Theater of Ideas

Remembrances of Václav Havel

2011-12-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, you are lucky.

William Niederkorn and Václav Havel

Sometimes, the man you meet is equal to the man youimagined.

I don’t remember the first time I heard Havel’s name. Perhaps during a news broadcast. Perhaps when I read Martin Esslin’s Theater of the Absurd. I do know that I had read and fallen inlove with his work by college, and I was overwhelmed by the idea that anabsurdist playwright led a revolution and became the president of a nation.

His play, Audience wasthe first I directed in New York, the first New York production of my theatercompany. For twelve years afterthat, I admired him from afar.

Then I came up with idea, called the Havel Festival. My idea was, we would do every play hehad ever written. People now knewHavel the politician so well, I wanted to remind them about Havel theplaywright.

I approached his agents. We scheduled it for his 70^th birthday. By lucky chance, Gregory Mosher wasplanning a residency for Havel at Columbia at the same point, which meant hewould be in town for the full length of the festival.

Havel with the cast and crew of The Memo

He came.

I met him for the first time at a reception being held byColumbia for his arrival. Iremember chatting with Oliver Sacks, another hero of mine, as I stood aboutfour feet away from him, waiting to shake his hand. Havel turned and graciously shook my hand. I tried in the noise to introducemyself, and he nodded pleasantly, but seemed too tired to pick up exactly who Iwas.

Halka Kaiserova, the Czech consul general, explained it tohim. Suddenly, he beamed. You don’t know what it means to anauthor, when you do all of his work, he told me. Thank you.

I saw him at various functions over the next few weeks, andhe would always greet me with a beaming smile. He assured me he would be coming to see the production ofthe Memo I directed. Some others,too, he said at the time, though I wasn’t sure what he meant.

Robert Lyons, me, and Havel at The Ohio

When he arrived at the Ohio Theater, he was surrounded byflashing cameras and attending by an entourage of secret service anddignitaries. The flashing camerasdidn’t affect him. He was used toit. He assured me his secretservice members knew how to behave in a theater and would not disturb theproduction.

I remember when I watched him laugh. It was early on, a small visual joke Ihad put into the script. I sat anxiouslyin the back row and watched him with great relief. And he kept on laughing, all show long.

He came back again, soon after, to see his plays Audience (which I had remounted) and Protest (directed by Robert Lyons, whoruns the Ohio). He was loved themboth and was particularly taken with the actor Richard Toth, who appeared in Protest.

Havel and his wife Dasha with cast/crew of Temptation

He came back again. And again. And again. Till he felt like a fixture in The Ohioand The Brick, where many of his other plays were being produced.

Throughout, he exuded a genuine warmth and a genuine enthusiasmabout the work. We had somecelebrities who participated in the festival, but he was not impressed bycelebrity. He was as gracious andgiving to every actor as he was to Kathleen Turner or Dustin Hoffman. He did not care whether he was in asmall theater or a large one. Hecared that we cared about the writing. And we did, deeply.

Henry Akona, me, and Havel

On the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution he came again,and listened as Trey Kay’s band, Uncle Moon, did a tribute to the VelvetUnderground. He brought Madeleine Albrightwith him and they sat in the tiny Brick Theater and drank and celebrated withus. At one point he same to themicrophone and made a speech in Czech. Halka Kaiserova translated:

Havel with Trey Kay of Uncle Moon

“There is no place I would rather spend the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.” It was in a small theater like The Brick where the revolution started, after all.

Havel and me at Joe's Pub

We were able to spend the last evening of the Festival atJoe’s Pub together, as Uncle Moon played again, and Havel regaled me with talesabout Lou Reed and his early experiences in theater. As we sat together it suddenly occurred to me anew that thiswas a man who I had idolized from afar, whose ideas and writing had changed awhole country. But now, he feltlike an old friend.

We saw each other occasionally after that. In London, in Philadelphia, in Prague,and most recently in Brno, when he flew me out the see a production of hisnewest work (or his reconfigured old work) ThePig. Somehow, every time I sawhim, I suddenly had this fear that this time, I would be disappointed. This time he wouldn’t live up to theridiculously high expectations that I had for him.

Havel in Brno (in sunglasses) watching a production of Audience

But when he saw me and welcomed me with a beaming smile,those fears melted away. For VáclavHavel was more than a great leader and a great writer and a great thinker. He was a true and kind person, who lived the philosophies he preached. He was the man who would beam at me every time he saw me. He was a friend.

I will miss him very much.

Playing Dreidel with Judah Maccabee, a Hannukah play: the intro essay

2011-11-29T12:40:00.001-08:00

My new book, Playing Dreidel with Judah Maccabee (a Hannukah play), is out and available! For those who want a sneak preview, here is the intro essay to the book:

Who was Judah Maccabee?

            Whatwas his world like during the time he led a war to take the temple back?
            Howdid that war become a holiday celebrated by lighting candles, playing dreidel, singingsongs, eating latkas, and giving presents?
            WhenI decided to write a play about Hannukah, I started thinking about the factthat I never really knew the answers to any of those questions as a child. I knew that Judah Maccabee was a hero,and that his name was mentioned in a few songs. And I knew he had something to do with getting the templeback. But beyond that, I didn’tknow or really wonder much else.
            Sowho was he?
            JudahMaccabee lived in a time when most Jews believed that Judaism could not bepracticed outside the ancient temple. Yet the temple had been taken away, so thoseJews found themselves unable to observe Jewish rituals in the way they feltthose rituals should be observed.
            Thiswas before there were rabbis, or the Talmud. The seeds of the rabbinic movement perhaps started in thosedays without the temple, but it would take 200 years for that change to trulyhappen. In Judah Maccabee’s time,165 BCE, there were only priests, and priests needed the temple.
            Asfar as Judah Maccabee was concerned, the survival of the Jewish religion was atstake. In essence, Judah Maccabeewas a soldier, a man driven to lead a rebellion against his Hellenistic rulersbecause he believed that otherwise, his religion would be destroyed.
            Whatis remarkable is that, against all odds, he won. He regained the temple.
            Then,200 years later, the temple was destroyed.
            Sowhy the celebration?
            Accordingto the Book of Maccabees, an eight-day celebration was held after the altar wasrededicated. This may have been abelated celebration of Sukkot. There is no mention of lighting candles, or even the miracle of the oillasting. But in some ways,perhaps, the Maccabean celebration of their victory could be considered thefirst celebration of Hannukah.
            Itwasn’t until 250 years later, after the destruction of the Temple, that we canfind a passing mention of the holiday (just known then as “The Festival ofLights.”) And it was 600 years before instructions about how to celebrateHanukkah appear in the Gemara (part of the Talmud).
            Soperhaps Hanukkah is a reminder of what the Temple once meant to Judaism, ratherthan a simple celebration of a victory. After all, the menorah deliberatelyresembles the Eternal Light, a seven-pronged golden candlestick that once stoodin the sanctuary. And the story of the oil lasting is certainly anotherreminder of days when the Temple was the center of Judaism.
            Butthe dreidels, the latkes, the songs, the presents: they all belong to adifferent, more modern tradition. A tradition that would be almostincomprehensible to Judah Maccabee if he saw it.
            Wouldit even feel like the same religion, I wondered?
            Thatwas the question that inspired me to write this play. The answer I came up withinvolves a common theme, a theme that I feel connects Judah Maccabee’s battleswith more modern Jewish struggles.
            Inthe end, there is no way to truly know who Judah Maccabee was, or what he wouldthink of our world and Judaism today. When grasping at the tiny bits ofinformation that still exist about a man who lived over two thousand years ago,all one can truly do is imagine. I based my tale on facts, but I also based itmy own imaginings. Judah Maccabee the character may or may not be anything likethe real Judah Maccabee who lived over two thousand years ago. But this is howI imagine him.

Director's note for Pangs of the Messiah

2011-10-23T06:29:00.000-07:00

Theater is about building up and tearing down. It is the most ephemeral of art forms,not just because it only exists live and in the moment, but because it must beliterally destroyed after every production. I have spent weeks upon weeks of 18 plus hour days buildinga set, only to have to tear it into nothingness when a production is over.

I hate the destruction. I hate creating something that’s beautiful, that’s mine (ormore correctly ours, as theater is also about that collaboration), and thenhaving to demolish it at the end. I know it will happen, from the time I begin creation. But when that moment of destructioncomes, it hurts.

How much more would that destruction hurt if it were thehome I built, that I had lived in for 40 years? Or my family had lived in for 200 years? Or 2000?

The West Bank settlers are people who, for the most part,are living out their utopian philosophies. They arrived believing that they are fulfilling a missionboth political and religious, that they are bringing the Messiah and redemptionby their very presence.

Some, probably most, still have that utopian hope. But regardless of what might havebrought them to the West Bank initially, houses that have been built cannot easilybe destroyed. It has happened—evenrecently, during the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. But it wasn’t easy then, and should the West Banksettlements be abandoned, it will almost certainly be harder.

It seems fitting that one of the sticking points in thestruggle for peace is about a much more ancient land dispute. For if the Messiah is to come, it isbelieved, a new Temple will have to built, and it will be built on the TempleMount. Right now, another buildingstands there: the Dome of the Rock, built originally in the 7^thCentury on the advice of a former rabbi who had converted to Islam. This too was both a political andreligious act, and the relationship to the ancient Temple was no coincidence.

But whatever the circumstances under which the mosque wasbuilt, it is now a fact. It is anincredible building, representing the work and beliefs of people going backnearly 1,400 years. It is anotherutopia, one in which only those of the Muslim faith are allowed.

The Messiah waits for the rebuilding of the Temple becausethe wound from that destruction from 2000 years ago still hasn’t completelyhealed. Here in New York, weare only 10 years away from the destruction of the Twin Towers. That was enough to start a war or two,for us.

When this show is over, some pieces of it will disappearinto storage. And some will bedestroyed forever. It isexpected. My own utopian visionallows for it; I believe in the power of theater, and I know that part of thatpower lies in its ephemeral nature.

But if I believed that the destruction of my set would alsomean the destruction of my utopia, the destruction of my ability to work in thetheater, I don’t think I could bring myself to allow it. No matter what the general good. No matter how strong the arguments forit. I would not allow it.

Even if someone else’s utopia was destroyed instead.

My day in the West Bank settlements

2011-09-14T08:06:00.001-07:00

An account of my day in one of the West Bank settlementswith Motti Lerner, the playwright of Pangsof the Messiah. I decided tobe deliberately vague about which settlement and the rep there whom wemet—since I didn’t tell them I would be blogging, I think it would be unfairprint a public account that mentions them by name.

It was an early morning for me and Motti, 6am so we couldget to the settlement in time for our 10am meeting. We drove to Jerusalemand took the bus from there; Motti had had a bad experience once getting lostdriving in the West Bank and he thought a bus was safer.

The bus drive went through empty, dry dessert. Motti said that it couldbe as green as the roads around Jerusalem if trees were planted, but aside fromthe occasional olive grove, there was no greenery. There was also littlesign of civilization after we passed the dividing wall. The roaddeliberately avoided the Palestinian towns, to avoid creating furthertensions. Still, the bus was heavy with protective armor and bullet proofglass.

Motti explained that we were on a “Jewish” road, and thatPalestinians had there own roads. Although I understood the reason for the separation, I must admit Ifound the designation of a road just for Jews disturbing—both for Arabs and inlight of my own associations with Jewish history (This is a bit of anothersubject, but I have really come to realize how Israeli Arabs and Jews live intotally different worlds—different schools, different laws…this is a choice onthe part of the Arabs as well)

After driving on the winding road for a while, we finally came to thesettlement. We were early, so we stopped at the gas station and Mottigrabbed a coffee. Four soldiers with machine guns were also on line for asnack.

We headed inside and got stopped at the gate by a guard who was suspicious of mycamera. Motti explained...something to the guard, who seemed to eventuallyaccept it. Then we went in.

The first thing we encountered was basically a trailer park for settlers,making a small neighborhood. These, I was later told, were settlers waitingto be allowed to build homes. The government had halted construction, andindeed the Supreme Court had ruled that some recently constructed homes neededto be dismantled.

Then we hit an area of pretty little houses on paved roads. They alllooked exactly alike-- red shingles, white walls, white tile floors. Thesong Little Boxes came to mind, and indeed it turned out that the first fiftyhouses has been ordered en mass, as pre fab housing. They wantedsomething quick and utilitarian which also conveyed the idea that here, no oneis richer or poorer than anyone else, we are all equal and in this together.

We went to the Community Office and said hello to the secretary there. She showed us a map of the settlement and we saw that the file on Mottihad been pulled; they had reviewed it before he came. The secretary said thewhole settlement was in mourning—a young man from there had been among those recently killed. The funeral was set for Thursday.

We also saw an exhibit on the Indian immigrants who recentlyjoined the settlement and were in the process of being formally converted. This particular settlement, we weretold, is full of immigrants. Partof their mission is to bring Jews in from around the world. These Indian Jews said they had ancientJewish origins. The governmentaccepted that and gave them citizenship, but at the settlement they wereconverting them just to be sure.

We left the offices after that and went to visit J—, a settler activist andformer head of the regional council. The rabbi who had been our originalcontact had cancelled, using the upcoming funeral as his excuse. Mottisuspected the rabbi had simply had second thoughts.

J— was very welcoming and eager to talk. He reminded me, in an odd way, of the Mormons I recently encounteredduring my brief stopover in Salt Lake City. He, too, seemed eager to spread the Word. The word for him was that all Jews mustwork together in order for the Messiah to come.

J—’ s home was full of simple, pre fab furniture to go alongwith the pre fab house. Utilitarian and modest, except for the many books, mostly religious,that filled the shelves.

J— eagerly grabbed a book and an article about a documentthat was found, dating back to 500 BCE. That document seemed to him to predict the Messiah in our age, thoughGod needed all Jews, not just some, to do righteous deeds, and then and onlythen would the Messiah arrive.

This is why, he explained, it was so important to him toreach out to all aspects of Israeli society. Some settlers had become isolationists he said, they refusedto even pray for Israel, because they were so angry about the disengagementfrom Gaza. But he sees thingsdifferently—in fact, he has become deeply involved with the general housingcrisis. He thinks the same techniqueused to build in the settlements could be used to create cheap housing—it is300,000 to buy a home (was he referring to dollars or sheckels? I wasn’t sure—take the number and divideby three if it’s sheckels), but it costs only 100,000 to build a new home, hecalculated.

What he was suggesting soundedto me sort of like the projects, Israeli style.

Motti asked him what he would do if he had to abandon hissettlement, because of a peace accord. I would leave, said J—, the unity of the Jewish people is more importantto me than the settlement, the most important is that all Israel feels likeone. And what, Motti asked, ifpart of the agreement would be allowing 40,000 Arabs the right of return (thisnumber comes from the agreement Ehud Barak was ready to sign at the summit withClinton, though ultimately Arafat refused). 40,000 would be too many, J— said at first. But then he relented. The unity was all, he said.

But then, he continued confidently, it won’t happen. The Arabs will never agree. He hoped instead that Jordan’s Kingwould be overthrown and that the people, who are 70% Palestinian, would makeJordan into a Palestinian state. Then, why would any Arab want to go to Israel?

There was another solution to the whole problem, ofcourse. If the Messiah came, itwould all be moot, anyway. ButJews had to be unified and righteous.

J— got a call, one of the unending series of phone calls hewas fielding as he spoke to us. Hehad to leave, but wanted to drive us back to Jerusalem.

We accepted. Hetook the Jewish road, of course, but took a quick detour to a winery in themidst of the West Bank. I madethis, he told us proudly. My lastact as Head of the Regional Council.

It was a beautiful winery, stuck in the middle of thedessert. He took us down to seethe barrels. Even Motti lit up,with all his doubts (he will not buy any products made in the West Bank, onprincipal), Motti’s family has ahistory of working in wineries, and being in one was exciting for him.

Then, J—’s assistant switched ona film for us to watch.

It was the sort of propaganda film that verged onparody. Stirring music played, theancient history of Samaria and Judea was recounted (these being the regions ofthe West Bank), then the modern history of pioneers who have reclaimed andtamed the land into producing wine grapes was extolled. Jews toiled—hard work, but sofulfilling. The future neverlooked brighter for this land.

The film ended. That was a bit ridiculous, said Motti. Yes, said J—. But he was beaming.

Where were the Palestinians? Motti asked. You had a whole film about the history of the region, and you didn’tmention the Palestinians once.

I guess we should have, said J—. Maybe you’re right. It didn’t occur to us.

Later, Motti commented, who would believe this film,anyway? Not even those who supportthem.

They believe it, I said. Couldn’t you see how much J— and his assistant loved it, howproud they were? This film is notto convince others. It is toconvince themselves.

Motti agreed.

After the film, J— asked if we wanted to have a winetasting. Motti said he was toosleepy and would have to drive later. So instead, J— drove us into Jerusalem and offered us a warm goodbye.

Such a nice man, said Motti. Really nice. But this is the paradox. All his life, he has been doing nothing but building settlements Such energy and leadership. But he has done more to destroy Israelthan anyone I know.

Impressions from a day in Israel

2011-08-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

I am staying at the house of Motti Lerner, a playwright and the author of Pangs of the Messiah, which I am directing in October/November. Staying here is very different than being a tourist. I haven’t seen any sites, I haven’t done anything I would usually do while traveling. I have been working on the play. I have been meeting Israelis. And my experience so far has made me feel like I have a different understanding of what it is to be a country involved so deeply in war.

Of course, I am investigating political issues and working on a very political play. Which heightens my awareness of that aspect of the Israeli experience. When I was last in Israel, that was far from my mind. I was 13, celebrating my bar mitzvah, and excited to be out of the country for the first time in my life. I felt like I was on the set of a movie, I could hardly believe that Jerusalem was an actual place.

It was also a different time, perhaps. So I have been told, and true, the issues facing Israel were different at the time. Though looking at the overall history of Israel, I wonder how different.

Motti is a peace activist, but to understand what that means here requires also to understand context.

My room (in Motti’s house) is a safety room. It is legally required here that every house has one. So in essence, I am living in a bomb shelter.

Yesterday, while in London, I heard the news about the terrorism attack in Eilat (in southen Israel). It registered, but very abstractly. After all, terrorism is an occasional fact nowadays, even outside of Israel. I also heard about the bombing reprisals in Gaza, and the Egyptians killed. Still, that didn’t seem like a major escalation. When I look at cnn or msnbc online, I get that same impression. An event, but not a major event.

Yet the response at Motti’s dinner table was to the news was: well, the war is starting at last. I had the feeling that sentence had been said before. But it didn’t mean that in some ways, it wasn’t believed, each time. For one of these days, it’s sure to be true. Perhaps this time.

Motti’s son and daughter are soon entering the army, as required. Motti’s other son is just finishing his service. And even though Motti considers himself a peace activist, he too served in the army. He chose the artillery, as he would have been required to spend more years in the non-combat divisions.

As it happens, the end of service was set for a week before the Yom Kippur War. He was recalled, and because of his experience, given a position of authority. For many days, he thought they had lost, that there would be no state of Israel anymore. He was in charge of setting up headquarters in the Sinai for phase two of the war, should Israel survive that long.

The war ended before the headquarters in the Sinai was necessary. Israel survived.

Today, work with Motti consisted partly of revising the script, partly in taking a crash course in the history of the settlements. We talked the messianic ideals that led Hanan Porat to become a settler. We talked about how the local government there worked, interior politics, and I got to marvel (and envy a little) that even vets are socialized in Israel.

Then we had dinner with former settlers, a married couple and friends of Motti. The wife had been the Secretary of the Community Council, basically the mayor of the settlement town. The husband came from a very far right family; his parents had a poster of Yigal Amir on their war—the man who murdered Yitzchak Rabin. The settlement leaders eventually forced them to take the poster down, it was too much even for them. His brother had been a member of the Jewish Underground, the group who, under the leadership of Yehuda Etzion, had planned to bomb the Dome of the Rock.

He himself had left the settlement years ago. He was a writer with radical, or at least secular, ideas. He wrote an article once, blaming God for the Holocaust. To Yehuda Etzion, that was too much. He wrote a letter in code, using a quotation that referenced a passage in the Torah, in which a heretical man was killed. Motti’s friend’s parents contacted Yehuda Etzion, and asked him to remove the hit, for essentially that’s what the letter was. Etzion agreed to withdraw it.

The couple left the settlement soon after. The husband said, it was uncomfortable for people to overlook their secularism. He wasn’t exactly left wing, still. He considered himself independent, but found it hard to connect to the settlers anymore.

His ambivalent feelings were clear. When the settlements were dismantled in Gaza, he went for a vacation in Vienna, because he couldn’t bear to watch. Then he went to Switzerland, which was experiencing some student protests. He was warned it might be dangerous to travel, which made him want to laugh. When I asked him if he would trade the settlement he lived in for peace, he said yes, of course. If the peace were the same sort of peace as between the United States and Canada. If the Arabs could be trusted, which they probably could not.

He talked about joining the settlement. I wanted my life to mean something, he said. I wanted to change the war, so that Israel was no longer being attacked, so that all the animosity would be directed against the settlements. And we did that, he said, a bit proudly.

Tonight, when I arrived back at Motti’s we heard that 60 rockets had been sent from Gaza. Someone had been killed. Motti shook his head. It will just escalate from here, he said. Netanyahu has to negotiate. But no one trusts anyone.

Tonight, back in the safety room for some sleep. Tomorrow Tel Aviv. Between meetings, I'm hoping to be able to drop by the beach...

Translator's Note for The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig

2011-06-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

This is not a play, exactly. Nor is it an operetta, exactly. It is a collage. An adaptation of an adaptation. A multimedia and multidisciplinary work culled from two different cultures and three centuries.

Originally a short dialogue from 1987 and printed in a samizdat or underground magazine (often photocopies of photocopies), the piece is a shaggy-dog tale at heart; a comic (and true) story of Havel’s attempt to hold a pig roast for his friends.

In 2010, Czech director Vladimír Morávek, of Theater Goose on the String, rediscovered the dialogue and decided to stage it. He began by giving lines to characters only mentioned in passing, but then made a more radical choice: he added sections from of one of the most beloved Czech works, The Bartered Bride. This new version was the centerpiece of a theater festival in Brno last June.

I was invited to attend the festival yet knew nothing about the piece before I arrived. Like many of Havel’s plays, I see it as a veiled critique of the Communist system; however The Bartered Bride adds another layer to the story. The operetta was written at a time (the 1860’s) when the act of speaking Czech was in itself a nationalistic gesture. Spoken Czech had died out and Smetana, among others, wanted to restore it as a living language (and gain independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire). In the context of The Pig, the celebratory music foreshadows the Velvet Revolution, the overthrow of Communism, and Havel’s election to the presidency.

Indeed, near the end of the piece, Morávek slips the words “truth and love” into the lyrics; a reference to Havel’s most famous quote, “Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred.”

Upon seeing the production, I asked whether I could translate The Pig for a production here in New York.

I cannot speak Czech.

I have taken classes and done my best to learn it, but Czech, especially spoken Czech, eludes me. The sounds are very difficult for my ear, and I’m sure when I speak it my accent is terrible.

And so the title of translator seems a little suspicious to me.

But what I did was this: I worked with a native speaker, Katerina Lu, until I was relatively certain I understood every nuance of the original. I then took my notes and attempted to find ways to not only convey not only the meaning of the lines but also Havel’s rhythms and wry humor.

And then I started writing my own dialogue, particularly for the Journalist.

The Journalist was written in “English” in the original, though I often found myself correcting the often technically correct lines for ones that would seem natural to an American. And as I wrote, I realized how much information Americans would lack that is simply common knowledge for most Czechs—from the plot of The Bartered Bride to the events of the Velvet Revolution.

So I began adding lines that helped set up the play for American audiences. And then, as I started working with the director, Henry Akona, I started adding some silent characters, partly so we could utilize the video capacities of 3LD, partly for the flavor that those silent characters give to most of Havel’s plays.

And then I played with the placement of choruses, added a few more lines, and…

In the end, this is a work that takes what was presented in Brno and enhances it with our own creative imaginings, as Havel’s original was enhanced by Morávek. To me, it has now become something of a cross-cultural dialogue. What better way to express a work whose two main characters are an American and a Czech?

But primarily, it is Havel himself who was the main inspiration behind my efforts. The Pig is the only Havel work in which he appears on stage as one of the characters. My challenge was to convey Havel’s voice, which is witty, wise, sometimes a little testy, but always compassionate and humane.

A moment from my Czech travels

2011-06-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

Last year, I was invited to Brno to see a festival of theater there that included The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig (the show UTC61 is presenting at the end of this month). I found my old travelogue, which I had presented on Facebook but never put up here, for some reason. Here is the entry from June 12, the day I saw The Pig (interesting how my impressions of the show are so different now then they were then):

Andre Krob's daughter plays, a busker watches

Yesterday afternoon was all about seeing shows and finally meeting up with everyone. It started with the three Vaněk plays, being held in a small courtyard at the Castle. They were directed by Andre Krob, whom I had met briefly a few years ago. He had been Havel's stage manager back in the days when his shows were first being produced (before they were banned), and after the Velvet Revolution he became a director and staged a number of Havel's plays. There were three little stages set up, and a table with snacks (and lots of beer), so the performances moved from one stage to the next, with Andre's daughter playing in between shows.

Paul Wilson, one of Havel's translators, was there, as were a number of the people organizing the festival, who I had the opportunity to meet at last. One, Petr Oslzlý, who runs Theatre Goose on a String, pointed out my name in an interview with Havel in the program--he had said he was inspired to do the fest because of me.

Paul Wilson

This morning I sat down and struggled my way through a translation of that interview, with the help of Google Translate at a few key points, and realized that is was Havel talking about the experience of the Havel Festival, from his perspective. Fascinating what his impressions were and what he thinks to note in particular.

It was sort of a smallish crowd at the Vaněk plays, but the in crowd really--I think most people had ignored these plays, which everyone has seen before, choosing instead to attend the more hyped events. But that made the whole thing much more intimate.

This was particularly nice when Havel decided to show up. It is unusual to be able to talk to him without a swarm of people surrounding, and there were some of the usual distractions--a news team came and interviewed him, he was constantly being filmed by a documentary crew, and of course there were the Czechs thrilled to see him in person, many of whom asked for autographs. But despite all that, everything seemed much more relaxed.

Adre Krob does not really speak English, so most of the conversation was in Czech, which was hard for me. Havel scolded me a little for not having learned more, or at least I felt like he was scolding me when he commented that surely I had picked up some more Czech in the last few years (it may have been just an observation, but since I was getting lost in the conversation, I took it as a scold). I have learned some, but I wish I had picked up more... Reading Czech is still much easier for me than understanding spoken Czech.

A scene from Unveiling

In any event, the first show started (Unveiling) The sun was almost unbearably hot--they found an awning for Havel and the director but I decided to sit in the shade on the grass instead and take a few photos. I know the Vanek plays well enough that I could sort of follow in Czech, using my limited language skills as markers. I was a little disappointed with the production, but enjoyed the atmosphere.

The, after a break and more beer/chatting, then we all moved seats to watch Audience. I began by sitting with Havel in back but then someone from the fest rushed to get him out of the sun again and placed him next to a woman who was thrilled to have her former president find room on her bench. I once again moved to a side perspective and took a few photos.

A scene from Audience (Havel to the left, in blue)

Audience was really interesting, a very good performance. I really feel like seeing the play in Czech completely changed my perspective on the work. First of all, the little set and costume elements were greatly helpful, I had never been sure how to interpret the stage directions, because it was hard to know what a brewery in Communist Czechoslovakia looked like. But also it was interesting hearing when everyone laughed--and they laughed throughout. The two biggest laughs were at untranslatable moments--a Holub/Kohout pun (too complicated to explain) and one time when the Brewmaster mocked Vanek's formal mode of speech. Of course, he speaks exactly the way Havel does, so having Havel there may have added to the laughter.

Then a break again--I was going to miss the third performance and change before the night's events, but with everyone there I realized I couldn't walk out. So I stayed for Protest, which was fine, but much more of a talky enterprise so much harder to watch in pure Czech.

Still, a wonderful afternoon. I should have probably just stayed in what I was wearing for the evening and watched the puppet performance of Mistake as we waited for the main event at 7pm, but instead I ran back to the hotel (which meant, in practical terms, a 15 minute descent, as my hotel is just at the bottom of the hill on which the castle sits), a quick change, then a 15 minute ascent.

When I returned everything was much more crazy--the main courtyard of the cast was completely filled, and the ticket taker was incredulous that I wanted to see the show when I obviously didn't know enough Czech. A festival worker helped and found me my tickets--or rather, found me new tickets, because unbeknownst to me I had tickets waiting for me back in the hotel. The unfortunate ramification of that mistake was that instead of sitting next to Havel I was sitting on the other side of the audience.

A scene from The Pig

The performance used a choir of 100 singers, but the main part of it involved an interview between "Vaclav Havel" and an "American" A very strange show, sort of fun to watch. It was based a Socratic dialogue Havel had written during the Communist years. The "American" occasionally spoke English, which was helpful for me (though I felt like I wanted to help them with English grammar) He was a smarmy MC type who obviously was being portrayed as being a bit clueless regarding whatever they were talking about onstage.

The Havel character looked nothing like Havel, but his speech patterns were exactly right, a very funny imitation.

As for everything else--I have no idea. It seemed political, and it was a huge spectacle, with bright costumes and lots of singing. Havel was constantly matched with one woman or other (a commentary on him?), there was a pig, the pig was slaughtered, then at the end Havel was sort of dressed as a pig...who knows. I am hoping Paul Wilson can explain more when I see him next.

The opera was Smetana's The Bartered Bride.

NOTE/UPDATE: Paul just explained that the original text was an anecdote in which Havel searched for a pig to roast for a celebration at his summer house, and ran into an ever mounting series of complications. He imagined explained these events to a (confused) American journalist. Everything else was the director's invention.

In the audience, I secretly fulfilled the role of the confused American.

The deluge

After the show, Havel spoke, and then the deluge--a sudden, huge thunderstorm that sent everyone into another corner of the castle grounds. Confusion reigned, and here my lack of spoken Czech really got in the way--I had no idea where to go and what I was supposed to do. Nobody near knew me or spoke English--and my English was met by much amusement (perhaps because of the clownish American in the show?) And my Czech was either too bad to be understood or the confusion made it difficult to communicate in the halting way I have.

I finally just followed a rush of people through the pouring rain, and we ended up wandering through the catacombs of the castle where the former prison used to be. But we had gone the wrong way, and though I was sort of enjoying the adventure in one sense, I have to say stuck in endless narrow corridors with a crowd I couldn't communicate with was activating my claustrophobia.

Party in the dungeon!

Finally, we ended up at a party, also in the dungeons. This was the "Bash" I had been invited to, but because of circumstances I think everyone who had lasted through the rain and could find their way had been invited by default as well. there was plenty of food and drink for all, but little lighting or space. I still had a hard time finding anyone, so it was a bit surreal.

Havel finally arrived and then a concert that had been rained out was moved inside as well. This was a bit crazy. The singer stood at one end of a the very long, very then main passageway, some people crowded in to see her, but it was much too packed and much too crowded for many people to get near.

I decided to give up for the night and go home--my jet lag made me exhausted, and I just couldn't last through the party/performance in that crowded space.

The rain had just let up, but there were no lights (the storm had knocked out all the power), so I made my way back to the hotel by walking through dark, slippery paths down from the castle...a bit unnerving. This morning there are downed trees everywhere, sort of glad I didn't get knocked in the head. But home safe and ready for more adventures this morning.

The Economics of Theater, Part VI: The Gamble, a Dream

2011-04-12T13:53:00.001-07:00

I am the proprietor of a restaurant, called The Gamble. I explain the name comes from 18th century British establishments called gambols. These “gambols” were filled with liquor, dancing girls, and games of chance. It is from these old “gambols” that in fact we get the word gamble, I claim.

This is untrue. But in the dream, I believe it. That history, along with black and white woodcuts of the old gambols, is printed in the menus.

The place is beautiful, with antique wood tables and vintage taps and vintage gambling tables in the back. Dealers are ready to play, not for money (because of the gambling laws), but for chips that can lead to free food and drink. In the next room, women dance the can can. At alternative times, it features modern burlesque.

I sit with my friends, and around us are emptied bottles of fine wine.

It is a wonderful place, on the top of a tall skyscraper. I have put all my money into this Gamble, and it is my dream, exactly as I envisioned it.

The reviews have come out, and they have been good. But somehow, that hasn’t translated into customers. The place is mostly empty, except for my friends.

Soon, I will be bankrupt.

I realize as I am sitting there, that looking at the money the restaurant is bringing in, there is no way that we can survive. There is no way that I can survive, or avoid personal bankruptcy, short of a miracle, short of something, anything, that changes my fortunes at the last second.

I can’t fold up shop either. I have put every cent into it, spent my whole life building it. If I closed, it would amount to financial ruin, regardless, with less hope of last minute salvation.

So, I think…maybe I should just enjoy it.

Maybe I should just look around and think, how amazing it is to be here, now, at this very moment, at a place I love, with people I love.

I wake up.

The Economics of Theater, Part V: Actor, Director, or Playwright

2011-03-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

Actor, Director, or Playwright: Which is the worst financial idea?

In a recent New York Times article, Charles Isherwood scooped me (did I ever expect to say that) by writing about the economic difficulties of being a stage actor. He wrote that stage actors need to supplement their incomes from other sources—namely, shows like Law and Order or other small television and commercial acting gigs. Because the money made from acting on the stage is so small.

He was being too sunny in his outlook.

What his article overlooked is the great majority of stage actors, who are not working on a salary and who are not receiving significant outside acting income. They are supplementing their acting habit with their day jobs or by running through their savings.

Using my copy of Theater World, season 2004-2005 (which I have only because it is the year I had my Off-Broadway show, Fairy Tales of the Absurd, but I think it can be at least somewhat representative), I found these statistics: 32 new Broadway productions. 78 new Off-Broadway productions. Based on those stats, I am going to say that there are about 600 – 1000 working stage actors in the city in a given season.

For Rudolf II, the last show for which I had an open casting call (for two parts, one a young man, one a young woman), I received 600 resumes.

It is conceivable that I could have cast every paying role in the city with those actors alone. OK, every show would have had nothing but young actors. And OK, many of them would not be very good.

But some were very good. I had only time to see 50 – 100 of those actors. I’m sure there were talented actors I never saw.

If even I eliminated 80% of those applying from even attending my Equity Showcase auditions, what chance does a stage actor have to get paying work?

Of course, the Isherwood’s article does present an upside to being an actor. There is some supplemental work available. Even I have done some acting work, and acting is not my main focus. Most recently, I pretended to have OCD for the sake of some rabbis in training at Yeshiva University. And yesterday I went for a callback on a non-union commercial gig.

In other words, one can pick up a few bucks here and there.

And I do know some actors who pick up more than a few bucks, who actually make a living at their work. Maybe from voiceovers, maybe from commercials, maybe from regional theater, but they have managed to make it, in some cases, a well paying career. Maybe not from the stage work, but from supplemental acting work.

Even if that isn't achieved, one can, conceivably, work at a job full time and also have time to act. It’s hard, but it’s doable. I have jokingly referred to my time acting onstage as being on vacation. One’s main responsibility is oneself.

Which brings me to directing.

Alex Timbers, I have heard, once said that to be a director in New York, one has to have a trust fund.

That is partly because being a director in New York, almost always, is not just being a director. It is being a director/producer.

I do not have a trust fund. But I am fortunate in some ways. My father passed away relatively young, which was not fortunate. But since he was a lawyer, I inherited some money. Enough that I have been able to use it, over the last ten years, to supplement my sometimes meager income so that I have been able to continue to work.

That money has dwindled, over the years. Many in my position might have put the money towards retirement. I have no pension, and since I have mostly worked freelance, I’m not even sure if I will be eligible for Social Security one day. But instead of the more conservative approach, I have chosen to use the inheritance to help me continue my career. What will that mean for me one day? I’m not sure. What will that mean for me when, sooner rather than later, I run though my savings? I’m not sure about that either. Part of what inspired this series is the impulse to stave off that reckoning.

But that inheritance has allowed me to work as a director. I’m not sure if my father, who was much more conservative in his approach towards money, would be happy about the implicit risk in that decision. But then again, I think he would have been pleased to see what I’ve accomplished.

The problem with being a director is, of course, there are many fewer jobs in that field than the field of acting. Using those same Theater World stats I referenced above, there are probably slightly over 100 directing jobs a season. And many of those directing jobs are taken by the same people over and over again.

The reason why is clear. One can’t exactly audition to be a director. Directing jobs happen because one is associated with an institution. Usually, the institution finds people whose work they know, in some ways. Whose they’ve worked with at that same institution or, in a rare case, that they’ve seen outside the institution and want to bring in.

With the busy schedule of all theaters, there is not a lot of scouting going on. But then again, there doesn’t need to be. There aren’t many open positions, anyway. Certainly, if a show gets attention, it’s possible that some institutional theater may arrive,. And by attention I don’t mean a rave review in the New York Times, I mean a rave review on the front page of the New York Times, hopefully by at least the 2^nd string reviewer.

And the current 2^nd string reviewer, the above mentioned Charles Isherwood, is not doing much scouting himself these days.

An alternative is to form a theater company, as I have, and make that big enough to either sustain oneself. A difficult feat. Possible, but I hope, but very difficult.

I am not just a director, of course, I am also a playwright.

This may be the worst idea of all.

The one advantage of being a playwright, is there is a correlation to the audition process. One can submit a script.

When I was just out of college, I took a few jobs as a reader. I worked for New Dramatists, on a prize they handed out at the time. I worked for the Williamstown Theater Festival.

What I learned was, it is very easy to say no to a script. And very difficult to say yes.

At the age of 22, my job was to read as many plays as I could and either say no or pass it on. I couldn’t say yes, of course. No one would trust a 22 year old to say yes, it had to be passed through many levels to get to that stage. But I could say no to almost anyone. I said no the Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen Disch and a number of other playwrights whose names I recognized.

No one second guessed me, when I said no. There was too much to read. They second guessed my yeses, though. Why did you say yes to this, I was asked a few times.

Because I’ve read 30 scripts and I want to say yes to something, I said.

Only say yes if it is definitely, definitely a yes, I was told.

There are a lot of bad plays. But after a while, my eyes began to blur, and I couldn’t tell what was good or bad anymore. I couldn’t write anymore, either, my head was filled with other people’s words. I couldn’t even keep reading.

I quit.

Rather than submitting to slush piles, one can, like me, form one’s own company and use it as a forum for one’s own work. In publishing, that would be called a vanity press. But in theater, it is more accepted, because frankly, it’s the only way a lot of new work can be seen at all. It’s the same in the film world. If you raise the money and actually are able to mount a show or film your film, there is something of an assumption that maybe it deserves to be seen.

Or one can try the slush pile. Despite the quantity of slush, theoretically, an unknown writer can have his work win the lottery, get through all the hoops, and get his or her work onstage.

But if there were 110 productions in that Theater World season, and many of them were revivals, and many of them were old playwrights having their newest work mounted, how much room is there for new playwrights?

Ironically, of course, I was officially an Off-Broadway playwright and director that year. By my analysis, I was one of the few, the elite.

The production lost so much money I wasn’t able to pay myself that year for either job.

There is one upside to being a playwright. Royalties. I have gotten royalties a surprising amount of times, most frequently from my translation of Lysistrata, which seems to have gained a cult following of some sort. It’s not made me rich. But $500 arriving unexpectedly every, upon occasion, is always a welcome sight.

And sometimes I’ve thought, if I decided to just be a playwright, I could get a day job and still write. Or…theoretically…I could sell out to tv, which a lot of the more successful playwright seem to do (because, as I may not have mentioned, even the successful ones have a hard time living on a playwright’s wages).

So then, it’s not so bad, right?

And there’s always teaching work, whichever of the three you are (or better, if you are all three at once.)

So then, which is the worst idea? I know less about the design and stagehand economics, anyone want to chime in on why one those is a terrible idea as well…

The Economics of Theater, Part IV: A Pause for Art

2011-03-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

And now, a pause for Art.

I have been thinking for a while of writing a play dealing with economics. My idea, right now, would be to write a series of sketches, each based on another economic theorist: Keynes, Smith, Marx, Rand, etc. Of course, my struggles with my own personal economy have been partly the inspiration for that, but one thing that I’ve learned from the recent fiscal troubles is that the field of economics is truly fascinating. I have started reading whatever I can, listening to Planet Money, Freakonomics, etc.

Or perhaps I will write some and ask some other playwrights to write some of the other sketches. I’m not sure. And takers?

Will this idea lead anywhere? Perhaps. But since I am writing these essays and theater and art, I felt I might as well try out one, for kicks. This one’s based on Keynes’ theory that in times of economic hardship, employing someone, even to just dig a ditch and then fill it back up again, is an overall economic good.

I’ve definitely had day jobs that have felt like I was doing just that…

THE DITCH DIGGER, by JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

PERSON
What are you doing?

DITCH DIGGER

Digging a ditch.

PERSON
Why?

DITCH DIGGER
For the sake of the country.

PERSON
What are you going to do with that ditch when you’re done?

DITCH DIGGER

Gonna fill up the hole.

PERSON
With what?

DITCH DIGGER

Dirt.

PERSON
What dirt?

DITCH DIGGER

Same dirt I took out.

PERSON
Why?

DITCH DIGGER
For the sake of the country.

PERSON
How does that help the country?

DITCH DIGGER

I dunno. Just does. Wanna dig?

PERSON
Why would I?

DITCH DIGGER

Pay’s good.

PERSON
How good?

DITCH DIGGER

Good enough.

PERSON
I don’t like digging.

DITCH DIGGER

Nor me.

PERSON
Why don’t you do something else?

DITCH DIGGER

They won’t pay for that.

PERSON
How come?

DITCH DIGGER
Some man came along and told ‘em that ditch digging would save the economy.

PERSON
Just ditch digging?

DITCH DIGGER

He didn’t say. They’re keeping to the ditch digging. Just in case.

PERSON
What would you like to do?

DITCH DIGGER

Me? I’m a clown.

PERSON
A what?

DITCH DIGGER

Clown.

PERSON
Like…with the big shoes, and the red nose?

DITCH DIGGER

Sort of. Don’t use the shoes or the nose though.

PERSON
Then what makes you a clown?

DITCH DIGGER

Clowning.

PERSON
Is that worth more than ditch digging?

DITCH DIGGER

Makes people laugh. Sometimes. Makes people think.

PERSON
People like to laugh and think.

DITCH DIGGER

Some do. Some like to dig ditches. Some don’t like much of anything, at all.

PERSON
Clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

What?

PERSON
Clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

Can’t. I’ve got a job.

PERSON
But you’re just going to fill up this ditch later.

DITCH DIGGER

That’s what they’re paying me for.

PERSON
What if you didn’t dig at all? Would they even notice?

DITCH DIGGER

Not sure.

PERSON
Clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

How much are you paying?

PERSON
I don’t have much.

DITCH DIGGER

Me neither.

PERSON
Don’t you miss clowning?

DITCH DIGGER

Yes.

PERSON
Don’t you want to clown?

DITCH DIGGER

Yes.

PERSON
Then clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

Can’t. Got a job.
(Pause.)
What do you do?

PERSON
I paint pictures.

DITCH DIGGER

Does anyone buy them?

PERSON
I’m afraid to show them to anyone.

DITCH DIGGER

Do you think anyone would buy them?

PERSON
Maybe. Not many people have money, though. And there are a lot of people who paint pictures.
(Pause.)

DITCH DIGGER

Want a shovel?

PERSON
Yes.

The Economics of Theater, Part III: Theater Companies

2011-03-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

Once, there was only Broadway.

This is not true. But it is a commonly believed untruth, and a convenient starting point. Of course, there has always been something besides Broadway, even in its earliest days. But. Essentially.

Once, there was only Broadway.

Slowly, a new movement formed, a movement for less traditional, more alternative theater. The movement grew. It called itself Off-Broadway.

Those shows were less attended, and less press paid attention, but some did. Enough. And the people who did the work grew their theaters, though grants and patronage and box office, so that a core group could make a salary for their work. They became institutions. Like all institutions, they tried to emulate their own successes.

Others saw those institutions and rejected what they stood for. Slowly, a new movement formed, a movement for less traditional, more alternative theater. The movement grew. It called itself Off-Off-Broadway.

A new generation arrived, and it saw huge commercial theater on Broadway. It saw non profit institutions as well that had grown large enough to also be on Broadway. It saw other large institutions that were the bulk of Off-Broadway. And it saw institutions, mostly set up during the 60’s wonderful companies like LaMama or P. S. 122 or the Wooster Group or the Ontological.

Slowly, it grew other institutions, which crowded in besides the old. HERE managed to add itself to the mix Soho Rep. The Ohio. Tiny theaters smaller than the other institutions that still managed to work at least a few salaries out.

But people kept coming. And the city was crowded.

Even smaller theaters appeared, sometimes just to disappear. Nada. Collective Unconscious. The Present Company.

The Present Company still exists of course, in theory. But it has, in essence, disappeared into the behemoth of its own making, the New York Fringe Festival. Which in itself created a model for how a modern theater company could find a way to pay its administrative staff. By grouping hundreds of smaller theater companies under one giant umbrella.

And still more theaters appeared. But now there was Broadway. There was Off-Broadway. There were the Off-Off-Broadway institutions. There were festivals.

How can a new theater get noticed, among all that? How can it get press attention? How can it get grants?

How, essentially, can it make the money to at the very least pay the people spending their lives running it.

And really, with all the other theater going on, is it even needed? I barely have the time or money to keep up with a fraction of the theater I want to see, and it’s my passion. Maybe there’s just too much. Too many plays I can’t see. Too many books I can’t read. Too many art exhibits I can’t attend. Too many artists. Period.

Rocco Landesman said recently that there was a supply and demand problem. He’s right, of course, though his statement that there are 5.7 million administrators and only 2 million artists is insane, of course.

What he may have meant is, only 2 million that seem to be able to make any money at it, just as pure artists.

But there is a supply and demand problem. Too much theater. Too few audience members. No wonder it’s so hard to make a living. EVERYONE ELSE, GO AWAY!

Even in the mythical utopia we know as “Europe” this is a problem. But in the American reality, and in particular in New York, it has gone out of control.

And yet…we don’t go away. Because somewhere in the midst of this mass of work, many somewheres, multiple times over, good and important work is being created. Important only if you accept the premise that art is important, that theater is important, that creation and thought expressed on stage makes us, as individuals and society, better in some way. Helps our ideas evolve. Fulfills one of our most primal instincts, for I do believe that drama is a basic, ancient instinct, and that from those dramatic enactments have sprung humanity’s greatest social and moral advances.

And if you believe that, as I am cursed to, then you can’t go away. Not if you believe you have something you must contribute to that conversation.

I have run my theater company for almost 20 years now. In about a year and a half, it will be the 20^th anniversary of our first show, which I produced immediately out of college.

I should be excited about that fact. I am told that it is a milestone to be proud of. But I also dread it.

Because we should have a bigger budget. We should be getting more grants. We should be bigger. I should be paid a full salary.

Sometimes, I feel as though I have failed. When Havel flew my to the Czech Republic this summer and I met theater artist after theater artist and he praised me and talked about my theater company and my work, I smiled and thought, if only you know. It’s a house of cards. It’s a sham. It’s something I made up, and it’s only real because I pretend that it’s real, and a few people, actors, designers, The New York Times, they all pretend with me.

And yet…we are getting grants. And we seem to keep getting a little more each year, despite the economy. We seem to be recognized a little more each year. Really, I didn’t devote my time in full to the theater company until 2001, the year of our Ionesco Festival. And since then our budget has increased, we have received a lot more press, and I would even say the overall quality of our work has consistently improved.

Or at least we’ve had a little more money to realize our dreams.

And it is doable. Despite all the other theaters, I do see, somewhere, the bright and shiny possibility. Or maybe because of them, because I realize that some of the companies that I work with, side by side, are able to get just a little more funding. Not much more. But enough.

In another business, those people would be enormously wealthy. The top of their profession. Which means, in theater, they get by.

Getting to that level of funding will mean more time devoted to grant writing, and, ironically, probably less time devoted to art. That is the conundrum of running a theater company. Sometimes it feels as if you can either make good work or fund good work, but not both.

It helps when you have some people helping out, and recently, I’ve had that too. Board members. My friend and fellow theater delusional Patrice Miller.

And if I can just find the time to write all the grants, put together all the shows, do all the accounting, solicit all the donors, then I do think that I may be able to reach that point.

I am quite sure we are able to do impressive work with people who are impressive artists. And yes, in magical “Europe,” money would already be flowing.

Now if only I didn’t also need to look for a little money on the side…

Oh Europe, oh Europe. How I love the utopian vision I have created for myself about you.

The Economics of Theater, Part II: Funding

2011-02-15T07:57:00.000-08:00

My theater is shovel ready.

My theater is ready to beat the Russians to the moon.

I was going to write today more about matters more personal, but the recent budget released by the Obama administration has moved me to talk about the economics of theater in a political sense. And of course it is personal, for at the same time my theater company is trying to expand, politicians are once again treating theater like it’s a frivolous indulgence. It is not. It is an economic engine. My theater is more economically efficient than infrastructure, more educational per dollar spent than education.

Do I have the studies to show it? There are a few. Every impact study done has shown that the return is much greater than every dollar spent. Google the words “impact” and “economic” and “theater” or maybe the “arts” and you’ll find them. Many were done in England or in Canada or elsewhere overseas. But the ones from the U. S. show the same thing. The arts give back more than they take. Much more.

Let’s examine one reason that it’s true. The so-called shovel test is truer for theater than almost any stimulus around. Give any of the thousands of theater companies the money now, and you will see that money ready to be put to work. There are people waiting to create. And you will not only see every dollar in the work, it will seem like, magically, each dollar has become ten.

My theater is ready to make this country great.

So why does my country hate her so?

Give theater the money, and you will find workers who are willing and eager to work well beyond the amount that they are paid. You will find diligent, industrious workers and entrepreneurs, small businesses that feed businesses big and small.

Do you want a man to dig a ditch and refill it, Mr. Keynes? Put an audience member in front of us and we’ll go all night.

I don’t ask this country to invest in theater because it is the right thing to do. I think it is, but put that aside. I don’t ask because it feeds our country’s soul. It think it does, but put that aside as well. I don’t ask because art can create a bridge between nations. I think it can, but put that aside.

I ask because it is a good investment. One of the best around. I ask you not to do it out of the goodness of your heart, but for the sake of your own bottom line. Art pays for itself. Art feeds the economy.

This may seem confusing, because artists, as a whole are poor. This is because, when the transaction happens, we take most of our fee in fulfillment, rather than just cash.

The cash is great, don’t get me wrong. But we are willing to do much more work for much less because of the economic value we place on following our passion.

Perhaps we shouldn’t. That is another subject. Perhaps we should be like investment banks that take the cash, and a lot of it. Perhaps our transactions should create nothing in and of themselves so that we need the cash in order to justify the time.

Or perhaps we should be somewhere in between.

But as it stands, we are ready to be exploited for the cause. Give us the money, and we will work. Just a little of it. Just enough so we can manage, and we’ll do it. We can’t help it, God help us.

And then Hell, we’ll pay it back from the after show drinks alone. Sometimes quite literally. Between the cast and audience, just the business created for the bars and restaurants may pay our tiny tab. The rest is extra.

No rational economic theory, not one, can show why cutting funding to the arts helps the economy. No rational budget, not one, can show any real impact on the overall debt gained by cutting our already tiny budget more than it has been. President Obama, you made a plea, an impassioned one, about the need to invest in our country. The need to invest in our future. . The need to invest in jobs.

Invest in mine. Invest in ours. Invest in our economy.

We need to begin making people more aware it’s true. We need to place the information on our programs, on our websites, on our blogs. 3LD has told me that from now on they are putting the number of people who worked on the show right in each program. That’s a start.

For my show Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which recently played at 3LD, there were over 30 people working on the show. We would enter between 9 and10am. We would leave sometime between 11pm and 1am. That excludes the nights when we worked on the set through the night. Usually, there would be 5-6 people during the day there, then 15-20 in the evening.

People traveled in to see us. Hotels, airfare. People ate and drank before and after. And though UTC61 was not able to afford paying people much, we paid at least a small something to everyone.

And we created something.

How much did we receive from the state? A little over $4,000. We had other funding, from foundations and donors, but if you take away box office, you can say we relied on about $15,000 worth of giving, including the state funding.

How much did we give in return?

We can try to reach out, but we cannot reach out alone.

We need an advocate, more than one. We need to help out by changing perceptions. But we need to bridge the gap. We need to make someone believe, enough to speak out not just in whispers in crowded rooms and not just our of sense of duty but out of a sense of passion, out of a sense that every dollar spent does the work of ten. We need studies, more than we can fund ourselves. We need editorials. We need a speech in Congress. We deserve one.

Well somebody, anybody, stand up and speak for our cause?

The Economics of Theater, Part 1

2011-02-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I made a terrible financial mistake. I decided to work in theater.

I could have, quite frankly, done most anything. I certainly had the skills to become a lawyer, and investment banker, or a doctor (though being squeamish about blood might have been a holdback there). And I have to say that all of them were also interesting to me. So was being a scientist, a psychologist, a teacher, or any of a number of steadily paying jobs.

At the time, I made jokes about choosing to become a starving artist. The truth was, however, I thought of that as a temporary hardship. I had a sort of confidence in my abilities that told me, that if I had talent and brains I would eventually make money. After all, I went to the theater, didn’t I? I saw people on stage. These people were professionals. They were getting paid. If I was also talented and smart, I could also get paid.

I was, for the most part, terribly deceived.

This is the truth: the industry is full of talented, intelligent people who barely make a dime. That there is so little money available, and such a huge pool of talent, that in fact the probability is that an intelligent, talented artist will barely make a dime.

This is not a hard and fast rule, of course. There is a very small percentage of people who work in theater who get paid decently. There is also a small percentage of people who win the lottery. The wise man does not make the lottery his career.

Unless…there is another economic benefit to playing the lottery that is unseen. And in the lottery that is theater, there is.

What brings up these musings? I have reached a point in my life that, when I was young and considering working in theater, I would have found encouraging. I work on exciting projects. I just closed a show that I was very proud of artistically and which was sold out, after receiving good reviews in major publications. I have been reviewed well multiple times in the Times, the Village Voice, Time Out, and a myriad of other journals I consider important. I have worked with my heroes (and yes, the Václav Havel relationship has been particularly rewarding for me) and been considered a colleague and a friend. I have seen words I’ve written come to physical life before me, in front of an appreciative crowd. I have put together large, significant festivals. I have written/directed Off-Broadway. I have run a theater company for nearly 20 years. I have written books that have been published, sold, and read by an appreciative audience. I have imagined a work, and it has become flesh.

And often, it gives me great joy.

On my next tax return, the amount noted for income will be smaller than when I was a college student with a summer job.

How am I able to sustain myself? Why have I chosen to live in this manner?

Both are complicated questions, and relevant ones as I try to discover how to continue to sustain myself.

So I am going to be writing a few blog entries on this, both for myself and others I know going through a similar point in their lives. I haven’t written blog entries for a while, and probably won’t for a while after—too many other projects. But this will be, should I manage to complete it, a series of sorts, about theater and economics. The other blog entries will have other answers, or maybe other sorts of questions, probably in more pure economic terms.

But this is the simplest answer to begin with: I have a calling. Perhaps it is pretentious to say so, but since my whole adult life has been devoted to that belief, I claim that right. I mean it in the way a clergy person has a calling, for being in a theater, for me, is what I imagine being in a church or synagogue is for the devoutly religious.

Years ago, I saw a scene in a movie that epitomized the current dilemma for me. It was a fun movie, if not one with any particular aspirations to greatness. It was a comedy that was a bar joke: about priest and a rabbi--these being Edward Norton and Ben Stiller in a semi wacky Upper West Side comedy called Keeping the Faith. It was filmed blocks away from where I live. I watched it because of that and because I was dating a rabbi at the time

Edward Norton was experiencing a crisis in faith. He went to an older priest, as I remember (and I haven’t seen this movie since, so perhaps the way I am recounting this tale is off…) and told him he was considering leaving the church. The older priest told him, when you commit to the church, it is like committing to a marriage. You don’t do it once. You have to keep on doing it, again and again.

I feel like I have at times sacrificed my romantic relationships to theater—which is not to say, as I write this on Valentine’s Day and happen, this year, to be single, that being single is a necessary condition. But it has made certain relationships harder. I have probably sacrificed having children to theater. There are those who have managed children and theater, but they seem few to me. And I have most definitely sacrificed future financial security to theater.

And each time, I had to decide where my commitment lies.

Time for me to recommit again. I am in love.

Happy Valentines Day, theater. Don’t worry, I’m not expecting chocolate. By this point, I know you too well.

I’m OK with that. But if you want to slip me a couple of bucks for putting out, I won’t take too much offense.

Drs. Jane & Alexander - bloggers go for free!

2009-05-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

My newest show, Doctors Jane and Alexander, is opening this Saturday, in the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas. Details below (or follow the links to our exciting new website!)

All bloggers who want to drop by and write about the show are invited for free!

Doctors Jane and Alexander
written and directed by Edward Einhorn
Music by Alexander S. Wiener and Henry Akona
Untitled Theater Co. #61, New York
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, 3rd Floor

with: Timothy Babcock*, Peter Bean*, Talaura Harms*, Jason Liebman*, Josh Mertz, Phoebe Silva*, Alyssa Simon*, and Maxwell Zener* on May 23

WORLD PREMIERE

Sat 5/23 @6:00, Mon 5/25 @7:30 (followed by a discussion), Thu May 28@9:00, Sun 5/31@5:00, Sat 6/6 @8:30, Sun 6/7 @7:30, Mon 6/8 @7:30, Fri 6/12 @9:00, Sat 6/13 @6:00, Sun 6/14 @1:00

Tickets $18

BUY NOW ONLINE!

or call 212-352-3101

Using found, fabricated, and occasionally finagled text, the playwright explores the life of his grandfather Alexander S. Wiener, the co-discoverer of the Rh factor in blood, through interviews with his mother, a psychologist who recently retired due to a debilitating stroke. An examination of art, science, ambition, and achievement, told with humor and song.

Directing my own play (about me)

2009-04-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

I've started rehearsals on Doctors Jane and Alexander, a play about my Mom and my grandfather going up in the Festival of Jewish Theater & Ideas. As I often do with my own work, I am directing it myself.

I have often heard people debate whether a playwright should direct his own play. My approach, when directing my own work, had always been to somewhat detach myself from the role of writer and to become a director. To stop thinking of it as my writing and just think of it as a play. But of course I have a certain freedom I wouldn't have with someone else's play - I can say, that line is just horribly written, it doesn't work at all, let's change it. Often I find I go there more quickly than my actors, who at time protest, no, I can make this work. Which may be true. A good actor can often disguise bad writing. But I try to avoid the bad writing altogether.

The one nice thing I find when someone else directs a play of mine is that I can really concentrate on rewriting during rehearsals - and I do mean during rehearsals. During Golem Stories, I would rewrite the play as they rehearsed, so that the new lines would come by the end of rehearsal, and I could hear them. And having a director with strong opinions (Glory Bowen in that case) is very helpful - unless I completely disagree, I suppose. I occasionally disagreed with Glory, but the play came out much better by the end of rehearsals, thanks in good part to her feedback.

Doctors Jane and Alexander has gone through many iterations. It was a ten-minute piece, written in 24 hours, for my 24/7 Festival. Alex Roe (of the Metropolitan Playhouse) did a fabulous job with that little piece, and staged it in ways I didn't expect and found very moving. Then it became a one act in NEUROfest, and Ian W. Hill directed it, once again doing a fabulous job with it. Both times, I was grateful to have an outside director, because the play is so personal - I'm a character, my Mom is a character, my grandfather as well, and in the latest incarnations, my brother too. It was interesting to have an outside eye who didn't have all the inside information.

When Ensemble Studio Theater gave me a Sloan Grant to develop the piece into a full length (and present it as a reading) I decided to direct it myself. It's partly because I enjoy directing, and it was a piece I thought would be fun to direct. But it was also because, having seen other directors work with it, I felt I was ready to direct - and even more, at the time, there were some actors I really wanted to cast in the reading, and I had the luxury of determining the casting as the director.

Now I have reached the fully staged version, and I am directing again. I have to say, it has been an unusual process for me, in the early rehearsals. Before we began, I urged the actors not to worry about the reality of who I am, who my mother is, etc, but just to perform the play (much of which is found text, from actual conversation) and interperet them. And I still urge them to do so. But as a director, my instinct is to insert my own experience. And my own experience, of course, come from the reality of my experiences with my Mom and others.

At first I resisted injecting that reality into the play, but the actors had questions from day one, and really, the answers that I can give are just based on my own life. So I find myself selectively injecting a little more reality into the show.

I do simultaneously have some strong feedback about the show. Henry Akona, who is composing music for the play, or rather taking my grandfathers relatively simple compositions and filling them with ornate, complex, and clever harmonies, has been giving me feedback since the reading at Ensemble Studio Theater, and with such a personal piece, it's particularly good to have an outside eye. Henry's also a director (he has been workshopping another play of mine, Rudolf II, for years) and someone whose opinions I greatly respect.

But the difference, in the end, between directing one of my own plays myself and having someone else direct is this: when I direct, I know that everything that's really important to me will happen on stage. All the reasons I was inspired to write the play will be directly in front of the audience. I feel relatively confident about my directing, so the chance are good I will like the end result. And I will have the enjoyment (as well as the work) of putting it together.

When someone else directs, something or other that I found important in the text will inevitably missed. But with a good director, some things I didn't even realize were there will be found. Which is exciting. And I get to focus on honing the script all the more. And that is also enjoyable.

ButI won't get to discover the play as a director. And that, for me, is the real joy of directing my own script. When I write, I deliberately only include minimal stage directions. First, I don't enjoy writing them. Second, I feel like it is up to the director to fill those moments in, while it's up to me, as a writer, to give the director dialogue, with only the occasionally comment, to make the meaning clearer. And the staging that works in one theater, with one set of actors, won't necessarily work in another.

But now, as the director, I get to discover daily what staging works and doesn't work with my particular actors, discovering the transitions, the flow of the piece, etc. And it's fun. Frustrating, sometimes, when I feel the flow isn't working. But almost an extention of writing, like I have taken a work half finished and now I'm providing the other half. Because there's only so much one can express in words. And I'm not always good at explaining I mean. But showing what I mean, by moving actors in space - that, I'm good at

Shows announced for Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas!

2009-04-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

We are working hard on the website, but for those who read my blog, here's a preview! Here are all the shows in Untitled Theater Company #61's upcoming Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas!

The Burning Bush
by Tracey Erin Smith
directed by Anita La Selva
Burning Bush Productions, Toronto, Canada
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave.

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Wed 6/3 @9:00, Fri 6/5 @8:30, Sat 6/6 @11:00, Thu 6/11 @10:00

Yentl meets Showgirls in this award winning one-woman traveling spiritual roadshow. Rabbinical student Barbara Baumowitz teams up with exotic dancers to spread their religion in this new version of an old-time revival. Critics Pick in Backstage, Audience Choice Award in Frigid NYC and Best of the Toronto Fringe Festival.

Burning Bush Productions has produced award-winning theatre in New York City and across Canada. BBP also delivers workshops across North America in creating solo theatre based on personal life experience for both professional artists and lay people. We are currently developing our first feature film, based on ‘The Burning Bush!’ with Mr. Jackie Mason on board to play himself.

Cities of Light
assembled by Rebecca Joy Fletcher
directed by John Richard Thompson
Open Hart Productions, New York
at 92Y Tribeca and the Center for Jewish History
WORLD PREMIERE

Wed 5/20 @7:00 at 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson St Tickets online or at 212-415-5500

Tue 5/26 @7:00 & Sat 5/30 @8:30, Don’t Tell Mama, 343 West 46th Street Tickets online or at 212-757-0788

Wed 6/10 @6:30 at Center for Jewish History. 15 W. 16th St Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Light and dark in 1930’s Berlin, Yiddish Warsaw, Paris & Tel Aviv. Blinding lights, brazen comedy, cabarets of yearning and bite. An astounding era; a time of Jewish artists on the move. No need to brush up on your languages; these songs are mostly in English!

Open Hart Productions is the brainchild of playwright, performer, cantor, and scholar Rebecca Joy Fletcher. Founded in 2007, Open Hart is dedicated to researching and reviving the lost art of International Jewish cabaret. Currently focusing on Warsaw's and pre-state Tel Aviv’s cabarets, Open Hart also presents lectures and workshops. Fiscal Sponsorship: The Field. .

The Dig: Death, Genesis & the Double Helix
by Stacie Chaiken
What’s the Story?, Los Angeles
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Wed 6/3 @7pm, Fri 6/5 @10:30, Mon 6/8 @10:00, Thu 6/11 @3:00

An American archaeologist is summoned to a dig in the ancient Arab-Hebrew town of Jaffa. They've found something big—something that could change everything—and she's the only one who can tell them what it is. And her mother just died. And there's a lizard in her bathtub. The Middle East. Matriarchs. Cruelty. It's a comedy.

What's the Story? was founded in 2001 as a workshop for writers and performers who are struggling with personal story for the stage, the page and the screen. The workshop produces a biennial festival of new solo plays, regular public showings of works-in-progress. As of April 2009, What's the Story? is in residence at the Odyssey Theatre is Los Angeles.

Doctors Jane & Alexander
written and directed by Edward Einhorn
Music by Alexander S. Wiener and Henry Akona
Untitled Theater Co. #61, New York
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Sat 5/23 @6:00, Mon 5/25 @7:30, Thu May 28@9:00, Sun 5/31@5:00, Sat 6/6 @8:30, Sun 6/7 @7:30, Mon 6/8 @7:30, Fri 6/12 @9:00, Sat 6/13 @6:00, Sun 6/14 @1:00

Using found, fabricated, and occasionally finagled text, the playwright explores the life of his grandfather Alexander S. Wiener, the co-discoverer of the Rh factor in blood, through interviews with his mother, a psychologist who recently retired due to a debilitating stroke. An examination of art, science, ambition, and achievement, told with humor and song.

Untitled Theater Company #61 is a Theater of Ideas: scientific, political, philosophical, and above all theatrical. Past projects include the Ionesco Festival, the NEUROfest, the Havel Festival, and the Off-Broadway production of Fairy Tales of the Absurd. Most recently, they produced a calypso musical version of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.

Emma
by Howard Zinn
directed by Martina Plag
stadium-praxis, Philadelphia
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
NEW YORK PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Thu 6/4 @7:00, Sat 6/6 @3:30, 6/7 @5:00

This toy-theatre adaptation uses wit and humor to illuminate history from below. Through innovative storytelling and theatrical devices everyday objects transform to reveal and celebrate the life of the remarkable “Emma” Goldman; the anarchist, feminist, and free-spirited thinker who was exiled from the United States because of her outspoken views.

stadium-praxis Strives to explore the point where theory and practice intersect to [in]form action. We create puppet artistry for adult audiences. As an art rich in ancient, folk and popular theater techniques, we use puppetry to address contemporary issues and advocate social change and awareness. We approach the puppet as metaphor.

Hard Love
by Motti Lerner
directed by Susan Reid
Genesis Stage, Atlanta
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave

NEW YORK PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Fri 6/5 @6:00, Sat 6/6 @5:30, Wed 6/10 @3:00, Thu 6/11 @7:30

In this fiercely romantic drama, Hannah and Zvi are reunited after divorcing twenty years earlier. Raised in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim, the couple ended their marriage when Zvi turned his back on Judaism and Hannah did not. Now the teenage children from their second marriages have become romantically involved, forcing Hannah and Zvi back into each others’ lives The first-ever full staging in New York of the work of noted Israeli playwright Motti Lerner.

Genesis Stage produces works of theater which are relative to the Jewish experience and reflective of the universal human condition. Genesis strives to challenge, enlighten, and entertain Atlanta audiences with world and regional premieres, as well as seldom-seen plays, which investigate the past, reflect on the present and envision the future.

The Jewbird
Created by the Northwoods Company
based on the story by Bernard Malamud
directed by Annie Levy
Northwoods Theater, Conover, Wisconsin
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Fri 5/29 @5:30, Sat 5/30 @5:00, Sun 5/31 @2:00

In this modern fable originally penned by Malamud, an unexpected visitor flies through the fifth floor Lower East Side apartment window of Harry and Edie Cohen and their young son Maurie. The small, scrawny bird plops down on the kitchen table in the middle of dinner, and begins to speak. What follows exposes the family’s uneasy tension between Jewish identity, past and present.

Northwoods Theatre Company is an ensemble group dedicated to creating and developing new work relevant to the Jewish experience of all ages. By treating source texts as it would sacred texts and working them into the script, Northwoods Ramah Theatre Company aims to make the connection between the story and Jewish teachings more apparent and accessible.

Jolly Good Fellows
by Steve Feffer and Tucker Refferty
directed by Mark Liermann
Whole Art Theater, Kalamazoo, MI
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Fri 5/29 @7:00, Sat 5/30 @11:00, Sun 5/31 @3:30, 6/1 @7:30

A dark comedy about two immigrant actors from New York in the 1890’s who make their living performing a stereotypical “Jew” and “Irishman” in the grotesque styles of the variety stage. They enter into a contract of convenience to keep up with the changing times, despite the personal costs of such performances. Songs and sketches from the period are included.

The Whole Art Theatre Company offers unique theatrical experiences, including the fostering of new work, that brings socially significant issues to the forefront. In 2007, they received a Foundation of Jewish Culture grant for Steve Feffer’s new play Ain’t Got No Home, the true story of the legendary Chess Records.

Laughing Fools
“Laughing at the Speed of Light”
written, illustrated and performed by: Flash Rosenberg
“Village of Fools”
adapted, directed and performed by: Stephen Ringold and the Grand Falloons
From stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer
at JCC Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, near 76th St

Tickets online or at 505-5708

Mon 6/8 @8:00, Tue 6/9 @8:00

Flash Rosenberg and Stephen Ringold mingle their two distinct shows into one tasty evening. By the same unlikely logic that landed smoked fish in a bagel, Ringold’s vaudeville puppet theater “Village of Fools” will suddenly be served in the middle of Rosenberg’s comic slide romp “Laughing at the Speed of Light” to create a posh nosh and frolic of Jewish culture.

The Grand Falloons is an ensemble of theatre, vaudeville, and design professionals who have all worked with the Big Apple Circus for 20 years, as well as on the New York stage, on national television, and in opera houses, schools, museums and theaters across the country.

The Legacy Project: Echoes
Featuring the WORLD PREMIERE of Tikkun with choreography by Carolyn Dorfman and music by Greg Wall
Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company and Bente Kahan, New York
at NYU Tisch, 111 2nd Ave, 5th floor

Tickets online or at 1-800-838-3006

Fri 5/29 @7:30, Sat 5/30 @7:30

The Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company and actress/vocalist Bente Kahan present The Legacy Project: Echoes, an evening of dance, theater and live music incorporating the best of the artists’ individual repertoires, their collaborative piece Silent Echoes and featuring the world premiere of Tikkun with commissioned score by renowned jazz and Klezmer musician Greg Wall.

Since 1983, Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company’s high-energy and technically demanding repertory uses movement as metaphor to take audiences on “intellectual and emotional journeys” (Observer Tribune). Led by artistic director Carolyn Dorfman and her creative drive to communicate human experiences, interactions perceptions, and truths, CDDC’s twelve dancers display extraordinary physical, technical and dramatic range.

Mentshn
by Sholem Aleichem
Translated by Ellen Perecman & Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
Adapted by Ellen Perecman & Clay McLeod Chapman
Directed by Marc Geller
New Worlds Theatre Project, New York
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Sat 5/23 @8:30, Tue 5/26 @7:30. Fri 5/29 @9:00, Wed 6/3 @5:00, Sat 6/6 @2:00, Wed 6/10 @10:00, Fri 6/12 @7:00, Sat 6/13 @2:00

On playwright Sholem Aleichem’s 150th birthday, the first English translation of an old play: Jobs are hard to come by, so Madame Gold’s servants have limited options. To keep their jobs, they have to be willing to maintain the status quo by relinquishing their self-respect and free will. But how much abuse can they be expected to tolerate? Servants are people too, aren't they?

New Worlds Theatre Project is dedicated to bringing imagination and artistic excellence to English adaptations of Yiddish plays, and in so doing, to bringing dignity to the literary legacy of Yiddish culture.

The Most Radiant Beauty
written and directed by Tanya Khordoc & Barry Weil
Evolve Company, New York
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Sun 5/24 @3:00, Wed 5/27 @7:00, Thu 5/28 @7:00, Sat 5/30 @8:30, Thu 6/4 @9:00, Sun 6/7 @3:00, Wed 6/10 @ 8:00, Sat 6/13 @10:30

A one-act to be performed with Six Scenes from a Misunderstanding (below).

God said “Let there be light.” Einstein showed us what it could do. In this multimedia collage, puppeteers Khordoc and Weil use found text to explore Einstein, Genesis, the Atomic Bomb and the life-altering power of knowledge.

Evolve Company has been playing with puppets very seriously since 1996. Productions include Evolution, Brains & Puppets and Secrets History Remembers. They were also given the honor of creating the world premiere production of Motormorphosis, a play by former Czech President Václav Havel, as part of UTC #61's Havel Festival in NYC.

Rat Bastards
by Julia Pearlstein
directed by Eureka
Dixon Place, New York
Theater THE, associate producer
at Dixon Place, 161 Chrystie St., near Delancey

Tickets online or at 212-219-0736

Wed 6/3 @8:00, Thu 6/4 @8:00, Fri 6/5 @8:00, Sat 6/6 @2:00 & 8:00, Sun 6/7 @5:00

Venice, 1630. First it was the Jews, now the Muslims are moving in—and they're threatening to interbreed! If the Inquisition won’t stop them, Arlecchino will. When plague breaks out, holy hell breaks loose. A new Commedia on an old theme … because some things never change. With scene design by artist Philip Pearlstein.

Dixon Place is a home for performing and literary artists, is dedicated to supporting the creative process by presenting original works of theater, dance and literature at various stages of development. An artistic laboratory with an audience, we serve as a safety net, enabling artists to present challenging and questioning work that pushes the limits of artistic expression.

Scenes from a Misunderstanding
by Carey Harrison
directed by Henry Akona
WalkingShadow, New York
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Sun 5/24 @3:00, Wed 5/27 @7:00, Thu 5/28 @7:00, Sat 5/30 @8:30, Thu 6/4 @9:00, Sun 6/7 @3:00, Wed 6/10 @ 8:00, Sat 6/13 @10:30

A one-act to be performed with Most Radiant Beauty (above)

The simmering differences between two professors come to a head: has one of them delayed replying to a letter on the subject of religion, or did the original letter-writer delay posting it? What would such delays signify? From humble beginnings, titanic quarrels are born - especially when the aggravated parties are Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

10 Imaginings of Sarah & Hagar
by Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer
music by Juliet I. Spitzer
directed by Deborah Baer-Mozes
Theater Ariel, Philadelphia
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Sun 5/24 @7:00, Sat 5/30 @6:30, Tue 6/2 @7:00, Tue 6/9 @7:30, Wed 6/10 @6:00, Sat 6/13 @4:00

A theatrical interpretation in ten scenes (“imaginings”,) of the story of the mothers of two great nations. Sarah and Hagar. 10 Imaginings is journey through the complex relationship between these two women, their man and their sons, exploring themes that continue to take center stage in the world today.

Theatre Ariel is dedicated to illuminating the rich social, cultural, and spiritual heritage of the Jewish people. Theatre Ariel produces work that serves as a prism through which we can view the varied colors of the American Jewish experience and new work that draws its inspiration from classic Jewish texts or contemporary Jewish literature: reflecting on the past, examining the present and envisioning the future.

To Pay The Price
by Peter-Adrian Cohen
Directed by Robert Kalfin
Theatre Or, Durham, North Carolina
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave
WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets online or at 212-352-3101

Sat 5/23 @10:00, Sun 5/24 @5:00, Wed 5/27 @9:00, Sat 5/30 @2:00, Sat 6/6 @Noon, Tue 6/9 @9:30, Sat 6/13 @8:30, Sun 6/14 @3:30

Based on the life of Yoni Netanyahu, killed in action at age 30, the play illuminates the toll to a nation of a never-ending war.

Theatre Or (“or” means “light” in Hebrew) is a North Carolina-based professional theatre company developing a niche for producing American premieres of Israeli plays. Chicago's Tony Award recipient Victory Gardens Theater hosted Theatre Or's North Carolina English language premiere of Motti Lerner's Hard Love in 2006 as well as their OnStageIsrael Festival of staged readings of Israeli plays in 2008.

Readings:

Golem Stories
written and directed by Edward Einhorn
at the Center for Jewish History, 15 W. 16th St, near 5th Ave

RSVP online or at 212-352-3101

Wed 5/27 @7:00

A retelling of the legend of a clay man in 16th century Prague. Rabbi Loew creates a Golem to defend the Jews, but this Golem seems more interested in listening to the Rebbetsin's stories and falling in love with the Rabbi's daughter. Is he the reincarnated spirit of her murdered lover? Or does his childlike façade hide the face of a demon?

Pangs of the Messiah
by Motti Lerner
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave

RSVP online or at 212-352-3101

Sun 5/31 @7:30

Set in 2012 amidst the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, this is an apocalyptic yet fiercely humane drama about eight West Bank Jewish settlers pitted against an Israel they feel betrayed by.

Playwright’s Forum
Various playwrights and directors
at Marymount Manhattan, 221 E 71st, near 3rd Ave

RSVP online or at 212-352-3101

Sun 6/7 @ 7:00
Seven minute excerpts of plays by member playwrights of the Association of Jewish Theater

Talk:

How Some Jews in Chicago Re-Invented Comedy in Time For the Sixties
Presented by Jeffrey Sweet
at Theater Three, 311 W. 43rd St, near 8th Ave

RSVP online or at 212-352-3101

Tue 6/9 @6:00

Jeffrey Sweet (author of SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY, an oral history of the Compass Players and Second City) gives a funny talk about how and why Paul Sills and some other young iconoclasts who hung out in Hyde Park (Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Barbara Harris, and Shelley Berman among them) created modern improvisational theater and changed the look of American comedy.

Review - Every Little Step

2009-04-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

This is my latest review for the National Board of Review

I have a very personal connection with this one, actually. When I was a senior in college, I went to see A Chorus Line. I was just contemplating the idea of changing my focus towards theater, and was deciding whether I would go to grad school. I was in tears by the end. I called my cousin, whom I was (and still am) very close with.

"It seems like such a hard business," I said. "What if, twenty years from now, I'm still struggling, still trying to be seen among the thousands other talented people who want the exact same thing. I've been joking about being a starving artist. Do I really want to be one?"

She comforted me. I decided to do what I loved. After all, it was just a musical, not reality...

Unfortunately, it turns out the essence of it was also completely, 100% true. I'm still not sure I made the right choice. But make it I did. And I would again. Perhaps.

Anyway, here's the review:

Every Little Step, the new documentary focusing on A Chorus Line, and in particular on the 2006 Broadway revival of the musical A Chorus Line, tells one part of a very large story. The saga behind A Chorus Line could fill many documentaries – from its start, when director/ choreographer Michael Bennett and the dancers Michon Peacock and Tony Stephens first interviewed a room full of dancers about their lives; to the months of workshops as Bennett, composer Marvin Hamlisch, lyricist Edward Kleban, and playwrights James Kirkwood and Nicolas Dante shaped the piece; to its triumphant first run; to the subsequent controversies about who owned the rights to the dancers’ stories; to its recent revival.

This documentary is a love song to Bennett, in part, and many of his huge cadre of collaborators are mentioned very little or not at all. It is also a love song to Broadway performers and would be Broadway performers, the sort of people who inspired the original musical. The documentary cleverly takes the subject of A Chorus Line—the audition process—and makes it the subject of the film. We witness the triumph of achievement alongside the disappointment of the hundreds or thousands of the talented who “really need this job” just as much, but aren’t lucky enough get it.

The movie is about the making of art, a messy, complicated process that defies formula. Ironically, the movie achieves what the revival, according to most reviewers, did not achieve: it captures the soul of the musical. The musical itself was a one of the first of a genre that is currently in vogue among the downtown crowd—documentary theater. In the original run of A Chorus Line, the actors onstage were telling their own stories, speaking and singing their own words. In this current documentary, a whole new set of stories is told, about performers trying to make it on Broadway by fitting inside the skin of those dancers who told their stories thirty years before.

The hidden truth about the musical is that it has a very dark core. A line of desperate dancers stands in front of an unseen, dictatorial director, who makes them bare every inch of their soul so that he can judge whether they are fit to be in the chorus of his upcoming musical. They submit to the process because they are so hungry to work, because jobs are so scarce and all around them there are others just as talented waiting to take their place in line.

Yet revealed in the process are the joys in working in theater, the reasons that they are so desperate to do this work and no other. And in this documentary, that joy is there. It is there in the moment one young man (Jason Tam) moves director Bob Avian to tears with a monologue he has heard hundreds of times, from hundreds of actors. The joy is there in all the dancers’ bodies, as they come to life onstage, trying to “eat nails” as choreographer (and original performer) Baayork Lee commands them.

The desperation is there as well. It is no coincidence that eating nails is the masochistic metaphor Lee has for the opening dance, the first audition.

Recently, television has offered a few watered down versions of the audition process, with shows like You’re The One That I Want. These flimsy recreations attempt to manufacture the same experience this documentary chronicles. It is so much more moving to see a set of performers who have spent their life honing their talent, performers whose personal dramas belong in the real world, not The Real World.

Yet what defines artistic success? It doesn’t end when one gets the job. The reviews of the revival indicate that what works in the audition room doesn’t necessarily work onstage, in front of an audience. One of the many ironies of A Chorus Line is that it was a musical about an audition that was created without an audition. It was created by the company as whole, in a long workshop that would be impossible today – the rules of Actors’ Equity would certainly not allow it. I suspect that the reason the revival was a critical failure was that these performers were asked to tell other people’s stories, not their own.

In this movie, we get to hear those stories, mixed with the stories from the past. And for that reason, just for capturing the spirit of those dancers past and present, it succeeds.

Facebook and theater (or the critic's paradox)

2009-04-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

There are lots of reasons I like Facebook - it allows me to keep in touch with friends all over the world very easily, for one. It also allows me to list my events and invite everyone - though with diminishing effectiveness I find. For our fundraiser, I have 30+ yeses on Facebook and nearly 100 maybes. Actual count of Facebookers - maybe 20. Plus others, of course, who didn't respond to my Facebook invite. But it makes the count seem pretty unreliable.

Still, it allowed me to remind everyone that the Festival of Jewish Theater & Ideas was upcoming. And it reminded not just my friends - it reminded colleagues in theaters acroos New York and the world, and it also reminded a very special class of Facebook friend - journalists.

I write this on the heels of a few blog posts by jounalists on the subject. One post was by Alexis Soloski. She contended that, if she were to accept friend invitations from those in the theater, she would lose her objectivity. This news came as some relief to me personally - of all the journalists that I know and have sent a friend invitation to, Alexis is only one of two who have never responded. It's good to know it's a general policy.

But of course, as that last statement implies, Alexis' view doesn't seem to be shared by most of her colleagues. One colleague, Leaonard Jacobs, blogged about it. I would say that I have about 25 journalists among my friends, maybe more. And it helps. When I run into them, as I do occasionally, they know exactly what I and my theater company have been up to. We're Facebook friends, one explained recently to a puzzled third party. "There's no friend as close as a Facebook friend," I joked.

I joked, because I barely knew the journalist I was speaking with. We had interacted maybe once or twice, and then I had sent a friend invitation. As I often do in those cases. Because it's good for a journalist to know what I'm up to.

Now, would it affect that journalist's objectivity, should he/she be called upon to review my work? I don't think so. However, just so not as to impugn anyone's journalistic integrity, I have kept this jounalist's identity anonymous on my blog. I certainly would want to imply that the journalist friended any Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along.

Not that I think it would be a big deal if he/she did.

But really, is it any different than if he/she read my blog? Or if we chatted at a party (as we did)? Or if he/she was told something nice about me by a third party, or read something positive about me in a newspaper? When Ben Brantley goes to review a play on Broadway, how many of the people involved in the play has he met personally or interacted with? Many, I suspect. Some he likes, personally. Some he doesn't like. Is he completely objective? Of course not. You can't work in the theater and be objective. Nor can you have an informed opinion if you don't spend time interacting with others involved in theater. It's the critic's paradox.

Becoming Facebook friend cuts into one's objectivity in no greater way than that, however. It is just another way of keeping informed. Yes, at times the journalist is informed of where I went for brunch. But really, I have read feautures in the New York Times that informed everyone of just that sort of news about one star or another. I don't think every reviewer in town avoids those articles in order to maintain objectivity. Maybe for other reasons...

There is one journalist who came to review some shows of mine who recently informed me he/she (yes, still keeping things anonymous) would no longer be reviewing my work. We had gone for drinks, chatted a few times, and in his/her opinion a review would no longer be appropriate.

Damn, I thought, for a moment. I should have kept it on Facebook.

Fundraiser for Festival of Jewish Theater & Ideas!

2009-04-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

Come out tomorrow night to 45 Bleecker for our pre-Passover bash to raise money for the Festival of Jewish Theater & Ideas!

Starting at 7pm and going until 10:30ish...

Music of:

Randy Stern
d00d
Little Bear and The Bad Touch.

Food

Sandwiches from Crosby Sandwiches
Brownies from Little Muse
Assorted other homemade items

OPEN BAR!

$25

Only $20 if you buy in advance with the code "Chametz"!

Buy tickets here!

Several responses to Seven Jewish Children

2009-04-01T10:02:00.001-07:00

The debate about Seven Jewish Children rages on...I am not going to dwell on it too much longer. I keep getting sucked into debate about, partly because I feel like I am the only one providing an even somewhat contrarian view, on the blogosphere.

I was tempted to enter the sub-genre of those who parody the play with their own versions - Seven British Children came to mind, which would trace the British relationship with Jews to modern day. Or Seven Jewish Children I know, which would contrast the reactions among Jews I have met with the assumed reactions expressed by the play.

The play is easy to parody, because of its form. But in the end I chose not to, because - well, I have enough projects to do. And the play is rapidly losing interest for me.

But the one thing that gets me upset is the bullying that goes on against those who express doubts about the piece. And I must again talk about how that bullying is particularly ominous in England, where a word said against the work or even in perceived defense of Israel can be met with a torrent of anger, and where being Jewish has never been a simple thing, in the way, I would argue, it can be in New York.

I bring this up because I was once again contacted by someone who works at a University in England (someone we would term a professor, they would term a lecturer), who has written a response of her own. She has asked me to publish it for her, because she is afraid of the backlash if she should publish it on her own.

I just feel like I should do my best to allow her not to be "censored" (if Rachel Corrie can be called censorship, I can be a little slippery about the term here). Or maybe I mean bullied. This is not someone I've met or know personally. Just someone who noticed my comments on a few blogs. She calls it The More Things Change. It goes a little through the history of theater and how it has interacted with Jews.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

After Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza

No Jews appear in the play. The speakers are actors, and if you like, writers, directors, literary managers and focus groups. The lines can be shared out any way you like, once the directors, literary managers, and focus groups come into existence. The characters are different in each small scene as the time, thespians, and audiences are different. They may be played by any number of actors.

1.

Tell them it's a game
Tell them it's serious
But don't frighten them
Don't tell them we'll kill the Persians.
Tell them the gods will.
Tell them it's important to be quiet.
Tell them they'll have dance, if they're good.
Tell them to sit quietly as if they're in the temple on the Akropolis
But not to sing.
Tell them not to stand up.
Tell them not to interrupt, even if they hear shouting
From the place behind the back wall
Don't frighten them.
Tell them not to interrupt even if they know a secret that Oedipus needs to know.
Tell them the gods will be watching.
Tell them something about the Persians.
Tell them they're bad
In the eyes of the gods.
Tell them it's history.
Tell them the Persians will be our slaves.
Don’t tell them that.
Tell them the Persians will make us their slaves
Unless we enslave them first.
Tell them it's magic.
Tell them not to sing.

2.

Tell them this Scaena will show The Massacre of the Innocents
Tell them they died
Tell them they were killed
Like this, exactly
But without the gold paint nor the Cartwrights’ Guild’s wagon.
Tell them Kyng Herod was a Jewe
Like the ones in Lincoln who killed little Saint Hugh.
Frighten them.
Tell them we acted as Christians.
Don't tell them what we did.
Tell them we were brave.
Tell them that Jewes teach their children to make cakes
Of the blood of English children
But don't tell them English:
This Play’s about the Holy Land, not here.
Tell them how many children Kyng Herod slewe.
Tell them the Jewes are danger.
Tell them there's no danger
If they accept Christ as their Saviour
And good King Edward
And this our Playe.

3.

Tell them it's about Venice.
Tell them it's a Comedy.
Tell them Mirror up to Nature: Jewes covet blood.
Tell them: "The Quality of Mercy is not Strained...”
Don't tell them Religion.
Don’t tell them that Jessica's great great lots of greats grandfather lived in Europe too, in Spain.
Don't tell them he was driven out.
Don’t frighten them:
Tell them there are no Jewes in England.
Don’t tell them Old King Edward drove them out.
Tell them the Spaniards would drive us into the sea
if they could.
Don’t tell them that.
Tell them it's a Comedy.
Tell them to laugh.

4.
Tell them something.
Tell them he's an anomaly. The rest of us are decent men.
Tell them a Jewess hid him in her house
In the days before his trial
From the anger of the mob
Which explains a lot, really.
Tell them we never liked him anyway.
Tell them he criticized the Liberal Unionists
And they didn’t even get it!
Don’t tell them we got it.
Tell them he was foreign, like Ibsen
And Madame Sarah, his Princess of Judea.
Don’t tell them that.
Tell them we'd never have guessed:
He sounded English. He’s a father of two.
Tell them it’s an illness, so we advocate mercy
And hospitalisation.
Don’t tell them that!
Tell them we’ve closed both his comedies.
Tell them we’re rehearsing a new one
About the Suffragette Hysteria.
And the Censor found it decent
And the Queen is amused.

5.

Tell them to use allegory and metaphor and fantasy
So the Censor won’t get it.
Tell them to use slogans
And keep it simple
So The People will get it.
Don’t tell them that!
Tell them that art is the lie that reveals the truth
And theatre must fling together different perspectives
And cause people to be uncertain
And turn themselves inside out by their eyeballs.
Tell them the writers do this to themselves
If they’re brave.
Don’t tell them that.
Tell them the brave writers are steadfast in belief:
Men for All Seasons
And, once or twice a season,
A woman
If she’s good.
Tell them that the theatre must tell the news
Because The People don’t read.
Don’t tell them that the people who don’t read
Don’t go to the theatre either.
Tell them we know how The People think.
Tell them we concede we’re not The People:
We’re not that stupid.

6.

Tell them not to use allegory nor metaphor nor fantasy
Because the people won’t get it
And Censorship is ancient history.
Tell them there can be no art after the Holocaust.
Don’t tell them that!
Tell them the theatre must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
Tell them about the Holocaust.
Tell them: Jews covet blood because they have been bled.
Don’t tell them that.
Tell them the Jews think the Arabs are Nazis
Because Nazis are all Jews can think about.
Tell them this Jewish hysterical fixation with Nazis is not a crime, nor a sin, but an unfortunate and probably incurable illness, so we advocate pity and prescribe a grain of salt.

7.

Tell them the Jew deals in slogans
And simplified history
And talks in tongues
And thinks she is Special
As did the Nazis.
Don’t tell them Nazis.
Tell them the Jew tells lies
That do not reveal the truth
To her own children
To herself
And the world.
Tell it in ten minutes.
Tell it For Gaza, but show just The Jews.
Keep it minimal, using no names
Because The Jews are really all the same.
Not people, but A Noble Ancient People,
Just like The Palestinians.
Don’t tell them that!
Tell them the new Censor is The Jew
And the theatre exists To Articulate Moral Outrage.
Tell them it’s magic.
Tell them not to laugh.

Are there too many theater companies in New York?

2009-03-31T08:07:00.001-07:00

Last week, I attended a League of Independent Theater meeting, in which Leonard Jacobs interviewed Robert Zimmerman of NYSCA. It was a very impressive interview - Zimmerman is a great and inspiring advocate for the arts, and has a way with words (his training as an actor came in handy, too). But as I sat and listened, I found myself increasingly stressed out. One reason was the obvious - there is less and less money available. The other side of the coin is also something anyone who has been paying attention in New York is aware of as well - while the budgets shrink, the number of theater companies grow.

There was once a time when entrepeneurs like Lynne Meadow could form a small Off-Off-Broadway company called Manhattan Theater Club, receive steady reviews for their work, a $10,000 grant from NYSCA (more like $50,000 or more in today's dollars), and soon be off and running towards being a major New York company.

Not to diminish her accomplishment, but if Lynne Meadow were to try to start up MTC today, she would be in competition with about 800 registered non-profits (excluding the many unregistered companies around the city). Receiving a a major review would be a matter of a way to present her work that popped through the thousands of press releases that go out to the diminishing number of publications around the city. If she were lucky enough to receive a review in the Times, it would be buried on page 8 where even a rave would bring it, at best, a slight bump in prestige, maybe 100 extra audience members, and just enough to push her to scrounge for the money to present her next show....and hope it does as well. Which would be a long shot.

In maybe 10 or 20 years she would have put on enough good work that among her fellows (those being the other 800 companies), her work would be respected. Those colleagues would sincerely pledge to come to her next thing, a few would manage to make it, others would be in production for their own show, others would be at one of the other hundreds of productions around the city like hers, and others would be sitting at home, watching tv or reading a book, recovering from burn out.

Meanwhile NYSCA may have paid enough attention to give her maybe $2,500 to start, maybe $5,000 if she is doing continuously well. This will pay for 1 - 2 weeks in an inexpensive theater space.

What will become of her? I don't know. Becuase she is like me, of course - and all my colleagues who are strruggling to create theater here in New York. Our generation, lacking entrance into theater institutions, has gone the entrepeneurial route. But so many of us have done so that it is almost impossible, even for the most devoted, to keep up with it all. Martin Denton at nytheatre.com does the best - God bless him. He would estimate the number of companies to be over 1,000.

Zimmerman has said he has never seen so much good, interesting work as he sees right now in New York. It is not surprising. I was do a show with 22 actors (Cat's Cradle) all of whom all had to sing and play an instrument, and then added a bunch of requirements on top of that - a mixture of ethnicities, a tall woman who could play the clarinet, a little person, etc etc. And I cast it. On an Equity Showcase contact, which meant all they were paid were expenses.

The human resources and talent in this city are tremendous. I love the fact that I know some of the most talented people I have seen anywhere, in any situation, and I work with them constantly. I hate the fact that none of us get paid a significant amount for our work.

Why are there so many companies, so many people here? It's true that if a show is succesful here it gets national attention. But I constantly wonder of the wisdom of working in a city where there is so much else competeing for funding and attention.

But is it better nationally? There are more books written every year, yet fewer books read. When I send a book into a publisher, I am praying it gets beyond the thousands they constantly receieve. Is this a function of a greater population? Of a greater need to express ourselves? If the world were filled with nothing but artists, how would we find people to listen to our art?

And yet...if the world is filled with artists, if this nation has more artists each year, why does the fact that the NEA gave us $50 million out of a $700 billion stimulus bill become a matter for such controversy?

My stress level is rising again...

Seven Jewish Children at NYTW

2009-03-26T06:22:00.000-07:00

I was in attendance last night at an invitation only premiere of Caryl Churchill's latest show at New York Theater Workshop...unfortunately, that play was Seven Jewish Children.

For those of you not up to date on the hubub about this 10 minute play, Churchill wrote this piece in response to the recent events at Gaza. It's written as just lines, with no assignment to character, but the implication is that the character or characters are Jews speaking to their children at different points in history, spanning from the Holocaust to the recent Israeli conflict. The play may be done for free by anyone, as long as they also raise funds for a Gazan charity at the same point.

My feeling about the play, which I have written about on other blogs, is that the play implicitly tries to stereotype and even demonize Jews as a whole because of Churchill's anger about Israel. It has the "Jew" who is talking to his/her child say things like "Tell her we're the chosen people" and gleefully talk about Palestinian "dead babies" and "children covered in blood". By calling it seven Jewish children, not seven Israeli children, Churchill has chosen a dangerous tactic. Not that the title is inappropriate for the play. Unfortunately.

When talking about the play with an Israeli playwright, interestingly, he told me that he thought the play should be played every day. Much of his work as a writer has protested the policies of the Israeli government, and I immediately understood why in that context he might feel that the play was important to hear.

Churchill, however, wrote this play in England, where it first played at the Royal Court (it preceded a play about the Holocaust - a disturbing choice, I find). In England, she is not voicing an unheard opinion about Gaza. She is reinforcing the prejudices of the great majority of the audience. It is no act of bravery to tell the audience exactly what they want to believe. And at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in England (never a comfortable place to be Jewish), I would argue that that these are unfortunate passions to flame.

After writing about my thoughts about the piece on some blogs, I got a couple of emails from Jewish theater practitioners in England. One was a professor. They thanked me for daring to criticize the piece, which they were afraid to openly speak out against in England, because of the wave of anger their objections would be met with. Churchill's play stokes that anger, making it harder for anyone to listen to a dissenting voice.

New York is a wholly different place altogether. The number of Jews here makes the city very complex in its attitudes about Israel, although if there is any place where there is a large number of critics of Israeli policy, it is in the theater. The Rachel Corrie incident demonstrated that the New York theater community is just as capable of knee jerk reactions on the subject as people are anywhere else.

Those critics were definitely the majority in the theater last night, though there was a vocal minority expressing support for Israel, and I'm sure a less vocal minority that are somewhere in the middle (as I feel I am). The program was accompanied by two interesting documents: one a letter from Churchill in response to a letter from Ari Roth from Theater J (which is also producing a reading of the play), and the other a letter from Kenneth Stern, Director of Anti-Semitism and Extremism for the American Jewish Committee.

The reading are going on for three straight nights at NYTW - last night was just the first of them. Each night has a different moderator, who is supposedly moderating the audience in a discussion. Tonight the moderators will be Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon, a very interesting pair.

Unfortunately, last night's moderator was Lauren Flanders, the host of GRITtv on Free Speech TV, as well as the host of RadioNation. Flanders had a very clear point of view on the piece (that it would finally make people think about the crimes in Israel and the U. S. complicity in those crimes), and she had brought in people in the audience as authorities to support her point of view. She called on them to speak about what she termed the facts around the conflict, in order to educate the audience, and called on them to rebut dissenters.

Which was the main problem with the discussion. It was not about listening and conversation. It was not a discussion at all. Flanders was trying to educate (and bully a little) those in the audience that didn't see things her way. But she was doing it in the guise of a moderator, and of course that sort of "moderation" is both transparent and, in the end, even more polarizing.

But perhaps that is a problem inherent in Churchill's play, which in the end, is a polemic, written in anger. A piece that truly was meant to create empathy for the Palestinians would have Palestinians onstage, true characters with their assets and their faults, struggling in a conflict with no easy answers. This play has generic "Jews" onstage, or what Churchill imagines a "Jew" to be.

I spoke briefly yesterday about the lack of empathy in the play. I felt empathy when they were talking about the Holocaust, Flanders responded. It's true, the play does use the existing empathy about the Holocaust. But it's a ploy, saying, yes, we feel bad about the Holocaust, but you're just as bad, so now we're justified in feeling anger.

In the end, the play creates anger at Jews and anger at those promoting anger against Jews. The Palestinians, as human beings, never exist in that theater at all.

Does that get us any closer to peace?

Why I love (hate) theater festivals

2009-03-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

The festival is beginning to really come together, which is exciting.

I am already exhausted.

So much to do - get enough information so that I can set up the web site (almost there). Put together the fundraiser for April 7 (much left to do, finding food, entertainment, putting online reservations up, etc, etc,). Work on my own show (haven't started rehearsing, but did script revision). Schedule rehearsal locations (soon, before they get booked). Reschedule first read through because of actor conflict (ASAP). Find interns (some found, others to come). Put all the box office info online (not yet). Start scheduling the panels/talkbacks (barely). Fill in the holes in the conference schedule (75% of the way, but the last 25% is really difficult). Schedule the dinners/lunches (so much more to do there). Contact Equity regarding the shows (need to do that soon). Production meeting about Mint Theater, aka Theater Three (almost scheduled, need one more confirmation). Send blurb to Museum of the City of New York (have to get on that) Make contact sheet for all participants (have to get on that too). Push for more funding (working on it). Finished revised registration form for conference (75% done, will do by weekend). Send out notice reminding people to come to conference (not ready for that yet, but soon). Answer all emails (ongoing). Talk to stressed out festival participants about schedule/tech times/New York logistics/possibilities of press coming/misc. (ongoing) Set up two reading for the festival (should have already been done).

Sleep (not an option).

But it's looking good. Sorry I haven't been blogging much (blog again soon).

Fiddler on the Roof - political theater?

2009-03-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I heard Alisa Solomon give an interesting talk at the Jewish Theological Seminary about productions of Fiddler on the Roof in Poland. Shockingly to me, the play was banned for many years there, into the 80's. Almost all Jewish theater was banned in Poland, partly because of Communist anti-religious sentiment, and partly because of general anti-Semitism in the government.

Then recently I read the news that a production in Venezuela has run into trouble - the orchestra has been forbidden to participate in anything Jewish, because one of the bureaucrats involved are afraid of the government reaction.

Anti-Semitism has been on the rise in Venezuela for a while: a synagogue was recently attacked and Chavez (who has sadly been working more successfully towards his dream of being president for life) has a long history, like many totalitarian leaders and totalitarian wannabes, of using old lies and stereotypes about Jews to help him gain power.

But this is about politics and Jewish theater. As I have been working of the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas, on a few occasions I have given Fiddler as an example of a stereotype I want to break - it has been so associated with Jewish theater in this country that many assume it is all Jewish theater. I enjoy the show, but I want things I consider more challenging or unexpected. It is one of the last pieces I would think of as political theater.

Yet political theater is all about context. I remember speaking to some Romanian directors who described political theater during the Communist years. Everything was censored, but somehow it slipped through. In one play, for example, they chose to cook eggs live onstage. The smell of those eggs cooking in the theater was a reminder of the deprivation everyone felt and the difficulty there was in even buying something as simple as an egg. So that moment in an otherwise unobtrusive play was transformed and suddenly became political.

It is because Fiddler has become such an icon that it has become political in Venezuela and was political years ago in Poland. When people are deprived of connection to their culture or religion, any connection becomes subvesive. When the government wants to demonize a people, anything that portrays them onstage sympathetically becomes immediately political.

When Fiddler was finally shown in Poland, Solomon reported, the audience was in tears. The irony of repression is that sometimes it makes theater so much more vital than it ever could be. I am thankful that when I see Fiddler, I smile and enjoy it but leave it with a shrug. It is a privledge to be able to say--just another Fiddler.

Watchmen - review

2009-03-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

My latest review for NBR:

A little over 20 years ago, the comics industry was revolutionized by two graphic novels: Dark Knight and Watchmen. Hollywood has taken a while to catch up, but now the film version of Watchmen has arrived, just a little after Dark Knight hit the screens to much critical acclaim. In the comics industry, Watchmen, written by Alan Moore, is generally considered to be the cream of the crop. I suspect that, for moviegoers, Dark Knight will remain the pinnacle among superhero films for a while. But director Zack Snyder has made Watchmen into an intriguing addition to the genre, providing enough visual flair to help bring the original novel convincingly to life.

Let me start with the most impressive moment: the opening credits. Snyder uses freeze frames and slow motion to go through the history of the Watchmen from the 40’s through the 80’s, the decade in which this alternate history is placed. It is a brilliant use of film that gives a tip of the hat to the comics medium, while quickly and clearly telling a story. It is also a sequence that is not at all dependent on good acting, of course, an area the film gets mired in once it begins in earnest.

The intro leads to a dark story about a superhero, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who is brutally murdered and an old companion, Rorschach (played by Jackie Earle Hailey behind an ever shifting inkblot mask), who is trying to track down his killer. Rorschach becomes convinced that somebody is out to kill former superheroes, who for the most part have been outlawed as vigilantes by something called the Kaine Act. He decides to track down his old companions and warn them. Among those companions are Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), a Batman lookalike; Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a human embodiment of quantum mechanics; Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), a genius; and Silk Spectre (Malin Ackerman) a—well, in the context of the film, a love interest.

Snyder clearly loves the original text and references the original artist Dave Gibbons on more than one occasion. In fact, one can spot among the graffiti on the walls the occasional “G,” Dave Gibbons’ signature and seal of approval. Moore is less approving – he has declared he will not see the movie, at all. But Snyder’s affection is unabated, and the screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse does a convincing job of boiling down the original while remaining true to it.

What was revolutionary about the graphic novel is that it looked at these superheroes and imagined who these people really would be—flawed humans all, except perhaps Doctor Manhattan, who has left most of his humanity behind. The movie does the same, though sometimes the balance between self-referential humor and drama skews the message a little, making for a movie that can be inconsistent in tone. The music often works as ironic commentary, sometimes referencing other movies—as when the “Ride of the Valkyries” plays while a 10 foot tall Doctor Manhattan vaporizes terrified Vietnamese men.

Much worse than the inconsistencies in tone are the inconsistencies in acting style and talent. The actors ranged from fairly good (Morgan and Hailey) to outright bad (Goode). With the huge budget and the willingness to look outside of big names for the actors, there is no reason that every one of the actors cast should not have been incredible, or at least competent. They all look right – Snyder clearly took some time to look at headshots. But when it came to acting, he seems to have lost interest.

That is where this movie really fails, especially when compared to Dark Knight. There will be no Oscar nominations here. There are sure to be those who blame the shortcomings of the movie of too much fidelity to the original or not enough fidelity, but it is often forgotten that it is the actors who need to really sell the emotions of the work, and without strong performances material that could have real depth seems a little – well, like a movie about some comic book heroes. Not people.

Yet the story is there, the visuals are there, and occasionally there is a burst of light among the performances. The movie is good. It’s just a shame it couldn’t have been great.

Seeing Dollhouse again at St. Ann's

2009-03-03T19:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend I visit St. Ann's Warehouse to see Mabou Mines' Dollhouse. I'd seen it once before, when it was first at the theater. I I had been working on a show in the neighborhood myself, Lysistrata, and the actors often came by the bar where Lysistrata was performing. The men were all little people, so I noticed them. And I had absolutely loved Peter & Wendy, which Mabou Mines had produced year before.

I brought someone with me who hadn't seen Mabou Mines' work, so I was nervous that the premise of having little people in the men's roles would turn out to be gimmicky or offensive. It turned out to be profound. The whole production was highly stylized, starting with Maude Mitchell's performance as Nora, full of odd vocalizations. Yet it was an incredible characterization, and everything, I felt at the time, served to illuminate the text. When the end came both of us were in tears.

I went again this last weekend with some friends, including the woman who had seen it with me the first time. We both talked up the play as one of our most incredible theater experiences ever. As it happened, Lee Breuer, the director (whom I know slightly) came and sat next to us right before the play began. Right before the lights went down, Lee mentioned "There are a lot of changes since you saw it last."

He was right. There were.

It's been five years, so I'm not sure what the changes were, exactly. And I didn't want to ask Lee afterwards. Because I missed the last production so much.

If you happen to read this, Lee, I want you to know that you've given me some of the most profound theater experiences I've ever had, and I'm grateful for that. But I have to be honest - for me, seeing it a second time, the magic had gone. And my friend felt the same way.

What had happened? Was it simply that the second time could not match the first? Did familiarity lessen the effect? Was it an off night? Possibly.

But I can say what seemed to happen, for me. The jokiness suddenly outweighed the profundity. There were too many winks to the audience, too many breaks in the fourth wall, too much shtick. I felt as if during the five years the production was traveling across the world, you and the actors got bored, and kept adding stuff. It is a hard temptation to resist, I am sure. Each moment seems so funny or clever when you think of it. You know the stagehands, so you want to give them their own bit. And the stage manager. And..and...and...

The ending, too, was lacking in a moment I seem to recall so clearly from last time. The moment Nora changes, the first one, where she spoke downstage, or maybe slightly offstage, in a tone like we'd never heard before. It was then that I cried. But that moment now seemed to be subsumed inside the next. Maybe you had decided, seeing it again and again, that it was cleaner to cut the moment altogether. But for me, as an audience member, it was needed.

I've never lived with a show in the way you must have lived with Dollhouse. But I wonder, is it possible to keep a show running that long while maintaining a director's eye? Or is there simply a point where one knows a show too well, where it becomes impossible to see it the way someone would see it on their first (or in my case second) time.

One friend who had never seen it before said he liked it nonetheless. And I'm glad. There's a lot to be said for the production, even with alterations.

But I still long for the show that lives in my memory, the one that I love.

Jewish Theater and Israel

2009-02-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

As I work on the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas, I have been struggling to define Israel's role in it. It looms over the festival in more ways than I would have thought, as my intention is not to do a festival about Israel or Israeli theater. But as I work, I find the question has come up multiple times.

It has come up in small ways, at times. People asking, does this festival have a political agenda, by which they mean an agenda about Israel. It does not, I assure them. I rarely speak about my own convictions about Israel, partly because they are complex, partly because I feel convinced that hard-liners on all sides would be offended by aspects of what I think. But mostly because I don't want to make people feel that my own political agenda is going to infuse this festival.

But of course, it is. It is inescapable. I am not excluding Israeli artists, which is a political statement. I am also not interested in excluding critical points of view about Israel, which is another political statement. I think good art is good art, as long as it is honest, and of course that's another political point of view.

I must admit that I am worried - there is little in the festival that is truly critical of Israel. Yet there are things that are celebratory of Israel - a cabaret about Tel Aviv before Israel was formed, which despite being pre-Israel and neutral politically, is still, by implication of celebrating the city, pro-Israel. A play about the raid in Entebbe.

I may have a reading of a play more critical of Israel. But I am sad that I was unable to find a full production with that point of view. The Jewish community includes a multiplicity of voices, and since Israel is such a major issue, I would like to include all the points of view. There is a very mistaken impression among some non-Jews that a Jewish theater festival will, by definition, endorse every Israeli political position, which is of course false.

One of the Israelis involved is Motti Lerner, a well known Israeli playwright who play, Hard Love, will be produced by a theater company called Genesis, from Atlanta Georgia. Motti's play is set in Israel, but unlike many of his other plays, it is not about Israeli politics. It is about a romance between someone from the ultra-orthodox community and an atheist. I am excited to have Moti involved - his plays have been produced around the country, but this will be his first fully staged production in New York.

The possible reading would be of one of Motti's more politically charged plays, Pangs of the Messiah. It is set in the future, in the West Bank settlements, at a time when Israel has decided to withdraw from the West Bank. The settlers, of course, resist. It is a both highly critical and simultaneously empathetic piece.

Of course, Israeli playwrights are often critical of Israeli policy. Like most artists, they tend to speak from the left. Motti wrote an interesting essay on Israeli theater and politics, which I recommend.

The Israeli consulate may help bring him here for the festival. Of course, that has a small political implication as well...

I have more to say about this, and possibly about Caryl Churhill's Seven Jewish Children, which I have written about on other blogs. I will return to it..

Conference on Jewish Theater

2009-02-17T06:50:00.000-08:00

The Association of Jewish Theater has announced its annual conference, which will be happening during the time of Untitled Theater Co. #61's Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas. UTC61 will be hosting.

For those interested, the registration forms and tentative schedule are online. I include the letter from the AJT below:

We are extremely excited about this year’s conference, "Jewish Theater of Ideas and Beyond," which will be held June 6 – 10, 2009, in one of the hearts of Jewish theater and the world of theater: New York City. Untitled Theater Company #61 will be hosting us. They are presenting their Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas from May 23 – June 14, parallel to the conference. The festival will include over 100 performances of over 15 productions originating from across the United States and the world, at numerous venues throughout the city.

This year’s conference takes advantage of New York City, highlighting Jewish theatre and culture each day:
• Sunday at Marymount Manhattan College, the college whose Jewish theater festival, in 1980, inspired the creation of AJT.
• Monday at 92Y Tribeca, the new hip downtown venue for Jewish arts.
• Tuesday at the stately Museum of the City of New York where, with other conference activities, we will get a private tour of the theatre archives, the largest collection of its kind in the world, including Jewish and American theater in the United States.
• Wednesday will be at the Center for Jewish History, which houses six different major Jewish organizations, including YIVO with its Yiddish Theater collection.

Conference Fees and Registration Information:
Being in New York, we expect more registrants than usual, and there are space limitations. Early-bird registrants receive a $50 discount. The conference fee is $350 for early-bird members and $400 for non-members. After April 20th the fee will be $400 and $450 respectively, so book early. There will also be day passes for guests and others wishing to attend for single days.

Registration includes three kosher meals from great New York dining venues, free tickets to UTC61’s production of Doctors Jane and Alexander, five other plays of your choice at the Festival, and of course workshops and panel discussions.

Playwrights and Solo Performers:
Playwrights will once again have the very popular Playwrights’ Forum, where we will present seven-minute excerpts of your plays, performed by professional actors and staged by professional directors. Playwrights please note - if you are interested in participating in this forum we can only accept the first 15 scripts submitted. The deadline is April 20. So please be sure to get your play in early.

Solo performers will once again have a solo showcase. You must be registered for the full conference to participate in either program. Please refer to the registration forms for more instructions

Housing:
Two housing options are available now for those who require New York accommodations: The Muse, our main hotel, is an elegant and trendy boutique venue in the heart of midtown with a rate of $259/room or $130/night if you plan on sharing (a very low rate for a 4* hotel in New York). For those on a budget, we have an amazing deal through a partnership with NYU/Tisch School of the Arts; and have arranged for NYU dormitory room, at $60/single and $40/double per night. If you are interested in booking or sharing a room, contact Kayla as soon as possible: kayla@afjt.com and she will add you to the rooming lists. Don’t delay: we have guaranteed only a small number of booked rooms. We are in the process of reaching out to donors for subsidies for students. We will keep you posted.

Join us and celebrate a new year for Jewish theatre!

NEA update

2009-02-15T17:31:00.000-08:00

Much to my (happy) surprise, the NEA funding survived.

As I said in my (more despairing) earlier posts, I don't think the NEA is the ideal institution for funding the arts, because it can be so easily politicized. And the benefit my own theater company will get from this is pretty much nil, I suspect.

But still...a ray of hope for arts funding.

House and Senate negotiators on the bill dropped the language prohibiting stimulus funds from going to museums, theatres, and arts centers introduced by Senator Coburn.

Arguing for the $50 million in arts money on the House floor on Friday, Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, said: “You know what? There are five million people who work in the arts industry. And right now they have 12.5 percent unemployment — or are you suggesting that somehow if you work in that field, it isn’t real when you lose your job, your mortgage or your health insurance? We’re trying to treat people who work in the arts the same way as anybody else.”

12.5% unemployment is a gross underestimation...but then again I don't suppose those who have been unemployed for years because of the lack of arts funding in this country count in the statistics. In any event, it was a bold and principled stand for Representative Obey - there's not much to be gained politically from supporting the arts.

Thank you.

The Taste of Blue

2009-02-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a video of a short play/monologue I wrote about synesthesia, as performed last February, as part of Brains & Puppets, a show co-produced by Evolve Company and performed by Tanya Khordoc.

An Open Letter to John McCain

2009-02-09T06:51:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's gotten into me. Maybe it's the facebook group Dear John, encouraging people to send John McCain letters about NEA funding. I of course, predicted that any funding of the NEA would be squashed. It has been. At the time, I debated whether art was a luxury. I suppose I have come down clearly on one side of that issue now.

A few years ago, I wrote an open letter to President Bush on matters of civil rights, while working on the Havel Festival. This is on a matter that affects me much more directly of course. Perhaps it's working of the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas: "If I am not for myself, who will be. If I am for myself alone, what am I." (Hillel)

Dear Senator McCain:

I am not from Arizona, but I am an American, and as an American, I feel you and I both have a cause in common - the health and well being of our country. As a senator, I think it is your responsibility to nurture our country, to see beyond partisan rhetoric to the overall good of our country. There have been times I felt you have been able to do just that.

Which is why my heart broke to hear you, like so many, hold the NEA and what it does in such disrespect.

Senator, I have worked in theater all my adult life. It has never been easy. Like so many with a passion for the arts, I at times had to work a second job. One job was to work as a temp worker in a series of investment banks. There I saw the rampant greed that has brought about the current crises, as bankers slowly lowered the wages of the temp workers while raising their own bonuses, at a time when the economy was its most robust.

Most of the temp workers were in the arts. Many of us went on to make our living, small though it might be, in our chosen field, but it took years of toiling to achieve that honor.

Most of the bankers were puzzled by us. They assumed, if we had been able to make the money they made, we would be. What value, one banker wondered to me aloud, does theater have, if one gets paid so little to do it? Try banking, he advised. Or at least the movies.

At the time, I was mostly working in a downtown theater called NADA. It was a tiny theater, of sixty seats, much like the hundred of tiny theaters scattered across Manhattan. The permanent staff at NADA consisted of three people, all of whom lived at or near the poverty line, but still managed to survive. Every month 100 different people - actors, directors, playwrights, and technicians - used it as their temporary home.

The businesses around NADA loved it. The Lower East Side was then known more for drug dealing than art - but NADA began an influx of artists that have now transformed that sketchy neighborhood into a very desirable one. Every night, actors and audience members flooded nearby establishments, bringing business where there had never been any. With less money per year than the average bank spends in an hour, that tiny theater was able to create more jobs and more economic stimulus for a neighborhood than anyone had been able to provide for decades.

NADA was not alone. The theaters grew, the neighborhood with it, eventually the rents rose - and NADA disappeared. No one valued it enough give it the money to survive in a better economic climate.

Senator, I have not been a temp worker for years. Instead, I have been running my theater, where I have tried again and again the magic trick of taking one dollar and making it into five. I put on theater festivals with hundreds of performances. When people ask me my budget, I lie. I lie because I am embarrassed how small it is, how little I am able to pay anyone, and because I know they would not believe me if I told them. But for fifteen years, I have been able to keep the theater running. Our last festival was in honor of the former Czech President and playwright, Vaclav Havel. At times, when he would introduce me, he would say “This is a very important man in New York theater.” I would have to laugh. Who in America would call someone who earns what I earn very important?

But we are important, Senator McCain. You say that everyone loves the arts, but I don’t know that you believe it. I think it means to you that we all have been told we should love the arts. And I think we should. The arts ennoble a society and helps to form its moral core. In the theater, people without a voice can step onstage and suddenly be heard. It is a boon during dark times and can be a caution when times are better. I don’t know that everyone loves the arts, but I do believe we need the arts.

But you asked another question. Do the arts create jobs? Let me tell you what I think is behind that question – can someone who earns so much less than a CEO really be that important?

Senator McCain, I am ashamed of you for even asking.

Edward Einhorn

The NEA - once again, a political football

2009-02-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

I'm angry.

Here we are, in the midst of a huge economic crisis, talking about a $900 billion stimulus bill, and what has been a major focus of the attacks against the stimulus bill? The $50 million for the NEA.

Today's quote: "$50 million in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts — all of us are for the arts,” McCain said. “Tell me how that creates any significant number of jobs?"

Well, I can tell you: in fact, being an artist, whether in theater, or a writer, or a painter, or a composer - those are actually jobs. In theater alone, paying jobs, already scarce, are plummeting. Many artists who are unemployed don't even fall within the unemployment statistics, they are (like me) freelancers who are now receiving almost no money freelancing. But they need the money just as much as the construction workers or the bankers.

The NEA is arguably not the best institution to disseminate those funds. I think state governments, in the U. S., are much less likely to be caught in the ridiculous way that the arts is grabbed onto by any politician trying to demonstrate "wasteful" spending.

Why are the arts so hated? I think it has something to do with the sneer used when people talk about "the elite" and elevate "Joe the Plumber." What makes the statement "we all like the arts" so hollow in that it is such a clear stand-in for "We all know we should like the arts. And part of us deeply resents that."

I know that the arts may get the shaft. But Senator McCain, by picking out that tiny percentage of the bill and making it one of your main talking points on the irrational belief that helping the arts cannot possibly help the economy, you show that, while you say you like the arts, in your heart you can't stand the artists.

Disfarmer

2009-02-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

I saw Dan Hurlin's Disfarmer at St. Ann's Warehouse on Saturday night. Dan Hurlin is extremely talented at puppet theater, and as I would have expected the puppetry in the show was beautiful, clever, and even moving at times. I had qualms with the show: it seemed overly long, and it wasn't clear to me what some of the symbolism was supposed to mean. And I did wonder, after seeing the whole show, what drew Hurlin to that particular subject.

Mike Disfarmer himself was a portrait photographer who grew up in Arkansas, taking pictures for 25 cents each. He was a loner and probably had some psychological problems: he believed he had been delivered, by tornado, to his parents door, while the tornado took away the real child. For the last year of his life, it appears, he lived on nothing but ice cream and beer.

When he died (in 1959), his estate was sold for five dollars. It included 3000 photographs. As it happened, the man who bought his estate was a photography buff and kept the glass negatives. In 1974, the Arkansas Sun asked people to send in some old family portraits. The man who had purchased Disfarmer's work send in a few photos. As it happened (once again) the newspaper editor was a photography buff, and noticed something about the photos. He bought all the negatives and printed them every week for a year.

The editor showed some of the photos to Julia Scully, editor of Modern Photography. She liked them enough to put together a book of the photos. The book got good reviews, Disfarmer's reputation started growing, and now (to condense the story) his prints sell for between $10,000 and $30,000 each.

There is a current genre of work known as vernacular photography, which, in essence, takes photographs taken as snapshots by amateurs and elevates them to art, by virtue of the fact that they capture, either deliberately or inadvertently, something essential about a time and place. Disfarmer's work is slightly different: he was a professional, taking portraits. Like the found photographs of vernacular photography, his photos were discovered almost by chance, but in many ways they say more about him then about his subjects.

Some critics refer to his photos as precursors of Diane Arbus, because of the alienated feel of the photos. The reason for that alienation is clear. Disfarmer barely greeted the people paying his 25 cents per photo. He just told them to stare at the camera and not move. He used old equipment, partly because he lacked money to by more modern equipment, partly out of obsessive compulsion. But he was a very skilled technician with that equipment. What resulted was photographs that reflected his own alienation in the faces of his subjects.

Does that make Disfarmer a great photographer? Arbus deliberately chose her subjects and was trying to make a statement with her work. Disfarmer was making portraits as best he knew, just for the sake of making the portraits. He was not trying to speak to alienation. His subjects might have been happier with somewhat less disturbing photographs, though people did seek him out, partly because of his oddity. Does mental illness plus technical skill mean art?

I don't know. The play never really addresses that. The play itself is more a portrait of isolation. Disfarmer gets smaller day by day, diminishing into nothing. In the notes, it says the production deliberately tried to add nothing to Disfarmer's biography, just showing him as he was. Which is did, and the technical skill of the puppet makers and puppet performers was impressive. But I did have to wonder, was there anything that the piece said in the end, besides that there are people out there that are a little crazy and a little lonely.

What fascinates me is the randomness of Disfarmer's success (if the classic story of an artist recognized well after his death can be called success). Disfarmer's photos happened to end up in the right hands, who, by promoting his work, have managed to make a great deal of money themselves. What does that say about the nature of what we consider great art? I am an amateur photographer myself, and so often go to photography exhibits. At times, I look at a photo and I am very impressed. But at times, I am baffled. At times, I think, I have taken snapshots no better and thrown them away. Should I, instead, have blown them up to half the size of the room and hung them on the wall? Am I missing something about the photo that others see? Or is the acting of blowing it up and putting it on the wall enough to convince most anyone that it, in fact, deserves to be on that wall. And how many Disfarmers are there in the world, whose work can be taken and displayed, if only anyone thought to take them and display them?

I am reminded of the book the Drunkards Walk, which I blogged about some while ago. It talks about how success and failure in the arts can all be looked at through the lens of probability, that the best indicator of success is not talent but persistence. Disfarmer rolled the dice poorly during his life. But after he died someone kept rolling and hit the jackpot.

Improbable Story published in Korea

2009-01-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

It's official! I've been published in Korea!

Here's a scan of the cover of the Korean version of A Very Improbable Story. Actually, just part of the cover. My scanner's a bit small.

Exit the King on Broadway!

2009-01-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

I have to say, I never thought I'd see the day that Ionesco's Exit the King would be on Broadway. But apparent it's happening soon, with an all star cast: Geoffrey Rush, Susan Sarandon, Lauren Ambrose, and Andrea Martin. Wow. That's amazing.

The production is an import from Australia, in a version translated by Neil Armfield and Rush and directed by Armfield. Armfield, for those here who are unfamiliar with him, is considered the premiere director in Australia.

I have seen a surprising number of productions of Exit the King (five , I believe). Well, surprising only in that I'm often surprised it is produced. I'm a big fan of Ionesco, of course - I produced the Ionesco Festival in 2001 (follow the link to my terrible website...in retrospect I very much wish I had had a decent web designer - I didn't myself with not much knowledge/capability). I enjoy the play, but I wouldn't put it in my top tier of Ionesco plays, despite the fact that it very much inspired my play The Living Methuselah. In fact, I didn't even realize how much Ionesco's play had inspired mine until I looked at it in retrospect Hopefully still a very different script, but the similarities of a symbolically dying character, a doctor, and some of his relationships with the women around him...well, I'll call it a homage. Philosophically, Methuselah was sort of post-existentialist, so that's not too inaccurate, actually.

Looking at some of the reviews from Australia, it looks as if it's a good production. I have high hopes. And I am very fond of the actors. Can it match the last surprising appearance of Ionesco on Broadway - the Simon McBurney production of The Chairs? It would be difficult. That may qualify as the most satisfying production I've ever seen of Ionesco. And I have never yet seen a satisfying production of Exit the King. But, as I say, I have high hopes.

Avenue Q -where's my prize?

2009-01-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

I noticed a press release from Avenue Q recently regarding the search for a new lyric for the play "For Now" (the old lyric was "George Bush," which got a huge laugh--there's really no substitute, but in proof of the message of the song, he's now gone).

There are four finalists: "Recession," "Prop 8," "This show," and "Your mother-in-law."

I submitted "This show" That was me! That was my submission!

They are being tried out one by one in the show...

Only one thing. No one's contacted me.

No authors are listed for the four. Perhaps multiple people submitted each.

But if "This show" wins, do I get the credit?

In any event, they are going to sing it at some point. My first words to be performed on Broadway!

And I'm only slightly embarrassed that I took the time to submit to the contest. Less so if I win...not that I need the junk that comes with the win. Just the eternal fame.

Update: Apparently, I'm far from the only one who suggested "this show"....oh, my dreams of glory....

Is theater (or any art) a luxury?

2009-01-20T22:34:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have seen a petition floating around for a new cabinet position - Secretary of the Arts. According to Rolling Stone, Quincy Jones has been lobbying for just that. The (relatively uninformative) petition was created by two musicians, and it has gathered over 16,000 signatures so far.

I also recently attended something called the Schmooze Festival, a festival of Jews working in the arts, as part of my preparation for the Festival of Jewish Theater & Ideas. There, I talked to a woman who was part of a lobbying group working on a bailout for theater. They are asking for $1 billion. She thought it was too little: if you consider that theater is a $60 billion + industry, and that we are losing, on average 10% of our workforce (these aren't numbers I've checked), $6 would be more in line with what we need.

What do I think we'll get? Bupkes. No bailout, no Secretary. Nada. Niente. Nicht.

Why is that? The arts in general, and theater in particular, is considered a luxury. You can live, theoretically, on bread alone. As long as there's enough money flowing around to bake the bread or pay the baker to do it for you.

I remember, in college (Johns Hopkins), I came in to see my academic advisor and she noticed how many theater classes I had. "Someone's getting away with something, isn't he?" she asked. I was sort of shocked. But she felt that they were just easy grades, not the necessary learning I had come to a prestigious college to absorb.

Is art a necessity? I consider myself a true believer in the power and importance of art. But in the teeth of the current financial crisis, can I make the argument that art is more than a luxury? When faced with the collapse of world banking, what is the health of a few theaters?

Well, let me consider the question from a purely financial point of view. There is a myth that artists are not very good with money. This myth comes from the fact that, for the most part, artists don't have money. If they were good with money, the money would just flow to them, like water to the ocean, I believe the thinking goes.

The fact is that most of the artists I know (and of course my crowd is mostly working in tiny, under financed theaters) do amazing things with amazingly little. All over the city there are incredible creations made with almost no budget. And not only that - the artists are the ones who invade the decrepit neighborhoods, find ways to build it, and then are eventually displaced by the crowd that wants to be part of the new, hip neighborhood. Every small theater generates more for each dollar than almost any other industry, and they generate money for the surrounding businesses in a way almost nothing else does. If they had the resources to pay people, really pay people for their work - the results would be amazing. Much more employment then any public works project.

Of course, the reason that other countries have a Secretary of Culture (as so many do), is not just about money. It is about the belief that art feeds society and that any society needs that art in order to progress. It also is a way of creating international goodwill. A traveling theater company is a representative of the country it comes from, and good art creates an appreciation for that country.

Of course, we export art all the time. Our films, television, and music fill the world. It is entertaining art, but since it is all driven by capital, it does not have international goodwill on its agenda - and in fact often creates the opposite. Hollywood blockbusters definitely give a skewed impression of our country.

But here's the thing about artists - they will continue on, without funding, without support, just out of the need to create. And if artists are driven by their own inner angels and demons, why give them money to do what they're doing already? Is that financially sound? Does that help our country in the way that saving a bank or building a road does?

Yes, many will labor in obscurity here, because there are no resources to bring them to light. But as I write this on the eve of Obama's inauguration, hearing all the problems we face - war, health care, economic collapse - should this even be on Obama's agenda? Does it address our main problems?

It does. It addresses all of them, in its own way. Give money to artists, and you will get so much back - including a lot more money.

But we can also live without it. It is not food. It is not shelter.

So is it a luxury, or a necessity? For those who are not artists, what would happen in a world without art? And if the world will never be without art, because artists themselves cannot help but create, is there any point in worrying about it or helping them? Practically speaking, I mean.

I want there to be. I feel there truly should be. I do feel the financial argument is strong. But even if Obama believed it, the pragmatist in him probably says that this is not a fight worth fighting right now. Giving money to the so-called intellectual elite is not the way towards bipartisanship. So I understand why he may shy away from any action.

And yet...will I blame him, if he does nothing to help the arts?

A little. Yes.

Is there such a thing as a good script?

2009-01-15T22:54:00.000-08:00

In December, Henry Akona directed a reading of my play Rudolf II at the Bohemian National Hall. It went really well, I felt. I had directed another of play of mine, Golem Stories, a few weeks before, and done some staging. Henry topped that staging by writing a full script, including stage directions he had created, for this particular reading. The actors followed his stage directions (fortunately we has an extraordinarily talented cast), and everything came off very well.

I was a genius!

I was having a conversation with a man on the subway yesterday about Havel (he recognized me from a theater conference). He had only seen one show, he told me. He couldn't remember which one. All he could remember was, it wasn't very good. Which production? I asked him. What was the direction like, or the actors? He couldn't remember. But a good play shines through, he told me.

Havel is a hack!

Even Havel can't tell. I was watching a Havel play (One I quite like) with Havel, a few years ago, and Havel turned to me and asked "Do you think this is a good play?" It was, I told him. But watching that production, it was hard to tell.

I have seen Ibsen's A Doll house more times than I can remember. The first time was in college: I hated it. The second time, soon after: I was confirmed, I hated it again. Then a few times more...a friend was in it, then another friend, then a social obligation...I felt like I was cursed by it. One friend's show was surprising. Leigh Armor (I haven't seen her for years) was in a production that didn't seem half bad at the tiny and now long defunct Westside Repertory Theater. Not that bad, I told myself in surprise. Maybe this isn't a totally awful play. Maybe the productions have just been bad.

Then, I saw Mabou Mines' Dollhouse. It was one of the most moving and intelligent pieces of theater that I've ever seen. It will soon be revived at St. Ann's Warehouse. See it, see it, see it.

Did Ibsen transform his play from dross into gold?

Scripts, I have often heard, are not written to be read, they are written to be performed. If you read a Sarah Kane play, like, say, the much lauded Blasted, you won't see the dark poetry within, unless it is staged. I saw it. I wasn't so fond of the script, reading it, but what an impressive production.

Was I wrong about the script? Or was a very talented director (Sarah Benson) responsible for selling a mediocre product?

I have seen more Shakespeare than I can possibly count. Let's say 100 productions. I have really enjoyed about five or six. Is Shakespeare overrated?

I do think a great production can't exist without at least a very good script. But a great script can lead to a horrible production. And bad script can look halfway decent with a good production, just like halfway decent script can look very good. So is there any way to judge? Is good and bad a judgement that can be made in such a collaborative medium.

Theoretically, yes, though I have yet to see a critic or an audience member who is not at least somewhat influenced by the quality of the production. With classics, it is easier to separate, because critics at least have seen may versions. But for a new play - how does one judge?

Was my Rudolf II a good script, or did Henry just do a good job directing? Was it just a good job directing, or did we have excellent actors?

All of the above, I hope, in this case. But I don't know if there's any way to know, for sure.

Theater as commentary - the tradition of midrash

2009-01-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

Irecently completed Playing Dreidel with Judah Maccabee (at least for now - there is some possibility of future productions), and I'm back to reading submissions for the upcoming International Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas.

A few of the submissions I am reading fall clearly into the area of midrash - which Judah Maccabee did, as well. According to the Zohar (one of the main books of the kabala), The Torah was written with black fire upon white fire. The black fire is the written word. The white fire is midrash. The midrashim are commentaries, sometimes in the form of laws and interpretations, and very often in the form of aggadic midrash—stories that expand on the writings. For example, The Haggadah, as you can tell from the name, is one long aggadic midrash. It also is part of a long tradition that stretches into contemporary Jewish theater—exploring the world of ideas through storytelling.

The Hebrew word drash means, literally, to seek, so a midrash is a seeking of sorts. It is a seeking for answers, a seeking for insights, and ultimately a seeking for even more questions. Midrashim often don’t agree—they are there to inspire discussion, but never provide a final answer, because a new midrash can always be written that says the opposite of the last.

There is something pre-postmodern about a midrash. Postmodernism takes everything, from pop culture to ancient literature, and uses all these sources to comment on each other. Midrash is a commentary that makes the ancient stories relevant to contemporary life.

I work a lot with midrash, in my theater. Sometimes I comment directly on the Bible, or even on the midrashim that already exist in the Talmud. Sometimes I comment on the legends that exist in Judaism. Sometimes I comment on Shakespeare, or the Wizard of Oz, or whatever intrigues me about a noteworthy work of literature. It is not uncommon to do so, in theater nowadays. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a midrash of sorts about Hamlet, and Wicked is a midrash on the Wizard of Oz.

Of course, these plays are not written exclusively by Jews (though interestingly, Tom Stoppard is of Jewish descent and so is Stephen Schwartz, one of the main creative voices behind the musical). But I find it a particular appealing and relevant approach to bring to Jewish subjects.

My book of plays, The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock, contains four midrashim, of sorts. Golem Stories is not only a midrash on the ancient legend, but it also uses and comments on midrashim (which the Rebbetzin tells) throughout the text.

The Living Methuselah is a more straightforward midrash, riffing on the Biblical characters of Methuselah and Serach, the two longest lived people in the Bible. A Shylock comments, of course, on the Merchant of Venice, and One-Eyed Moses and the Churning Red Sea is a more traditional midrash again.

What they all try to do is examine an idea that lies buried within the original story. Theater is best when it challenges people’s ideas, and often those ideas come from the stories and traditions of the culture. What better way to examine the entrenched, almost unconscious assumptions that we all make, then to examine the stories that those assumptions originate from? What better way to both celebrate and question, two things that so near to the heart of both theater and Jewish thought?

When I was writing A Shylock, I realized that though what I wanted to say something about The Merchant of Venice might be original, the idea to write a midrash about it was far from new. I saw two productions based on the character, and read about many more. What better way to deal with such a thorny character, one that may not have been written by a Jew, but has been so intertwined with Jewish identity over the years? What better way to simultaneously acknowledge both the anti-Semitism and the oddly sympathetic speeches Shylock is given to say?

For Purim, the tradition is to write a satiric plays, "spiels," which are in essence dramatic midrashim about the Book of Esther. Taken in its original form, the Book of Esther can be disturbing at times. Without midrash, we would be left with a story in which, for one thing, a woman is punished for not dancing on her behest of their drunk, unreasonable husband. Midrash makes it possible to charge that portrayal, to comment on the portrayal, and yet to preserve what is interesting and relevant about the Megillah today.

In the end, I would argue, most theater has an element of midrash to it. No play can exist in a vacuum. Every play must in some way acknowledge the wealth of what has come before, and in acknowledging that, its story in some way comments on the stories that already exist, both ancient and modern.

My lesson on probability

2009-01-07T12:47:00.001-08:00

I drafted my cousin into helping me out by filming part of the lesson I do when I visit schools (part of my book promotion for A Very Improbable Story). Of course, there are a lot more students at the schools: between 30 and 300. But you get the idea...and maybe it will actually lead to tutoring work, as well.

Review - Man on Wire

2009-01-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

My last review of the season (last season, that is...I'm a little behind, I suppose)

Is being a daredevil an art form? After seeing Man on Wire, I’m still not sure, but I’m ready to consider it. Phillipe Petit, the subject of James Marsh’s documentary, certainly seemed to believe it was when he made a career of his high-wire act, subversively bridging famous monuments from Notre Dame to the Sydney Harbour Bridge to his ultimate achievement, the Twin Towers. But what makes the argument for him is not his own cocky reminiscences but the emotion-laden memories of those who watched him.

What hangs heavy over the movie, of course, is the loss of the Towers today. It seems to make Petit’s journey on a fragile string a metaphor of our own journey into a time when one event has “changed everything,” forcing us to look down at the danger below and realize there’s no net.

Of course, Petit’s fragile string is a strong, thick wire up close, but the danger he faced was very real. And perhaps his determination, in the face of that danger, is a passion that only a true artist could feel. The movie unfolds suspensefully, although we cannot help but know its conclusion. Marsh is able to convey the thick anxiety of the moment when Petit stepped out into air, knowing the very real possibility that the wire might not hold. We follow him as he plans and hope that he will succeed, even knowing the future in its full bittersweet glory.

The images of New York in the 70’s, an older (more innocent?) time, elevate the movie from a well-told story into poetry. Nowadays, reality television seems to have stripped any possible magic from watching a man take a foolish risk for the sake of eternal fame. Everyone seems to have a performer hidden inside, if not always a very interesting one.

But of course Petit is not simply a daredevil, nor one of the modern millions willing to face humiliation for public acclaim. He is a circus performer, whose ancient art is based on the idea that a single act of daring can become a statement about life itself. To live is to dare. Every step is a risk. For those who can take those steps – bravo!

Translating Lysistrata, Iphigenia

2009-01-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

I am translating ancient Greek again.

I first translated ancient Greek when writing my adaptation of Lysistrata. I originally intended to use an existing translation, but I couldn't find one that fit what I was looking for. Most of them did not seem to have the most important ingredient to me, a sense of humor. The translations seemed too stuck in a sort of formal speech that precluded easy humor. A couple did go contemporary, but to my taste were overly contemporary, using modern references that jolted.

Anyway, I decided to do for my own. I was deeply indebted to a web site called Perseus which has a link translating every word of the original text. It help augment my, um, less than perfect knowledge of the language.

I am using that same web site now for a new translation of Iphigenia at Aulis. Not much about this now, but it looks like Eric Shanower will do some illustration and we will turn it into a book. The published version of my adaptation of Lysistrata has done very well, especially in classrooms, so I'm hoping for good things.

I'm thinking of this partly because I found an interesting website comparing translations of Lysistrata. It's part of a well done classical studies guide. I would list my version of the passage here, but, I fear, it's a bit risque. Not surprising for Lysistrata, but since this blog also addresses children's books, I hesitate to include it.

However, if you wish to check, I do have an excerpt on the theater company website. Look for the line about halfway between the second and third photos. It's Lysistrata's, of course, and it begins "Of course it will. If we sit around in sexy see-through clothing..."

I've said enough. But I would be curious if anyone feels like spending the time: what do you think of the different translations? Of the other translations, I like Henderson best. But I have to admit, I'm feeling a slight bit smug about my own version, too.

Maybe soon I'll find a less raunchy passage to compare on the blog soon.

If there are any such passages...

Review - Waltz with Bashir

2008-12-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

My last movie review of the season:

Waltz with Bashir, the new Israeli film about the 1982 war in Lebannon, belongs to a relatively rare genre: the animated documentary. It claims to be the first in the genre, and it may be the only full length example, although there have been some notable predecessors, including Chris Landreth’s Oscar-winning short film Ryan, a touching portrait of animator Ryan Larkin, and the recent documentary film Chicago 10, a partially animated account of the protests during the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Folman uses the technique well, bringing to life the dreams and memories of his fellow soldiers, as told in recorded interviews. The film is a despairing account of very young men lost in the wilderness of battle, depicted in stark colors.

The focus event is a massacre in which thousands of Palestinians in West Beirut were murdered by the Lebanese Christian Phalangist forces, following the assassination of Bachir Gemayal, a Christian elected to be the next Lebanese President. Folman has lost his own memories of the massacre, and he is dependent on his fellows to answer the question: was he complicit? The implied question beyond that, of course, is whether Israel was complicit in an event that had disturbing parallels to the mass killings of the Holocaust.

By animating his documentary, Folman makes the soldiers’ memories both vivid and yet in some ways unreliable – we see the artifice, and that extra level of distance lets us wonder what is a real memory and what is a manufactured memory made to fill a hole created by trauma and guilt. Like many modern documentarians, Folman gives us truth shaded by fiction. Are these the actual soldiers whose voices we hear? In most cases yes, but a quick look at the credits reveals that actors were also used to create the voices for the more reluctant participants.
Does this make the truths of the film less valid? Perhaps, if the main purpose of the film had been to be an investigative report into the causes of the massacre. But Folman’s main story is his own, and whether we are seeing pure facts or those facts are shaded by fiction, the inner truth of a man struggling to reconcile himself with his past is the undeniable heart of this very personal film.

Thank you, Harold Pinter

2008-12-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

Harold Pinter died yesterday. He has been sick for a while, so it's not a shock, but it does make me sad to hear that perhaps the greatest living playwright has passed away. The other contender, for me, is Tom Stoppard - or I guess the crown holder by default, now.

I never met Pinter in person, though I came close this September - he was supposed to attend the premiere of Havel's new play, Leaving, but he didn't make it. I suspected it might be my only remaining chance to meet him.

Of course, if I met him, it's very possible I wouldn't have liked him much. I have seen him interviewed many times, and unlike some of my other favorite playwrights (Ionesco, Stoppard, Havel), he always seemed to me to be, well, a bit of a bastard. Of course, I'm judging from afar, based on watching and reading interviews. But that was my strong impression.

His politics seemed simplistic. I'm definitely left leaning, but the knee jerk anti-Americanism and his caustic dismissal of all opposing opinions seemed offensive to me in its lack of self-critical thought. The great strength of his plays is the ambiguity that existed is all moments. The great weakness in his personality seemed to be his impatience with any ambiguity about his own opinions.

Yet his plays were amazing. His ability to fill his plays with a sense of hidden mystery that was always compelling, when well done, was transformative. Every word seemed to be fraught with meaning. And talking about the way that he transformed the pause has become cliche.

So does it matter whether he was a bastard or whether his politics were simplistic? I'm not sure. I just as strongly want to direct his work. But I would not be as interested in producing a festival of it. I am interested in playwrights whose personal essays are as compelling to me, in content, as their plays.

But in the end, if I never met him, how do I really know what he was like? At a party yesterday evening, a woman was talking about a well known actor and how much of a bastard everyone said he was.

No, another woman at the party replied. I've met him. I was friends with him for years. And he's a very kind man.

What I do know that his plays have enriched my life and my writing. My play Strangers has a definite debt to him, though (I certainly hope) it is no imitation. And I still remember the first time I saw a production of one of his plays onstage. It was The Birthday Party, produced by the Independent Theater Company (now defunct), at the House of Candles (now a Lower East Side bar). The actors were very age inappropriate. Some of them were very talented. Some...were not.

But the director, or the company as a whole, understood the style. And it was one of the most exciting plays I had seen.

Thank you, Independent Theater Company, wherever you are. Thank you Harold Pinter.

Santa Claus vs. Judah Maccabee

2008-12-23T23:19:00.000-08:00

I am taking a break from the serious business of theater to tackle an even more serious business that occupies all minds as we approach the day when Christmas and Hanukkah both fall. Who would win, in a fight between Santa Claus and Judah Maccabee?

An article in Slate addressed the question of which Christmas specials were best for Jewish children. The decision (the Grinch and Charlie Brown) is something I can't help but agree with. But she never addressed the core issue her child asked: who would win?

SC obviously has the weight on JM, but JM has the youth and the soldier's training. Years of fighting the Seleucids can't help but leave JM in fighting trim.

But Santa has a backup band of vicious reindeers, not to mention a whole army of elves at his beck and call. Once again, JM would be fighting against the odds while a bloated general called the shots for his massive army.

When I was young, my brother told me that Judah Maccabee came to every Jewish child's house and put presents under every child's pillow (it wasn't till I was an adult that I realized that putting presents under the pillow was a family tradition, not a universal one). I envisioned a rather serious looking man, with a much lower budget than Santa was privy to.

Older, I envisioned Judah as a man I would not particularly want to meet on a street corner, a man good at fighting but not much else. Now, probably thanks to my play (and Peter Brown's portrayal), my image has softened a little, to a reluctant warrior who perseveres.

And Santa may have the better presents and the better press, but I'm sorry, it's Judah Maccabee, hands down.

Can one make money in theater? A call for Hanukkah gelt...

2008-12-16T21:59:00.000-08:00

I've been so preoccupied with the readings of Rudolf II and Golem Stories (both of which went very well, I think), that there's been no time to blog. I wonder if there will be any time during the International Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas. We'll see...

But for the moment, back to Playing Dreidel with Judah Maccabee, which is still going on. I have a few new photos: one of a scene from the play, one of Evolve Company's shadow puppets (which occur inside the ark you can see in the first photo). The shadow puppets are a peek inside the ancient temple in Jerusalem. The man on the left is the High Priest, wearing the breastplate described in the Old Testament (a little detail that I doubt anyone at the show quite registers, but makes me happy).

One thing writing and directing the play has made me realize is that the story of Hanukkah is really about perseverance. Which I would think would not be a revelation, after all this time, but somehow is. The fun for me was in the rituals, and there was this little story about light lasting for eight days. As a friend wondered the other day - so what? What's so special about extra light? The legend of the light, actually, existed well before the events with the Maccabees, and only later were the two things put together. Why that connection?

The obvious answer, though I'd never stopped to ponder it before, is perseverance. The Maccabees should never have survived their battles, lasted as long as they did, but nonetheless they did. And of course perseverance is a theme in Judaism in general. To keep surviving, despite impossible odds. "To always be on the edge of defeat, yet never to be defeated," as I have Judah Maccabee say.

Watching the shows, I started wondering how growing up with that philosophy might have influenced my going into theater. Because theater is truly a profession with impossible odds. My friend Henry has posed the question of whether it is actually possible to make a living as a director, in today's theater. Maybe. Maybe not. But it's almost impossible. The point was driven home to me the other day when another friend, an actor, turned to me and said, with surprise, "You never expected to make money doing theater, did you? I mean, it's possible, but the likelihood is so small..."

But I did expect it. I have always expected it. Even though I wonder, still, if it's possible. When in college, when people asked me what I would be, I said "A starving artist." It was a joke that was not quite a joke. Yet underneath there was a certainty that no matter how difficult, it was possible to persevere, and overcome those odds. Was that something that came from Jewish culture, from Hanukkah, or just my own hubris?

I ask this at a point when I have become concerned about my own finances and the affect they will have on my career. I need to make more money than I'm making, and yet the career I have thrown in my lot with doesn't necessarily offer much, especially in these times. But what to do if I don't have the finances to sustain what I'm doing? Sadly, running a theater company, writing, directing, etc, is more than a full time job. I am so busy day to day that I barely have time to do what I need. I make some money at it all, but small sums.

I feel simultaneously very optimistic about my projects and very worried about how much longer I will be able to sustain myself financially. Is perseverance enough? How many days can the light stay lit?

Review - Doubt

2008-12-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

My latest review for NBR - shorter than usual, this time. Over on Playgoer, Garrett was commenting on how many more negative reviews he was seeing of the movie and specifically the character of Sister Aloysius, although few reviews of the play expressed that opinion. Is it Streep's portrayal? To me, it was sympathetic, or at least ambivalent in its sympathies. My personal theory is that film audiences are much more used to seeing a story about certainties, so that when a story is presented in which who is actually right and wrong remains in doubt, they have to assume a strong opinion one way or the other by the writer/director. Since Meryl Streep's character seems meaner, she must be wrong. Right? Wrong...

Anyway, here's my review:

“Certainty is just an emotion,” as Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) reminds Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). And emotions can betray us. In John Patrick Shanley’s movie, Doubt, which he has adapted from his own Broadway play, everything is in doubt, even Hoffman’s statement. Is it a true insight, or a self-serving deflection of Sister Aloysius’ righteous anger?

Shanley deliberately leaves the answer open, as he poses a series of increasingly difficult questions about morality and religion throughout his idea rich film. He is aided on the journey by a trio of outstanding performances. Hoffman and Streep have shown again and again that they are two of the finest actors ever to be filmed. So the surprise here is Amy Adams as Sister Jenny, a young nun. Her intent eyes, filled with expression, peek out from her habit, and those eyes become a stand-in for the audience.

Shanley returned back to the neighborhood of his childhood in order to shoot the film. It is dedicated to the original Sister Jenny (she also served as a consultant to the film), and everything in the film feels authentic. The conflicts posed never condescend to the church, though they do pose tough questions about faith and Catholic practice. It is easy to see Shanley’s affection for the Catholic school that he grew up in even as he challenges it.

As a director, Shanley mostly stands back and lets his actors and his own words take charge. He does find a few visual themes, such as the swirling leaves in autumn which reflect the bits of paper in the wind Father Flynn speaks of in a sermon about gossip. But the visual power of the film is not in its sweep, but in its details. The faces of Streep, Hoffman, and Adams close up add a deeply emotional element to the intellectual brew.

It is a film worth seeing and worth pondering. Having just gone through a political season, during which the candidates were expected to express strong opinions, filled with certainty, it is good to have a movie which reminds us of the pains and the benefits of doubt.

Closing The Ohio Theater

2008-12-09T23:07:00.000-08:00

I have been hearing the buzz for a few days that the Ohio Theater may be closing down. Sadly, it is true.

You can read about it in this Village Voice article

I am stunned and saddened. I have seen many theater spaces come and go in the city, and each closing is saddening. But none more so than the Ohio.

Perhaps it is because of my many fond memories there. I have been seeing shows at the Ohio for years, but I finally got a chance to work there in 2006 during the Havel Festival. I couldn't have asked for a better experience - not a more enjoyable place to work, not people who were more pleasant to work with. Robert Lyons (seen above with Havel and me in the theater and below with Havel right outside the theater) of Soho Think Tank not only hosted us but also produced/directed a show in the festival. In all respects, he and Vanessa Sparling, who also works with Soho Think Tank, made our experience a great one. I feel only warmth when I think of our five weeks there.

The last thing I saw there, Chekhov Lizardbrain, was once again a triumph of downtown theater. The theater was full and Vanessa jokingly told me of people who had offered her hundred dollar bills for a seat. There were none to be had.

When I entered the theater, I felt a warmth and nostalgia. God I miss this theater, I thought. I like other theaters, but this one is special. I must do something here again soon.

Sadly, it seems as if that might be impossible.

Review - Frost/Nixon

2008-12-04T22:00:00.001-08:00

My latest review for the National Board of Review. I have a couple more this month:

“Let me tell you how bad things were today,” a horrified James Reston (Sam Rockwell) tells David Frost (Michael Sheen), after the first disastrous day of the Frost/Nixon interviews. “After the taping finished, I overheard two crew members say…they never voted for him when they had the chance. But if he ran for office today, he’d get their support.”

It is a laugh line, but it also has a certain resonance. For Frost/Nixon is a reminder that beyond the legacy of Watergate, Nixon was a man considered brilliant by his peers, with a particular skill in foreign affairs, Vietnam notwithstanding. His brand of Republicanism was from a time when intellectualism was valued in the party. At the time of Nixon’s first post-presidential interview, it was Frost, not Nixon, who was supposed to be the intellectual lightweight.

Of course, Frost is not simply the frivolous playboy he originally appears to be. Nixon (Frank Langella) is looking for a worthy adversary, and he finds it in Frost. And the blow by blow of their on-air bout forms the core of this film’s story.

Ron Howard his directed the film in his usual workmanlike way: Nothing flashy, but with an understanding of the issues underlying the story. He and screenwriter Peter Morgan, who also wrote the play on which the film is based, have added documentary style interviews as a stand-in for the narration in the play. The technique is reminiscent of Reds, and though it may not be as powerful here, for the most part it works. The script is smart and perhaps even better suited for screen than for the stage.

But it is the two lead actors, imported from the Broadway production, who give the film its true emotional resonance. They have finely honed their performances and deepen them even further for the movie. Langella uses no more make up to disguise himself than he did on the stage, it appears. And the first glimpse of him is disconcerting—we know Nixon’s face too well to be fooled. But by the time we arrive at the interview, it has become difficult to remember that Nixon didn’t look exactly like Langella. In his face, his gait, his shoulders, and his eyes, Langella has created a facsimile that feels, emotionally, absolutely authentic.

Sheen is able to portray Frost’s significant charisma with ease. It is reminiscent of the ease with which he portrayed Tony Blair’s charisma in The Queen (written by Morgan, as well). Charisma is essential for Frost, because his outward layer of charm covers the madness behind the scenes, allowing him to somehow succeed when by all rights it seems he should fail.

What’s remarkable about the movie is that it finds great sympathy in two iconic figures who seem, at first, to be entirely unsympathetic. Frost is the easier of the two, of course—we want him to win, and we route for him to find a way to finance his interview himself when it becomes clear no network will support it. But ultimately the heart of the story lies with Nixon, whom the movie finds deeply flawed, but just as deeply human.

Hanukkah theater

2008-11-30T22:56:00.000-08:00

I have been seeking out Hanukkah plays, partly because I wanted to put them on the web site, partly because I was curious about what other Hanukkah plays there were out there besides my own.

There are almost none that I can find.

I did find three based on books by Eric Kimmel, who had made a bit of a specialty of writing books relating to Jewish holidays, especially Hanukkah. In fact, if this was a posting on Hanukkah books, my focus would be on his books, a few interesting modern ones from Kar-Ben Publishing, and The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming (the recent book from Lemony Snicket).

When growing up, I used to watch the Christmas specials and long for a Hanukkah special that was just as exciting as the Christmas offerings. The fact that Irving Berlin had written the music for White Christmas (not the mention Easter Parade) seemed particularly unfair. Of course, I enjoyed the occasional Saturday Night Live Hanukkah moment - Hanukkah Harry or Adam Sandler's song. They follow the same spirit that I noticed hearing a clip of the Hanukkah song with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in Colbert's Christmas special - a sort of self deprecating humor saying, well, it's OK, but it's not quite Christmas. Which is all amusing enough. But I wanted something that had some sincere...Hanukkah spirit.

When I was young, I was determined to write a Hanukkah special of my own. Of course, as an adult, I never followed up. But when I was asked to write a new Hanukkah play last summer, I got excited about the thought. Unfortunately, the theater that originally asked me changed their plans, but by then I had already internally committed to the idea. Thus Playing Dreidel with Judah Maccabee was born.

I realized pretty quickly that I no longer wanted to imitate Christmas tales. I wanted to figure out what Hanukkah really meant, as a holiday. And I was confronted with two realities - Hannukah as it is practiced, complete with dreidels, latkes, menorahs, and presents. And then there was reality number two: the historical events on which Hanukkah is based.

I have always been fascinated with the transitional period between the old Temple in Jerusalem with its High Priest and animal sacrifices and the more contemporary (well, two thousand years old, but it's a relative thing) age of Rabbis, the Talmud, and prayer. The Judaism I know barely resembles the ancient religion, which was closer in structure to the Catholic Church and closer in observance to paganism. What would Judah Maccabee think of the modern day holiday supposedly based on him, I wondered. And what was it really, besides the presents, that seemed meaningful to me about the holiday growing up.

So that became the basis for my play. I hope I have captured something authentically Hanukkah. Looking at the selection of Hanukkah plays and fiction (or lack thereof), I don't think it is something that has been done very often, surprisingly.

On board is the always reliable Peter Bean and Dmitri Friedenberg, who besides being a good actor is a cello virtuoso (he played the instrument in Hiroshima: Crucible of Light). I've also drafted the folks at Evolve Company, as usual, for some puppetry. They're doing a whole thing with a scroll and shadow puppets. It should look beautiful. And Cory Einbinder has done some neat looking fight choreography. And Carla Gant, the costume designer, has been making a costume for Judah Maccabee much better than the one I improvised for the publicity shot. (Barry Weil, who usually does our graphics, wasn't available, so I did the postcard above, as well as put together the publicity shot. I was proud of the card, not because it was so beautiful, but because I managed it at all with my limited Photoshop powers.)

We open Sunday. I'm curious to find out what people think.

Robert Lepage and Peter Brook

2008-11-25T22:46:00.000-08:00

I've been attending theater nonstop recently - five shows in the last four days. Three of them were shows I was scouting for the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas, in one way or another. And two of them were directed by two masters of the avant garde: Peter Brook and Robert Lepage.

Peter Brook is known, of course, for his book The Empty Space, which I read in college. It is a great book with deep insights. Or so it seems when reading it. Unfortunately I have now seen two of Brook's plays: The Man Who..., and this most recent production (at the New York Theater Workshop), The Grand Inquisitor, and to say I have been underwhelmed is to exaggerate my enthusiasm. They are both indeed done in an empty space, with minimal set, minimal lights, minimal costumes, and, sadly, minimal drama.

Both times they commit the worse crime a production can commit. They were tedious. I was particularly sad about The Man Who..., as I love the source material (Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) That suffered from Brook's desire to use a multinational cast who, unfortunately, didn't all have a good grasp of English. In a play exploring neurology, especially neurological conditions that affect language, that's a major problem.

The Grand Inquisitor features Bruce Myers, whose command of English was impeccable. But a one man recitation without theatrical affect demands work so riveting that it needs nothing else. It wasn't. And a production so spare demands that each gesture mean the world. But the gestures were just motions.

Now, I have been told by those who have seen his Midsummer Night's Dream or King Lear (both before my time) that Brook is capable of greatness. Perhaps he is. Robert Lepage certainly is. I have seen him direct The Far Side of the Moon, one of my favorite productions ever. I even found his less acclaimed Elsinore amazing.

Unfortunately, this time he was directing The Damnation of Faust by Hector Belioz at the Metropolitan Opera. It was an opera that was never really meant to be staged. It was only staged in full once during Belioz's life.

Lepage has a whole new set of video toys at his disposal, now. The Times did a whole feature on them, and they are impressive, as far as technology goes. As far as theater goes, however, they have yet to prove themselves.

In fact, it seemed to me as if Lepage's toys got in the way of his inventiveness. The most powerful moments I've seen Lepage direct are often the simplest. I think often of the moment in The Far Side of the Moon where he invoked the full feeling of being in outer space just by sort of wiggling on the floor. It sounds almost ridiculous, but in context it was amazing. And though Elsinore seemed at times to be a series of magic tricks, they were incredible magic tricks that made you wonder how he could have possibly accomplished them.

The tech for this opera is amazing to tech geeks, I'm sure, but to to an average audience member it just looks like projection, and theatrically static projections at that. Perhaps with a more dramatic opera Lepage will have more success. Lepage is planning to use some of his new tricks with his Ring cycle, coming up at the Met, and I hope, I truly hope, that it will all pay off there.

Because each time I've walked in the theater over the last four days I've walked in hoping to be amazed. To be transported. To be reminded what I truly love about theater. It hasn't happened recently. To tell the truth, it rarely happens.

But Lepage is capable of it. Perhaps Brook is as well.

Maybe next time.

Readings and stage directions

2008-11-20T08:58:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who hates play readings. He finds them a chore to sit through, and thinks that only those who are obligated agree to attend.

I am having two coming up (Golem Stories Dec 1 and Rudolf II Dec 15), as part of the Prague 1600 program with the Czech Center. Come on down!

I don't hate readings. I do admit that I find many a chore to sit through. But I must admit, for all that I love theater, many shows I go to because of obligation I find a chore to sit through. I know many talented actors, directors, etc, but a truly well written, well directed, well performed play is a hard goal to accomplish, and just because I know one talented person involved doesn't mean the show as a whole will be enjoyable.

To me, a reading is no different. Yes, it has less visuals and less flash. But a well done reading can be enjoyable, just as a well done play is.

But a well done reading, to me, means that you must think of the reading as a performance. Which is one reason I hate hearing stage directions. I understand why some people feel they are necessary, but I never have. Unless the reading of the stage directions is a performance in itself (and you do, on occasion, find a playwright who really writes clever stage directions), it is an unnecessary element. It seems to me much simpler and much better to come up with simple staging solutions that convey the sense of what it happening clearly. Most playwrights do not write stage directions as dialogue, so it should not be performed as dialogue.

Not that I haven't seen any good reading where the stage directions have been read. I have. I know it is an accepted convention. But as a director, I don't like it much.

For the upcoming reading of Golem Stories (Monday, December 1 at the Bohemian National Hall, if you want to come!) Henry Akona has agreed to make some limited sound cues to get me through the more thorny stage direction issues. Sound is always the most complicated, and the closest I've gotten to stage directions in a reading is having someone vocally announce sound effects.

Most actors who haven't worked with me seem surprised for a moment when I stand them up and start arranging them at music stands (or whatever seems appropriate), and have them move from place to place occasionally. But they quickly get used to it. And even having someone stand two music stands over versus at the music stand right next to the character they are speaking to does, I think, make a difference.

Another draw for those who might be thinking of coming to the readings: Peter Demetz, the author of Prague in Black and Gold, will be there to talk afterwards. I can think of no one more knowledgeable about the golem or about Rudolf II. And his book is an amazing resource, for those who haven't read it.

So as I said, come on down!

The Times notices Off Off Broadway...in Chicago (a belated grouse)

2008-11-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

I am not one to usually grouse at the New York Times or the current bete noir of theater blogs, Charles Isherwood. I feel like, though Isherwood and the Times have their problems, so does theater media in general in New York, and really, the reason that The New York Times is the only game in town is that it is the only daily that makes any credible effort towards covering theater.

But I would think that knowledge of the New York theater scene should be a prerequisite, and it does gall me that Isherwood seems totally ignorant of anything but the most high profile work. When I first came to New York, Mel Gussow was the second stringer, and I often fantasized during the first few years of having him come to my theater. He has, sadly, passed away now, though I was lucky enough to at least have him moderate a discussion on Ionesco during my Ionesco Festival. His reviews were always extremely smart, a lesson in theater as well as a review, and he found numerous artists off the beaten path whom he chose to highlight. After he retired from reviewing, he wrote books on Beckett, Miller, Stoppard and Pinter, among others (long form interviews with them, really). I miss him.

All this is said as a prelude to my belated grouse. I was looking at last Sunday's Arts and Leisure section, when I saw an article entitled Prolific Director Off Off Off Off Broadway. In some ways my hackles were raised immediately: I hate it when people add Off Off Off....to the Off-Off-Broadway term (One reason I prefer the term independent theater), trying to make a further hierarchy among the small, disenfranchised theaters of New York.

But in fact, the truth was much much worse. Or, to mirror the headline, it was Much Much Much Much Worse. For the director, David Cromer, who was supposedly obscure, was only obscure because he had done a few shows off the beaten path...in Chicago. Here, of course, he has recently directly the highly visible and successful Off-Broadway productions of The Adding Machine (won an Obie and a Lortel) , as well as the very successful Orson's Shadow which had its start at a tiny little theater in Chicago...called Steppenwolf.

My God, is that what passes for a find? This is "the most talented theater director that Americans have never heard of?" Is Isherwood even aware there actually is an Off-Off-Broadway scene, here in New York?

I wish Cromer success, and congratulations on his article in the Times. I saw both The Adding Machine and Orson's Shadow and enjoyed them. But this sort of coverage in the Times is why so many very talented directors in New York continue to be unheard of.

Perhaps we should move to Chicago so Isherwood can notice us.

California Musical Theater AD resigns over Prop 8

2008-11-12T22:24:00.000-08:00

I must say that I am conflicted over the recent news that Scott Eckern of California Musical Theater has resigned as Artistic Director. Eckern was a proponent of Proposition 8 in California - more than proponent, he donated $1000, which is a sizable amount for anyone who makes theater their main business. He is also a Mormon, and was following his religious beliefs.

When the donation came to light, he faced threats of a boycott of the theater. He quickly responded by resigning, stating he never meant to hurt anybody, and offering to donate $1000 to a gay rights charity.

What to make of this? According to the New York Times, nobody is happy, not even those who threatened to boycott the theater, such as Marc Shaiman. Eckern, for his part, said "I honestly had no idea that this would be the reaction."

I have to wonder how someone who makes his living in musical theater could have been surprised that homosexuals feel strongly about achieving equal rights. I almost feel bad for him, alone in a small section of society where almost everyone supports gay rights, while the majority of America still fights against them.

But would I feel bad for him if he had voted against a woman's right to vote, or for school segregation? Would I feel bad for him if he had voted that Jews should not have the right to marry?

I don't think Mr. Eckern is a bad person. But I cannot forgive his prejudice, either.

Yet let us also bear in mind that, publicly at least, our Democratic President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden have stated that they do not believe in gay marriage, either. Secretly, I was hoping that maybe they were lying when they said it. After all, they did not want it to become the center of the campaign. And they certainly didn't contribute money to the cause - that in itself puts Eckern in a totally different category.

And yet, how sad. And how hopeless Eckern's battle was. Because, for all the hubub about Proposition 8, those who are fighting against gay marriage have already lost. Yes, there has been a setback. But it is a only matter of time. The ads for Prop 8 focused on the children. The children will learn that being gay is acceptable, the ads implied.

They will already learn that, of course. And soon those children will vote. And someday they will look back at people such as Eckern and shake their heads in wonder, maybe even feeling a little melancholy for those caught in an old belief system, a belief system destined someday to die.

I hope soon.

Doctor Atomic and American renewal

2008-11-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, I saw Doctor Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera. I was interested in it not just because of the mixture of science and art but also, of course, because at UTC61 we produced a play called Hiroshima: Crucible of Light last year. Both pieces focus on Robert Oppenheimer and The Bomb.

Frankly, I was underwhelmed by the opera- by the design, by the direction, by the libretto, and even by the music, by John Adams. Doctor Atomic is all about waiting, specifically waiting for the first atomic bomb to be tested at Los Alamos. The final scene (after 3.5 hours of waiting) was quite literally a scene about waiting, waiting through a countdown in which two minutes somehow took ten. It takes a avant garde master like Beckett to dramatize waiting, and Doctor Atomic definitely didn't reach the level of Godot. We sat up in the cheap seats, which I do love at the Met - they aren't bad, even all the way up there. Thank goodness some seats are affordable, much more so than Broadway.

But one thing the opera did make me reflect on was a statement I read on the BBC news right after the Obama win - I can't find the exact article again, but what it said was almost identical to what U.N. President Kofi Anan stated: Obama's win once again demonstrates "America's extraordinary capacity to renew itself and adapt to a changing world."

I've seen sentiments like that often in the last few says, mostly on the international news sites, often enough to make me think that renewal and reinvention are virtues somewhat commonly attributed to us by the rest of the world.

How does this relate to Doctor Atomic? Well, the opera was of course a reminder that for all the great good the U. S. has done (and I do believe we have at times managed to do great good), we have also committed some terrible sins. My mind boggles at the idea that we were actually able to bring ourselves to drop that monstrosity on Japan. Everyone here talks of World War II in terms of Germany (and by implication Hitler and the Holocaust), because that way we can talk about WWII as the only morally justifiable war, but we forget the war, or at least our involvement in it, started and ended with Japan.

I think about that time in particular because it was on the heels of the New Deal and our emergence from the Depression. And of course the day Japan surrendered because of our atomic assaults, VJ day as it was called then, was a cause for jubilation at the time - and who can begrudge a nation sick of war celebrating its end? But in the midst of that celebration was the seeds of those problems that would shape the era to come, problems partly embodied by The Bomb.

Now, we are in celebration mode again, at least among the New Yorkers who comprise the majority of my associations. We have renewed ourselves in racial politics, but at the same time, Proposition 8 in California shows that we are having far less success in the area of homophobia. Will we someday renew ourselves again, get rid of our discriminatory laws, and maybe even elect a homosexual president? I hope so, but it will be a long time in coming.

And this time, unlike that moment at Los Alamos, we are heading into bad economic times, not out of them, and it will take a lot more renewal to find our way through. I'm glad that the international community is excited about Obama, and that in itself is an important renewal, regaining our status in the world. But we are not done.

The truth is, we will never be done.

The Bohemian National Hall (aka the Czech National Building)

2008-11-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend, the Bohemian National Hall in New York, alternatively known as the Czech National Building, finally reopened.

That probably doesn't mean that much to those who have not been following the saga of the BNH. But it means a lot to the the Czechs, who have been following its progress closely. And I hope that, in years to come, it will come to mean more to those of us in New York.

The BNH originally opened in 1896, and it was a gathering place for Czech and Slovak immigrants. The building is five stories high, and the spaces within it are vast and beautiful. After it fell out of disuse in the 1940's, it was rented to a number of groups. Perhaps most interestingly for the theater crowd, it was the original location of the Manhattan Theater Club, back when the MTC was a burgeoning Off-Off-Broadway company.

It then fell into total disrepair, occasionally attracting notice as a curiosity, but mainly a large, empty skeleton. However, the Bohemian Benevolent Literary Association continued to maintain ownership, and in 2001 the BBLA sold it to the Czech Republic for a dollar. There were grand plans. It was to become a theater, a cinema, an art gallery, a cafe, the home of the Czech Center and the home of the Czech consul general's office, all in one. The Czech government would do all the work on it, and the BBLA would then have a home and an office of its own.

Then the work began. Or rather, didn't begin.

I first encountered the Bohemian National Hall in 2006, right before the Havel Festival. One floor had been (almost) completed. But Halka Kaiserova, the Consul General at the time, was determined to have the space be functional. So she offered us the opportunity to have our opening there, a party in celebration of Vaclav Havel's 70th birthday.

It was exciting, and the event was highly successful. But a look into the old ballroom found a space in a sort of gorgeous decay, that made me feel like perhaps Peter Brook could take the space as is and make it into a functioning theater.

However, that wasn't the vision, although Gita Fuchsova, who came in to help make the BNH project function again, was able to use the raw space for a number of interesting cultural events.

But once again the space shut down for repairs, with the firm determination that this time, it must be finished - by the end of October, 2008, just in time for the 90th anniversary of Czech independence and the upcoming Czech presidency of the European Union.

It just made it. Almost. There is no cafe, still, that has to be built. But the rest is there.

The ballroom/theater is an incredible large, beautiful space, with a bar, a stage, and a huge area with high ceilings and a balcony all round that can serve multiple functions. How it works as a theater - well, that is to be seen, I suppose. I helped somewhat in the planning, but I was one of many voices, and much had already been set. And how a space functions in reality is always a little different than the theory. But New York has a new theater space, which is always good news (The elaborate curtained stage can be seen above).

And, as promised, there is a cinema on the ground floor, an art gallery on the second floor (with an exhibit about the BNH with pictures of it in development, an exhibit I recommend), the BBLA of the third floor, and even a beautiful roof terrace.

Untitled Theater Company #61 will have the honor of presenting one of the first programs there, Prague 1600, a look at the time of Rudolf II and the Golem. Our first event: A screening of the classic silent film The Golem, accompanied by live music from Gary Lucas. It will be in the main ballroom/theater, and it is worth attending just to see the space alone. But I can also say the Gary is an extremely skilled musician, and this is a rare chance to see his work absolutely free. Truly worth going to. Check out the clip on YouTube and see/hear his work.

After that, we will be having readings of Golem Stories (December 1) and Rudolf II (December 15). Go to all of them!

But even if you miss those programs (which you should not!), I recommend the visit to the BNH. It is a building truly worth seeing.

Illyria from Prospect Theater

2008-10-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

This last weekend a friend had tickets to see Illyria, a new musical version of Twelfth Night being presented by Prospect Theater Company, an Off-Off-Broadway theater company. It was the second Prospect production I have seen, the first being The Iron Curtain, which I judged for the NYITA.

Prospect put on shows I would never produce for Untitled Theater Company - old style musicals written today, done straight. Watching Iron Curtain I felt like I was seeing a new musical from the 50's or early 60's, and Illyria felt more like the 70's.

That being said, it was good. Really good. Very, very good. And this is not the first time - their Iron Curtain was also remarkably well done. The performers were amazing - I particularly enjoyed Jimmy Ray Bennett as Malvolio and Jessica Grove as Viola, but they were incredible all around, skilled singers and actors all with impressive credentials. The choreography (Christine O'Grady) was always well done, perhaps not as flashy as Iron Curtain (which had a full out tap number!), but always appropriate. The direction (Cara Reichel) was on target, the music was enjoyable, and the lyrics were often clever (both music and lyrics were by Peter Mills).

Yes, I could have some dramaturgical qualms with it. My friend pointed out some questions about the second act, and I agreed the ending could be improved upon. And, as I said, it wasn't the style of theater I am usually drawn to creating myself.

But good work is good work, regardless of whether it is the same style in which I work in, and this was excellent. I know how hard it is to put together a musical that holds together that well, and I was impressed. So I just want to acknowledge my colleagues. I know none of you personally. I don't know if you may stumble across this blog while googling yourself (something I would do), but if you do - well done. I have happened into your theater twice, I have seen two shows, and I thoroughly enjoyed both. Thanks.

Synecdoche, New York - review

2008-10-23T18:52:00.000-07:00

I occasionally write film reviews for the National Board of Review. I cross posted some when I had a myspace blog, and now that I have this blog I will be cross posting a few here as well.

There’s a children’s song that begins Charlie Kaufman’s new movie, Synecdoche, New York. The song is about the city of Schenectady, New York, and the city of Schenectady is a synecdoche for the movie, and the world, as a whole. Understand that? Then you are one step towards understanding the infinitely reflecting mirrors that make up Kaufman’s latest metaphysical reflection on life.

Kaufman is a rarity in Hollywood: a writer whose movies are identifiably his, no matter who is directing. From Being John Malkovitch to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, his films have been a unique combination of fantasy and philosophic reflection, with a touch of melancholy underneath it all. For his directorial debut, he has taken the melancholy and put it front and center. The children’s song that begins the movie seems to be light and carefree, until you realize it’s truly about death.

And of course, the song itself is a synecdoche: a part representing the whole, for those who have not recently attended a poetry class. For the whole movie is about death. Which is to say, it is about life, which has but one ending for us all. It’s also about a director (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), creating a play about death. Both the movie and the play within the movie taps into the same existentialist gloom that inspired Beckett.

Beckett expressed his gloom through the sparseness of his plays. Kaufman, by contrast, is ornate, perhaps overly ornate. Kaufman prefers worlds within worlds within worlds, so that his own directing debut, which stars Hoffman a director, has that director then choose an actor (Tom Noonan) to play a director, who then chooses an actor playing an actor to play an actor playing a director, and so on, ad infinitum.

Hoffman once again shows why he is one of the most talented contemporary actors to somehow become a Hollywood star, portraying the depressed antihero pitch perfectly. He is surrounded by a bevy of talented women, especially Samantha Morton, who plays his soul mate, a woman who has bought a symbolically burning house.

Of course, the movie seems to say, don’t we all live in a burning house destined to collapse on us one day? And isn’t there beauty in the fire?

It takes a certain taste to respond to that sort of poetic reflection, but Kaufman is one of the few writers (and now a director) who has been bringing an introspective spirit to Hollywood. This film does not always succeed: there might be one too many layers of its sprawling, Russian doll of a story, but like life, the joy of the film is in the struggle.

Chekhov Lizardbrain

2008-10-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

I saw Pig Iron's production of Chekhov Lizardbrain on Saturday. I enjoyed it, especially because of the neuro angle. To me, it shows once again what a rich theatrical field neurology is. Autism of course has become the cause of the day recently, especially in politics. For some reason McCain seems to feel that because Palin's son has Down Syndrome, that gives her a special window into autism. Of course, the two things are miles apart, and it takes more that a few months for even a parent of a child with autism to really understand it. But I digress...

One technique I particularly enjoyed in the production was the doubled scenes, first seen in their real form (the "film" version as they called it in the script) and then again from the lead character's perspective. James Sugg was impressive playing the lead, and seeing him transform from scene to scene as the character moved in and out of his own head was a definite joy of the production (the inner character was named Chekhov Lizardbrain).

The reviews of the play have been tremendous. The New York Times review focused on the Chekhovian loneliness that the autistic suffers from - reminding me that the Times review of Brains & Puppets focused on the loneliness of difference as well. For Chekhov Lizardbrain, I would agree that the emotional heart of the piece did lie in that loneliness. And perhaps also for Brains and Puppets, upon reflection.

Another interesting entry to the field of neurotheater.

Why is theater liberal?

2008-10-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the Times talks about the political plays of today, almost all liberal. It's true: politically right wing theater is an almost non existent breed. But what the article fails to really address is why.

One answer, in modern times, is simple: the current spate of political plays have reactive against the Bush administrative. When theater critiques society, it is critiquing power, and all the political power for the last eight years has been in the hands of the conservatives. The fact that the Bush administration has used their power as a bludgeon has certainly increased the desire (and the need) to fight it.

But even during the Clinton years political plays were not right wing. To a great extent, in New York, they were simply not; few plays bothered to address that administration. And even then, if a critique came, it was much more likely to come from the left of Clinton than from the right.

Of course, as I have been reflecting recently, choosing theater as a career is almost an act of insanity, and not the sort of insanity typical among right-wingers. It involves choosing to put more time and energy than most highly paid lawyers spend into a job that has few monetary rewards. The best theater is created by people who have, in some actively way, chosen not to earn the money they are fully capable of earning in favor of doing art.

This is a mindset that is definitely to the left of not just McCain, but of Obama, who recently stated:

"If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?"

There must be something off when I look at that statement and say, I would want someone like that. I really would. Perhaps arrogance isn't the most positive characteristic, but if that's what it takes to openly admit the other horrors: reading The New York Times, sipping a latte, failing to own a gun, or being a liberal (and really, do I care what sort of car you drive or whether you are "effete," usually a code word for either cultured or gay), I'll take arrogance every time.

But really, aside from the fact no one here in New York can afford a car, doesn't that describe half the Artistic Directors I know? And how did Joe the Plumber become the person we should all want to be, while a liberal who reads The New York Times became someone even the Democratic candidate calls a "freak"?

But that is all part of a disdain for intellectuals that has become a standard part of political discourse here in America. And theater is an arena for intellectuals. Yes, it is also a place for emotions, and for beauty, but it is one of the few places where people are asked to think out loud in front of you so you can consider what they have to say. Theater like no other art form is about debate, and by that I don't mean televised debates meant to convince the public that you have the right demeanor and are capable of looking into the camera and sounding forceful, but actual debates of actual ideas.

Of course, neither candidate has said anything about arts funding during those televised debates, and I suspect any question about the issue would be met with surprise, and, at best, halting platitudes. However, there has been a web site that has tracked their positions, ArtsVote2008.

Frankly, I was surprised to see that either of them had public platforms on the matter. But Obama's is surprisingly detailed. Of course, I do know that Isaac Butler over at Parabasis has mentioned that he was helping create an arts policy for Obama, so I did know some work was being done.

McCain just put out his first statement of any kind on the issue, a brief memo endorsing education. I'm all for arts education, but it would be nice to believe those kids, once educated, had something to do with their learning that actually paid money.

But none of this is surprising either. Would Republicans be more apt to support the arts if theater were more conservative in bent? Perhaps, though public funding might still be seen as a sort of socialism.

However, of all the things that Obama did not want to be seen as, perhaps the one thing I am with him on is the "politically correct" issue. Of course, political correctism has been defined many ways by many people. One thing that theater does, and does well, is create an empathy for The Other, whomever that other is. And sometimes the attempt to understand other cultures alone can bring accusations of political correctism. But that is not how I would define it.

The truly negative connotation in political correctism is the adaptation of beliefs not because they have been examined but because they are held by those around you. By that definition, hatred of the cultural elite is a sort of political correctism of the right. But there are plenty of points of view we, the effete, latte-drinking theater community, tend to have, that are not often critically examined. And if we are devoted to understand The Other, doesn't that extend to those whose political views are different from our own. Maybe we might not wish to be Joe the Plumber, but it is important to understand where he's something from, or where Sarah Palin is coming from, or McCain, or even Bush.

We cannot change who we are. I would not want to. But if the power is going to be moving to the left in this country, as I suspect (and hope) it will be, it will be our duty to not stop our critical thinking, and to be ready to examine political issues from multiple perspectives. Perhaps that will not create a political play from the right, still. But at the least it will create far more interesting political plays from the left.

That's it for now. I'm off to buy a Venti and read the latest from Ben Brantley.

Attack at the Hungarian Jewish Theatre

2008-10-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

We have been getting an increasing number of international submissions for the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas. Although many of the plays address politics, I don't think of the festival itself as a political statement, more as a celebration of culture. But I am reminded that, sadly, there are still moments when putting on Jewish theater can be dangerous.

Right before Rosh Hashana, there was an attack on the director of the new show at the Hungarian Jewish Theatre, using water guns filled with acid as well as buckets of pig feces. Six or seven neo-Nazis then beat the director and some bystanders who tried to help. At least one remains in the hospital.

Last year, Mark Vail, a Jewish theater director from Uzbekistan (who often also directed in Seattle), was murdered. Of course, he was also putting on plays that dealt with gay themes, so one can blame extreme homophobia as well.

Recently, a friend of mine mentioned that almost all theater in New York is gay or Jewish. An exageration, I think, but it does remind me how much we take for granted.

Belated London roundup: Merry Wives, Six Characters, and War Horse

2008-10-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

I've been a little delinquent on posts here, but I did want to give a roundup of the plays I saw (beyond Havel's) during my trip to London.

The first was Merry Wives of Windsor, at the Globe. It is the first play I've ever seen at the Globe (Although I've visited, as you can see from the picture, left). I must admit that I got off the plane, dropped my stuff off at the hotel, and left directly for the show, which is not the ideal mode of seeing it. I felt perfectly awake while running as fast as I could from the tube station to the theater, remembering that in London, a 2pm start actually meant a 2pm start, not a 2:07 start (of course for me, it was an 8am start, with no sleep). But halfway through the first act I started nodding off, and it wasn't because of the play. Well, not completely.

The play itself was decent, and the performances were generally strong. I read a review that called the play the best version of Merry Wives seen, then compared it to a British sitcom. I agree with both of those comments...which really underlines what a poor play it is, at heart. But I always wonder why it is that, just because a play has Shakespeare's name attached, it must be performed again and again, when there are far better plays around on which one can spend one's energy. I would like to have back the hours sitting at productions like Henry VIII or Pericles (which I have somehow been obligated to see three times). Yes, Shakespeare has some great plays, and I am a bit of completist myself (I am not going to claim that every play Ionesco or Havel wrote was of equal quality), but it is one thing to present them all as an event, it is another to make a regular practice of it.

But perhaps I was just getting sleepy and testy. Nonetheless, a beautiful theater, and fun to see in action.

The next day was devoted to Leaving, but the day after I saw two more shows : first, Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author at the Gielgud. This production was directed by Rupert Goold, who brought his Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart here to New York recently. This is a teched up production, with the framing conceit that the producer is actually a documentary filmmaker, considering using actors to portray "reality." The six characters drop in and demand to be filmed, and the play begins in earnest.

The framing conceit is interesting at times, highlighting the reality vs. fiction themes of the play, and uses of projections and tech tricks are at times impressive, as we see the characters get filmed in a artificially created environment, but it loses itself at the end, as the last half of the last act strays further and further from the original in a series of gimmicks that become almost an end in itself.

That being said, the production looks beautiful, and the acting is tremendously good, making it a very enjoyable show to watch. Of particular note was the Father, played by Ian McDiarmid with a repressed sexual energy that some British actors excel at like no others. It transformed the lurid soap opera that the characters describe, always a problem for me when reading the play, into something fraught with tension. Also good was the filmmaker, Noma Dumezweni.

The final show I saw was War Horse, at the National Theatre. War Horse is an adaptation of a book by the name name, by Michael Morpurgo. The story is a somewhat sentimental tale of a horse and a boy, both of whom get pulled into the events of World War II. The amazing thing about War Horse is the puppetry, particularly of all the horses. From the movements of the horses, to the sounds they make (voiced by the puppeteers, three to a horse), to the incredible design which allows actors to leap up on their backs and ride them, every element was incredible well thought out and executed. A professional, well designed show throughout, with universally strong performances, but the puppets were the real stars.

You can see a bit (just a bit unfortunately) on YouTube

Of course, I love puppetry, and reacted with excitement when the man at the box office at Six Characters mentioned the play, which I'd already read about. "I heard about that one," I said, "incredible puppets, right?"

"Well, yes, there are puppets," he said, almost apologetically. "But really, the production is very good. It's not what you would think of when you think of a play with puppets."

Of course, it was exactly what I would think of. I would have hoped that there has been enough puppetry recently in prominent shows to let people realize that puppetry is a vast, incredible realm of possibilities, not just variations on Punch & Judy shows. Apparently not. That point was particularly brought home to me when I read the ever-snarky Michael Riedel's column attacking Julie Taymor's upcoming production of Spiderman.

"The reason she worked with puppets most of her life is because she never had much of a budget," a source says. "But then Disney came along and gave her $25 million to do 'The Lion King.' "

Yes, puppetry is a great way to incorporate deaign elements when there are some monetary constraints. It is also a great way to design shows that have the budget for some amazing creations - as the Lion King, among many other shows, has proved.

But Riedel's main criticism:

There's a set designer and a costume designer and a projections designer and a fight designer and an aerial designer and a graphic designer and a film designer. In short, if you're a designer of any kind, you've got to get on this gravy train.

After coming back from London, having seen two West End shows that used strong design elements to create really noteworthy shows, that sort of comment just makes me sad.

Leaving, by Václav Havel

2008-09-30T03:06:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I attended the English language premiere of Václav Havel’s newest play, Leaving. This is the play that Havel was writing during the Havel Festival and I flatter myself by saying that I see influences of the festival in his newest work. Havel flatters me in showing one clear bit of influence – I am in the play! I had read the play of course, but I had almost forgotten that my name is among those listed in the Gambacci firm (Gambacci is a villain, but I try not to take it too hard). Havel told me during the reception after the show that he wanted to include my name in order to acknowledge my work on the festival. Would I be exaggerating if I said it was worth doing the festival for that alone? A bit maybe, but not much. A tiny footnote worth of immortality.

Having said that, I can hardly be objective about the play, but I will say that I was impressed by Orange Tree Theatre’s production. I had not imagined the play in the way they presented it – a very British political satire – but it worked in a way that was different from any I expected. Havel mentioned to me that the production in Prague had been much different – more like a tragic opera. But different, he added, does not mean worse, and any good playwright must let go of his play and hope that it can sustain multiple interpretations.

I hardily agree.

As for the shades of the festival – perhaps it is that I see so many shades of HaveI’s earlier plays, as well as the very deliberate influences of The Cherry Orchard and King Lear (both quoted verbatim in the text). The play concerns a lifetime politician forced to leave his villa (surrounded by cherry trees) after he loses his position as Chancellor. As in many of Havel’s plays, there is an ambitious deputy working against him behind the scenes. In this piece, he is named Klein, thus encouraging the rumor that the character is a stand-in for Havel’s political rival and the current Czech President, Václav Klaus. Of course, he also resembles most of Havel’s antagonists. The protagonist, Rieger, is also similar to many of Havel’s protagonists. In particular, the play reminds me of Largo Desolato (in relation to women), The Memo (political machinations), Mountain Hotel (more in setting and feel) and Garden Party (it even deliberately recalls the chess metaphor used in that play). And it wouldn’t be a Havel play unless it had a "hubub" somewhere near the climax (a surrealistic point where the various characters appear and repeat characteristic lines) and ended (spoiler alert?) with a sincere speech that throws away every value the protagonist has.

I have to mention that the actors were all skilled and the theater (the only permanent theater in the round) was beautiful. Sam Walters, the director of Leaving and the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree, has been doing Havel’s work in London for 20 years, and will continue with a small Havel Festival of his own, producing the Vanek plays as well as a production of Mountain Hotel.

Scanning the internet, I see the British press has reacted favorably to the production, on the whole, though there are definitely some reservations. You can see some of the reviews at The Guardian, The Independent, and The Times. In Prague, the play received wholehearted raves--of course there it was also probably the most important theater event in over a decade, not to mention an important political event.

Even at the London production, I spotted some MPs among the other VIPs. It's exciting to have theater that engages politics so directly without ever becoming polemical. But then, that is one of Havel's fortés, and one reason why I am so enthusiastic about his work.

What is Jewish Theater? - an ongoing series

2008-09-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

As the curator for the upcoming Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas, I am confronted by an old question that often comes up at the Association of Jewish Theatre: what is Jewish theater?

I am tempted to answer in the way the Supreme Court once defined pornography: I know it when I see it. But that is of course subject to the question: is what I would call Jewish theater what someone else would define in the same way?

But perhaps that question is one reason for a festival. When I produced the Havel Festival, I didn't necessarily know what made a play essentially Havellian. Of course, the easy answer is that they are all written by the same man. But what makes gives one playwright's output a signature flavor? Is it something innate to Havel that comes out in his plays? Something innate to the time and place from which he writes? The more I watched the plays, the more I noticed similar themes, themes that spoke to each other across the plays, so that each play I saw deepened my appreciation of the next.

Will the same be true of Jewish theater? Is suspect so. In the next months, I am going to continue to try (and most assuredly fail) to define what exactly Jewish theater is, and in that quest I am interested in hearing from others who have thought about that question.

What is Jewish theater to you?

An interview with Eric Shanower

2008-09-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

Eric Shanower and I met through a mutual friend, when we both attended his experimental film festival, MIX--not a very Ozzy event, but we started to talk about Oz, and it led to my writing a short story for Oz-story 3. Fortunately David Maxine, the editor, liked it, Eric illustrated it, and our collaboration had begun. At the publishing party for the release of Oz Story 3 David and I started talking about a new Oz novel for the 100th anniversary, and soon after (OK, years later) my first published novel Paradox in Oz came out, with Eric's illustrations. It received some nice reviews and some nice reactions, but perhaps more importantly, Eric, David and I were all proud of it. Soon after that (OK, many years after) the sequel, The Living House of Oz came out. It received less press--just bad timing perhaps, because the same review journals who had like Paradox ignored The Living House. I'm still ridiculously proud of it.

Anyway, both books would feel completely different if it weren't for Eric's illustrations, which in some irrational way I always feel like I can take some slight credit for. Of course, Eric's other accomplishments, including his multiple Eisner Awards for his current comic series Age of Bronze, argue that perhaps Eric is a marvelous artist, whether or not he's illustrating my work.

Here are some questions I asked him:

1. You have done a lot of art relating to Oz, much of it before we began collaborating. Yet to my (perhaps prejudiced) eye, it always seems that there is a slightly different feeling to the work we do together than to your other Oz work, which I also love. Do you think the writing style of the author whose work you are illustrating affects your depictions of Oz?

That’s an interesting observation. No, I don’t think the style of the author usually affects my depictions of Oz. When I illustrate your stories, I certainly try to illustrate appropriately for the text, but I don’t change my thinking about Oz. I think it’s more my relationship to the story and characters that informs how I draw, rather than an author’s style. I don’t think that’s the same thing, although maybe it is.

2. You have knack for capturing the essence of the original books while injecting a real sense of yourself in your Oz work as well. How influential is John R. Neill to your style of illustration? Do you ever look back to Denslow, when working on Oz? Does Neill (or do other Oz influences) affect your style when, for example, working on Age of Bronze?

The first “real” Oz book I read was The Road to Oz. John R. Neill’s illustrations in that book are a high point in his career. They made quite an impression on me. Neill’s work is one of the things I love about Oz. Certainly Neill’s Oz illustrations have influenced my vision of Oz immensely. It’s obvious that his depictions of the characters are the starting points for my depictions of them.

Neill continues to be one of my favorite illustrators. It’s hard for me to determine how influential his work has been on my style, but I’m sure it’s there near the foundation. I remember when I was in about fourth grade going through a period of trying to draw eyes like John R. Neill. Even now, usually in quick sketches, I sometimes find myself mentally referencing Neill’s approach to drawing people smiling. But for the most part if there are influences from Neill in my style or approach to drawing, they’re so buried in my subconscious that I’m not aware of them. I’ll leave it to my critics and biographers to ferret out any stylistic comparisons.

In Age of Bronze I’m not consciously affected by Neill or any other Oz illustrator. Generally when I draw I try to eschew all outside influence in favor of putting my own vision on paper.

I do look at Denslow’s illustrations for The Wizard of Oz when I’m required to draw a character that he drew and Neill didn’t, like the Wicked Witch of the West, the Good Witch of the North, or the Winged Monkeys. Also there are times I’ve drawn flashbacks to events from The Wizard of Oz, so I’ve looked at Denslow’s work as a starting point.

In the endpaper illustration for the hardcover edition of Adventures in Oz several characters appear who were originally designed by Denslow. I drew them based on Denslow’s character design. In a review of the book, the reviewer credits them to Denslow. I thought that was funny.

3. How have your views of the original Oz books developed over the years? Is there one thing that you appreciate more now that you have done so much Oz work yourself?

My view of Oz definitely has become more specific as the number of Oz projects I’ve written or illustrated or both has grown. I don’t re-read the Oz books now in the way that I read them as a child. Then I lost myself in the world Baum created. Now I have a much more analytical eye. But now I read everything with an analytical eye—perhaps that’s just a function of growing up and expanding my intelligence. Or perhaps it’s just a result of being a writer—I look at all other writing with that analytical eye.

I can’t read the Oz books very objectively now. There’s so much baggage in the storeroom of my head that I can’t set aside. I don’t have the Oz books memorized word for word, but I know the stories and a lot of the niggling details, helped by years of preparing to take quizzes at Oz conventions. I find, though, that at this point I don’t know the niggling details as well as I used to. I guess that’s a good thing—I have other things in my life to pay attention to. Still, I did take the Oz quiz at the Winkie Convention this past summer—after years of not taking a quiz at an Oz convention—and I was surprised at how many answers I could dredge up.

When I was little I believed that Oz was real until the day I asked my dad and he told me it wasn’t. I was disappointed, but I knew he was right. I guess if one has to ask, one already knows the answer. But that was a long time ago. I can’t really think of a particular way my view of the Oz books has developed. They’ve been part of my life for so long, always there in the background, easily springing into the foreground when summoned.

My view of the Judy Garland motion picture adaptation of The Wizard of Oz certainly has gone through developments. I loved it as a child and watched it every year when it was on television. It was my favorite movie for a long time and my view of Oz included both the images from the books and from the movie. When I began to write and draw Oz comics professionally, however, I stopped watching the movie and tried to put it out of my head completely. To some extent I succeeded quite well. There’s a scene in The Ice King of Oz where the Cowardly Lion is having his hair done. When I wrote and drew that scene I never thought of the similar scene in the Judy Garland movie. People pointed out the similarity to me after the book was published and they won’t believe me when I say that the movie scene never crossed my mind. But it’s true—that scene in Ice King was based on Leo the Lion who’s always getting his hair done in the Freddy the Pig books by Walter R. Brooks. Anyone who knows those books will know exactly what I mean. I did finally watch the entire Judy Garland movie again in 2005 at the premiere screening of the then-latest dvd release. I have to say it was a good experience watching it in a crowded theater where everyone was having a ball. I’d turned my back on that movie for many years, but I’m glad to say I really do enjoy it. Still, it’s not my version of the “real” Oz—just one more of the myriad adaptations—but I just want to scream when someone starts talking about the “ruby red slippers.” I wish they’d get it right or shut up.

I recently wrote the script for a comics adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. It was fascinating to pick over the entire book, going through it scene by scene, line by line. I did find some things in it that hadn’t stood out for me before. And I had to consider the possible backgrounds of the characters—the Wizard, for example—in more detail than I ever had, so that was interesting. The old-fashioned-ness of the writing—old-fashioned even for 1900, in a way—stood out starkly, too, because I had to figure out how to deal with it in a version for an audience of today.

What I really appreciate now in others’ depictions of Oz, whether written or drawn—or on television or on stage or whatever—is when there’s a sense of fidelity to the essence of the Oz L. Frank Baum created. I can spot pretty quickly whether someone’s attempt at Oz is plastic and dead or whether it’s captured at least a bit of the Baum life. Unfortunately most of what I’m exposed to doesn’t get it. Every once in a while there’s a gem, and that’s a cause for great rejoicing.

When I stopped doing the Oz graphic novels in 1991, I thought that I would be leaving Oz behind. And for a little while, I really tried. But I kept being offered attractive Oz projects and I kept climbing on board the Oz train yet again. Finally I stopped trying run away and gave in. I think that I’ll be involved in an Oz project one way or another for the rest of my life. At one point I thought I had nothing new left to say about Oz, but interesting new Oz projects proved that untrue. My vision of Oz can always be refined. Yes, I can probably draw Ozma in my sleep, but, for instance, illustrating Paradox in Oz gave Ozma new dimension for me. Still, sometimes my resistance goes up strongly. Every time I think, okay, that’s it, that’ll be my last Oz project, I just can’t take it any more, another one comes along that sparks my enthusiasm and I’m off again. I’ve reached the point, I think, where I’m fine with that. It gives me a chance to visit my old Oz friends again, and I only take the projects that interest me.

4. Was the process of working on Paradox in Oz different for you than working on The Living House of Oz? I know I felt I had given you far more new characters to design for the Living House than for Paradox--do you prefer having more original characters more or do you prefer working on variations on the classic characters?

I liked Paradox in manuscript form early on. It took me a long while to warm up to Living House, and even while working on Living House, I kept thinking back fondly to Paradox and wishing Living House was more like that. Not that I wanted the Living House story or characters to be more like Paradox, but I wanted my attitude toward illustrating Living House to be more like my attitude toward illustrating Paradox.

I think part of the difference was that Paradox took a lot of the characters and situations in the Oz books and played with them in clever ways. That was really fun to illustrate, fun to figure out how I was going to try to match your cleverness. Living House didn’t have a lot of that—it wasn’t “clever” in the same way. It’s a much more character driven story, so I had to warm up to the new characters.

Now I really like Living House and am proud of a lot of my illustration work in it. I never thought I’d like Living House as much as I liked Paradox, but since Living House was published, I’d be hard pressed to say which book I think is better. Well, maybe Paradox would still win.

(EE reponse: in some ways, I prefer The Living House to Paradox now -- perhaps because I've had to read both of them aloud from time to time, and I find myself wincing, just a little, at a turn of phrase or two in Paradox. But more importantly, The Living House feels like an evolution -- maybe because I had more of my own characters and the plot is actually very political, in some ways, so it was fun for me to play with those levels of discourse. But then again it was fun for me to play with all the logical conundrums in Paradox. So I waver...)

5. To me, seeing my book fully illustrated and in print feels something like seeing my play fully produced and onstage--an illustrated book, like a script, seems unfinished with just the text. The look and feeling of the book plays a part in that too, of course-- the layout, the endpapers, the cover, etc. Working with you and David (the editor and publisher) seems truly collaborative from start to finish. Yet most publishers don't work the way Hungry Tiger does. Most publishers (usually larger operations, of course) separate the illustrator and writer, and divorce both from the process of the actual production of the book. Do you think the collaborative process makes a difference? Have you worked in situations which were less collaborative, and how do you think it changes the work (if it does)?

Yes, I’ve worked less collaboratively. But it only made sense to me to work collaboratively with you on those books (and, I guess, to some extent on the short stories of yours I’ve illustrated). You are easy to work with, too, since you were neither too guarded or too dictatorial. I think we respect each other’s creativity enough to listen to each other for the benefit of the project as a whole. I think our respective backgrounds probably help. Your background, theater, is a collaborative process, and my background, comics, is very often a collaborative process.

To my knowledge, most publishers of illustrated books don’t want the writer giving the illustrator any advice, but a comics script usually has all sorts of directions for the artist. I’ve even worked from comics scripts that have been sketched out by the writer. Comics artists usually don’t have to stick to the writer’s stage directions if they have a better way to present something—that’s their job after all—but tons of input from the writer is perfectly usual in comics.

Of course I’ve illustrated books where I had zero contact with the author because the author was dead. No input beyond the text available, period. Does it change my work? Possibly. I don’t know. Each project is unique, so there are so many different variables it’s probably impossible to say. But I do know that I won’t be able to ask a dead author to clarify some obscure thing in the text. As you know, when I’ve illustrated your work we talk a good deal and I welcome your input, but I don’t depend on you for answers. When I have questions, it’s because I want to discuss something I’ve already considered, not because I’m too lazy to think about possibilities on my own. I approach other work the same way. It’s just that if the author is dead or otherwise inaccessible, I have to make my decisions without benefit of discussion.

6. What is the most difficult thing you've had to illustrate in one of my books? In any book?

Probably the most difficult thing I had to illustrate for your books was the dust jacket illustration for The Living House of Oz. I did two paintings. The first ended up as the endpapers because neither David, the editor, nor I thought it turned out to be strong enough for a cover. So I drew a duct jacket featuring the exterior of the Living House prominently. Designing the outside of the Living House was tricky because it needed to be balanced among several factors: the traditional Neill Oz house design, the needs of the story, and my own sense of a pleasing design. I’m satisfied with my final house design, but David still doesn’t like it. It’s the major focus of the final dust jacket, and I waver between thinking the final illustration is really strong and really weak. Part of it is having a character that looks so little like a human as the main image on the cover of the book. Was that a good idea and did it work? I still don’t know for sure. David thinks it’s a weak cover. But then the major art book seller, Bud Plant, notes in their catalog description how attractive the cover is. Aesthetically I’m happy with the cover and I think it looks “real Ozzy.” But I don’t know if it sells the book like the Paradox in Oz cover does.

(EE - I like the design of the house, and the Living House cover--but I also agree that the Paradox cover really sells the book in way that's hard to match. I absolutely love that cover, it just works in an indefinable way. )

It’s hard to think what the most difficult thing is that I’ve had to illustrate in any book. I recall one thing about illustrating a book of Bram Stoker short stories called Dracula’s Guest. I had to draw a picture of the Iron Maiden of Nuremburg for the story “The Squaw.” This was before I was on the internet. I looked hard for a reference picture of that Iron Maiden, but no luck. I couldn’t find anything, but deadlines are deadlines. So finally I designed the illustrations so that I wouldn’t have to draw the entire object, and I just faked it. I’m rather ashamed of the result. Of course, AFTER the book was published I went to a torture exhibit at a local museum and, what do you know, they had the Iron Maiden of Nuremburg on display! Fortunately I had my sketchbook and drew the thing from life. If those illustrations ever get reprinted, I’m redoing a few.

7. How have has look of the your Oz illustrations evolved over the years? Last year, a collection of your Oz graphic novels entitled Adventures in Oz was released. If you were to draw that comic today, would it look different?

Since I started drawing Oz illustrations when I was six years old, the evolution has been large. Basically it’s matched the evolution of my drawing ability. One conscious progression I’ve made is in the clothing Dorothy wears. This is on display front and center in Adventures in Oz. Over the forty years John R. Neill illustrated Oz books, he always dressed Dorothy in clothing of the time, so I believe it’s part of her character to dress that way. In my earliest professional Oz illustration, I didn’t want to make a radical break with the last of Neill’s Oz books in the 1940s, so I put Dorothy in dresses that could have been from the 1940s or from the 1980s. But as soon as I could, I found excuses to put her into pants. In Ice King she wears a parka and snow pants for most of the book. And in Forgotten Forest she’s in pajamas. I reverted to a skirt in Blue Witch, just because I still didn’t think anyone was ready for Dorothy in blue jeans, but since then I’ve illustrated entire books with Dorothy in shorts. I think shorts are visually close enough to skirts that it’s not jarring. But people still complain. I don’t know why they do. Dorothy always wears what girls in the Great Outside World wear. Not that girls don’t wear skirts and dresses today, but they don’t wear them to go off on adventures full of strenuous walking and climbing.

If I were to draw Adventures in Oz today, I don’t think it would look much different. The drawing would be a bit better, I think. I wouldn’t make Dorothy as skinny as I made her in Secret Island. And I’d design the architecture with a little more skill. But my concepts of the Land of Oz and the characters haven’t really changed since I wrote and drew those comics.

8. You have been working, as a writer, on a comic adaptation of the Wizard of Oz. Can you reveal anything more about it? How does the process of being purely the writer (and working with an illustrator) compare with the process of being the illustrator alone?

Beginning December 2008 Marvel Comics will be publishing an eight-issue comics adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Skottie Young is the artist. His work on this project is really beautiful, although it’s nothing like my Oz comics or illustration.

I was glad that Marvel contracted me to write the series but not draw it. I would have had to turn it down if they’d asked me to draw it, since I don’t have time in my schedule. I did have to consciously make myself realize that the artwork would not be my vision of Oz, might look quite different than what I hoped or expected, that I might even intensely dislike it. Of course, I hoped I would like the art at least a little, but I was able to put up the firewall in my brain so that I could write the script and not be too concerned about what the artist did with it.

Fortunately, Skottie’s art is gorgeous and lively. The character design is certainly not what I’d have done. Skottie’s Oz isn’t based on any Oz anyone’s seen before. He started from scratch, basically. But it’s an authentic vision of Oz, true to the source material. I was happy to see the result. As of this writing, only the first two issues are drawn, so he’s got a way to go and many characters yet to depict. Skottie’s enthusiasm for the material is such that we’ll be going beyond the first Oz book with this series. I haven’t signed a contract yet beyond The Wizard of Oz, so I don’t want to be specific. But more Shanower/Young Oz comics are planned from Marvel.

Writing the scripts for Wizard was really enjoyable. I’ve read The Wizard of Oz many, many times, but I’d never been over it so closely or thoroughly before. One quirky detail that stands out to me from writing this adaptation—something I’d never paid attention to before—was that the Soldier with the Green Whiskers has Dorothy and her friends wipe their feet before they enter the Wizard’s palace. It’s so minor, but so characteristic of Baum’s writing. So of course it’s in my script. I was also writing the script with my knowledge of all the later Oz books, something that was impossible for Baum. That knowledge informed my script. I found myself having to suggest that Skottie not draw certain things or to draw things in a certain way so that our adaptation would be true to Baum’s Wizard text, but leave room for things from later Oz books. Consistency didn’t seem to concern Baum much from book to book. But I tried to pay attention so that nothing will jar readers who know the Oz books.

Another thing I did was to consult the several times Baum rewrote portions of Wizard or retold portions. Sometimes Baum was cleverer or clearer in the rewrite and I used that version in the script. He wrote another origin of the Scarecrow which differs radically in the details from the one in The Wizard of Oz. The second one is not better than the one in Wizard and I found that I couldn’t use any of it.

9. It's been a while since we worked on the last book, and though I have been (slowly) working on a book of short stories, I get distracted by projects that are more likely to be read by a wider market. The experience with The Living House was a little discouraging, because though I remain very proud of our work in it, it didn't get picked up by the major review journals and thus has had a much harder time selling than Paradox. Yet part of me misses working on Oz, and I would love to find time to finish the book. Are there any Oz stories that you are still itching to tell? Now that much of your time is taken with Age of Bronze, how do you feel about illustrating future Oz projects?

Well, as I said, after I finished the Oz graphic novel series I wanted to leave Oz behind, but I’ve become used to the idea that I never will. It’ll always be at least a dull roar in the background of my professional life, occasionally increasing to a trumpet blast. Age of Bronze has first place for my attention now and will for some time to come. The thought of taking on a book-length Oz manuscript to illustrate seems exhausting, frankly, and not something I’m at all anxious to do, especially if there isn’t much money attached. But if the manuscript arouses my enthusiasm, then it’s a different story. But there’s got to be some fresh angle, some challenge that I haven’t encountered before, something to hold my interest. Life’s boring if I’m just drawing the same Dorothy face over and over and over. And I don’t see any reason I should suffer boredom when I can choose something interesting. There are so many interesting things in life. And life’s too short to experience them all, so I can’t waste my time redoing what I’ve already done if it’s not going to somehow be new. (However, I do enjoy drawing the Scarecrow over and over.)

(EE - well, if I ever do finish the book, it will be a lot more than Oz stories...so hopefully something new, too.)

Visit the website of Eric's award-winning graphic novel series Age of Bronze:
www.age-of-bronze.com
www.ericshanower.com