Tag Archives: Theater

Sunday in the Park With George

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Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - Photo by UGArdener, Flickr Creative Commons

Date night! Dinner and a show with my Honey, dinner at CJ Muggs and a show at The Rep, Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George”. The point of departure for this Sondheim musical is Georges Seurat’s most famous painting, “A Sunday Afternoon the Island of La Grande Jatte”, pictured above.

A 19th century, French painter, Seurat, pioneered the painting technique called Pointillism. He created his paintings by dabbing just the tip of his paintbrush onto the canvas. You might call this a quiet, but absorbing painting technique. Up close Seurat’s painting looks abstract, atomized color into thousands of dots. Step back though and the painting resolves itself into a picture of the artist’s vision. The engineer in me likens this technique to an early analog version of digitization. Unfortunately, Seurat never sold a painting in his lifetime and died at the age of 31.

Seurat, a modernist artist, is the perfect inspiration for this contemplative modernist musical. George, like his play, which thinks as much about itself as the rest of the world is too self-absorbed to even see his female lead, the aptly named Dot. His art is more important and if she cannot realize this, well then. The first act ends with a tour-de-theater on-stage recreation of Seurat’s famous painting.

Flash forward a hundred years and through intermission to the second act. George is now Seurat’s great-grandson. His grandmother, Seurat’s and Dot’s daughter is still on hand. George is still wrestling with the complexities of art and love, but this time around his art is just all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

This play about an artist that failed in love, in life, struck close to home. Our son, Dan is an artist and we worry about him. Art is a tough profession, as Seurat’s life testifies.

Pointillism is art composed of a thousand dots, nay a million, anyway quiet and absorbing work. So is making a thousand squirrels. Is making a thousand squirrels as lucky as making a thousand origami cranes? Only time will tell. No one, save Seurat, realized the greatness of his work, at the time. Dot realized the greatness of Seurat, the man, but her love was unrequited. His love of art, love of self, overshadowed her love, but, at least in the play, they both endured. I wonder it there will be any black squirrels?

Tom Sawyer

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Recently someone in Missouri sent me a picture of the house I was born in. Heretofore I have always stated it was a palace, but I shall be more guarded now. – Mark Twain

Anne and I went to go see The Reps Christmas production, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”. We went on the last night of the production. Tomorrow, now today, the theater goes dark until next year. It seems oxymoronic to try to write a review of a show that has already closed, but here goes anyway. “It was awesome”, said the ten-year-old exiting before us, “But scary too!” She ought to know, because Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” is all about tweens like her. In the story, Tom, Huck and Becky were all in the prime of their childhood, on the cusp of adolescence and then only adulthood ahead of them. Is it all that strange that a well written story about children from the past would appeal to them in the prescient?

Most Americans are familiar with Twain’s “Sawyer” and also his “Huckleberry Finn”. In Missouri, Samuel Clemens’s birth state, this is almost required reading. You can’t say much about culture in Missouri, except that it is home to the most beloved and also the greatest American novel. Twain’s first published story was, “Advice to Little Girls”. Anne quipped, “lookout for Maurice Chevalier”. I countered that Chevalier lived over a hundred years after Twain. She countered that he was just that present.

…the cave was but a labyrinth of crooked aisles that ran into each other and out again an led nowhere. It was said that one might wander days and nights together through its intricate tangle of rifts and chasms and never find the end of the cave. – Tom Sawyer

“Sawyer” made for great theater. While not a musical per say, there was plenty of choreography in the play and the background music helped to set the mood for each scene. We had a good time and enjoyed the play. There is a chance that one might still be able to see this play. Like last year’s hit, starring Kathleen Turner, “High”, this play started in Hartford, and played in Cincinnati, before coming to Saint Louis. “Heat” then opened on Broadway, so maybe “Sawyer” is headed there too?

We had dinner before the play at Cyano’s, home of extra whipped cream. (Sorry, Alice) I felt bad about leaving the boys home to fend for themselves, but they managed. They had dinner together with friends, Annie and Jessica. Like Dan, Annie is in art school, in LA. Jessica is a high school friend of Dave’s and now substitutes with Anne.  

Ten Thousand River Commissions…cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over and laugh at. – Life on the Mississippi

Autumn Blaze

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For the last month, every morning, I have taken a single photo, from our front, upstairs window. Anne covered for me, when I went to Dayton. I wanted to capture the changing colors of our new red maple tree, an Autumn Blaze, through the magic of time lapsed photography. The maple’s leaves gradually turn from green to crimson red. A storm came through and blew off all the leaves in one night. While the movie does capture the changing seasons, what quickly draws the eye is the daily change in the parked vehicles. Anne’s is the red car, the one with the bicycle rack on top. Our neighbor’s white car across the street appears to move up and down the driveway from frame to frame. At the end of the movie the juxtaposition of the automated soundtrack music and the disappearance of the white SUV make for a nice, if accidental, special effect.

Friday night, Anne and Joanie went to go see “Billy Elliot”. Anne thought that the show was pretty good. They got tickets as part of their dance concert series. The musical follows the plot of the movie. Music by Sir Elton John was great, but sometimes loud. Being a musical and not a dance concert, it lasted much longer than most of the series’ shows do. I was asleep when Anne returned home at midnight.

While Night Girl was still snoozing, I got up and out early on Saturday morning. I drove up to the Riverlands, with hopes of catching the last of the pelicans as they migrate south. Alas, I was too late. I did find Bill Coatney, who was kind enough to give me the lay of the land. He has a nice website, check it out. I did manage to get a few blog-worthy pictures. Returning home, I mowed and bagged the lawn. You might notice the disappeared leaves in addition to the white SUV in the last frame of the movie. In the afternoon, Anne and I went to go see the new Civil War exhibit at the History Museum. Pictures from both the Riverlands and the Civil War exhibit to follow later.

A Tale of Two Cities (with Students!)

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This is a guest post by Anne, my muse, she writes the following: So my musee thinks that I should write a blog entry for him. The muse is not amused, but here goes.

Last Saturday, Le Marquis was fighting off a virus, and didn’t feel like going to the High School play, “A Raisin in the Sun”. He missed a good show! I had read the play back in the day, when I was a high school student, but seeing it live was much better. The students did a great job, and I didn’t detect any muffed lines or technical difficulties. It’s always fun for me to see the student thespians, as sometimes the characters they play are so different from their own personalities. In addition, some of the actors are very shy and reserved in real life, so it is even more rewarding to see them on stage. I know I didn’t have that kind of courage to even try out when I was that age. Bravo!

[I heard on NPR this week about a sequel to "Raisin", called "Clybourn Park". In this two act play, the first act is set immediately after the conclusion of "Raisin". The black family has moved the white neighborhood of Clybourn Park. This act deals with the problems that they encountered while integrating. The second act is set fifty years later. Clybourn Park is now a rundown neighborhood. A white couple has just purchased the house. They encounter pushback from the all black neighborhood that is fighting gentrification.]

Wednesday, Joanie and I joined the Science Book Club on the yellow school bus. We rode to Springfield, Illinois to see Rebecca Skloot, author of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”. Henrietta Lacks was a poor, black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. A sample of her cancer cells was taken without her knowledge. This sample became the first human line of immortal cells, and paved the way for many breakthroughs, including the polio vaccine. The book is a very good book, and the students were excited to meet the author. Ms. Skloot interspersed her talk with passages from the book. She also updated us on the status of the Lacks family and the foundation set up to help them. After the talk, she answered questions from the audience. Then there was a book signing in the lobby of the auditorium. She graciously agreed to pose for a picture with our group after she had signed all the books. We will have a dinner discussion next Wednesday at the high school. I’m interested to see the students’ reactions. I dozed a bit on the way home, and it was far too noisy to hold a real discussion.

Red

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What is Art? Is it “Red”, arterial red, sunrise red, scarlet or rust? Is it the red phone that is connected to the Kremlin? Is it commie red? Is it over the mantle Sherwin William’s red? Is it dried blood-red? The Rep’s season opener, “Red”, asks these questions, about art, or more particularly about Mark Rothko’s art.

This two actor play explores the mid-twentieth century, New York art scene by focusing upon Rothko’s commission for the Four Season’s restaurant. Rothko, the trendiest artist of his day, was given the most lucrative commission of his day; all to cover the walls of what would become New York’s toniest restaurant. Before this play, I was ignorant of Rothko and his telltale black and red, abstract impressionism. As a study guide, I read the Post-Dispatch’s preview of this play, which concentrated upon the mechanics of art direction, with a detailed explanation of how the fake Rothko’s were created.

This research put me roughly on a par with the other actor in this play, Rothko’s new assistant. At one point in the play the assistant asks, “Do you really care what I think? “ Rothko answers, “Not at all.” Assistant and audience act as spectators to the main act that is Rothko. Rothko alternately rails against, and then revels in, the art scene that has made him famous. At the end of the play, Rothko repudiates his commission. He cannot bear the thought of his beloved artworks forever suffering, the haughtiness of the Four Season’s and its patrons, “I still can’t believe that I tried to impress the wine guy.”

The play alludes to, but never shows Rothko’s suicide, Van Gogh, Jackson Pollack’s convertible crash are both discussed. Rothko’s assistant even finds him “dead” drunk on the floor, but instead of slit wrists, coated in dried blood; it is only red paint. While Rothko relished toppling his cubist predecessors, he also reviled his pop-art successors, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rosenquist. “Red” left me with the impression of a talented, but deeply troubled individual. He was one that systematically pushed away all friendship and love and in the end died by his own hand, a high price to pay on the altar of art.

The Mikado

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Friday night, Anne and I went to go see The Mikado, the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Like previous year’s productions, this one was also produced by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Society and was performed at the Touhill Theater on UMSL’s campus. The Mikado was written in 1895, a time when England was the center of the world and Japan was a far away and mysterious land. Setting the show in Japan allowed Gilbert and Sullivan breathing room for their satire and barbs that this show launches against British society.

I must admit that going to see The Mikado on the same day as the massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami was an awkward coincidence. The Mikado is a comic opera that primarily pokes fun at death and even at its inception was considered rather a dark comedy, especially for a Gilbert and Sullivan work. This combined with its Japanese setting suggested that some sort of announcement might be made before the performance, but none ever came.

During the day on Friday, I watched some of the video of the tsunami as it wreaked the Japanese coastline. I also monitored the progress of this wave as it raced across the Pacific Ocean, a substantial portion of our family lives on the West Coast. Fortunately, nothing more than a few boats were knocked about, at least in the vicinity of our family. I wake today to the news that one of the Japanese nuclear power plants could be melting down. This disaster’s script is beginning to sound like a bad Godzilla movie.

I spent the first year of my life in Japan. My Dad, a naval officer, was stationed there. It was too early in my life to remember anything first hand from that time, but stories from my folks have been passed down to me. This link is to one such story. One habit that was brought back with us from Japan was the habit of removing our shoes, when we entered the house. This habit is universal in Japan, but here in the states, it is a bit unusual, or at least my friends always thought so. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people in this their hour of trial.

Over the Tavern

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Anne and I braved the winter storm that had descended upon Saint Louis this weekend, to see the Sunday matinée of the Rep’s latest production, Over the Tavern.  This play was alternately funny, poignant and eventually redemptive.  Set in Buffalo at the end of the Eisenhower administration the play is mainly an irreverent remembrance of the author’s Polish-Catholic upbringing.

The Pazinski family comprises most of the cast.  Chet, the angry father is a hard man whose life turned out very differently from what he had hoped for.  Ellen, the long suffering mother tries to keep their children in line while hoping they have a better childhood than she had.  Chet and Ellen have four children.  At 16, Annie is the oldest child and is just starting to work through her new emotions as a young woman.  The play is only somewhat autobiographical; the author actually had two sisters, so he claims to have combined their worst qualities into one.  Eddie, 15, is a teenager with a desire to make his own way in the world, but might cause some trouble along the way.  Everyone’s favorite ray of sunshine, Georgie, 13, may be cognitively disabled, but in the vernacular of that time, he is a retard.  Still he brings great joy and unity to his family.  Finally, there is Rudy, 12, the comedian of the family and the author personified.  There is one more family member, but he never appears in the play, that is Pops, Chet’s father.  In some ways Pops is a shade that overshadows everyone.  The only non-family member to appear in the play is Sister Clarissa.  She and Rudy battle each other for his immortal soul across the battlefields of catechism, confirmation training and Catholic dogma.

The first act of this play ladles heavily the angst of a family on the verge of dysfunction.  Atop this angry base, layers of Catholic humor are liberally leavened.  The word trite comes to mind.  Come the intermission this mix had not gone down so well for me and I was left with a sour stomach.  In the second act, one-by-one the characters come to Jesus until finally the prodigal father is also redeemed.  I guess that the author felt that he first had to tear us all down, before he could begin to build us up again.  By the final curtain though, I left satisfied with the play.  Theatrically, we must sin first, before we are saved.

I come, in part, from Polish-Catholics.  Maybe that is why I didn’t find all of the play’s jokes so funny.  But what eventually won me over was the author’s more serious treatment of Polish-Catholics.  Like some of the problems that the Pazinski family wrestled with in the play, I wrestle with today.  To some extent I think that all parents do.  We want the best for our children.  We want to raise them right.  Sometimes our wants prevent us from seeing what they really need.