Lucia di Lammermoor by Opera Birmingham

Written by Daniel on June 20th, 2011

It’s all patterns.  People behavior: you and me.  Animal behavior: dogs and cats.  Tornadoes: first them, then us, then them again.

And since the arts are inseparable from everything – you know, ’cause it’s everything – there are an awful lot of patterns in there, too.  Part of it is just baked into the cake, I suppose.  But a larger part is because we intentionally use creativity to reflect what’s going on around us.  To pass a feeling forwards to someone else.

John Lennon had a feeling about his Mother and wrote it into a song.  Forty years later, I still “get” it, don’t you?  Most of us have had these conflicting feelings.  Goodbye, goodbye: Mama don’t go, Daddy come home.  Roger Waters had some thoughts about his Mother.  Even Glenn Danzig and Carrie Underwood.  If it’s good, it’ll seek out the same part of you that it touched in them.

So there’s really no good reason to think that we’re more modern or much different than long-dead guys like Gaetano Donizetti, Salvadore Cammarano, or Sir Walter Scott – the guys responsible for the opera, Lucia di Lammermoor.  Our own Opera Birmingham recently did a version and it was thoroughly terrific.  The story is like Romeo and Juliet: forbidden love between two families in opposition.  Lucia is the fragile sister, tragically caught in the middle.  Bad things happen.  Like other narratives, the lesson is to be careful with your heart.  Still good advice, almost two centuries later.

“The unhappy girl has lost her reason.”

I like thinking that I have a lot in common with those dead guys.  And I like believing we may still have a lot in common with the people who’ll be around in 2186.  Who knows, maybe they’ll like my poems?

We’ve had even more in common.  Writers seem to have a soft spot for the opera.  In particular, writers may be prone to crushes on actresses and singers.  Charles Foster Kane had his fondness for Susan Alexander and I’m probably not the only one with a crush on Susanna Phillips.  I’m not embarrassed to admit it.  If you’re a professional artist or entertainer who doesn’t cause some degree of swooning and attraction, you’re probably not doing it right.

“Whoever is not deeply moved by her has no heart.”

It’s a natural fantasy, really.  Writers need long blocks of completely focused and uninterrupted time.  That’s good, because singers are almost always on the go.  Being a traveller, a singer needs a companion who’s got a way with words.  That’s most of what you get – emails and telephone – and doncha know that love letters are a writer’s best trick?  Writers appreciate expressiveness, but especially in a different medium, because it doesn’t compete with or jostle an ego that’s unbuoyed by applause or direct adoration.  Actresses can’t help but have a natural appreciation for composition.  There’s already a bond, because everything she’s sung, acted, or appreciated was probably written by some solitary guy banging away on a keyboard.  God frequently works through pale, homely men.  Writers can appreciate someone who is looked at or listened to in a way that he isn’t.  Finally, both the singer and the writer need someone with a deep understanding of artifice (AKA bullshit).  An acute awareness of the gauzy line between earnestness and performance.  A knowledge of that self-defining space between the parts of yourself devoured by an audience and who you actually are.  When to tell the truth and when to lie.

“If she is overcome by sadness, do not be surprised.”

[Enter Lucia: bloody]  Susanna Phillips is always the best part of the opera.  There’s no need to find a variety of frilly ways to say it.  She sings beautifully.  She acts – and interacts – beautifully.  Her characters are passionate and sexy.  She’s beautiful on and off stage.  She’s responsible for the two most spontaneous, lengthy, and heartfelt ovations I’ve ever been a part of.  What else is there to say?

One thing I’ve noticed in covering the arts is that space is a tricky thing.  It’s  true in writing and the visual arts, but it’s emphasized in music or theatre.  The issue is, when things hesitate, will your audience stay with it?  What if I start to color outside the lines – will you stick around?  Let’s say I’m up on stage and acting my heart out.  If there’s a tiny pause, you’ll probably wonder if I’ve messed up.  It can feel like a million awkward years.  Am I faltering?  Your mind may wander.  Or think about some guitar solos, where the musician gets way off track.  But great artists will hold you.  That might be the best test of how good they are.  She could stop in the middle and you’d be right there with her.  She’s one of those.

From The Shawshank Redemption: “I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.  Truth is, I don’t wanna know.  Some things are better left unsaid.  I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it.  I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream.  It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

From all of us at Shawshank, thank you to John D. Jones and everyone associated with Opera Birmingham.

Preview for Laughter On The 23rd Floor

Written by Daniel on June 1st, 2011

I’ve been on a bit of a spring hiatus, but I’ll get back to regular writing soon.

Meanwhile, I wrote an earlier post suggesting it would be a good idea for local arts groups to put actual arts on their websites.  It seems like everyone’s got a video camera – why not use it to create some quality preview or post-view video of your art, dance, or performance?

Many kudos to South City Theatre for crafting this preview trailer.  A great idea, well executed!  It looks like fun – which is the point, right?  I wish there was more media around – other than me (do I count as media?) – for distribution.  Here’s information about the show:

Could you use a few laughs? Join us at South City Theatre for Neil Simon’s LAUGHTER ON THE 23RD FLOOR!  Performances June 3-12, 2011.  Make your reservations by calling 621-2128 or visit the website: www.southcitytheatre.com.

This laugh-a-minute comedy takes place in a writer’s room for a 1950′s television variety show, and is loosely based on Neil Simon’s early days on the staff of Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows.  The characters are inspired by that writing team, which included the likes of Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen, Selma Diamond, and Sid Caesar.  The story focuses on Max Prince, the star of the show and his staff, including Simon’s alter-ego Lucas Brickman, who maintains a running commentary on the antics in the writers’ room and Max’s ongoing battles with television executives who fear his humor is too sophisticated for 1950s middle America.  With a nod to McCarthyism and its impact on the entertainment industry, and a healthy dose of snappy one-liners, Laughter on the 23rd Floor makes for a great escape.

Directed by Dianne Daniels and featuring Tony Sanders, Todd Ponder, Scott Nesmith, Kevin Van Hyning, Gregory Scott, Hannah Wilkerson-Francis, Clifton Keen, Jr, Holly Dikeman, and B.J. Underwood.

Refrigerator Poetry

Written by Daniel on April 19th, 2011

It’s National Poetry Month, if anyone cares.  The front of my fridge has gotten full from my magnetic poetry kits.  So I’m about to take ‘em down and start over.  Half of the fun is that it’s so ephemeral (that’s my poetic word of the day).  I thought I’d dump ‘em out here.  Some of these are all mine.  A couple are other people.  Some are a mix.  If I twitterpated a word from the kits, I tried to use italics to show how I contrived it.  Roughly chronological, there’s no guarantee of quality, but it’s all fun.

I can beat
Your snit
With my cool
I rock

In that dress
Her butt said yes

There is snow
We can sleep
Next spring

Whisper
Ice ice
Baybe
Go white boy

A man who would
Rob ducks
Ain’t no
Friend to me

She moaned
And drooled
Then
Wet the bed
Like a puppy

Shake your finger
All you like
But never tell me
What to do

One shell
Pink mist
Black spray
Hair skin and blood
Not life
Only meat
The politics of protest
This is history
The revolution starts

I heave my breasts
At the ocean
Up to the neck
It stares
At their size
Yay fresh milk

A diamond
Will mean
She must
Worship the
Pound me pole
For eternity
Right?

Gorgeous
Crush
Of
My
Dreams
To
Incubate
My
Seed

To leave a woman
Is power
Do you recall her smell
Like northful weather
Trudged into the south
Sagging those smooth petals
And voiding the sweet moon
Summer blue to winter blue
The symphony has gone away
Did you cry
A flood of tears
As though you hit her

Watch the scenic sea
Beneath its water
Swim werefish
Time for screaming

It is chocolate goddess season
Freezeing in a honey blizzard
Float in a winter garden storm
Bare feet rowing in a cold fluff pond

Our fall was like
An Irish drunk from above
Ugly boiling public lust
A Red Sox and Yankee marathon
Eating out and drinking
Lifes sordid urges
Raw repulsive language
Lathered together
Always watching
With a true friend
Acheing all the way through
Our sad show sunday
Near the end of autumn

Darkroom at the Birmingham Museum of Art

Written by Daniel on March 24th, 2011

And now a piece by guest writer Erin Bishop about the current Darkroom exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

***

Birmingham’s art scene has so much to offer, but the Birmingham Museum of Art is one of the city’s greatest gems.  Our treasure trove boasts several fine collections, exhibits, activities and even a restaurant for the seasoned artist and new-to-art alike.  If you’re one of those who says, “I don’t understand art.  I don’t want to look at some crusty old pictures,” you have much to learn, my friends.

I’m no artistic genius.  I don’t have a Ph.D. in art history.  I haven’t ever made any artistic creation of value . . . unless you count the cardboard reindeer from kindergarten that my mother unfailingly brings out for Christmas. But I know this. Whether you know a little or a lot about art, you should realize that paintings, photos, and displays are not meant to be understood; they are meant to make you feel something.

A few days ago, I found myself in search of a Birmingham activity.  Then I remembered a billboard I had passed on 280.  I guess I’m a sucker for advertising (aren’t we all?) because it did catch my attention.  I remembered the word Darkroom and a tribally-clad figure standing in the background. This either means that I have a fantastic memory or that I need to focus more on the road.  Anyways, I found that Darkroom was an art exhibit and decided to go.

Much to my surprise, Darkroom is a mind-blowing assortment of art that shook me to my core.  As an overview, the Darkroom exhibit is a depiction of life in South Africa during apartheid.  Apartheid was a time (1948-1994) when the South African government authorized segregation of the races (much like in the Southern U.S.), revoked the rights of ‘non-white’ citizens, and used brutal violence to enforce this scheme.

Artistic works based on apartheid may sound horrendous.  But these artists have created a masterpiece.  Along with the awful destruction, they captured the stunning, intricate lives of South Africans.  The exhibit is a mixture of vintage prints, recent photographs, photo-based installations, and video art from eighteen artists, including William Kentridge, Robin Rhode, Jurgen Schadeberg, Nontsikelelo Veleko, and Sue Williamson.  I wish I could describe every single piece of art to you.

I’m not going to lie . . . when I first went in, I became a bit emotional.  The pictures weren’t gruesome or depressing.  I was just touched by the reality of them.  I could talk for days about the startling and frightening connections between apartheid and our own civil rights movement.  Especially for someone living in Birmingham.  That’s exactly what the Darkroom exhibit does. It allows you to connect with history.

In the beginning of the show, there were more recognizable figures photographed in the early days of apartheid, like spokeswoman Miriam Makeba beautifully posed before a microphone and surrendered to her audience. There was also a shot of a strong young Nelson Mandela in his law office, foreshadowing more difficult days to come.  Then there was a section illustrating ways that average South Africans kept normalcy in their lives throughout social and political upheaval.

I loved the vintage photographs.  The people and places jumped off the pages and every piece told its own story.  For instance, there was an amazing photograph of an Indian family of four, apparently living in an apartment they weren’t supposed to have.  With their newborn by the bed, two parents and their young little boy all lay in bed together with newspapers in their hands.  The vividness of the people, the colors, and the subject matter was simply incredible.

I also saw images of jazzy-looking hipsters from the ‘60s with cigarettes in their mouths and grins on their faces.  There was one truly amazing picture called “sun worshippers” of a young, ripe couple sprawled out on a beach, retreating from all the hate and violence with a day in the sun.

Towards the end of the exhibit were more recent, post-apartheid images.  Many were wonderfully gritty scenes of freed, rebellious youth.  With glimpses of lyrical sidewalk graffiti and mockingly-glamorous fashion shots, you sense the somewhat distorted remains of a tumultuous time.

Ahhh . . . there’s so much I could say.  This remarkable exhibition will leave you moved and inspired.  Go see it soon, because Darkroom will only last until April 17.  Oh, and did I mention that the exhibit is free?

Titus Andronicus by Theatre Downtown

Written by Daniel on March 7th, 2011

Usually, I come up with an overall theme for a piece and weave anything I have to say around that idea.  For the Theatre Downtown version of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, I don’t think I can do it.  Instead, here’s a mishmash of thoughts and ideas from my visit.  Maybe there’s a common thread in there.

ONE – We don’t remember days, we remember moments.  I had a good friend just get back from her spring break trip to Colorado and California.  In telling me about it, it was very natural for her to express her travels in terms of instances.  I saw THIS, we did THIS, and THIS happened.  In the same way, we don’t remember full plays or performances, we remember moments.  For Titus Andronicus, which Wikipedia (currently) describes as, “By far Shakespeare’s bloodiest work,” I’ll remember the moment we first see Lavinia onstage with both hands cut off and her tongue cut out.  These unforgettable moments, however, couldn’t happen and simply don’t work without all the other stuff.

TWO – After we see Livinia bleeding from the mouth with her hands missing, I think Shakespeare repeatedly badgers us with words that invoke these body parts.  “Gentle Livinia, let me kiss thy lips.” Brilliant manipulation.  Or maybe it’s like the phenomenon of learning a new word and you start to see it everywhere.

THREE – Susan Cook’s performance as Livinia got better from the moment she was no longer able to talk.  This isn’t an insult.  Actors must recognize that tiny vocalizations like squeaks or breaths or whimpers, obviously not in the script, can be like emotional bowling balls.  Shakespeare provided the foundation, but these tiny moments of frustration and anguish were as genuinely moving as anything else I’ve seen on stage.  I felt robbed, though, that Livinia’s Daddy didn’t throw his arms around her when they reunited after her ordeal.  I wanted the image of her blood all over him.

FOUR – As the other side of the dramatic coin, Nick Crawford as Saturninus also wonderfully filled the space and put life in between the words.  The text in Shakespeare can be so dense (and the words themselves have acquired so much weight through the years) that this can be difficult to remember.  An actor’s tongue is so involved, up on the Bard’s pointe shoes, that an actor can forget all the other stuff.  Saturninus is an arrogant and smarmy jackass and we knew that from about ten seconds in.

FIVE – Tim Childers stole all three of his scenes, even in small roles.  If there’s any place to ham it up, it’s Shakespeare.  Or the theatre as a whole for that matter.  Characters and personalities should be big.  There are no close-ups on a stage.  Plus, big personalities give everybody else an opportunity to bounce.

SIX – With as much emphasis as can be placed on Shakespeare’s language, it’s important to remember that theatre isn’t generally about the words.  Blasphemy and heresy, right?  But my friend in Washington, DC, recently saw a performance of Henrik Ibsen’s “When We Dead Awaken” by an Indian theater company.  The whole thing was performed in Manipuri, an Indian dialect.  The director made a choice to translate very little for the mainstream audience and, accordingly, tons of them walked out.  The director explained later that he felt he provided the play’s essence, but didn’t want the English translation to become too distracting from any on-stage performance.  It was apparently beautiful once you could accept that you had to intuit some parts for yourself.

At its core, theatre is mostly dance and singing.  Movement borders on dance and voices seem like song.  Vowels inflect and a person is what he does.  Good acting tells the story without words.  When we meet people, I believe we listen more to how they talk and how they move, rather than to what they’re saying.  People talk and move differently.  I struggle to remember your name after that first handshake because my mind is so busy subconsciously processing everything else there is to learn.  When movement is good, a show gets much more entertaining.  The way that characters touch one another – or choose not to – is very important.  At its worst, bad body language can be confusing and difficult to watch.  I’d love to hear that a Theatre Downtown director had asked a dancer or choreographer to offer advice during rehearsals as to how the quality of movement might be improved.

SEVEN – Speaking of quality of movement, Sylvester Little Jr. was the standout of this performance as Aaron, one of the evillest and most despicable characters in all of theatre.  Easily the straw that stirs the drink.  It’s fun to be the bad guy – and it must be a delight to be this good at it.  “If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.” I agree with these guys saying that this quote may be “the vilest ‘screw you’ in literary history.”  It drips with venom.

EIGHT – The decision to make the Goths, well, Goths, worked.  As a visual pun, it was funny.  As a costuming choice, it was effective in keeping these groups separate.  Then, it was well-played as straight through to the end.

NINE – The play teaches that it’s a very bad idea just to marry whoever you happen to like on any given day.  Or that the consquences of marriage can be important if you’re the Emporer.  And that the thought of a white girl (or a white guy in drag, back in the day) with a Moor has titillated audiences for centuries. “Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life.”  “Is black so base a hue?”

TEN – The choice of music at Theatre Downtown is frequently brilliant and I always look forward to seeing the music direction in the next show.  I’d love to see even more integration of the music into the shows.  Or integration of theatre into the music.  A live pre-show, intermission, or during-the-show performer?

ELEVEN – Moments involving anger, sadness, grief, or madness are often best played straight.  Angry people often stew and get quieter, not louder.  People speaking of sadness or grief often flatten without bawling through it.  And the craziest people often say the most outrageous things as if they were absolutely ordinary.

As always, all gratefulness to Billy Ray Brewton and Theatre Downtown for producing a 400-year-old play that still pushes boundaries.