Gore Vidal: In Memoriam
I adore Vidal’s work. Read his American history series, his memoirs and his Caligula in addition to his books of essays. Saw The Best Man with James Earl Jones, John Larroquette, Candice Bergen twice on Broadway (2012) which is still garnering a wide audience, and viewed him whenever I could when he was on Charlie Rose and elsewhere.
I appreciated him only when I was older, after I’d read his work. In my youth, I thought him defensive and somewhat sad, viewing him in his arguments with Buckley (I am not or ever was a conservative) who bested him roundly and then litigated against him. Hmm. But they parted if not friends, in the last, with no legal bindings between them as Gore apologized truthfully, tweakingly telling Buckley he had joked calling him a “Crypto-Nazi.” If you think about it, it is bitingly funny while Buckley’s retort was not. Buckley got personal and farted an epithet toward Vidal’s gay sexual preference, revealing Buckley’s own homophobia and hovering cruelty which at the time carried a weight of legitimacy.
Today, viewing the video clip where Vidal and Buckley gnaw each other’s throats, Gore comes out ahead. Bravo, Vidal! You have withstood the test of time, as I truly believe will your writings. You are a genius and we are the better for it as Americans, having read your edgy, insightful thoughts. You were a beacon and now have quite blown yourself out. To me, you will always remain.
This sonnet is a tribute to him who I adore for his humor, his writerly acumen and his artistic genius. Your words live. Thanks.
GORE VIDAL
Acerbic, vitriolic, searing words,
In you fermented, then poured out, a draught
Of wine. We sipped refreshed the wisdom heard.
It quenched our ravaged souls and spirits wrought.
We culturally dispossessed? You raised us high.
Redeemed our history’s worth with wit and grace,
And literary gifts none could decry.
Your genius ne’r could Truman er’ displace.
Self-described emotionally cold were you
Patrician, righteous, prophet of the age,
To Buckley calumnious, to Mailer crude,
Tiresias: forthright, just, a humorous sage.
Your writings live, though Death choked off your time.
You lived a maverick’s life, one of a kind.
Killer Joe’s Gina Gershon, William Friedkin, Matthew McConaughey at NY Times Talks: Review
NY Times Talks
David Carr, Gina Gershon, Matthew McConaughey, William Friedkin
Tom Stoppard, Alan Rickman, Tilda Swinton, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Carrie Mulligan, Gary Oldman, Helen Mirren. I had seen these talented Brits live on the stage (Broadway or Off Broadway) and in film. I appreciated their brilliance, their humor, their uniqueness, their prodigious efforts! The New York Times Talks were a venue where I witnessed these actors with their vibrant spontaneity in live interviews. Prior to attendance, I anticipated each of these Times Talks with enthusiasm. I always walked away satisfied.
Today was different. I was going to see mildly talented American actors and a director who hadn’t hit it big since the dark ages before Twitter and Facebook. And on a blazing, torpid evening no less? Already, I was bored and annoyed with the prospects, especially since I wouldn’t be sneaking any digitals with my unobtrusive, insect-sized camera that could be whipped out and secreted away before anyone, least of all the officious, martinet ushers could bully me about it. Well, almost. At my last Times Talks go round, I was clipped by some weak mouthed serf to “not take photos.” At his muling whine I contemplated that the next time, if there was a next time, I’d get a press pass. Unfortunately, for this round of David Carr interviews with Gina Gershon, William Friedkin and Matthew McConaughey, I couldn’t get it together in time to call the publicity department.
So here I was a coolie nonentity and in this role, I did not enact the usual routine: go early, move down front, get ready for some fun. I was hot, tired and disgruntled, a sloppy frazzle after minding the gaps and evil perspirings of oversized Long Islanders sweltering and swining through Penn Station. Taking the train in from Kew Gardens was one more moted stupidity in addition to wearing a white Michael Kors outfit in a city where dirt grows on “the absence of colored” clothing like feathers on a chicken. What a crass ho-hum venture this promised to be: no Brits, no photos, probably no celebrity interludes (Often famous friends people the audience to shore up their buddies being interviewed and I would briefly speak to them). Rats for a crank of wasted time.
After I returned from the ladies room, noting flecks of black on my lower left pants leg, I gnashed teeth in my seat and waited for the non event. I didn’t know too much about the film Killer Joe. Nor was I hopped up about McConaughey’s latest career tweaks in embracing the “go forth and be sexy-naked” role in Magic Mike or his ominous shift to the wickedly nonchalant, indifferent, bad-ass law man Joe Cooper. I certainly hadn’t seen any of Friedkin’s opera direction, much of it far from New York’s Metropolitan Opera House and other city opera companies. His most recent endeavors were in Europe, and unless he was directing Verdi, a favorite of mine, I probably wouldn’t make it a point to go, reeling from all the other activities I’d engage in in Rome or other cities where his work might appear. Actually, I hadn’t watched a memorable Friedkin film in the last decade. But he was forgiven this because of his incredible direction of two of the most marvelous films to come out of the 1970s, the groundbreaking, spellbinding The Exorcist and The French Connection (for which he barely used a script and which won 5 academy awards including Best Picture and Best Director).
Reflecting back to the hover over the month’s New York Times Talks’ offerings, at the time I was making arrangements, I gamed seeing whether McConaughey was as ravishing as the media and friends seemed to think. I loved him in Amistad; the film was brilliant as a historical record of the event which, like an explosion, breached institutional slavery’s pitted walls in America. McConaughey played his lawyerly part beautifully, complementing Spielberg’s sterling actors’ ensemble, though the standout performances were Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams and Spielberg find, Djimon Hounsou as Cinque.
No matter. Coming here was a mistake and now I must deal with it. Deal I did. I raged, annoyed at my unpreparedness. I vowed, if David Carr wasn’t striking fire and it was a total blackout of wits, I’d leave. Better yet, I’d catch up on my sleep, snoring my disdain to surrounding audience members. Turns out, I did take a blip when the talking heads disembodied themselves and Carr was as somnambulant as I. But overall, I’m glad I awakened for most of the discussion, if not to eventually see the NC-17 rated film, but because the director’s intellect and vision enlightened me and I enjoyed catching snippets of Gershon’s and McConaughey’s sage, scary talent in bringing the frighteningly human characters to life.
Killer Joe is based on a true story according to Friedkin. A hit man is engaged to kill a family member for their stash to pay off debts or the hiree will be killed. Tracey Letts, Pultizer Prize winning playwright of August, Osage County, (film slated to open in 2013) adapted the screenplay from his play Killer Joe (1993) which has been performed in NYC and in 15 countries around the world. Friedkin, Gershon and McConaughey couldn’t sail enough accolades toward Letts for his script’s edgy, sardonic humor and complex familial renderings. Each of the characters, in their attempts to strive beyond their trailer trash lives and aspirations entangle themselves deeper in their own webs. The more they struggle to break the gossamer/steel chains that stick them, the more they cocoon themselves in their own demise.
In typical Friedkinesque, the story telling is macabre and surprising as it bends the envelope toward laughter and bizarreness. The characters’ human weakness wacks us silly and when we watch reality unfold, glad “that it’s not us up there”, the circumstances wrap us in the Jerry Springer moment of upending comedy. We laugh though we shouldn’t, but we can’t help ourselves because these folks are just plain dumb-ass, ego-baited, desperation-cracked ninnies. It’s the kind of humor found in Pinter’s The Caretaker. Pinter is a playwright that Letts and Friedkin admire. It is no coincidence that the relationship dynamics of the Smith family and Sheriff Joe Cooper, coupled with their foolhardiness, which plunges them in their own fetid swamp are reminiscent of the characters and situations in Pinter’s plays.
Interesting that McConaughey and Gershon didn’t get the point of Killer Joe on a first read. They were ready to garbage the script, even though Friedkin was attached to the project. McConaughey changed his mind after a female friend pointed out the black (as in dark) comedy and suggested it was an amazing piece he should do. Like Gershon, he reconsidered the novel role as a boon because it was unlike any project he had accomplished before. Gershon realized she could empathize with Sharla Smith’s hungers, manipulations and mammoth insinuations as the character endeavors to reach her goals, regardless of the cost to others. Her character’s rawness and her miserable flame out were the icing on Gershon’s cake.
Friedkin praised his dream cast, including the vulnerable Emile Hirsch, the dead-pan funny Thomas Haden Church and vibrant Juno Temple for their gifted performances and right on appropriateness (mentioning he had not been as astute with his casting choices in other films). He credited McConaughey’s risk taking in accepting the role of Joe Cooper, which for him was contrarian and counterintuitive. Sheriff Cooper is emotionally cold, an unappealing killer on the surface. It was up to McConaughey to see his likeability and that wasn’t easy. Much easier to accept the roles he’s been doing since the 1990s. Friedkin bore out that McConaughey’s looks peg him for chick flicks. The next two generations of female audiences would appreciate his face and physique in tragic or happy love stories. Heck, he could easily age into sixty-seventy something romantic leads (He’s 42.) and directors would be thrilled to nail him on the cross of such senior lover man roles twenty years hence. McConaughey knows that and is swimming upstream against the current of big money. He reaffirmed the shift in role choices and voiced the need to vibrate his career with twists and turns constantly moving in other directions.
At this juncture in the Talks, I had zzzed off. McConaughey is absolutely stunning in person, much better looking than in film and Gershon is interesting, but the discussion was without steam, pepper or spice. My head was thrown back in the seat, my eyelids had drifted shut, my mouth was sliding open to distill rasping throat sounds. Then I chortled to wakefulness, startled by an audience stir and a demure announcement by a jaunty blonde in a black semi-bowler hat. She was standing to my left not four feet away and was interrupting David Carr’s monotone. Yeah! An intrusion upon the droning bees onstage. Could it be? Was she an ally in my indignation against fatuous ushers and pretentious Times’ policies? Yes! I mentally polished my middle finger, “Take that, New York Times Talks, ha, ha!”
The frenetic and pissy blonde in the black bowler was leveling up a forbidden digital camera, pointing it straight at Gershon and McConaughey. She ambled forward proclaiming, “I am a paparazzo and I am recording you here…muffle, argh, garble.” Audience eyes turned to look in the direction of the soft, feline voice and were struck deaf by the silence of the vision. The pretty, flouncy blonde, was jiggling her naked boobs. Her perky cream white breasts flapped prodigiously, her fur flew, as she stood proudly naked claiming her glory to Carr, Gershon, McConaughey and Friedkin. The ushers and audience, were stunned in a reverent suspension of disbelief. None of us got it, except maybe for the Gershon, McConaughey and Friedkin who remained wryly nonplussed, probably used to crazy public antics that appeared like stupid pet tricks when their stars crossed the heavens. Recovering from their cloudy haze, the ushers sprang into action. Three of them scrambled to block views of her blanched T & A, which were a stark contrast with that zany, obsidian hat and redness of her lipstick. I wiped the sleep from my fogged consciousness, grabbed my insect digital and snapped as many shots of the stage as I could. By that point the ushers were distracted, shuffling her away while peeking at her savory flesh full throttle. Amazing. No one laughed, though the incident was as wacky as the dark intent of Killer Joe. Either Friedkin or Carr quipped about how her appearance enlivened the dullness of the static camera interview, which “usually reaches a lull right about now.” Did someone hear me gently snoring in the background or see my head bobbing back in dreamland, I chuckled quietly to myself.
Onward soldiers. The rest of the “Talk” fled past with a rapidity I couldn’t gauge, beginning with Gershon wondering aloud why the woman characterized herself as a “paparazzo” as Friedkin, with erudition, supplied the derivation of the word. Then there were more particularly ominous film clips and it was time for audience questions. I thought the following information worthwhile. Friedkin did only one take for most of the scenes, throwing out the window all notions of arriving at perfection after 15-20 takes. The actors felt his immediacy created alertness and surprise; you were ready out the gate, like racehorses to the finish line, without the burden of stale repetition. Friedkin remarked that the first movie that inspired him to pursue film craft was Citizen Kane. And if he could even begin to make a film like that, well… Carr flattered him by saying he had. For me Citizen Kane and The French Connection are indeed art, but cannot be spoken in comparative terms.
Two questioners were notable in the responses they elicited. A lawyer commented that he thought Bernie, a McConaughey film, underrated and ignored by critics and fans was astounding. The actor was flattered into revealing that a potential career path he had chosen was the law. He had been accepted to law school then at the last, changed his mind and went to film school instead. Considering all the lawyer roles and law enforcement officers he has portrayed, the law remains with him.
A young and clothed female actor was brave to question what was needed to be an actor. McConaughey’s rapid retort, “Keep this in mind. There are no help wanted signs out there.” All three affirmed security is hired to “keep you out” of a tough business. Gershon did mention one needed to check one’s motives as to exactly why one would be an actor. Friedkin spoke like a director from the old studio system about the importance of “looks.” Indeed, one’s face does the casting or type casting. Actors have made money from appearing like Italian mobsters or heroes or beauties. Sadly, looks and appearance have held too much sway over the years. Oftentimes, those who have tremendous talents and gifts fade away, having fallen pray to resignation while others which much less talent but other elements make it. Friedkin waxed into a beacon of hope with this counsel. “One needs these three things to make it: 1)ambition, 2)luck 3)the Grace of God.” The last smacked me in the head. It was the first time I had ever heard a director mention the Grace of God in the context of “making it.”
Another questioner having to wait for one of Friedkin’s particularly long responses to be finished, jerked with anxiety and impatience until Carr finally called upon him. With tongue in cheek reference to bowler-hat blonde, Carr adjured the young, frail looking fellow not to disrobe. Well, that was enough for McConaughey and Gershon who encouraged him and the audience, giving the “go ahead” for more of the same, kind of to keep the naked flow going. If most of the women in the audience looked as good as the paparazzo, they might have bared breasts and butts and paraded for the cameras, talk about getting a shot at a few moments of fame. But it was not to be so for this shy crowd where I had the distinct impression that it would have been a public humiliation if anyone else were to follow the blonde’s lead.
So the audience feeling its limitations responded with a good natured-laugh, and when they quieted down, the young man in a squeaky high voice and jittery motions which were creepy, like the Golum in The Hobbit said, “Ms Gershon, you look radiant.” then bowed. He complimented McConaughey, bowed again, and to Friedkin he said something about still “shivering” from The Exorcist. When he bowed a third time, I thought the moon must have been ripe for peculiar human reactions this evening. Either a savant or an Asperger’s, he was certainly weird. But Friedkin with great grace showed kindness. He thanked the young man, saving the moment with aplomb and skill. In my book Friedkin scored big for that. He made my severe scrutiny something akin to Scout’s when she sanctioned Cunningham for pouring molasses all over his plate of food in To Kill a Mockingbird and Calpurnia upbraded her about treating guests hospitably. Friedkins’ sweetness chided me like a Calpurnia scolding
After a rough beginning, the evening waxed clear and the stars twinkled in a blue black sky. Thanks to the blonde, the breathtaking McConaughey whose intellect is consonant with his beauty, Gershon’s frankness and Friedkin’s sensitivity and brilliance, my exasperation had melted like mist in sunshine. But next time I will get a press pass.
Jonathan Pryce, Alan Cox, Alex Hassell, Live Talk at BAM Discussing The Caretaker by Pinter
Jonathan Pryce as Davies and Alex Cox as Aston
BAM, is Brooklyn Academy of Music. It is Brooklyn’s premier showcase for productions which do not mirror the crass commercialism and faux quality of Broadway’s double digit IQ spectacles, excepting (A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Seminar, The Best Man, Other Desert Cities, Leap of Faith superb, standout shows that I have seen this year) In addition to superlative global productions mounted by the Bridge Project (Kevin Spacey and Same Mendes’ American/British collaboration of touring works by Shakespeare-this year’s Richard III starring Spacey) and other global offerings from Russia, Australia and the United Kingdom: The Three Sisters, John Gabriel Borkman (with Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw) and Gogol’s Diary of a Madman (with Geoffrey Rush) the season presents interviews and talks with cast members after performances.
This year I was blessed to see live sessions with Declan Donnelan, John Hurt and the cast of The Caretaker (see review) Jonathan Pryce, Alan Cox and Alex Hassell. These are precious gifts. I try to take advantage of the live sessions because the actors, after having expended their souls onstage, graciously share the remainder of their energies even though they must be drained of all emotional heft. It is their act of love and the celebration of an art form that will never die because it IS the reality show and anything that can happen will happen during a live performance and dealing with it is electric. I am there to celebrate with them.
Amazingly, each time (John Hurt, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, et. al, Geoffrey Rush) after their performances, the actors have appeared as fresh as moments ago picked corn, carrying their great good will and humor with them despite the grind. I find that my love for live theater and appreciation of BAM has been strengthened each time I’ve stayed for discussion, so upon leaving, I secretly nod a special thank you to Dionysus, the patron of all great theater. Whenever I lust for an apartment in Manhattan, I think of BAM, the Hamptons and the US Tennis Open, locations which are très inconvenient for Manhattanites. I am thankful that I live in the second most fashionable section of Queens, artsy Kew Gardens and am to be envied: I have a car…HA, HA, HA, a wonderful perk that makes up for being estranged from Manhattan’s living spaces.
Alex Hassell (Mick) Jonathan Pryce (Davies) Alan Cox (Aston). Pryce just cracked up the audience.
On Thursday, May 24th, Pryce, Cox and Hassell managed to recoup from an incredible performance to face their worshipers (they received a lengthy standing ovation). How did they do it? I guess it was “The show must go on,” because many actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Angela Lansberry and James Earl Jones eschew this kind of thing. But the Brits are level headed about their theater, unlike some American celebrities who might be too incredibly shy, Method, wiped, or self-adulating to scrape the will to expose themselves for who they are in their own skins. With their long tradition of theater and Shakespeare who lived “in the midst of the common folk,” Brits and Aussies are notoriously self-effacing and unselfconscious when it comes to meeting fans. I wish that more American “celebrities” and/or actors were that way. That’s insecurity for ya.
As obtuse as the play can be if not acted superlatively (it was) this talk back was revelatory and insightful. Each of the actors reaffirmed the importance of living onstage and adhering to what was in the script which told all in telling little. Pryce had been with the production longer than Hassell and Cox and had even played the character of Mick in a 1980 production in England; he twitted Hassell that he was very good as Mick, garnering a laugh from the audience and a smile from his fellow actor. Pryce’s humorous touches were a pleasant surprise, but then his range and versatility as an actor spans The Comedians (1977, Broadway, a Tony) The Engineer in Miss Saigon for which his brilliant and controversial performance won him a second Tony (1992), to Lytton Strachey in Carrington, (1995) for which he won the Best Actor award at Cannes. Most recently he has played the governor in the three Pirates of the Caribbean films and began his scary, evil renown with the devil character in Somthing Wicked This Way Comes (1983). He was so convincing as Juan Peron in the film Evita with Madonna, I forget it was Pryce.
Pryce discussed the romanticism of the Davies character when Pinter first conceived of the play in the 50s. He is the tramp who lives like a gypsy wandering the roads and sleeping under the stars: perhaps representing every settled man’s hunger for freedom. But in the current times of harsh economies, foreclosures and rampant homelessness in cities across the globe, the actors upgraded the pressure each of the characters faces. Pryce said that the Davies character’s dark and desperate circumstances (the antithesis of the romantic, carefree tramp) framed Pryce’s internal emotional choices. And all of the characters at one point or another echoed that the play has taken on a darker meaning in our age of creeping poverty, political vapidness and lack of will to correct the gross inequities of wealth and power between and amongst economic classes.
Columbia University Pinter Scholar Professor Quigley moderated with wonderful questions.
At a prompting from moderator, Professor Quigley, Pinter scholar at Columbia University, Pryce shared his experience and remembrance as a child visiting his father in an institution like the one where Aston was committed. Pryce recalled his fears walking down long, silent corridors locked at each end, hearing the keys jangle in the door as the aides unlocked each door and relocked it. And when he saw his father in a bed with rows of beds around him filled with other men, he was afraid; it was a terrible emotional experience. He said he used those feelings to frame Davies’ character in part, because Davies is perhaps as mentally unwell as Aston is. “He says the craziest things,” said Pryce smiling and perhaps he could indeed end up in such a place (though nowadays, the shelters have become the even more dangerous institutions of the insane. It’s afer on the streets.) Pryce reaffirmed that in the laughter (Character interactions both times I saw the play drew audience laughs.) or the light, there is the darkness. In other words, as we laugh at the ridiculousness of the characters and situation, there is the fear, poignancy and knowledge that we are seeing the truth of ourselves.
In the question and answer sessions, Pryce was equally generous. Davies’ cries and angst-driven dreams that awaken Aston, Pryce said were triggered by memories of Pryce’s daughter who talked in her sleep when she was under stress and of course, was upsetting to him. And when one audience member in the question and answer session suggested that he was pushing for laughs, Pryce handled the insult beautifully, first pretending to ignore the man and then quipping they needed “get rid of him.” He then dealt with the idea of “pushing” as an actor not being something that serves the actor and his colleagues. However, having seen the play twice, I affirm that the play’s sentiment and revelation would have been completely lost if any of the actors, especially Pryce were untrue or “going for laughs.” Pryce found the emotional resonance to convey Davies’ desperation, his wants, his wounds, all unconscious to Davies, but visible to us through Pryce’s massive acting instrument.
Alan Cox as Aston in the question and answer session discussed the importance of following the action of the play which specifically states what each of the characters is doing. To keep the interactions fresh each night, Hassell, especially did not want to know how the others were interpreting something, because the characters don’t know this. Uncertainty reigns; unexpected reactions rule. It doesn’t inform the actor to be gummed up with extraneous interpretations upon interpretations. Cox did respond that inviting Davies in, Aston is generating a random act of human kindness, nothing more. What evolves is human dynamic, power struggle, spontaneity, craziness, because that’s who these people, especially Davies are. We catch glimpses, as we catch glimpses in life, never knowing for certain, never stating something is forever. It is constantly a state of flux. When Quigley quoted that Pinter said you shouldn’t necessarily believe everything that Aston says in his long monologue about being committed, Cox’s reply was wonderful, THE QUINTESSENTIAL superb actor’s reply. Well, I believe what is in the script. I believe that what Aston says he experienced, he experienced. And Hassell echoed those sentiments. To pin down an interpretation of Mick’s intentions is pointless. The more one attempts to convey and pin down one specific interpretation, the less real, the less dynamic the less comprehensible the character.
Hassell, Pryce, Cox discussing the darker aspects of the play trending now.
After their sharing with us, I understood why this production is so outstanding, so brilliant, clearly the best of Pinter I have ever seen done, and I have seen deadly, boring Pinter. And I have heard that when Pinter attempted to direct, there was too much of a “going for a result,” a stepping out to convey a particular theme. In this production, there was none of that. Because in life, we are not interpreting our roles and actions as we go along. WE LIVE THEM. WE ARE THEM. WE ARE FEAR, DESPERATION, HOPE, LONGING, WANT, NEED. We don’t editorialize about how this action can be interpreted this way, except in hindsight twenty years later when we realize what we were doing. If that indeed is what we were doing because hindsight has its own reality.
The shifting light and dark, truly, as Pryce said, creates our understanding, my understanding, for we are all different, and I walked away with different values and perceptions because of my background as did every individual in the audience. The actors respected the work and their talents to bring life to the stage. And they are so incredible, I imagine they are able to do this for the rest of the performance schedule until June 16th when the final curtain of The Caretaker falls. Well, I for one am gobsmacked I’ve seen such magnificence. What a joy.
Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at BAM
Jonathan Pryce as Davies and Alan Cox as Aston
Can we ever fathom the underpinning of our relationships with people, the power dynamics, the interplay which inevitably results in the childhood assertion to reign supreme in a parlay of king of the hill? Who dominates in such interplays: the weakest, the most dependent or the one whose presence physically menaces? Is there a power exchange where moment to moment the rapid shifts of control occur depending upon subtle behavioral quirks and personality siftings if the players’ wits are sharpened and prepared for the dynamism? Pinter examines the human power market in his subtly brilliant play The Caretaker now at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s the Harvey Theater through the 16th of June.
Jonathan Pryce and Alan Cox
The play starts benignly enough as a roughly hewn street fellow, Davies, played by the superlative Jonathan Pryce is offered shelter by a docile and reserved, mild-mannered, conservatively dressed younger man, Aston, played by the intensely gifted Alan Cox. Everything appears off kilter with the situation that slowly unfolds, down to the contradiction between the civil, kind demeanor of neatly dressed Aston, and the junk heap of a hoarder’s dwelling strewn with garbage dump remnants that Aston expects Davies to stay in for the night, though there is a leak over the bed he offers to Davies and a nearby open window blowing in the rain and wind on Davies’ head. But we gather that down on his luck, unkempt Davies will fit right in and be grateful for even these mean accommodations that have kindly been extended to him. What is amazing is that clean, well groomed Aston stays in the same filthy, rag tag room that Davies stays in. Amidst the heaps of refuse, Aston sleeps in a bed on the other side of the room; its proximity forces him to put up with Davies’ noisy, addled, anxiety ridden dream state which disrupts his own sleep and prompts him to wake up Davies to get him to stop, pissing off Davies. Clearly, we see the conflict points growing and remain perplexed by this weird chaos and at a loss to explain how either man puts up with the situation, though we do realize that perhaps, Davies has no choice and perhaps emotionally Aston has no choice either. Mano e mano, each man has removed the choice of the other in a strange interplay of dependence, want, need, despair and search for some consolation of the soul.
Over the course of the next days, Davies without authority, except as Aston’s appointed ad hoc caretaker, attempts to assert himself over his situation, commenting disgruntledly on the open window and the leak over his head but Aston remains quietly unmoved replying the room needs air. Nothing appears to change in the weather or situation so that Davies who is en route to get his papers and move on to a better life goes no where. Though we know little from the noncommittal Aston who moves with a perfunctory calmness, we sense that Davies may have an individual power of self that Aston may lack, though Aston’s kindness in extending even this shambled place to stay infers a subtle deeper power.
As the play progresses, the roles intensify in the direction which Pinter has initiated with the added complexity of the third member of the dynamic, Mick, played by exceptional Alex Hassell, younger, sinister, brooding brother of Aston. Uncertain as to who he is because of his prowling glare at the onset of the play, we discover his physical authority in the dwelling after Mick has attacked Davies and roughed him up physically in pursuing Davies purpose in the dwelling since Aston isn’t present at that point to tell Mick of his “hiring” Davies as ad hoc caretaker. The attack is both humorous and scary and as Davies is allowed to recover, we see another power dynamic being initiated between the younger brother and Davies. Unlike his relationship with Aston, Davies’ exchange with Mick appears on like footing. However, over the course of the next weeks, there are weird occasions when defying logic, Mick satisfies his joking urges and plays passive aggressive jokes on Davies, using his fears of the “blacks” next door. For example, he unscrews a light bulb so Davies is in the dark when he arrives. Then invisible Mick pops up and down, haunting Davies in the shadowy darkness, all the while completely unnerving the older man. Then a monstrous noise fills the room and we are startled into confusion and alarm for Davies who is cowing and screaming in hysterical panic. A minute later Mick with grinning nonchalance reveals the vacuum cleaner, explaining he wanted to get a bit of tidying up done about the place. Relieved, we laugh, quick to receive the inanity of Mick’s illogical explanation, ready, like Davies, to accept good will over malevolence and torment.
But who vacuums and tidies up in the dark? Indeed, if our wits are about us, we anticipate that Mick is capitalizing upon Davies’ anxieties to make a mockery of the older man while feigning his true motives. Like Davies, we ignore the signs, the incongruities, allowing ourselves to hope for goodness and kindness, for that is the initial situation: kindness was extended to Davies. We, like Davies rattle our minds attempting to gauge the power struggle between these two brothers, to “get on top of the situation.” And like Davies, we are hard pressed to do so becoming lost in a space that is surreal, vacuumed up into the day to day events without understanding, without clarity until our resistance deteriorates and we yield to the whirling merry-go-round of human existence and interaction that the brothers, too, circle in.
Jonathan Pryce
The dramatic high points are achieved when Aston reveals his loneliness, his otherness, his “apparent” insanity in a monologue where he reaches out for self-understanding and connection to the world in Davies who appears to be taking it in. We learn that Aston is an extremely sensitive type who, in sharing his perceptions with common folk at a cafe, perceptions that we would liken to those of an anointed adept or finely tuned artistic sensibility, ends up being sent to a mental hospital for observation. The result brings tragedy, a “problem” diagnosis and Electric Shock Treatment signed off by Aston’s mother because he is a minor. As Aston quietly relates the brutality of his resistance and the administration of the treatment we quiver in identification and sympathy, for we understand that something has been taken from Aston and nothing has been returned; he lives with a gaping wound that bleeds and cannot be stemmed, certainly not by interaction with Davies, who is too wounded himself to extend any sufficient help, emotional bandages or antidotes for soul pain and damage.
And from Aston’s revelation the chasm in the dynamic between Aston and Davies widens and Davies, unable to see himself in this man to empathize or reach out, turns to the brother, Mick who ironically appoints him caretaker, though incompetent Davies has poorly fulfilled the role given to him by Aston. We see Davies shift allegiance to Mick, whose claims of authority in the place are circumspect. And we recognize the wave of indulgence as Davies quickly tries to ingratiate himself with a man who may or may not be practical joking with him, convincing himself that he has successfully won over Mick who flatters him when Davies shows he can defend himself physically with a knife if Mick “tries to pull anything on him.”
Jonathan Pryce as Davies and Alex Hassell as Mick
The dynamic of power, who controls, who attempts to gain the edge shifts and swirls and propels us; we’re spinning with these characters whose centers have not held and whose uncertainty of the upheavals between each other and their own personal confluence estrange them and us in bewilderment. And then in the cataclysm of the ending, for “it,” the turbines of spinning or whatever the “it” may be, must disengage, must stop. In “its” stoppage, we see. We understand how humans need. It is a deep, felt comprehension and we know that in their want, in their attempt to take, they fail miserably, unable to reach an empathy with others because they are alone.
This great understanding is achieved because of the brilliance of Pryce, Cox and Hassell. Their efforts are sublime, elevating humanity to divinity in all its weakness. They are devoted to living in each moment of uncertainty allowing this heavenly development of the active nonaction of Pinter’s unbelievable human rendering. This clearly is the best Pinter I have ever seen, its human truths are heartfelt and cathartic. I thought I was watching Greek tragedy. You cannot miss this production, but probably will as the seats are harder and harder to come by.
CQ/CX
Imagine your writing career is about to take off. You’ve interned at the New York Times and by some straight miracle that you have helped to manipulate, you land a job there. You are ecstatic. But also imagine that you have a few character flaws you ignore. You lack focus; you are ambitious without the required determination and discipline to accomplish your goals; you are incapable of dealing with high pressured stress; you seek out “coping mechanisms” which encourage addictive, annihilating behaviors in the name of “dealing.” Perhaps this could describe any one of us during a period in our lives when we were in transition and were unable to self-correct. In CQ/CX* (which completed its run at the Atlantic Theater Company) it describes the personality of Jay Bennett, an intern who lands the prestigious job at The New York Times, then proceeds to blow up his life and career because of sloppy carelessness fueled by an indulgent penchant for alcohol, cocaine and self-destruction.
From the point we meet the character Jay Bennett as an intern, to the play’s conclusion after he has impaled himself and his two editors on the sword of fraud and plagiarism (cardinal sins of reportage) we painfully absorb the truth that an individual’s decline often carries with it many pivotal declensions that can either lead toward opportunity, or initiate doom. In Bennett’s case it is the latter: we watch silent and stunned as the miserable twine of the knave’s life unravels, becomes a scrawny tendril then breaks with the weight of error, plummeting the self-vicitimizer into the abyss of no return. And we come away understanding how someone, who is potentially addicted to failure can lure others into a web of deceit, despite their own better judgment.
Gabe McKinley’s writing is vital. Having served as a journalist for the New York Times, he witnessed the plagiarism incident of Jayson Blair, the disgraced journalist the play loosely is based on. By the time McKinley left the paper, accomplished a year’s research and wrote the play, he had sifted the events and dramatic energy of the individuals, creating characters, some composites, and others loosely based upon the major players (Blair). Then he created the arc of events that led up to the plagiarism and its impact. The result is a newsroom landscape peppered with complexity, humor and pathos. Integral to McKinley’s backdrop is his concentration on the Times as a renown institution facing this doomsday scenario: crumbling old media empire hobbles light years behind the new media reformation. McKinley reveals the extent to which these circumstances may have impacted how Bennett/Blair tweaked and exploited the editors’ and owner’s desire-concern to be trending and competitive.
Though we know the inevitable, we are engaged as events and characterizations unfold. Partly due to the excellent direction by David Leveaux and the ensemble acting, which remained moderated between tension and argument, McKinley reveals that in this institution, as in all institutions that have preceded themselves, there are those wise Cassandras who see potential disaster. And they are ignored as the “forward thinking” view preempts. So though we ironically have been warned the train wreck will occur, we draw close, interested in understanding the how and the why. Though we might not have worked in similar circumstances, we do know such problem scenarios and there is always the question, “Where did the players/me/my family go wrong?” McKinley provides answers, but they are not paramount. One must dig beyond the superficial and obvious reasons why this young reporter with problems was able to manipulate experienced editors who, themselves, didn’t check the facts (relates to the title) but took an expedient route.
The play’s message is prophetic: its warnings for readers and writers alike, emphatic (if one has the ears to hear and the eyes to see). There is a danger of trusting institutions which ride on the coattails of their former reputations. Independent internet news, social networking and the changing virtual paradigm have shifted news reporting away from the ethos of group think characteristic of large, venerated, news organizations. In a number of instances bloggers, writers, free lance journalists and professional experts in their fields have trumped such organizations with in-depth online pieces that have gone viral, eliciting a new meaning to the words, “breaking news.” This medium of independent online reporting has taken a pick axe to traditional media. In the past information might never have been revealed because of loyalties, cronyism and paternalistic decisions. Decisions not to report information were justified by such capstone logic that not reporting was for “the good of the country,” when in fact not reporting was blatant cover-up and protection of systems and individuals. In the past news institutions were hand maidens of politicians, governments and corporations, and few suspected this was the case. Only those on the inside had the power to know. Only they were well networked to keep the known, unknown.
The play shows the extent to which traditional media still clings to the “old way of doing things,” a dinosaur incapable of seeing its inevitable extinction. Couple this with the dumbing down of broadcast news to sound bytes as entertainment, overall, old institutional investigative reporting has become less and less substantive. The mastheads of ethical news tradition have been supplanted with the meaningless but urgent need to “get the story out,” to keep current and competitive with like organizations. And this is the ready made environment for someone like a Jay Bennett/Blair who can enter in and tell lie upon lie and weave deceit upon deceit while experienced editors, if they picked it up, didn’t put their foot down. In such circumstances how can INSTITUTIONAL INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN A FREE AND OPEN SOCIETY function, survive and grow stronger?
After rethinking McKinley’s work, it was evident to me that the playwight poses another underlying question for us in this virtual age of Youtube and social media and virtual exposure of lies. Do editors working for institutional new organizations prize reporters’ expertise and willingness to ask the difficult questions and give them the time to commit to the true investigations? Do editors encourage reporters after interviews to really “CQ/CX:” look for contradictions, half-truths and omissions and double check other sources against the first source? A lie is a lie and its exposure as a lie is substantive investigative reporting. To what extent are old media editors and owners encouraging their reporters to expose lies by those in power? Online sites are replete with information which contradicts and trumps institutional media news organizations that do expose lies by those in power. Shouldn’t traditional media do the same?
The plays suggests that The New York Times is an institution which may not be digging deeper, going farther, investigating, investigating, investigating. Lies have passed through (and still do, i.e. Dolores Kearns Goodwin, et. al) and because of this inconsistency, is it any wonder that a Blair/Bennett and others may audaciously crank out the falsehoods and get away it HOW MANY TIMES if no one calls them on it??? Certainly, some of the trusting New York Times readership do not know and rarely suspect this could occur. For some, the prestigious masthead is enough and because this paper said it, it must be so. The Times, according to the play, has encouraged such readership pretensions and coasted on its venerability. But this is not good enough. It needs an overhaul and thorough CQ/CX!
For when one considers the seriousness of lies and their acceptance, what is the fallout of such deterioration of fact checking for investigative journalism on the world stage? Where was investigative journalism on the WMD (weaspons of mass destruction) that were supposed to be one of the causes for going to war in Iraq? Political figures have sold themselves as experts and that has been enough validity for traditional reportage, when in fact, the individuals were sharing opinions not facts, spinning spin and there was no fact checking from “investigative” reporters/editors who didn’t ask the difficult questions. Reporters supported by editors took quotes and wrote stories without really dealing with the substance BEHIND the quotes to note the gaps, the contradictions, the half-truths, the omissions. And indeed, the play brings us to this last overriding question: to what extent were these large news organizations, representative old media, ever true exponents of a free press that was reliable, trustworthy and accurate AND NOT THE HAND MAIDEN OF POLITICAL AND CORPORATE INTEREST? Indeed how long has there been an unreliability with regard to CQ/CX; perhaps the Bennett/Blair incident is just the inevitable implosion of systemic corruption which has been happening for decades, a kind of “Decline and fall of the Roman Empire” cum old media?
This is the undercurrent of McKinley’s work and some may miss it if they are looking at the obvious. But then they are in good company. They are just like Jay Bennett’s editors who ended up having to resign because they didn’t dig deeper; they accepted what was expedient and they trusted the rightness of their own judgment in a wallow of group think instead of doing their own CQ/CX.
Though the play’s run is finished in New York, we certainly haven’t seen the last of its performance elsewhere. The subject is a timely one and as more episodes of fact checking problems arise, the play will surely carry legs in other areas of the country. Indeed, they may even be looking into its eventually going uptown New York closer to Broadway in the future.
McKinley: They’re both shorthand used during fact-checking at the Times. Editors would use CQ — an abbreviation for the Latin term Cadit Quaestio, meaning “question falls” — if a statement was correct. CX is shorthand for corrections, if something was false.
My Bite of the Apple Part I (Redacting Steve Jobs)
Apple, the forbidden fruit
Excited to buy my first iPhone? I guess. but it wasn’t an outer body experience as buying Apple products has been for some. Maybe that’s because I’m a techie fail, a black hole when it comes to understanding mother boards and code and building cloud infrastructure and sequencing networks. I can figure things out if directions are given to me? But that’s it. I am one step above tech illiterate doggie doo with a single digit IQ. So if you are an uptown geek, then you will probably stop reading right about now.
After I got the iPhone, was I ebullient, addicted, umbilical corded? Nah. Actually, since I had a Motorola as well, can you believe my iPhone became my secondary phone to use in case I needed to reference something online? I preferred my old MO, my laptop, my Motorola for calls, the iPhone for referencing. I didn’t like the touch screen so much and since I type at the speed of light, slowing to one finger “tough” could never approach any viable functioning beyond snail pace to input type. That made me pissy. So, I hobbled along in the comfort of the tech semi-dark ages. But I was acutely aware of the awe this gadget produced in others whenever I pulled it out to reference something. Swoons, gasps, exclamations of approval filled the air as if this thing gave me character and substance and not the other way round. Frankly, I thought it amusing at the time and felt somewhat flattered that I was almost “in.” (I had never been “in” in HS. In college as a hippie, yes…but HS has its own sting and that poison was difficult to expurgate.)
iPads I lusted over but balked at purchasing.
Was it this faux flattery that percolated my appetite to lust for another bite of the forbidden fruit? I thought about buying an iPad. Did I need it? Do I need another piece of jewelry (Most of it is in the safe deposit box.)? I thought, well, I could compose my news articles easily without dragging my laptop around. Granted my laptop was small, and it worked well…everything there that I needed. I admit it. The super hype about the iPads was irresistible and the reveal had my heart and head feening. And at times there were visceral urges that I just had (I mean short of waiting in line for three days. I’m not insane.) to have one of those fabulous, incredible, virtual portals that professionals would be sashaying around with them like progeny. But when I was up close and personal with an iPad my friend (a line waiter) had, I thought, but I love my laptop. Why do I need two cameras? Taking pictures with an iPad is so pretentious, like you want everyone to know it’s an iPad you are taking a picture with. Big deal. (I know, I know. I can hear the geeks moaning about my fecal cephalic lack of appreciation for the iPad’s prodigious design and flawless tech perfection.)
But once you have that first bite, you become hooked. Like a confused obeser who doesn’t know she’s full (I used to be obese; I can say that word.) I had to indulge and buy another Apple product. Maybe I’d even join the holy crowd and worship at the shrine of awesomeness, becoming an owner of Apple, you know, get a few shares? The company’s earnings were spectacular, market share flying high like a dirigible with iPhones and iPads selling so rapidly the company couldn’t keep up production. Global sales…mega, mega. I like, thousands of others, regretted not buying the company when it nearly went belly up and Jobs came back in glory to take it over again after the board kissed his feet and became his willing slaves. I wouldn’t buy a lot of stock, just enough (100 shares) for it to be a symbol that I endorsed everything Steve Jobs stood for as an enlightened, Renaissanced, man of goodness, a shining glory.
So I went to Apple and I looked at the iPad. But I balked at the point of purchase. I had a headache. Over the next few days, I looked at other tablets and smaller laptops. I discussed the iPad with as many geeks as I could. I hesitated. Like a hunger pang that abates, my lust fled. Not sure why. Maybe because I would have to pay for a lot of stuff I needed, buying from the iTunes store, cha ching? I was sick of doing that on the iPhone. The interface with Mozilla that was paramount, I would have to tweak. And I had issues with my iPhone which was slowing. And two cameras? What for two cameras? I had enough cameras I wasn’t using: 35 mm beauties and digitals (top of the line when they first came out).
So instead, I went for another Apple product, their top of the line wireless router that I could stream with from Montauk (I live in NYC). My uncontrollable appetite did rear her fat head, you see? But this bite left me with a bitter taste: it was unappetizing and I got indigestion. The router was really pricey and weird to put together. And I had a hell of a time configuring it to my PC. Annoyed at my tech incompetence and blaming my bad gut, I returned it and bought a well reputed router that a one-year-old could set up. And I left the rising market share of Apple stock for the birds of the air to pluck. But since my phone contract was up, I purchased the next generation iPhone, knowing I would use it minimally, relying on another phone. My appetite for this next bite, though not particularly nourishing or filling was vital to my ego, cultural sensibilities and ethos. I indulged my lust.
Apple Store, Grand Central Station
And then Steve Jobs died. I wrote an article for Technorati and saw the TV programs about his genius, reheard his Stanford speech for the hundredth time and admired the man who was like a mastermining god, the new savior who walked on tech waters. Again and again it was repeated, his ambition, his “drive for perfection” and his “we’ll never see his like again,” and his business acumen and ruthlessness, all wonderful praise for an icon that geeks wept over, no exaggeration. (There were folks unrelated to his family who sobbed over his loss.) It was only a day later after I muted all the static that it came to me. The geeks who owed their changed lives to Jobs? The change was all theirs and had little to do with the man or the gadgets and in fact, they might have become someone greater if not someone else despite him not because of his Apple. But irrevocably, they had tied their own identities with Jobs; they were him and he was them. And they rued the days ahead because how would they be able to function without him to market the wonder and the magic of their addiction and keep their lives meaningful?
And then after Jobs was in the ground a few months, the dam broke and the waters roiled. What had been dredged up in secret and silted and drained away with each reveal of the next generation iPad and iPhone product could be stemmed no longer. Enter Foxconn. And slowly by revelation of a different kind, we began to understand the identity of the king serpent who delivered the Apple to us to eat.
Galileo
We all are enamored of the astronomer/physicist who defied the Catholic church for a season, and though it was heresy taught that the earth was not the center of the solar system/universe, but that our sun was. F. Murray Abraham famed Academy Award winner for Amadeus and acclaimed Shylock in last year’s Classic Stage Company’s Merchant of Venice must have been enamored of Galileo as well because he plays the man with empathy and brilliance.
It is interesting that the director Brian Kulick and the company have chosen the Charles Laughton, Bertol Brecht collaborative translation of Brecht’s play Galileo. The director states that it was chosen in part because in 1947 when the play was premiered in Hollywood and had a brief later run on Broadway, this translation was meaningful in light of the nuclear age ushered in upon the world stage after Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The inevitable interplay on science’s impact on the culture was something that Brecht wrote as a concern of Galileo, how men would use the truth of science. It is a theme that artists and writers like Ray Bradbury and other science fiction writers and filmmakers have taken up again and again, even in works like Alien and Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey.
But Brecht’s version playing at the Classic Stage Company which has none of Brecht’s later additions about Galileo and the church resonates for us in its themes about the inflexibility of changing with the nature of truth, and the nature of truth itself being shaped by culture, history and expediency. Galileo’s life is picked up at the point when he is living with his daughter and is tutoring wealthy sons of land owners. Brecht clearly makes the point that one of Galileo’s foibles was his flesh, his enjoying life and eating and wine. And of course, this is the hook later in the play providing the rationale why Galileo was not the martyr that many “heretics” were at the time when he ran afoul of the Inquisition in teaching his truths and proofs about the motion of the spheres, teachings which some of the cardinals, themselves, acknowledged as accurate.
No, Galileo was not a martyr. He caved. And F. Murray Abraham imbues this fleshly hero with an empathy we can all understand. Would we not do the same as he? Who of us would perish for some scribblings that may or may not be used to enhance mankind at some future date. No. Galileo will recant and not burn. He enjoys his wine. His flesh is weak and if the truth burns instead of him? Then, at least he will be able to get to his next meal and glass of wine, enjoying its taste.
But the price he pays brings a skein of bitterness, rejection of his students (interesting that they do not offer to burn with him for receiving the blasphemous teachings) the daily remembrance of his cowardice for his papers have been confiscated, and he must cope with the permanent guest in his house who guards him from writing anything down. So our genius is imprisoned in his home and his mind, unable to further any of his discoveries.
I do not advocate spoilers. So you won’t read what happens here. Get a copy of the play. Brecht is a brilliant playwright, though this might not be his most superlative play. (Mother Courage and Her Children is better.) Don’t count on seeing this version. If you have connections, perhaps you will be able to get a ticket, though it will be difficult unless you know the director or F. Murray Abraham. The performance is completely sold out.
I would have loved to go again, but I’ll just have to remember, rereading this review, how splendid the supporting cast was and how human and alive F. Murray Abraham’s performance was. The circular stage, a sphere, naturally and the globes of the solar system hanging from the ceiling were an effective backdrop to the action of man at the center of the universe. It was only until Galileo’s discourses were noted far and wide that man was no longer front and center and the Age of Enlightenment propelled the sun to the center and knowledge, science and a different kind of truth began spinning outward farther and farther into space and time.
I couldn’t recommend this production enough. I do think that at some point other versions of Brecht’s Galileo will be picked up by other prodigious actors, who like a challenge and enjoy the thought that they can step into the cloak and mien of one of the most illustrious, brilliant and flawed of scientists, making us actually happy that he did not, like so many others fall into the loathsome clutches of the nefarious Inquisition.
By the way, it is interesting to note that Galileo in all his science believes in God and is God’s man. Only the truly brilliant, the ineffably brilliant are able to reconcile science and God, bringing them together in complement, not stretching them from one end of the universe to the other (That is a joke; the universe has no end…and maybe no beginning, since no one was around to observe the Big Bang. It’s a theory.)
To that effect and because I was inspired by the play and F. Murray Abraham’s performance, I did write a sonnet to celebrate.
Viewing the Manhattan skyline
There it is. The Manhattan skyline. I’ve lived here for 30 years and have never rued the day I moved to the city. The arts brought me here to Queens, one train stop away from downtown Manhattan. And the arts and culture keep me here. There is no location like this in the world, despite New York’s crazy occurrences like bed bug rampages and squirrel attacks on car engines and rabid racoons, and alligators and rats in the sewers… big ones. It is a city of dreams. And I belong here, for I am a dreamer.
A teacher I adored in high school told me, I’ll never forget his words, they are in my yearbook, “Dream big. Give it your all, and don’t let you stand in the way of making it.” Of course, he was talking about himself, but I understood what he meant because we were similar in many ways. First, we were immigrants, well, he was. Actually, I was first generation born of immigrants. Secondly, we had that thick ribbon of stubborn rebelliousness and independence. But his was sturdier than mine. I turned out to be rather a bit of a weak-willed wuss, caught by my gender to behave appropriately and give way it was a man’s world. But he was his own person, and traditional institutions rather dislike those who are independent spirited, regardless of how talented and inspiring to students they can be. He never received tenure, though he was perhaps the best teacher most in my class had ever had.
Well, I moved on. And years later, after living upstate, I returned to my land of dreams and eventually moved to New York City. Perhaps one of these days, like the song Summertime says, I’ll” rise up singing.” Spread my wings and cross over the threshold into Manhattan to live and have my being. And if that happens, then I will feel that I truly belong. And when I’m settled in, boxes unpacked, Persian carpets laid out, furniture moved in and my cat taking a nap, I’m going to leap up and anchored like a rock give a shout out, “Girl, it certainly feels good to be home!”*
*Home is the place where you feel the most comfortable in your own skin.
CAROLE DI TOSTI 