Clare Kuperberg cobble together interviews, film clips, quotes from Lupino’s autobiography, commentary by Lupino experts, current directors and more to tell Lupino’s story. Their film is a fabulous reminder of how women can forge ahead despite the overwhelming odds against them.
In the creation of the studio system, actors became the chattel of studio bosses. Their dictatorial control siphoned off creative energy and channeled it in one direction, a narrow commercialism based on the proclivities of the bosses. Thus, walls of paternalism and misogyny were thrown up by these weak-willed, desperate and selfish power hungry, who after the 1920s took over Hollywood. Jealous of their power, intent on exploiting and using women, to not compete with them, they prevented and excluded women from being producers, directors, managers in leadership positions in the studio system. The tool of sanctioning and oppression kept women in line so that they wouldn’t consider moving “above” their submission.
Studio bosses perpetuated some of the most damning feminine myths. These psychically abused women actresses highlighting them as sex objects or villainous vamps. Such myths also damned male/female reactions to each other and mentored psychologically warped relationships for decades. Sadly, as housewives and mothers, women characters remained in the background. Only in comedy and musicals did women shine.
As an actress Ida Lupino entered this system and “caging the joint,” she brilliantly decided she had enough of women’s stereotypical roles. She wanted to step out of her “designated” lowly position and direct the types of films that authentically related to women. Thus, looking at Ida Lupino’s films one notes a glorious reality that rounds out the lives of women with authenticity. A maverick, she proved that women’s films could be profitable and popular.
In highlighting that Lupino started as an actress and branched out from there as perhaps the first to establish the genre of Film Noir, the Kuperbergs interview Julie Grossman who penned Ida Lupino Director: Her Art and Resilience in Times of Transition and film historian Tony Maietta. With prodigious examples in their interviews, the Kuperbergs reinforce Lupino’s own comments and reveal her revolutionary approaches to creating films.
Importantly, the Kuperbergs use Lupino’s own biography and film interviews she gave to fashion their entertaining and insightful documentary Ida Lupino: Gentlemen & Miss Lupino. With quotes, film clips and commentary by Ida Lupino and quotes from her biography, we learn how this creative genius withstood the discrimination to direct important films related to women’s issues. Cleverly, she navigated the all male technical crews by referring to herself as “Mother,” a benign characterization which engendered a nurturing spirit among the men.
Related to this persona which Lupino wore with pride, the Kuperberg’s also indicate how Lupino learned from working as an actress in the studio system surrounded by men in positions of power behind the camera. With humor Lupino suggests that men hate to be bossed and ordered around. She implies that in getting male cooperation, there’s nothing worse for fragmenting unity than a “controlling” woman. Hence, her mother image worked every time.
Vitally, when the 1300 men in the entertainment industry were predominately concerned with objectifying women and selling them as whores, prostitutes and sex objects, Lupino created films that dealt with women’s issues like abortion, rape, pregnancy and bigamy. And she did this with empathy and depth moving beyond stereotypes and cardboard cut-outs of female and male villains and heroes. As a director, she emphasized the humanity of both the men and women in the revelation of real-life issues. It is no wonder that her films were popular successes.
The only woman with a serious career as a director in the 1950s and 1960s, she headed up her own production company with her husband actor Collier Young. Together they created The Filmmakers Inc. As a Democrat and a Catholic, Lupino’s cinema took on sociological and criminal subjects that male directors either feared dealing with or ignored because men engendered the subject matter (i.e. rape).
Lupino’s film about rape (Outrage-1950) is decades ahead of its time in the way she reveals how the victim suffers PTSD afterward in nightmares and reactions to simple sounds. Also, the cinematography is incredible with tall shadows representing the terror and fear as the rapist stalks his victim. Indeed, this and other Lupino films are superb examples of Film Noir before Lupino’s counterparts dealt adequately with the genre.
In another clip the Kuperbergs interview Martin Scorsese who discusses how Lupino’s cinematography influenced him. Identifying Not Wanted, a film about an unwanted pregnancy, Scorsese comments about the film’s documentary feel and power as a unique and pioneering work. The film shot on location deals with trauma, and the instability of a young woman having a baby with no husband. In dealing with the idea of teenage pregnancy which was against the happy family myths Hollywood perpetuated, again Lupino was a maverick presciently ahead of her time.
Finally, Lupino confronted another taboo related to illness and disease, the one ravaging children at the time: polio. She chronicles how polio sufferers were rejected and treated like lepers. Approaching this subject like no one else did before, Lupino creates empathy and humanity for those who suffered polio and other illness.
Interestingly, Lupino was the brains behind Filmmakers Inc. When Young wanted to go into distribution in addition to production, Lupino disagreed. She attempted to convince him that they knew little about the workings of distribution. Not listening to Lupino, Young tried and failed. They had to shutter Filmmakers Inc. However, Lupino persisted with her directing career after their divorce. Television was burgeoning so she moved to the small screen and directed over 100 works. She contributed her directing efforts to various episodes on “The Twilight Zone,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and many other series. Lupino remains as the most prolific global female director of all time.
No wonder why men have attempted to stomp her from memory. But mother Lupino knows best. The Kuperbergs have resurrected her extraordinary contributions because perhaps the culture is ripe to recognize the genius independent producer-writer-director and learn from her.
Lupino has been out of the Hollywood loop historically. Nevertheless, her films remain timeless treasures where the mass produced typical commercial Hollywood fare have fallen into the garbage heap. Appreciating her brilliance and noting that she was one of the most complete and politically responsible filmmakers of all time, the Kuperberg’s Ida Lupino: Gentlemen & Miss Lupino, presents a long overdue focus on her career, themes and achievements. This is a must-see for filmmakers, writers, cinematographers and cinefiles. Check IMBD or your favorite VOD channels for screenings.
‘Master,’ a Thriller With Twists, Athena Film Festival
In Master written and directed by Mariama Diallo, the horrors of the past combine with present-day horror to gyrate into a memorable thriller with twists. The film screened at Athena Film Festival and SXSW.
Starring Regina Hall as Professor Gail Bishop, Zoe Renee as Freshman Jasmine Moore and Amber Gray as Professor Liv Beckman, Diallo presents three women of color. Each must find her own way to success at an elite New England university. Only one of the three succeeds. The reason why is disclosed by the conclusion.
Three Women of Color at an Elite University
Diallo opens with Jasmine who arrives at the campus welcomed by a student who intimates that she got “the room.” Later Jasmine discovers the legend about a woman hanged for being a witch. Part of the legend’s spin is that the university site is a Salem era gallows hill.
In macabre fashion, the “witch” picture hangs with other white Puritan ancestors/donors of the university. For whatever reason, the university perhaps views the woman as a martyr and eschews her dark and violent end. But the legend abides on the campus and underclassmen are tantalized by it as upperclassmen share the story abundantly so every student knows it.
Jasmine remains submerged in the legend and the hanging. Increasingly, she feels uncomfortable. Spooked by discussion that the witch forced a girl to jump to her death, Jasmine begins having nightmares. Her roommate and friends remain coolly distant and provide no help to make her feel accepted or comfortable.
The Dean Discovers a History of Racism on the Campus
Meanwhile, Gail Bishop enjoys the privilege of her position as “Master,” the dean of students. Though warmly welcomed by colleagues and students, she too must confront a terror which is in her beautiful but darkly lit residence. When Gail attempts to clean out some of the storage areas, she discovers the history of servitude and slavery in pictures left in shoe boxes.
Though her exalted position as a black woman makes her proud of her achievement to be appointed dean, in the artifacts she finds the unpleasantness of racism and servile abuse that existed in the house decades before. This is the site the official board of the university gave her to adopt as her home, but no one thought to clean out the storage areas. Is there an underlying message they are relaying? The pictures and weird, creaking noises stoke her fears. She visits her colleague Liv Beckman for comfort.
Meanwhile, something curious is happening with Jasmine in her classes. Though she achieved As in Tacoma, Washington and graduated as the Valedictorian, on the issue of critical race theory, she disagrees with Professor Liv Beckman. Beckman suggests that The Scarlett Letter has great racial bias and claims that the novel may be used to understand the racism in the setting and characters. Jasmine opposes that in open discussion. After she writes a paper expressing her views, she receives an F. Asking other students their grades, Jasmine determines that Beckman targeted her, so she files a complaint letter suggesting Beckman lacks competence.
The Women of Color are on Campus to Represent “Inclusion”
Ironically, Beckman represents as a black woman who college officials hired to show they support “inclusion.” Jasmine and Gail are all there for the same reason, to reveal how open and accepting the university is toward women of color. Thus, Jasmine’s accusation against Beckman appears contradictory and weird as does Beckman singling out a “sister.” Instead of unity between two black women, division overshadows them. What is the spirit that causes this?
The complexity deepens when the professors challenge Beckman’s receiving tenure because she hasn’t published. Caught between supporting her “sister” and being objective, Gail brings up the letter of complaint Jasmine filed against Beckman. It appears that Liv will have to leave. The unity that should exist among all three women has been shattered. To appear objective and just, Gail feels forced to tell her colleagues who will vote on Liv’s tenure about Jasmine’s letter of complaint.
Master’s Terror Shifts From Legends to Realities
Diallo then ratchets up the revelations of racial bias on the campus among the student body. Terrifying events occur that seem strange on a New England campus that appears to support diversity. However, the university had a vile history of a racism even in the 1960s which Jasmine uncovers doing research in the library. The perpetrators were never found in the lynching of a black woman student. Was this the work of the witch or a ghoul? Or did the murderer or murderers have white faces?
Using lighting, camera angels, pacing and interesting cinematography, Diallo creates mystery and suspense tying in the legends of the witch with a cult that meets in the woods and the lynching of the black woman student. After Jasmine discovers the hate crime, something becomes unleashed. Her discovery becomes the turning point. Racism on the campus becomes overt. Jasmine and Gail are targeted. Beckman, Jasmine and Gail attempt to help each other. However, sadly, the help never makes a difference.
The lines blur between imagination and truth
In the last half of the film Diallo stuns with unexpected twists. At one point, I thought the film to be sophomoric because Diallo cleverly misdirects her audience. Manipulating our understanding, she blurs the lines between the characters’ imaginations, nightmares and reality without clear delineation. And then she slowly reveals what we anticipate is the truth, but it isn’t. She keeps us guessing. Indeed, the opaqueness remains vital to the mystery, horror and shocking events that occur by the conclusion.
When brutality arrives, it devastates. The victim and the viewers who identify experience the fullness of the traumatic events.
Thematically, Diallo’s work clearly focuses on empathy. Allowing others to experience the shock of trauma puts the audience in the shoes of those abused, of those who experience racism’s terror on a visceral level.
When Terror Comes There is no Going Back
Once the characters sustain that terror, there is no going back. Certainly, political discrimination, white privilege and historical racism are undercurrents which Gail finally realizes permeate the university. And institutional racism floats everywhere and terrorizes like a ghost ubiquitously. It’s on the campus. It’s in the nation. Diallo proves that Gail has nowhere to run or hide from danger as a black woman, certainly not at this university. Like a flash of lightening the full import of title comes to us as ironic and diabolical. Finally, what Liv achieves when she receives tenure is a well planned outcome that is a travesty of justice built on lies.
Diallo’s twists create a greater horror than ghosts and legends in Master. But the elite university still remains. And that may be the greatest horror of all.
Master is screening on Amazon. Don’t miss it.
CAROLE DI TOSTI 
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