DRAMATIC THEATER VERSUS EPIC THEATER

Last summer, I found this in some notes. I'm not sure where I got it -- probably in a class on writing or on directing. Even though the context is drama, everything more or less applies to novels or short stories.

The term, epic novel, is thrown around without regard for the actual meaning of the term, but there are some "epic novels." For example, I think Candide fits the criteria even though it is also satirical. James Michener wrote novels that qualify as epics. On the other hand, I've heard The Lord of the Rings described as "epic" which it assuredly is not. I know that people use the word when they mean a long or generational novel, but length is not one of the criteria. The notes below don't mention length.

I probably won't convince too many people that length isn't the sole criteria for epic any more that I will convince very many that "comedy" doesn't mean humorous.



For those who are aspiring writers, most novels and plays being published are obviously Dramatic rather than Epic.

Lajos Egri warns about jumping conflicts, but I am not sure that he means the same as below in 16. This would be a fruitful subject for discussion. Any literary critics out there interested in starting the ball rolling?

There is a short story by Ursula LeGuin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," that qualifies as epic. If you have read it, tell me if you agree.

DRAMATIC THEATER VERSUS EPIC THEATER
Characteristics
Dramatic Theater .....................Epic Theater
1) Plot...............................Narrative
2) Implicates the spectator in the....Turns the spectator
....stage situation...................... into an observer,
.......................................... but
3) Wears down his capacity ...........Arouses his capacity
....for action...............................for action
4) Provides the audience with.........Forces audience
....sensations........................... to take* decisions
5) Experience.........................Picture of the world
6) The spectator is involved in.......He is made to face
....something............................something
7) Suggestion.........................Argument
8) Instinctive feelings are...........Brought to the point
....preserved............................ of recognition
9) The spectator is in the thick .....The spectator stands
....of, shares the experience............outside studies(the
.........................................experience ?)
10) The human being is taken for......The human being is the
....granted..............................object of the
.........................................inquiry
11) He is unalterable.................He is alterable and
......................................... able to alter
12) Eyes on the finish................Eyes on the course
13) One scene makes another...........Each scene for itself
14) Growth............................Montage
15) Linear development................In curves
16) Evolutionary determinism..........Jumps
17) Man as a fixed point..............Man as a process
18) Thought determines being..........Social being
......................................... determines thought
19) Feelings..........................Reason

*my notes say "take." "Make" seems better, but I don't remember for sure. (That is why I take notes.) :-)

This is offered as an aid to critique.

Comments: Metropolitan Classical Ballet’s Summer Gala 2008

Watching two seasons of So You Think You Can Dance does not qualify me to review ballet. Hence, these “comments.” My knowledge of ballet is limited to a couple years as a child at the YWCA and watching a friend’s daughter who had trained all through her teens. And the aforesaid TV show.

You can learn a lot that way, but it doesn’t an expert make.

On the other hand, I know what I like – and I liked the Metropolitan Classic Ballet Summer Gala 2008 very much. One thing I noticed, beyond how beautiful the dancers and the dancing, was how graceful their hand and arms moved. One of the judges on Dancing with the Stars has commented on hands and arms which brought it to my attention, but several years ago, I attended a play put on by profoundly deaf actors. Again, I noticed how gracefully the actors moved as they were signing. It is easy to think of dancing as something done only with the feet, but the whole body produces the effect.

Since I know next to nothing about the dancing, I’ll mostly confine my remarks to the staging.

The staging of the first ballet, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, was very effective. I have watched in admiration a couple of directors who moved their characters around the stage almost like a ballet. Some of the techniques used here could be borrowed to use theatrically. I particularly liked the huge “X” made by the Corps de Ballet to separate the lovers. The moving spirals were almost as good. It was amazing how much of the story can be told with nothing but movement. (Of course, the music helped.) Paul Mejia did the choreography.

The Divertissements again demonstrated how little need there is for elaborate props and scenery. Eighty-five to ninety per cent of any show is the people. The bare stage with a statue of Cupid (or Pan or whoever) upcenter was sufficient for the audience to grasp the basics of the stories. I like the way the choreographers used the whole stage and the lighting designer, Tony Tucci, set the mood with unobtrusive lighting. Of course, a little more scenery would enhance the individual shows. Like the decorations on a cake, an added value, an increase in pleasure, but just as delicious without. And anyway, who cares about the story?

I think I’ve made it clear that I really don’t know much about ballet, but I want to mention the performance of North Texas native, Shea Johnson, in Diana and Acteon. He leaped into the air, and I involuntarily murmured “wow.” A collective gasp rippled through the audience. It was spectacular. It may have been “showy;” I don’t know. (But the choreographer, Agrippina Vaganova put it in the dance.) I was impressed, and I wasn’t alone. And then he did it again. We were wowed again. I hope to see more of him.

I’m looking forward to many more interesting and memorable performances in the coming year. I am especially looking forward to Spartacus in the fall since I had a little taste of it.

Romeo and Juliet:
Music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Choreograper: Paul Mejia
Juliet: Olga Pavlova, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
Romeo: Yevgeni Anfinogenov, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
Tybalt: Andre Prikhodko, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet

Divertissements:
Grand Pas Classique
Music: Daniel Auber
Choreograper: Victor Gzovsky
Dancers:
Olga Volboueva, Guest Artist, Royal Ballet of Flanders
Howard Quintero, Guest Artist, Royal Ballet of Flanders

Spartacus:
Music: Aram Khachaturian
Choreograper: Yuri Grigirivich
Dancers:
Marianna Ryzhkina, Guest Artist, Bolshoi Ballet Theater
Alexei Tyukov, Guest Artist, Colorado Ballet

Spring Water:
Music: Sergei Rachmaninoff
Choreograper: Asaf Messerer
Dancers:
Marina Goshko, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
Yevgeni Anfinogenov, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet

Gopak:
Music: Soloviev-Sedoi
Choreograper: Rostislav Zakharov / Alexander Vetrov
Dancers:
Assaf Benchetrit, Company Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
Oleksandr Kryvonis, Company Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet

Diane and Acteon:
Music: Caesar Puni
Choreograper: Agrippina Vaganova
Dancers:
Maiko Abe, Company Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
Shea Johnson, Company Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet

White Fog:
Music: Johan Sebastian Bach
Choreograper: Eric Bortolin
Dancers:
Olga Volboueva, Guest Artist, Royal Ballet of Flanders
Howard Quintero, Guest Artist, Royal Ballet of Flanders

Swan Lake:
Music: Peter Tchaikovsky
Choreograper: Marius Petipa
Dancers:
Olga Pavlova, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
Alexei Tyukov, Guest Artist, Colorado Ballet

Don Quixote:
Music: Ludwig Minkus
Choreograper: Alexander Gorsky
Dancers:
Marianna Ryzhkina, Guest Artist, Bolshoi Ballet Theater
Andre Prikhodko, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
1st Variation: Marina Goshko, Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
2nd Variation: Liliya Aronov, Company Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet
Dancers: Melinda Morton, Company Dancer, Metropolitan Classical Ballet; Sunny Wright; Brittany Bollinger: Kayla Giard.

Lighting by Toni Tucci

Review: Much Ado About Shakespeare Workshop’s Twelfth Night

There can't be a whole lot wrong with a production filled with youth, enthusiasm and energy. Much Ado About Shakespeare Workshop's Twelfth Night demonstrated these qualities and more. Some of the mostly-inexperienced actors started off a little uncertain but quickly overcome their trepidation -- right about the first time the audience laughed. They relaxed into their parts, and before long, we were all carried away to Shakespeare's Illyria. Everyone had a good time.

Director Jeff Dolan's bio indicated a lot of experience as an actor, but this was his first experience as a director. A couple of notes for him: The shifting of furniture between scenes took too much time. He could have eliminated most of the "set changes" by just leaving a couple of benches on stage. We didn't need all the tables and garden furniture. The items chosen were well thought out, but mostly unnecessary. Second, I was taught that the director needs to move around the audience area to be sure that all the action is within the view of the entire audience. I haven't watched too many directors actually move around and examine the lines of sight, but in this case it would have been a good idea. Too much of the action was blocked by the trees planted on the sides of the stage of the amphitheater. (I suppose the school that lent its outdoor arena would have objected if they had been removed. :-)) Still, a director can't count on people sitting where he wants them to. He needs to be sure that all the action is visible no matter what the audience does.

To give credit where it is due, faced with the problem of giving all of participants in the workshop the maximum time on stage, the director solved it neatly by having the students pantomime a street scene. It gave the persons playing minor roles more time on stage, which helps the students get accustomed to being in front of an audience.

Besides, it was cute.

I'm not going to mention the idiot who went out and adjusted the backdrop WHILE THE CAST WAS ON STAGE AND PERFORMING. He is old enough and experienced enough to know better.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If the cast is having fun, the audience will, too.

In this case, another of my maxims about theater was demonstrated; theater is a participatory activity. The Twelfth Night audience's enjoyment and encouragement helped the actors overcome their initial stiffness. (Unfortunately, I've seen it work the other way, some audiences just don't respond, no matter what. Then, instead of loosening up, the actors become more wooden.) I've told children to remember that the audience for the most part wants them to succeed; they come to be entertained. This is almost always true in youth productions since most of audience consists of the friends and relatives of the performers. But it is generally true of Community Theaters, as well, the audience comes expecting to be entertained and will meet the performers halfway.

The glory of theater is that it is always a group effort: everyone is important; not just the director and the actors, the technical crew, the writer, the box office, the ushers -- and the audience participate in the making of a great show. By that standard, Much Ado About Shakespeare Workshop's Twelfth Night is a great show.

Review: Stolen Shakespeare Guild’s As You Like It

The audience for Stolen Shakespeare Guild's As You Like It outnumbered the cast by one. That was unfortunate because the cast gave a highly-entertaining presentation of Shakespeare. I won't call them amateurs; this is high-quality work. Among the cast bios, I counted 8 with bachelors degrees or above, several in theater, and three current students. One actor mentioned studying theater, but not graduating. The others may have just not mentioned their college training. All in all, a well-educated cast with the know-how to bring Shakespeare to life.

Jule Nelson-Duac was outstanding as Rosalind. She was superbly backed by Lauren Morgan as Celia. Both women delivered Shakespeare's lines with great naturalness, nothing artificial, nothing I'm-reciting-poetry about them.

Shelton Windham as Orlando and Benjamin Darling as Oliver did this as well, ably supporting the women as they deserved to be supported.

I liked Terry Yates in both his roles, but Duke Frederick could have been more menacing.

Steve Lindsay cavorted appropriately as Touchstone.

Jared Johnson as Le Beau was a hoot, but I thought he tried too hard to make his Sir Oliver Mar-Text distinguishable from his Le Beau.

I absolutely loved the mooncalf expression on Porter Grundy's face when he gazed at Phoebe.

Logan Ball was stolidly befuddled as William. His Charles was okay except that I thought his laugh was too artificial. (It was probably intended to be artificial.)

Sarah Bailey as Phoebe was over the top; too bad this isn't taken to schools. Adolescents would totally get her.

Esther Selgraph as Audrey giggled her way through the part -- a nice contrast to the more refined Rosalind and Celia.

J King as Peter gave the impression of being much older than I think he is. People his age in the Renaissance were much older.

Jason Morgan, Laird Thompson, and, David Kefton all gave fine performances -- ably supporting the comedy without distracting from it.

Lisa D'Alessandro enhanced the show by her lovely singing and guitar playing.

Techie stuff:

I noticed that Stefanie Glenn who impressed me in My Fair Lady at Plaza Theater Company last week did the lighting design. Most of the lighting was well done, but a couple of times the lights were rather abruptly switched off in the part of the stage that was not in use. I would have rather that they faded out, because I saw the change out of the corner of my eye. It called attention to itself. You know I hate that. Ms. Glenn is a member of this company; I look forward to seeing more of her work both on-stage and off.

I liked all of Lauren Morgan's costumes but Touchstone's. His was too short, or too long – one or the other. I think the costumer raided a couple of upholstery remnant shops: the best place to get brocades and patterned or solid, heavy fabrics like these. I noticed some hem problems in the first act that seemed to have been fixed by the time the costumes were worn again. The unsung costume department was on the job! (The program lists Rachel Morgan and Michael Lowery as the costume crew.)

The only thing I didn't like was the set. Rachel Kenneth's multilevel concept was fine, but the highest parts were too high. The steps up and down were very steep. I kept worrying that someone was going to fall. The smaller set at the end opposite the door put the actor's heads up by some sort of air conditioning vent that I found very distracting. The effect of the levels could have been achieved without quite so much height especially at that end.

The director, Jason Morgan, clearly understands Shakespearean theater. He effectively used the different areas of the set to move the play through the different scenes. Renaissance theater with its multitude of scenes can be difficult because the act structure of the modern theater is different. He handled it well.

I mentioned earlier that it is too bad this play is not taken to secondary schools. It has long been my belief that English teachers should not be allowed to "teach Shakespeare." These are plays! Meant to be seen and heard, not read! Many people come away from high school hating Shakespeare. The language is too difficult -- but if they saw the plays on stage acted by well-educated casts like this one, they would "get it." This play in particular, As You Like It, is well suited to present to middle school children. We should start on them when they are young so when they are adults a performance like this won't be attended by only a handful of people. A handful of the smartest people in North Texas, I might add.

Stolen Shakespeare Guild will be presenting As You Like It next weekend as well. If you can get to southwest Fort Worth, it will be well-worth your time. If you are one of those whose high school English teacher gave you a massive distaste for Shakespeare, go see this show; you will begin to understand what all the fuss is all about.

www.stolenshakespeareguild.com/

Pygmalion and My Fair Lady

News Flash: The ending that I so hate to My Fair Lady is not Shaw's ending.

Okay, I should have read the play, Pygmalion. In my defense, I can't read every great play, and Shaw is not in my field of concentration. I have always intended to read it. Finally, I did. (Actually I didn't, but I skimmed through to get the gist and to see if the ending matched My Fair Lady.) Not only does Eliza not go back to Higgins, but the play ends with her determination to marry Freddy. Shaw leaves the rest ambiguous. We don't know what she does, but fall at Higgins feet and fetch his slippers, she doesn't.

My estimation of Shaw went up several notches.

Apparently, he hated the "romantic" happy endings that directors insisted on tacking on to Pygmalion. My Fair Lady has one of those sappy, happy endings -- Eliza returning to Higgins to accept being his downtrodden what? Not wife, certainly. Dependent, perhaps. A fitting 1950's Stepford-Wife ending.

Shaw wrote a long essay about what happens next to the characters. He thought it was pretty obvious – and so do I. Based on the play as he wrote it, the happy ending of Eliza and Higgins getting together just doesn't work. Of course, he is not the only author to be forced to change his ending or to have his ending changed for him. People in general -- and publishers and producers in particular -- have a hard time accepting ambiguous endings, that life is ambiguous. They seem to want it tied up in a nice little package with nothing real leaking out.

Life leaks out.

So I was right to hate the ending. My storyteller's instincts were right; it didn't fit the rest of the play.

Not that anything is going to change.

As I've said before, when you're right, you get to be right.

Review: Plaza Theater Company’s My Fair Lady

I love Community Theater! I know people who look down on amateurs, but not me. Most of the time the standard of acting in Community Theaters is very high. To some extent we all go through life acting our parts so I suppose that high standard isn't too surprising.

Community Theater productions of musicals are almost always high energy shows. And, as I've told actors before, if the actors are having fun, the audience will, too.

The actors in Plaza Theater Company's production of My Fair Lady were definitely having fun!

JaceSon Barrus who played the role of Henry Higgins was excellent. I will remember his delivery of the line "I hadn't quite realized you were leaving" for a very long time. I can imagine the temptation to over act in the role or channel Rex Harrison, but I thought he did a great job of slightly underplaying Higgins, except when it was appropriate to let loose. He gave the role emotional range.

Eliza Doolittle sang beautifully. I'm not sure who I saw because the program lists two actresses in the role. I liked her interpretation, but I would have liked her a little bit better if she had stood up straight. Just as Richard Gere never quite convinced me that he was a naval officer in An Officer and a Gentleman, she never quite convinced me that she was a lady. Posture, my dear, posture. (But David James Elliott convinced me that he was a naval officer on JAG. Oh, he did.) Standing up straight with her head and shoulders properly aligned would not only make her more convincing as a lady, but give her voice more resonance.

I liked James T Long as Colonel Pickering very much. In one scene, Col Pickering is sprawled on a sofa exhausted when Eliza suddenly "gets it." His body tenses and he opens one eye. Superb!

Judy Keller as Mrs. Higgins and Jay Lewis as Alfred Doolittle gave spirited performances.

Stefanie Glenn, Mrs. Pierce's, mike wasn't working at her first entrance. I wondered if she was even miked, but I checked after the show. She was.) I thought she responded with the proper amount of exasperation with Higgins. I especially liked her hand gestures when Higgins was signing "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man." She was one of the three whose interpretation I liked better than the actors in the movie.

Michael Sizemore as Freddy is one of those singers that make me itch to get him to a good vocal coach. He has a very nice voice, but he is strangling it. A good coach would have him singing from his diaphragm. Other than that, he was another of the actors whose interpretation of the character I liked better than the movie. He projects great warmth.

On to the technical stuff so dear to my heart.

Costumes: The costumes were lovely. I especially liked the Pearly King (costermonger) costume. However, the cockneys' clothes were much too clean. The costumes were probably rented, in which case the cast was not free to dirty them up and make them properly ragged. Too bad. This is one of the realities of Community Theater. I understand the problem and the compromises that have to be made, but the critic's job is to point out what would make the show perfect. In this show, perfection would have dirtied the costumes.

Makeup: Given the costuming problem, the make up could have been tempered a bit. A good director strives for balance. If the costumes couldn't be dirty, the makeup should have had a lighter touch. After the show it occurred to me that the ensemble must have spend most of their time backstage changing their make up from dirty to clean to dirty again. :-)

Set: The set was well planned for an arena stage. The stagehands did a great job of the set changes under the blue lights.

Lighting: One of my mantras is that if one watches a show and has a comment about the lighting – it isn't very good lighting. This applies only to general audience comments, of course, and not technical people like me. I felt that for most of the show the lighting was suitably unobtrusive. There were a couple of jarring changes, but mostly it was okay. Then, toward the end, in the Henry Higgins solo on the street, it was almost like some kid got a hold of the light board and started playing with it. At that point it became a light production – very inappropriate.

Sound: It is too bad that the show used canned sound, but I guess a small orchestra was out of the question. This is another of the realities of Community Theater; live music is often unachievable. Other than that and the possible problem with one mike the sound quality was fine.

Directing: Theater in the Round is very difficult. My hat is off to the directors, JaceSon and Tina Barrus, for blocking their actors to give all three sides (four if they had sold enough tickets to fill that fourth side) of the audience a clear line of sight of the actors and the action. But speaking of that, there was a little too much motion in the opening garden market. I found it distracting at times. I also didn't like the way they kept standing Eliza on a chair. But I know how difficult directing on an arena stage can be. The directors carried it off with finesse. I was impressed. Bravo!

I've already stated my opinion of the movie/play My Fair Lady. I am not going to reiterate it here. (You can check the archives of my blog if you are interested.) Throughout the second act I was hoping for a better ending than the movie – and I was disappointed. I know, however, that the Company really had no control over the ending. Contracts and things, you know.

Overall, in spite of a couple of things like obtrusive lighting, too-clean costumes, and the lack of live music, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the performance of My Fair Lady. Why was that? Because the cast was having so much fun! Since they were having a great time, so was I. The cast's infectious good spirits communicated itself to the audience. That is the strength of Community Theater. Everybody, cast, crew and especially audience, has a good time.

I'll be back to this see this company again.

www.plaza-theatre.com

Review: La Fille du Regiment

I wrote this several weeks ago and didn't post it then.

Opera plots are scant, to say the least. Any novice screenwriter, any aspiring romance writer, any tenderfoot western writer could devise a better plot than the average opera. In general, boy meets girl, boy and girl separate/are separated, boy and girl are reunited, and then, depending on whether it is a comedy or a tragedy, they either die or live happily ever after. Original?

Hardly.

Ah, but the music.

Yesterday, I felt such joy! After watching a performance of La Fille du Regiment filmed at the Met and presented at my local wide screen movie theater, I felt that I was almost walking on air. An abnormal response I assure you, considering the three most joyous moments in my life, the births of my three children, I spent flat on my back!

A friend of mine has structured his life around the idea that people should never leave a theater without feeling something. Unfortunately, to him, the "feeling something" is most nearly akin to the Greek ideal of Catharsis. I don't entirely disagree with him, but joy is something, too; something too seldom felt. I admire this friend who has accomplished much with his life, but I want joy in my life, as well as catharsis.

In La Fille du Regiment, coloratura soprano, Natalie Dessay's, mobile face and sparkling singing meshed with the effortlessly dazzling Juan Diego Florez. He was even awarded the honor of an encore at the Met for his aria "A mis amis." (Unfortunately, we were not given that opportunity.) I have seldom felt so much from one singer singing. There are not words. The performance went beyond my enormous vocabulary to only what can be felt and not said.

When the euphoria wore off last night, I started to wonder why I have denied myself this joy for so many years. I love music, vocal music of any kind I have been almost phobic about going to events alone. In the past I have bought two tickets for events thinking I could find someone to go with me. I'm not really sure why I've always thought that I couldn't go alone. But I'm over that now. (I hope) You can expect me at all kinds of performances by myself.

Review: My Fair Lady

First posted: August 11, 2007

I've never really liked the movie, My Fair Lady.

A lot of people thought the Julie Andrews should have had the part and considered her Academy Award for Mary Poppins that year a kind of rebuke to the producers. They cast the star, Audrey Hepburn, for her drawing power rather than the woman who was famous for the role on Broadway.

Looking back -- the controversy benefited the box office of both movies.

When I remember that I didn't really like My Fair Lady, I think about the controversy and think – get over it. I should give the Audrey Hepburn movie a chance. I should watch it again with an open mind, not comparing her to Julie Andrews, but evaluating the movie on its own merits.

I watched it again. I still don't like My Fair Lady.

Or more correctly, I hate the last minute or so of My Fair Lady.

If one is going to hate a minute or so of a movie, the worst possible minute to hate is the last minute. Think about it. If one doesn't like a minute or so in the middle, something that one likes will probably happen soon, before one gives up and leaves or turns off the DVD. Of course if one is annoyed or finds distasteful the first few minutes, one can always turn it off or leave, but most people will give it a few more minutes to see if things start looking up. Especially in a theater, where people have paid to be there, they seldom walk out too early.

But hating the last minute leaves a really bad taste. There is no getting over it.

Audrey Hepburn has given Rex Harrison a large piece of her mind and walked out, saying she won't be back. He sings his realization that he loves her in the beautiful "I've Grown Accustomed to her Face" and goes home. What does he do? Nothing. She just comes back. He asks for his slippers. Curtain.

I never could figure out why, with all the maids in his house, the slippers were downstairs in the first place.

It appears to me that he hasn't learned anything, that he will just go on as he has before. She stood up for herself – and then just capitulates. She didn't change anything either.

One of the problems is that apparently the Shaw estate required them to stick very closely to Pygmalion. If this is Shaw's ending, it gives me a very poor idea of his opinion of women.

Compare this to the ending of Can-Can. Shirley MacLaine is the proprietor of a café notorious for showcasing the Can Can. Frank Sinatra plays her lawyer who is always on call to defend MacLaine and her dancers from the law. They are having an affair. She wants marriage; he doesn't. She decides to move on and look for a more stable relationship. He realizes he loves her, singing to Juliet Prowse, "You have a lovely face, but it's the wrong face." He goes to elaborate lengths to fake an arrest. She is thrown into a paddy wagon screaming "Call my lawyer!" He is waiting there saying, "See, when you are in trouble, who do you call for? Me. Let's get married."

Sinatra has learned his lesson and is doing something to win his lover back. Much better than "Where are my slippers?"

Of course, in the fifties, marriage was the only possible outcome.

MacLaine is a strong and independent character. Hepburn never develops a backbone. Her outburst is that of a petulant child. Who comes back contrite. Give me a break.

Both movies have lovely music, great costumes, wonderful supporting actors, but when Can-Can is over, I'm content, when My Fair Lady is over, I'm annoyed.

Review: Places in the Heart

First posted: August 21, 2007

My father said once that he got a PH.D. so that he would never have to chop cotton again. He was grinning when he said it, but after watching Places in the Heart, I believe him.

My father was born in Cherokee County and was raised in rural northeastern Oklahoma – not a major cotton growing area, but enough cotton was grown there to motivate him.

Based on everything I have heard and the graphic portrayal in Places in the Heart, picking cotton has to be one of the most miserable of human activities. An incentive to do almost anything to find a better way to make a living.

The synopsis on the box that came with DVD carried on at length about the love triangle between Sally Field's sister, her husband and the local school teacher. I didn't remember that at all. Everyone is different, so I suppose that some film-goers would find the struggles with infidelity as important as the other part. I remembered the struggle Field had to save her home as well as the tornado and the cotton picking scenes. Those scenes are what led me watch the movie again.

When I was a child, the depression was not something read about in the history books, but something that still affected my family. I heard about it in off-hand comments and explanations of pictures, like those of my father and his sister on the porch of the smoke house on my great-grandfather's farm. (They converted the smoke house to a cabin for my father's family. My great-grandfather had a pension from the State of Oklahoma for his services in the War for Southern Independence. That was enough to feed the families in the worst of the depression.)

Since then, of course, I've read about it and seen pictures and documentaries about the 1930s.

As far as I can tell, the portrayal of the people, the time and the place are accurate. The movie is based on writer-director Robert Benton's childhood during the depression in central Texas. He received an Academy Award for the script – and he deserved it.

Sally Field made her famous "You really like me" speech when she was presented with an Oscar for her role as Edna. That incident overshadows the merits of the film.

Some of the message boards at Imdb have commented on the use of the film in English classes (as part of the presentation with To Kill a Mockingbird) and in history classes for its graphic portrayal of life in the Great Depression.

Some viewers who comment on the boards at Imdb have agreed with me about the irrelevance of the adultery story. Others have commented that all Fields' efforts only staved off bankruptcy for about 6 months, until the next semiannual payment came due. Maybe so. I wondered about the generous payment to Moze. On the other hand, the school-teacher left, so maybe she got that job. Mr. Will was paying room and board, although I doubt if that would be enough. That isn't really the point, though.

The point was the heroic struggles of the people during the depression just to survive and hold on to what they valued. Story tellers pick a part of real life events to make their point, it isn't real life, it's a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Real life people's stories don't end until they die – and then the story goes on in the lives they touched.

Others were confused by the ending. It seems to be fantasy. The Great Depression occurred fifty years before the movie was filmed. The scene at the end showed the good people reunited in heaven signified by the communion in church. Again, one Imdb commentator mentioned that the Ku Klux Klan members weren't represented. The only one I could be certain of was that gin-operator wasn't there. About the rest. I couldn't say.

The themes of forgiveness and the triumph of good (The sheriff sitting with his killer, for instance.) are made clear in this scene.

The supporting cast is superb. Danny Glover, Lindsey Crouse, Amy Madigan, and Ed Harris give marvelous, believable performances. John Malkovich is convincing as the blind man, Mr. Will. One detail that stood out to me was that as playing a man blinded after having sight, he moved his eyes in the direction of the person speaking, but didn't focus. One blind from birth would not move his eyes, but it is almost involuntary for a person who has had sight to look at the speaker. A telling detail.

The expression on Malkovitch's face when he discovers that he has blundered into the kitchen where Fields is taking a bath is priceless. Malkovitch was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting Actor. He lost out to another great performance by Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields. Sometimes it seems there is really nothing to give an award for and other times there is a plethora of outstanding performances.

One of the sad things in the movie is the banker being self-righteous about the cotton farmers he is about to foreclose on. Then when Sally Field gets her harvest in, she starts thinking that she can expand her fields and get rich growing cotton. In an odd sort of way, the KKK that ran off Danny Glover did her a favor by nipping that hare-brained scheme in the bud.

The reason I find all this sad is that the bankers who loaned farmers money in good times – letting them get over-extended – and self-righteously foreclosed in bad times are the principle culprits in the depression.

There is a lesson here about the current crisis in the housing market.

I can't seem to find a pithy comment to end this review. It would be corny to say that Places in the Heart has a place in my heart, wouldn't it? Truth is, though, that this is a movie that speaks to me, that I have remembered long after I've forgotten many others. I like movies that take me some place I've never been and never will see. Especially if they tie into my life in some way -- as this does.

Places in the Heart is about the struggles of everyone who tries to hold on to the important things in life – home, family, love – whether they win or lose.

And of course, why some one might have a powerful incentive to find some easier way to make a living than chopping cotton.

Review: STARDUST

First posted: August 24, 2007

The movie, Stardust, based on a Neil Gaiman book by the same name, is a bit of froth that refuses to take itself too seriously. Unlike The Lord of the Rings, say, or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it is by turns witty and silly. The story is about a battle between good vs. evil, of course, but the cast manages to subtly poke at the genre.

I always enjoy watching movies when the actors are having fun. Michelle Pfeiffer thoroughly enjoys herself as the dark witch. Robert De Niro has so much fun with Captain Shakespeare that the audience can't help laughing along with him. I think his performance is worth some Best-Supporting-Actor nominations.

As usual, the supporting cast shines, competent in their roles. Cameos that are worth the price of admission are Olivia Grant as the girl Pfeiffer turns Bernard into, her fascination with her breasts, her enthusiasm for helping Danes bathe are subtle, but entertaining; Peter O'Toole, deliciously the dying king; Rupert Everett as Secundus; Melanie Hill as Ditchwater Sally; Dexter Fletcher as De Niro's mate; and most of all, outstanding Mark Williams as Billy, the goat turned into a human, still a goat in a human body.

As I've said before, the character actors have to be good to keep getting work; stars can ride on their name.

Charley Cox may be the next heart throb, or maybe not. These things are hard to predict. He has the looks, the charm and the freshness, but who knows?

Claire Danes is the more experienced actor. She has the luminosity for the role. She exemplifies that old saying that the most important trait for an actor is sincerity and if you can fake that, you can play anything. I don't necessarily think she is faking it, but her performance has the polish that makes it hard to tell. She is a little on the narrow side for me. I don't think she is anorexic, because much of the thinness is in the shape of her skull.

I liked her speech on what love is and what it is not. I was glad my grandson heard that speech and I hope a little of it soaked in.

A lot of what is good in this movie has to have come from the director, Matthew Vaughn. I've always heard that if the audience praises the special effects or the lighting, it isn't good, because they shouldn't show, showing detracts from the story. Good directing doesn't show, but we know it when we see it. Little touches like Primus bleeding blue rather than red, the whole Billy performance, the light-hearted tone of the movie let us know.

I liked that some of the actions of the bad guys actually helped the good guys.

I could have done without the use of entails for divination. I knew that the witches were evil, enough already.

Stardust isn't Shakespeare, not great drama; it isn't "serious," fortunately. It entertains. Go see it for that.

Review: Mogambo

No Award for Gable

I confess; I love movies from the late forties, the fifties, and the early sixties; I love movie musicals and full length cartoons. So it shouldn't be a surprise that I am escaping the summer heat by watching old movies.

Day before yesterday, I watched 1953's Mogambo starring Clark Gable, and I was struck by the resemblance to one of my favorite John Wayne movies, 1962's Hatari! Consider this:
1. The title is one word that makes no sense in English. Is it Swahili?
2. Both were filmed on location in Africa.
3. Both the safaris are engaged in capturing animals for zoos, not trophy hunting. Some kind of mid-century political correctness, I suppose.
4. A baby elephant plays an important role. I don't know a whole lot about what excites men, but watching that baby elephant in Mogambo feel up Ava Gardner was an experience – even for me. In Hatari!, the baby elephants are comic props, but still -- there you are – an important baby elephant.
5. An outstanding supporting cast: Gable had Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly, plus Donald Sinden and Philip Stainton, plus a bunch of pineapple-eating gorillas; Wayne had Elsa Martinelli, and the incomparable Red Buttons, plus Hardy Kruger, Gerard Blain, Bruce Cabot, Michele Girardon, and Valentin de Vargas – and some billy goats.
6. The animals of Africa costarred in both movies.
7. Both leading actors were in their fifties, but attracting women less than half their age. (Martinelli, 27, Kelly, 24. Gardner was 31, only 20 years younger than Gable)

One of the delightful flukes of this period in Hollywood was the costuming department. In both movies, the actors look like they just stepped out of a bandbox. Their clothes on safari are crisp, freshly pressed and dazzlingly clean. Either they never saw the inside of a suitcase or one of the bearers – boys, as they keep referring to them in Mogambo (Phew!) – spent all his time washing and ironing. I wish I knew his technique. To be fair, when Ava Gartner returns after the boat taking her away so that Grace Kelly has a clear field runs aground, her immaculate white dress is mud stained to the hips. Otherwise, the costumes were pristine.

It is fashionable to depreciate John Wayne's acting. People who know little about it echo the words of critics who for whatever reason put him down. They say he only played one role – himself. Well, no, that wasn't it at all, what he did was to be natural on camera. That is trickier and more difficult than you might imagine. There are a few critics out there who are starting to reappraise his work – and they are discovering that he was one of Hollywood's best. Watch Red River, The Shepard of the Hills, The Searchers, and something light like McClintock or Hatari! and see if he is playing the same role. Pilgrim.

I found it interesting that Clark Gable is quoted as saying, "I'm no actor and I never have been. What people see on the screen is me." So here is another similarity. They both in one way or another claim or are claimed to be not actors.

Comparing the two movies side by side, Wayne acts rings around Gable. My criteria is simple: I believed Wayne, I didn't believe Gable.

That being said, Clark Gable was great in some roles. The Misfits is marvelous, one of my favorites, and in Gable's estimation, his best performance. I can't even imagine anyone else as Rhett Butler. Gable could act – when he had a decent script. His analysis of the difficulty of playing Gone With the Wind should be in a textbook for writers as well as thespians. He could do it when he had the proper help – he just didn't have it in this movie.

Mogambo is a much triter story than Hatari! The plot is simple. Ava Gardner gets herself stranded at Gable's place in the wilds of Africa. He has an affair with her while waiting for the weekly boat to take her back to wherever. The boat arrives to take her off and bring in Grace Kelly and her scientist husband, Donald Sinton. Gable is immediately smitten with Kelly. The boat runs aground, and Gardner has to come back. Since they have to wait weeks for parts to repair the boat, they take Gardner on safari with them. Gable and Kelly begin to spoon. Since this movie was made in the fifties, we are spared the gory details. It is never clear whether Kelly and Gable consummate their relationship, but there isn't any doubt about Gardner and Gable.

The "road of trials" that make up the second act of the movie is fairly predictable. I frequently don't know whether the middle of a movie was predictable when it was made or whether I've seen the same obstacles so many times since. In this case, in my opinion, the second act was predictable. For instance, I knew as soon as Gable said that they would leave Gardner with the district ranger that they wouldn't be able to. I was right, of course. Predictable.

In the third act, Gable decides to tell Sinden (while he is doing his "scientific work" –photographing the gorillas) that Gable and Kelly are in love and that she will be staying with him. However, he is so impressed with Sinton's work and his discourse about their marriage (I think, anyway) that he changes his mind. He gets drunk and starts to grope Gardner. Kelly catches them, and he deliberately intensifies her disgust -- with Gardner's active cooperation.

Then for some reason that was never clear to me he realizes that he is really in love with Gardner. She, of course, has been in love with him all along. That is the problem. I didn't buy Gable's abrupt changes of heart. With Hollywood, you never know what got left on the cutting room floor. Maybe there were scenes that Gable did enough to sell me. Maybe there was enough foreshadowing to make his decisions reasonable. Maybe.

On the boards at imdb.com, someone asked if the actors in the canoe were really talking about female circumcision. I don't know what else they could have meant. Chastity belts? I never heard of them used in Africa. Sometimes Hollywood writers, producers and/or directors act like sniggling little boys. On the other hand, Kelly's embarrassed delivery of the line, "Oh, I know what you are talking about." earned her that Golden Globe.

Mogambo is supposed to be a remake of Red Dust also starring Clark Gable. I haven't seen Red Dust, but I am skeptical. Let's see: The location is different, the character's names are different, and the occupations of the characters are different. Do they go out on safari? I doubt it, given the above, so the "road of trials" must be different. Maybe they go surveying out in the jungle, given that surveyor is the husband's occupation rather than "scientist." Furthermore, Jean Harlow takes a bath in a rain barrel and cleans out a parrot's cage as opposed to the shower in an open-air, stake-fenced booth that Gardner takes and feeding an eager baby elephant. (male) What took the place of the "battle with the gorillas? I can't imagine. Maybe they transport the gorillas to Indochina. I wouldn't put that past Hollywood.

So, how is it a remake? Uh. Well, the plot is the same – a two way love triangle. How unusual! How original! How many plots are there, anyway? 3, 7, 11, 36? It did, however, give the studio a good slogan: "Only Gable can remake a Gable movie."

Ava Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for the role of Honeybear. She took a very stereotypical character, the bad girl with the heart of gold, and made something three-dimensional out of it. Something I could identify with. Something I could believe. She steals the film.

Besides, whatever else you may say about her, the woman could wear clothes. She had a small waist and narrow hips, but not the anorexia of today's top models. The fashion then was for broad shoulders, so I would assume her shoulders were padded, but they weren't in the peasant blouse she wore, so maybe she just had wide shoulders. She was considered a sexpot back then, but by today's standards she wasn't particularly big-busted. None of that taped together, pushed up, artificial cleavage either. She looked great in the styles of the time, small waist, full skirts, wide shoulders, neck interest, full, but form fitting slacks.

When I am praising the costumes, you know the plot wasn't doing much.

Kelly was also nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for best Supporting Actress. She, too, had a cardboard character: the unsatisfied, married-too-young, submerged-in-her-husband's-career housewife who falls for the first hunk who makes a play for her. (Betty Friedan could have used her as an example of the "problem with no name.") Like Gardner, she wrung every nuance out of an essentially two-dimensional part without going over the top.

Her costumes suited her role, too. Very drab and upper-class. The best evidence of class in the movie. Her English accent didn't do it; that's for sure.

I have nice things to say about Donald Sinden and Philip Stainton. Both did everything they could do with the material. Both apparently gave the director everything he asked for in a performance. Good solid work that never stole the limelight from the stars and did what they could to ensure the success of the movie. Character actors generally have a more difficult time than Stars. If they don't do a good job, they don't get roles. Stars can goof off and still be cast as long as people go to see "the Stars.' Character actors can't –which usually means the characters act at least as well as the stars, if not better. Mogambo is a good example; the supporting actors outacted the star, Gable, even though they had less to work with.

Comparing the two movies, Hatari! is a much better script. True, the actors had more time to develop their characters (157 min.) than the actors in Mogambo. (115 min.) On the other hand there were more characters to develop in Hatari! Sinden and Stainton in Mogambo were sketched rather broadly. As Stainton, Eric Pohlmann hardly gets out of the background enough for us to realize that there is another character. Given the run time of the movie there isn't the time to develop the subplots that make Hatari! so much fun. No subplots in Mogambo.

The point is that competent actors can make something out of a good script. Really good actors like Kelly, Gardner, and Sinden make something out of a marginal script. Gable couldn't.

If I had to make a choice between Mogambo and Hatari!, I would choose Hatari! It is better, it is funnier, and it is more believable. All things considered, Mogambo isn't a bad movie; it just could have been better. But don't take my word for it, see them both. Only, I'd suggest borrowing Mogambo, but buying Hatari!

Review: Gigi

Movies like Gigi remind me of cotton candy. It looks so good, but when I take a bite, it all dissolves into a sweet taste –and nothing else. And yet Gigi won nine Academy Awards -- for best picture, best director, and best screenplay adaptation as well as art direction, costume, best cinematography, best film editing, best score and best song--making it one of the all time top winners.

Go figure.

Only four movies, Ben Hur, Titantic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,"and West Side Story,"won more than 9 awards and only two others won 9 – The Last Emperor and The English Patient. Of these only three made it onto AFI's top 100 list, West Side Story, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Ben Hur which squeaked in at number 100. One can argue about the placement of movies on these lists and cite other movies that should have made it, but no one can seriously argue that Gigi belongs there. Gigi didn't even make the AFI list of the twenty-five best musicals.

But maybe there weren't any other choices that year.

Actually, no, there were quite a few. The nominations for best actor and actress tell the tale: both Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier for The Defiant Ones, Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, David Niven and Deborah Kerr for Separate Tables, Spencer Tracy for The Old Man and the Sea, Rosalind Russell for Auntie Mame, Susan Hayward for I Want to Live, Shirley MacClaine for Some Came Running. The list sounds like a roll call of some of the best actors of the fifties. Vertigo which is listed as number 9 on the most recent AFI list of top 100 movies was nominated for Art Direction and Sound. And didn't win.

Another of my personal favorites, Bell, Book and Candle, came out that year, as did South Pacific. I know BB&C is fluff, but most of the others are not. And personally, I liked both the love stories better than I liked the one in Gigi. I like my romantic leads old enough to know what they are doing.

Even Auntie Mame is a lot of things, but fluff isn't one of them.

I think South Pacific is a far better musical. There are a number of memorable songs that are actually singable and a meatier story. The characters have actual conflicts both external and internal. I know that it is hard for people who weren't alive in the fifties to imagine the depth of prejudice of that time. Nellie Forbush, a naïve nurse from Arkansas, has all the unexamined prejudices of her background. Against the backdrop of the War in the Pacific, she is forced to come to grips with what she has been taught. Meanwhile the interracial love story between the white lieutenant and the native girl was a shocker ---in that day. There are problems in the way the movie was filmed, but none in the music or the story.

Damn Yankees from that year isn't a great musical, but I still like it.

The score of Gigi is lovely. The set and costumes are also lovely, but lovely trappings do not a best picture make. See the above comment on cotton candy.

It is noticeable that none of the actors were even nominated for an award. Maurice Chevalier was given a consolation prize, an honorary award for his contributions to the world of entertainment for the last fifty years. His rendition of "Thank heaven for Little Girls" is a classic of the movie musical. But even the academy couldn't nominate the cast for acting. One song does not a great musical make and neither does a great score.

The plot of Gigi is simple: Louis Jourdan is a very rich man who is bored with life, including his mistress, Eva Gabor, of whom we don't see enough. H e only has fun when he is visiting Hermione Gingold and her adolescent granddaughter, Leslie Caron. Can you see where this is going?

Gingold, by the way, is Jourdan's uncle, Maurice Chevalier's, ex-mistress. She is referred to as an "old family friend." Not too many families have old friends like that.

After we have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Jourdan has fun with his little family friend, he goes off on a trip. This gets him out of the way so that Gingold's scheming sister, Alicia, played by Isobel Jeans, (best performance in the movie, in my humble opinion) can complete Caron's education in courtesanship. Of course, when Jourdan sees the result, he is very angry but decides that if being a courtesan is Caron's fate, he might as well be first in line. She rejects him, of course, but changes her mind – of course. They get all dressed up – did I mention that the costumes are wonderful? – and go out to dinner. Then, Jourdan sees Caron's innocent beauty among all the soiled doves and drags her out of there. He decides to marry her, and they all live happily ever after.

Gee, where does Hollywood get its plots?

A question: if Jourdan is Chevalier's nephew and Chevalier has an affair with Gingold – the song "I Remember it Well" makes that explicitly clear – are Jourdan and Caron cousins?

By the way, I liked the duet, "I Remember It Well" much better than "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" which always verged on pedophilia to me.

Leslie Caron trained as a dancer. Even though she doesn't do enough dancing in this film her training is evident in the way she portrays a very awkward teenaged Gigi. It takes real ability to be the opposite of what you really are, very graceful in this case. It takes a really good poet to write really bad poetry. Lots of people can write bad poetry and many do, but memorably bad poetry takes near genius. Just like William S. Gilbert in Patience. The same goes for the lounge singer, played by Jimmy Nail, in Evita. I think he was a better singer that the character, so he sang it as the character.

Mind you, I thought the restaurant scenes were very effectively staged. But as I said, it all doesn't add up to a best picture.

So why did it win an Oscar? Second guessing the Academy is the critic's favorite indoor sport, but I have a couple of ideas. There were so many good films that year that they cancelled each other out. They split the vote so badly that a mediocre film slipped in. Maybe they just wanted to honor Vincent Minnelli (who should be castigated for just phoned it in on Kismet.*) One book on the Academy Awards instructs those who want to bet on the outcome to look for the film with the biggest cast and crew who will all vote for their film. (I can think of several winners this might apply to.) My guess is some combination of the above. As far as I can recall, the other movies didn't have large crews, but Gig did. It took a lot of people to make all those costumes and all those sets. Add that to people who didn't want to make a choice so decided to honor Minelli and there you have it.

*In terms of great music, Kismet could be right up there with West Side Story, An American in Paris, and Showboat, but the film is too poorly done to make anyone's greatest list.

The Light in the Forest and A Company of Strangers

It was almost like I couldn't read any more of Conrad Richter's work until I had thoroughly examined The Lady. As soon as I had written my thoughts on the subject, I took out copies of A Company of Strangers and The Light in the Forest and finally read them.

As an adult, if I like one book by an author, I seek out other books by that author. I remember as a child seeking out all of the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, for instance. I must have done that with other authors that I read when I was younger. For some reason, I didn't seek out the other books by Richter. I think that because they were not "classics," they were not on the school library shelves, and as a teenager I had little access to a public library. I think that The Lady was available to me because it was a Book-of-the-Month or something like that. I had always intended to read his other books, but my intention got snowed under by all the other things I had to read and do. My reading for pleasure came willy-nilly, based more on availability and recommendations/hand-me-downs from friends than choice. Gradually over the years, I lost sight of this intention until something recently jarred my memory.

To be honest, I have been let down by rereading books that I liked many years earlier. I turned away from books that I had formerly liked, fearing disappointment.

Richter had said that he wrote The Light in the Forest trying to present a balanced view of colonial America's native problem. In the Introduction to The Light in the Forest, he writes:

"The author wants to acknowledge further his gratitude to those readers who have sensed what he was trying to do – not write historical novels but to give an authentic sensation of life in early America. In the records of the Eastern border, the author was struck by the numbers of returned white captives who tried desperately to run away from their flesh-and-blood families and return to their Indian foster homes and the Indian mode of life. As a small boy he himself had tried to run off to Indian country without the benefit of ever having lived among the savages."

By his words, Richter indicates that he believes that the attraction of the native way of life was freedom. It is a tribute to him that he manages to present a case study in marginalization in spite of his beliefs. Possibly not understanding the story he was telling, he told it so authentically that the true story is there.

After finding one generalization about Mexicans after another in The Lady, I was a trifle apprehensive about these two books. What I read was a balanced portrayal of the problem of the clash of two cultures. Richter portrays both sides in shades of gray. The Native Americans are illiterate savages, capable of atrocities; the European settlers are semiliterate savages, equally capable of atrocities. Individuals on both sides are kind, loving and giving. Individuals on both sides commit terrible crimes.

The innocent victims of this struggle, True Son and Stone Girl, kidnapped under cruel circumstances, returned to a "home" after a decade in a different culture, represent all the innocent victims of this conflict. They understood the culture that they have been raised in; they could not understand the culture to which they have been forcibly returned. They and all like them are marginalized, neither fish nor fowl, neither native nor settler.

In his Introduction, Richter goes on to say:
"Not that the novel represents the novelist's particular beliefs or opinions. He can understand and sympathize with either side. His business is to be fair to both."

While Richter truly does try to maintain an even portrayal, the truth is he can't. The natives come off better than the Europeans almost in spite of themselves. The Native Americans are not "noble savages" a la Rousseau. The Natives are illiterate and harbor doubts about the usefulness of reading. They harbor a multitude of doubts about the European's religion. They understand their environment and use it in ways that the Europeans can't. Most of all -- there is no dichotomy between what they believe and what they practice.

This is the truth that Richter can't conceal and doesn't try to. This is the "yes, but…" in the story of the conquest of America. Richter emphasizes the freedom in the native way of life, but doesn't duck the fact that what the natives did was congruent with their professed beliefs about the world and their place in it. The same cannot be said for the white settlers. They went to church and professed to worship Jesus Christ who said "Love one another," then proceeded to rob and kill.

Some native orators have some pithy comments about Christianity.

Personally, I think Christianity is the world's greatest untried religion. While the people of Europe have been claiming to worship Jesus for nearly two thousand years, they and we, their descendants, still haven't given it a real trial. One needs to look no further than the recent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. No "turn to him the other cheek" (Matt. 5: 39) there. No "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matt. 5: 44) Unless one considers it an adequate expression of Christianity to pray for the innocent of our supposed enemies on one hand while striking them down with the other. Jesus commanded us to "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also." (Luke 6: 27-29) Also in the Gospel According to Luke, Jesus asks "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" (Luke 6: 46) Two thousand years and we still have no answer.

Where in these teachings are the settlers justified in murdering natives, in stealing their land, in destroying their homes, their food, their way of life. Some of the Europeans even managed a great feat of incongruency by professing to be saving the Natives by killing them.

What happened to the Native Americans is no different than what has happened hundreds of other tribes and peoples in Europe and Asia when for whatever reason a stronger group decided to muscle in on their territory. I don't doubt that a few native tribes moved in and pushed out a few other tribes. The linguistic evidence alone supports this contention. There are stories among the tribe called the Sioux that they once lived in the abundant lands around the great lakes rather in the harsher environment of the great plains.

But I repeat – the Europeans claimed a religion that taught a different way of life, a religion that ordered them to behave in a differently.

Conrad Richter was the son, grandson, nephew and great-nephew of clergymen. His father was a Lutheran minister. He could not have not known what was right in front of him. The evidence was there. He may have misled himself about the story he is telling was about the freedom of the Native way of life, but more likely, he sugarcoated an unpopular position. Otherwise, he might not have been able to publish these two books. Nevertheless, he doesn't mislead us.

Some contemporary authorities consider The Light in the Forest as Conrad Richter's greatest novel. They might be right.

***
Incidentally, for what it is worth, my father's family, both his parents, had Native American as well as European ancestry. Two of his uncles married women who had more Native American ancestry than either of his parents. I grew up in Oklahoma which now claims the title "Native America." So it is and so it was.

My brother and my cousins have married women and men of Asian descent. We are the true Americans -- made up of the descendents of many races and peoples.
Some writers have glorified the Native American way of life. It is true that before the Europeans came they lived better than the average European. Their way of life was cruel, but no crueler than life in Europe. But they weren't saints, they weren't "Noble Savages." They were people.

What happened in the Americas was no different in kind from what happened in Europe during World War II. The difference was one of degree.

Review: A Bridge to Terabithia

First posted: February 26, 2007

Last night we went to see A Bridge to Terabithia, a coming-of-age story about the uses of fantasy. A reviewer in Entertainment Weekly referred to it as "…a movie that never decides if it is a fantasy or a coming-of-age story..." The reviewer must not have used fantasy to escape the drudgery of childhood. More than escape, these children used fantasy to practice overcoming their problems. One tells the other, what is one eighth-grade bully compared to the Dark Lord?

Reviewers complained that the fantasy was not fully realized. I suppose they are comparing it to The Chronicles of Narnia which is also about children creating a joint fantasy or the Harry Potter series which are an adult fantasy about childhood or The Lord of the Rings which can best be described as self-indulgent. Narnia is a fully realized fantasy world. But in The Chronicles of Narnia little is made of the aftermath. What effect did it have on the children after they left Narnia to return to the bleak world of wartime England? We don't know how the children put what ever they may have learned in Narnia to use in their lives, how it aided their coming of age. Did they carry the ideas of sacrifice and redemption into the problems that they faced? We don't know.

If you could take a survey of the books most read under the bed covers at night, Harry Potter might win. Children stood in long lines and cajoled their parents into waiting at the bookstore until midnight when the Harry Potter books could be sold. Why? Because if you strip off the magical elements, the quidditch, the flying broomsticks, the messenger owls, Harry Potter is about children facing the same monsters that real children face. J. K. Rawlings is speaking to them across the great abyss from adulthood about solving the problems of growing up. This is a good thing. Adults should try to guide children through the minefield.

But C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling have created adult, completely developed fantasy worlds for children to play in and learn what they can.

In A Bridge to Terabithia, the children use their fantasy conquest of the dark lord to build their self esteem enough to tackle their real life adversaries. They turn the tables on a conventional school yard bully, only to find that she is not just a cardboard villain but a full-fleshed human, with problems of her own. As Leslie says, with more than childish understanding, that explains a lot about her. Ultimately, she is enlisted on their side in the real – not fantasy – playground wars.

As a former teacher, I can tell you that the fantasy worlds that children create for themselves are not as rich in detail as Narnia or Hogwarts. That does not mean that they are not as "real." It takes time for a fantasy to be fleshed out, years more than children have. The beauty of the Terabithia is that we can as adults look back at the fantasy worlds we created. So I'm not Tolkein or Rowling or Lewis. My childhood fantasy world had as much validity as theirs.

For some reason, conventional wisdom is that childhood is the "best years of our lives." Perhaps for a golden few they were. But for some of us they were the worst. I wouldn't go back to that age for anything in the world. But I am glad I had fantasy to escape it. I am glad that my daughter and grandson had and have A Bridge to Terabithia. I hope they learned from it.

And I’d Like to Thank the Academy

First posted: February 26, 2007

Yeah, Jennifer Hudson won for Best … er… Supporting Actress in a Leading Role. Take that, American Idol!

The Anglophiles strike again. An English actress won Best Actress for playing an English Queen mourning the death of an English Princess. Tell me again -- who won the War of 1776?

Advice to Eddie Murphy: To win an Oscar, move to Hollywood, schmoose with the in-crowd and play another role as magnificently as you played James "Thunder" Early. On second thought, skip the last step, just concentrate on the first two. Any reasonable role will do.

DREAMGIRLS II

First posted: February 4, 2007

Last week I was discussing Dreamgirls with an acquaintance. I said that as much credit as I give to Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy, I thought that Beyonce Knowles' performance was underrated. She is a very talented singer. I've never paid much attention to her – for no particular reason, she just never came my way. But after I saw Dreamgirls – and was blown away by Jennifer Hudson – after thinking it over, I realized that Beyonce had done everything a director can ask of a performer: she played the role. She submerged herself. She held her superb voice in check, because the role demanded that she do so. Until she let it loose on "Listen."

It takes talent to give the performance that all 8 of the primary actors gave in Dreamgirls, but it takes craftsmanship to give the performance Beyonce gave. Please don't think I am taking anything away from Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx or any of the other actors. Their roles did not call for them to do what she did. I would hope and expect them to do it, too. But they didn't have to – and she did.

Jamie Foxx's character, Curtis Taylor, Jr., told Beyonce's character "Deena, you know why I chose you to sing lead? Because your voice... has no personality. No depth. Except for what I put in there." Then she proved that she did have depth, a style she had perhaps grown into, when she sang "Listen." She, the actress, had that ability all the way through the movie, but she sang as the no-personality singer the role required. She submerged her natural ability in order to play the part. Outstanding acting.

My acquaintance said that Curtis said that just to hurt Deena. Well, yes, he said it to hurt her, but not just to hurt her; he said it because in the context of the story, it was true. As a writer, I know that this was an important point because earlier in the movie, Deena's mother said that she never thought Deena had much of a voice. Why would she say that? At the time, it seemed an expression of the opposition to demoting Jennifer Hudson's character, Effie White, from the lead position, -- albeit from a peculiar source --but it also foreshadowed Curtis' statement.

My training as a writer and my limited experience as a director gives me a different perspective from an ordinary fan. I notice comments that are slightly out of place. I pick up on foreshadowing. I think it is important for aspiring writers to look for the application of writing techniques in order to apply them to their own work. In this movie, the writers carefully crafted a story to support their premises. Going into the movie, I thought, based on what I had heard, that the lead singer was replaced by the prettier, slimmer singer. And I'm sure that was part of it, but the story is much more complex, much richer, much more layered.

Dreamgirls is about choices. It is about the choices people make and about how the choices make them. Curtis Taylor, Jr., chose to shape a group to give black performers a shot at the "big time," the kind of money and fame that equally, or dare we say it, less talented white performers could command. When that wasn't enough, he chose to spread a little payola around. It worked. His group made it. Along the way, he sacrificed a talented performer who was not pretty enough, too heavy, and too black. Perhaps at one time he even loved her, or perhaps he merely used her, an available body.

Then it became easy for him to use payola to squash the song writer who defied him and the singer who had resisted him. His choice shaped him. He did the expedient, perhaps the only, thing he could have achieved an admirable goal. But when a situation arose again where he could use payola to achieve a not so admirable goal, it was easy for him to do it again. Because he was successful in breaking the rules for an admirable goal, he got the idea that any goal he pursued was admirable because he pursued it and thus it was okay to break the rules. The choice shaped him.

It is no accident that the group's breakout hit is "Steppin' to the Bad Side."

I liked Jennifer Hudson on American Idol. I think she deserves every accolade that has come her way for her role in Dreamgirls. I hope she adds the Oscar to her collection of Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards. I don't really enjoy most comedians, but I understand the reasons that cause talented singer/actors like Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy to emphasize the acting part of their talents. There aren't many good roles for singers. Jennifer Hudson has the acting ability on which to base her career, but there won't be many more roles like Dreamgirls for any of them.

So let's not forget that even the greatest performance doesn't take place in a vacuum, that Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy couldn't have given their great performances without the backup performances of Beyonce Knowles, Jamie Foxx, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose, Keith Richardson and Sharon Leal.

Particularly Beyonce Knowles. Without her convincing performance, if she had not done an excellent job of playing a singer who could sing on key and not much more, Jennifer Hudson couldn't have shone as the "singer with the voice" as she did. We would have been scratching our heads going "What's the big deal?" Credit Beyonce with her share of the films success. She deserves our regard.

DREAMGIRLS I

First posted: February 3, 2007

I find the way movie promoters decide what role to list as "leading actor" very interesting. In Dreamgirls, Beyonce Knowles is listed as leading actress and Jennifer Hudson as "supporting." Yet by any criteria of storytelling, the story belongs to Jennifer Hudson's character, Effie White. Beyonce's Deena Jones does not propel the plot. She is acted upon for most of the story. She does not push herself into Effie's place, Jamie Foxx's character, Curtis, does that. She does not kick Effie out, Curtis does that. She does not steal Effie's song, Curtis does that. In fact, Curtis does most of the moving and shaking in the story; he is the antagonist. He is thrower up of obstacles to Effie's path to success. Ultimately, Effie triumphs over all the obstacles. Hers is the classic hero's journey.

But Effie isn't the star of Dreamgirls.

Beyonce is the star of the singing group, the Dreams. In real life, she has fame and looks. The studio chooses also to list her as the lead actress. She isn't. But who other than a few million American Idol views had ever heard of Jennifer Hudson. And the American Idol viewers didn't like her even enough to keep her on the show. So Beyonce is the "star" of Dreamgirls.

Of course, Jennifer Hudson wouldn't be getting the nominations, let alone the awards, as the leading actress. She would still deserve them, but she wouldn't get them. There are too many better known, well-liked, more experienced actresses in the race this year and every year. But let's face it. Jennifer Hudson is the lead.

Literary Criticism: A Manifesto

I have found that I write a lot of literary criticism. Some of what I will post here goes back to my days in Graduate School at Chapman University in Orange, California, but most of it will be reviews of plays that appear locally, books and movies. I don't want to get myself into a bind, so if I know you personally, I won't review you. There is no way for me to win in that situation, so I am stating my position from the beginning. I may love you to death, but don't ask.

I have a B.S. in Elementary Education from Phillips University, an M.Ed. and an A.B.D. from The University of North Texas. I have also attended the University of Houston, Chapman University, Houston Community College, and all three branches of Coast Community College District in Costa Mesa, California, where I've studied such diverse areas as mathematics, creative writing, voice, and theater arts. I have lost track of how many credit hours I have.

I love theater and I love literature and I love movies, but they can all be improved. That is the critic's job: to explain how to make each of these perfect. But it also part of the job to applaud the good things that are being done. People need to know what they are doing right and well.

I hope that everyone who reads this will enjoy it.

And to everyone who puts them selves out there -- whether on film or in print or on stage-- a big heart-felt BRAVO! Every time you read my blogs remember that I said that in the beginning.