From The Wooster Group: The B-Side: "Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons"

 Three years ago, at St. Ann's Warehouse, Jim and I caught the Wooster Group's extraordinary show The-B Side, directed by Kate Valk--a rendition of the 1965 album Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons: blues, work songs, spirituals, and other music and talk from the state's segregated agricultural prisons, recorded by folklorist Bruce Jackson. While the LP was played, performers Eric Berryman, Jasper McGruder, and Philip Moore sang along, and Berryman added commentary from Jackson's book Wake Up Dead Man: Hard Labor and Southern Blues.  Through Monday, September 14, the Wooster Group is making The B-Side available on their website:

http://thewoostergroup.org/blog/

It was like nothing else I've seen.  Catch it if you can!

 

 

Nassim

"It's like a pop-up book," said my friend Peter, about the play we'd just seen--NASSIM--which is named for its Iranian author, Nassim Soleimanpour, and has to do with, among other things, the challenges he's faced in getting his work into the world, and the need to overcome the barriers of language and culture that divide us. It was an astute observation:  NASSIM wasn't like anything else I've seen--but it was a bit like a picture book, and I ended up seeing it twice.

The first time, late last year, I thought, my sisters (both educators) would love this.  Then in January, my sisters were coming to town for a long weekend, and discount tickets were available, so I seized the opportunity, knowing that the show would be different since the guest actor would be different from the one I'd seen.  But there would be Farsi lessons, there would be tomatoes, and there would be audience participation.

My sisters loved the show, and, once again, I did, too.

It's running through April 20 at City Center, and for some performances you can find out who the guest actor will be.

https://www.nycitycenter.org/pdps/2018-2019/nassim/

The Moors

I sometimes oversell shows I love to friends, whose expectations are then a bit disappointed, so I should say upfront that The Moors may not be everyone's cup of tea.  But if you have any interest in the literature of past centuries and in writing by women of any century, you should catch this wild and brilliant satire of all things Bronte, by Jen Silverman, produced by the Playwrights Realm. You have through March 25.

http://www.playwrightsrealm.org/

The wit and wisdom of George Eliot

Despite my best intentions, I've never got around to rereading Middlemarch, and I haven't read anything else by George Eliot in a very long time.  But at last, years after a former roommate raved about it, I'm deep into Daniel Deronda, her brilliant last novel.  Besides a gripping story and vivid characters, she supplies, on virtually every page, deep insights into the human condition, as relevant as ever to our times.

Here's how she begins Chapter 21:

"It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance?  Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.  Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavour to its one roast with the burnt souls of many generations.  Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various with a new six days' work; comes Ignorance drunk on the seventh, with a firkin of oil and a match and an easy 'Let there not be'--and the many-coloured creation is shriveled up in blackness.  Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried Babylon."


We must not let those about to run the show in our government this term "wax unbound."

Why aren't the Berrymans famous?

Well, Peter and Lou Berryman are famous among folkies who've heard "A Chat With Your Mom"--better known as "The F Word Song."

But that's not enough of us to fill halls that hold thousands.

Lucky for us--and maybe for them.   We get to hear them in intimate venues--coffee houses,  church halls, etc.  They get to see their fans up close, meet them,  chat with them, stay with them.

Last weekend in Princeton,  perhaps a hundred of us got to hear them do an assortment of their terrific songs, old and new, including "Cheese and Beer and Snow," "Artiste Interrupted," "Your State's Name here," "Djver?" "You Gotta Do More," "When Did We Have Sauerkraut?" "Dupsha Dove," "Acme Forgetting Service," and one of my all-time favorites, "Why Am I Painting the Living Room?"

Once briefly married to each other, the Berrymans have been writing and performing together for decades.  Lou, who plays accordion, writes the music; Peter, on guitar, the lyrics.

Brilliantly original, deep, and clever views of our lives and times; usually funny, often satirical/political, sometimes touching, full of insight--their songs are like no one else's.  

On May 11, says their newsletter,  they'll be back home at:

Madison, WI  Olin Park Pavilion, Free Concert sponsored by Friends of Olin-Turville Park tables & chairs provided; bring a picnic!  6 - 8 PM  Rain or shine (or snow?)

Eighteen of their albums are available for download on their website, and they usually offer a free song or two as well:

http://www.louandpeter.com/
 
Their Big Songbook is currently sold out, but they're updating it.  I can't wait!  And I can't wait for a chance to see their music-in-progress, More Later.

Waiting for the storm

Back in the days when the only warnings of serious weather came shortly before the event from sky, air, or movements of animals, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote what may have been his masterwork, Snowbound: A Winter Idyll.

After a dedication-- 

To the Memory of the Household It Describes
This Poem is Dedicated by the Author

 --and quotations from Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and Emerson's poem "Snow Storm", the poem itself begins:

The sun that brief December day

Rose cheerless over hills of gray,

And, darkly circled, gave at noon

A sadder light than waning moon.

Slow tracing down the thickening sky

Its mute and ominous prophecy,

A portent seeming less than threat,

It sank from sight before it set.

Snowbound was published in 1866, soon after the Civil War and, with its vivid descriptions of a powerful storm and the contrasting warmth and intimacy of storytelling around the fireplace, proved hugely popular.

It was one of my favorite poems as a child, and these days its themes of memory, loss, and changing times mean much more to me than when I first read and loved it.  But it's been years since I read its many verses all the way through.

Tomorrow--as a storm blankets the East Coast with the kind of snow that may one day be only a distant memory--will be a good time to immerse myself in Snowbound once more. 

Also at MOMA: the great Jacob Lawrence

Another don't-miss at the Museum of Modern Art, running through Monday, September 7:  One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Works.  This is a rare opportunity see the Lawrence's entire series of 60 paintings portraying the Great Migration of blacks from the rural South to the cities of the North, half of which are now owned by MOMA and half by the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

In 1941, when Lawrence completed the series, he was all of 23--with much great work yet ahead of him.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1549

Yoko at MOMA - last chance!

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971, at the Museum of Modern Art is the sort of show I tend to miss--running a long time, not a labor of love first on my list, feels like a cultural duty.

Fortunately, an afternoon visit from my niece JoJo earlier this month got me there.   The show was a revelation--one of the highlights of my summer--and I've been thinking about it ever since: 

The riveting film made from Ono's performance Cut Piece.  Was the thing that happens at the end of the film really spontaneous--or staged?  Either way, the piece is brilliant, and if the bit at the end was staged, Ono is a brilliant actress as well. 

Her White Chess Set:  leaders all over the world should be playing with it.

Her book Grapefruit--a compendium of drawings and instructions for every day of the year.  Copies of its pages are posted on the walls of one of the rooms in the exhibit  Walking slowly, reading them, JoJo and I wanted to be able to bring them home, and were happy to find that we could buy the book in the gift shop. 

It's a great source of inspiration--for making art, for writing, and for living.

Yoko Ono was a woman ahead of her time--a woman of genius, which, luckily for both of them, John Lennon realized.  

MOMA, however, was behind the times and slow to appreciate Ono.  Hence, her self-created debut at the museum, which she called Museum of Modern [F]art, in 1971, and which seems to have consisted mainly of the claim that she had released flies on the museum grounds. .  Belatedly, MOMA is now acknowledging the innovative and influential body of work that led up Ono's 1971 appearance there--let's hope that her next show at the museum doesn't take nearly as long. 

The show is closing next Monday, September 7.  If you haven't been yet, go.   If it travels to your town, get yourself there.  If I'm there, I'll go again. 

In the meantime, get yourself a copy of Grapefruit.  

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1544

Ada/Ava

Ada/Ava--fairy tale, ghost story, and memento mori--is a work of eerie beauty and extraordinary craftsmanship, different from anything else I've seen.  I'd say it's the kind of show that's unique to New York City, only its makers--a company called Manual Cinema--are from Chicago.

They mix film, theater, puppetry,silhouettes, and music to tell a story that unfolds in overhead projection, while the audience also see the actors--in effect, human puppets--moving below, and the puppeteers sliding transparencies into the projector.  Watching them work their magic somehow makes the effect even more magical.

Ada/Ava is playing through July 26 at the Three Legged Dog,
Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich Street, in New York City.

After that, look for the show and its makers back in Chicago.

Teachers

I was shocked to hear from my sister Joanne, a teacher in California, that her state ranks 46th in the nation in spending on education.  It seems that the baneful effects of Proposition 13 are still with them.

Joanne just got back from the California Federation of Teachers' conference at Manhattan Beach this weekend, and sent me some words of wisdom and inspiration she heard there:

Quotes from the CFT Convention 2015

“We might not change the world, but we can spark the mind that does!”

“All great undertakings are risky.”  Socrates

“The highest risk is love.”

“Expect perfection knowing you will never get it.”

“Their pain is our pain.”

“Help people, don’t hurt them.”

 “Deformers want to derail public education and unfairly blame teachers.”

“Hope is required when growing roses in concrete.”

“We don’t blame the seed for not growing.”

“No child left off-line.”

“Give a helping hand, not a slapping hand.”

“Teachers aren’t the problem…the solution is to stop negativity and  increase positivity.”

“Teachers are ‘hope’ dealers!”

“An iPad will never replace a good teacher!”

“Empowering educators empowers students.”

“The diversity of California is our greatest strength.”

“California is the #8 economy in the WORLD, we should be #1 in funding education, not 46^th!”

“If you don’t know your rights, you don’t have any.  If you know, but don’t act, you’re part of the problem!”

Speaking to the leader of the classified union [union representing school systems' non-teaching staff] after a moving speech he gave about how their union members support educators, “We know you’re not a teacher, but you taught us all today.”!

“What can we do if we all work together?”

“Corporations have money, but we have people.”

“Public education provides access to social justice.”

An Unusual Solo Show : A Kind Shot

Terri Mateer was 6' 1" by a very young age (saying just how young would be a bit of a spoiler for the beginning of her one-woman show).   Not surprisingly she played basketball--eventually on a pro team.

Mateer has quite a story to tell, and she tells (and plays) it well in A Kind Shot.  After her New York City run is done, she hopes to tour on the college circuit, where young women, in particular, will have a lot to learn from her experiences.

Mateer may not be the most polished performer I've seen, but she's one of the bravest.  Whether or not you're a basketball player or fan, seeing A Kind Shot will enlarge your world. 

Don't bring the kids, unless they're very mature; this show is definitely R-rated.  Do, however, stay for the talk-back, if there is one (the show itself is not much more than an hour).  You have through February 7. 

For tickets and further information, go to:

http://terrimateer.com/

The Golden Toad!

I always have high expectations of a new show from The Talking Band.  But their latest, The GoldenToad, is extraordinary--not to be missed.  It may be their best yet.

As the postcard for the show says, The Golden Toad is an "original music-theater epic journey through a changing New York, tracing the shifting of identities over time and circumstances."

Mentioning any specific event in this wonderful show, thus diminishing your surprise, would qualify as a spoiler.   So I'll just say that The Golden Toad is about time, change, aging, art, love, loss, and chance--among other things.  It's beautiful and complex, rich and strange, funny and moving--altogether a masterwork.  It almost goes without saying, given The Talking Band's standards, the acting and music are terrific.

At nearly three hours, the show is long, but the moments fly by.   It's structured in four parts and a brief epilogue, with breaks for the audience to move from the current location to the next. There's one intermission during which beverages and snacks can be purchased. 
 

The Golden Toad only runs through February 7 at La Mama.  If reviewers love it as much as I do (to avoid spoilers, please don't actually read the reviews), it will start selling out.

http://talkingband.org/

The Talking Band

"ILLUMINATING THE EXTRAORDINARY DIMENSIONS OF EVERYDAY LIFE"  reads a subhead on the Talking Band's website.  It's a great description of what they do so well and so consistently.

Here's a list of favorites among the shows of theirs I've seen over the years:

Marcellus Shale (2013)
Hot Lunch Apostles (2012, 1983)
The Peripherals (2012)
The Walk Across America for Mother Earth (2011)
Panic! Eurphoria! Blackout! (2010)
Flipside (2008)
Delicious Rivers (2006)
Black Milk Quartet (1998)
Betty Buffet's Theory of Relativity (1995)
The Three Lives of Lucy Cabrol (1987)


This is the Talking Band's 40th anniversary, and their new show, The Golden Toad, is opening tomorrow night  at La Mama.  

Go.


http://talkingband.org/

Don't Miss "Just Ancient Loops"

At the Bang on a Can Marathon in 2012, Jim and I watched riveted as cellist Maya Beiser played Michael Harrison's haunting and hypnotic Just Ancient Loops,  accompanying overlapping loops of herself playing the same music--which comprised the score of Bill Morrison's film of the same title,  being projected beside her.

It was fabulous and unforgettable, one of the most extraordinary performances I've seen in recent years, and I was thrilled to learn that tomorrow,  Thursday, October 23,  8:00 p.m., at the Museum of Modern Art, Beiser will be doing the same thing in a program that includes two other  films as well.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/22083 

On Saturday, November 8, 8:00 pm, in Washington, DC, Beiser will be performing a program that includes  Just Ancient Loops  at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

http://www.washingtonperformingarts.org/calendar/view.aspx?id=2617

Composer Michael Harrison will likely be in attendance at both events.

Not to be missed if you have any interest in new music (or experimental film or the cello).

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/22083d



http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/22083 Moses Fiction Prize

The song in my head

Every time I watch Preston Sturgis’s Hail the Conquering Hero, I go around hearing "We want Woodrow for Our Mayor," for a day or so.

Today, there’s a darker, deeper song on my mind: the Horseflies’ "Sally Ann."

I first heard the Horseflies in the 90s, at CBGB, on the recommendation of the Village Voice, which described their music as something like "warped old time." Whatever you’d call it, it thrilled my ears and my brain, defying labels.

A few years later, I heard the Horseflies at the Falcon Ridge and Dance Flurry festivals, where I discovered that besides making memorable and original boundary-transcending music, they were a dynamite contra dance band.

Then at the 2009 Flurry, the Horseflies performed at the Cafe Lena, and Jim captured the concert  on a little Zoom recorder.  The band gave him permission to post the recording here:

archive.org/details/horseflies2009-02-15.CafeLena

For more information about the Horseflies go to

thehorseflies.com


They'll be back at Falcon Ridge this year.

My top 10 + plays for 2013

For me, at least, last year was a great year for theater in New York City--much of it in small venues off and off-off Broadway.


Here are 10 of my favorites--shows I'm hugely grateful for. Many are shows I'll remember for years--and will see again if I have the chance. (See my earlier posts about some of them.) In order from the beginning of the year:

Life and Times: Episodes 1-4 by the Nature Theater of Oklahoma, a Soho Rep production at the Public Theater. I look forward to parts 5-?

The Laramie Project Cycle by the Tectonic Theater Project at Brooklyn Academy of Music:

Part I: The Laramie Project
Part II: The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later

I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Mark Nadler, directed by David Schweizer at the York Theatre

Marcellus Shale by the Talking Band at La Mama

Arguendo by the Elevator Repair Service at the Public Theater

Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, by Anne Washburn, directed by Michael Friedman at Playwrights Horizon

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, set at a women's prison, directed by Philippa Lloyd at BAM; a powerful production from the Donmar Warehouse

Iyom by Lou-Lou Igbokwe, directed by Jessica Creane at the Workshop Theater

Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress, a reading directed by Katrin Hilbe at the Workshop Theater.
In Childress's extraordinary play--daring for its time and still relevant now--a majority black cast with a white director rehearse a Broadway play about lynching. Childress was an African-American actress as well as playwright, and Trouble in Mind, her first professionally produced play, won an Obie in 1956. It never reached Broadway because Childress was unwilling to make the changes, including a new title and an upbeat ending that optioning producers wanted.

Why have I never until now heard of this woman or this play, I wondered, as I watched and listened. I hope to see a full production of it one day soon.

Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw, staged and performed by Bedlam

Hamlet by William Shakespeare, staged and performed by Bedlam

The Hamlet next door

Say there's a castle next door, and the prince is a guy you hang out with. Except for his title, about which he has no pretensions, he's just an ordinary guy--though an unusually smart, sensitive, and witty one. He's a great listener, a great storyteller. He's never been attracted to guns, but he enjoys fencing--with words or rapiers.

Meet Hamlet, as played by Eric Tucker, who also directs, in what is the most unusual production of the play I've ever seen. This Hamlet, the second production of the new Bedlam company, is pulled from the chilly realm of Elsinore to your town, your neighborhood, your living room. You know these people, they're part of your world, and at any moment one of them might be sitting next to you, addressing you. With four actors playing more than two dozen parts, this is Hamlet boiled down to the bone.

Four actors: Tucker spends most of his time as Hamlet, but also keeps watch as the soldier Francisco and may be glimpsed as the ghost of his dead father. Edmund Lewis, as Polonius, takes off his glasses, transforming himself into his son Laertes, and amazingly both characters are vividly alive for us, in the same moment. Andrus Nichols works similar magic with Gertrude and Ophelia, and Tom O'Keefe with Claudius and Osric.

The moving set, with coordinates changing at each intermission, amounts to little more than a few chairs and, beginning with the graveyard scene, dirt scattered on the floor, beneath the actors' feet and close to yours.

That dirt--and the powerful flashlights that probe the darkness at the beginning of the play--helped convey its essence.

For me, watching this Hamlet was almost like seeing it for the first time--at the very least, hearing the words anew, and seeing images that will stay with me always.

In repertoire with Shaw's Saint Joan, Hamlet is playing through March 9 at the Lynn Redgrave Theater, 45 Bleecker Street.

When you go: If the actors ask you to sit in a certain place, do it.

http://www.theatrebedlam.org/

I'm a Stranger Here Myself

Great news: Cabaret artist Mark Nadler's wonderful show about the music, history, and legacy of the Weimar Republic, I'm a stranger here myself, has been extended through June 9 at the York Theatre.

Nadler's a passionate singer and pianist who gives his all and then some--and, boy, does he have amazing stories to tell. Franca Vercelloni on accordion and Jessica Tyler Wright on violin provide haunting accompaniment, and the show features some of the strongest use of projections I've seen.

Despite excellent reviews, the show hasn't been selling out, so there are discount tickets available, but that could well change with the word of many mouths besides mine.

Powerful, moving, and occasionally hilarious, I'm a Stranger Here Myself is a show I won't soon forget (if ever)--and neither will you.

http://www.yorktheatre.org

Bidder 70

"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul," said Tim DeChristopher, quoting Edward Abbey.

On December 19, 2008, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at a federal auction of oil and gas leases during the lame duck days of the Bush administration, DeChristopher, an economics student, turned his sentiment into action. Rather than joining the protest outside the auction--of parcels of public lands near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and other sensitive areas--he entered the auction, and began bidding. By the time the auction was halted, he'd won parcels with bids amounting to $1.7 million--and bid up the prices of the rest.

The Obama administration eventually invalidated the auction, but nonetheless chose to prosecute DeChristopher.

Bidder 70, produced and directed by Beth and George Gage, tells DeChristopher's story, from his extraordinary action to his trial and its aftermath, and his influence on others, including the organization he co-founded, Peaceful Uprising--"committed to defending a livable future through empowering nonviolent action".

It's one of the most powerful, riveting, and potentially life-changing documentaries I've seen, and a labor of love on the part of the filmmakers.

You have till Thursday, May 23, to see Bidder 70 at the Quad in New York City.

After that, go to:


http://www.bidder70film.com/

Wait, Later This Will Be Nothing

Today I had a half hour or so between two nearby appointments, so I headed to the Museum of Modern Art, showed my card, escalated to the second floor, and turned into the first show I noticed: Wait, Later This Will be Nothing, Editions by the late, great Dieter Roth. It was a revelation. I'd seen paintings of Roth's in galleries and museums over the years, but wasn't familiar with his prints, books, and multiples. Here they were in abundance: Intricate, hypnotic, black-and-white prints--in the vanguard of op art. Books made from discarded newspapers. "Literary sausages" in which ground-up books Roth loved or loathed were used as a meat substitute combined with traditional ingredients and sheathed in traditional casing. Prints including foodstuffs like cheese or chocolate that the artist intended to decay with time but had been well covered with glass. A series of gorgeous, haunting works, large and small, based on a postcard of Piccadilly Circus.

My time ran out halfway through the show, but I'll be back.

Soon.


http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2013/dieter_roth/