BUT NEITHER BORROWED NOR BLUE

posted by James Reel

    Something old, or at least expected, and something new from me in the latest Tucson Weekly. First, the usual theater review:

    Did you know that "George Gershwin" is a registered trademark? Yeah, sure, Gershwin was certainly not ashamed to make money as a songwriter, and he was a great composer who deserved every penny he got. But there's something unseemly about the Gershwin estate ostensibly protecting the composer's interests by trademarking the name; not only can granting the right to use the music generate income, but the man himself has been commodified.
    Actor-writer-pianist Hershey Felder had to get permission from the Gershwin Family (that's what the group is called, as if it included certain Sopranos) to research and perform George Gershwin Alone, a chatty evening in which Felder portrays Gershwin reminiscing about his career and playing some of his hits. Felder's family-authorized depiction of Gershwin, currently being presented by Arizona Theatre Company, is squeaky-clean, breezy and superficial, and by the end of the short performance, a lot remains unsaid. Yet what we do get is remarkably engaging, witty and entertaining from beginning to end.

    You’ll find the full review here, but don’t think you’ll have had your fill of me once you’ve seen that. The Weekly’s editor cajoled me into joining the restaurant-review team, and for my first expense-account visit I naturally chose a fairly expensive restaurant:

    The few times that foie gras appears on the menu at Bar 58 and Bistro, it's accompanied by the specification "humanely raised." Presumably, that means that some poor goose or duck did not sacrifice its liver after a lifetime with a feeding tube jammed down its throat.
    Or perhaps the practice of gavage has been perfected to resemble an evening at Bar 58: being pampered with an abundance of fine wine and rich food to the point that you hardly care that your liver is becoming a quivering ball of fat.

    Health be damned; I was actually inspired to write a positive review of the experience, which you can find here.

ARRR!

posted by James Reel

    Elgar? Keelhaul the scurvy dog!
    Something I won’t be saying on the air, even though this is “Talk Like a Pirate Day.”

FAILING AT A HIGHER LEVEL

posted by James Reel

    Drew McManus of Adaptistration has begun issuing his annual evaluation of orchestra Web sites, and there’s news good and bad for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Drew ranks the TSO’s site as 49 out of 84, up 12 positions from last year, but the site’s overall grade remains solidly F. See the list and Drew’s introductory comments here. He’ll be offering further information as the week progresses; watch this space.
    My report of last year’s ranking spread across several posts, including comments back and forth between Drew and a former TSO employee. If you’re into research, you can read those posts here, here, here and here.

WILL TOO POWERLESS

posted by James Reel

    In my post about the English consortium questioning the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, I overlooked the main implication of this set of questions: “The 287-strong Shakespeare Authorship Coalition says it is not possible that the bard's plays—with their emphasis on law—could have been penned by a 16th century commoner raised in an illiterate household.
    “It asks why most of his plays are set among the upper classes, and why Stratford-upon-Avon is never referred to in any of his plays.”
    This tells us everything we need to know—not about Shakespeare, but about his doubters. It’s all about class! A poorly educated commoner (actually, we know nothing about Shakespeare’s education) couldn’t possibly be a literary genius, could he? Perhaps if the English could ever shake off their class consciousness, they would someday be able to make worthwhile inquiries.

SHAKING THEIR SPEAR

posted by James Reel

    There’s long been controversy over the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, and now the 287-member Shakespeare Authorship Coalition has signed a "declaration of reasonable doubt," hoping it will spur responsible scholarly research into the subject.
    Well, there has already been responsible scholarly research, which has led to almost as many conclusions as there are researchers. I have no opinion on the matter, but I do think the coalition is challenging Shakespeare’s authorship with questions that betray a severe lack of imagination.
    According to this BBC report, “The group says there are no records of Shakespeare being paid for his work.” Well, there are no records of a lot of people being born during that period, but they did indeed exist, as we know from other evidence. Records from before the Industrial Revolution are notoriously incomplete and unreliable, and the biographies of many figures, notable in their day, are almost impossible to trace. One might as well question the authorship of John Dowland’s songs and lute pieces, for the scarcity of documentation of his career.
    Another of the group’s points: “His will … contains none of his famous turns of phrase and it does not mention any books, plays or poems.” His will was a legal document, not a work of literature; besides which, how many writers’ wills do mention their books, plays or poems?
    Furthermore: “The 287-strong Shakespeare Authorship Coalition says it is not possible that the bard's plays—with their emphasis on law—could have been penned by a 16th century commoner raised in an illiterate household.
    “It asks why most of his plays are set among the upper classes, and why Stratford-upon-Avon is never referred to in any of his plays.
    “‘How did he become so familiar with all things Italian so that even obscure details in these plays are accurate?’ the group adds.”
    These are exceptionally foolish questions. Can an individual not rise above his or her origins? I grew up in a trailer behind a motel in Yuma, Arizona, and nobody in my family had ever gone to college (aside from a grandfather with two years of pharmacy school). I am not still stuck in that life, and neither is anybody else with any intelligence, ambition or determination. Why didn’t Shakespeare write what he knew and set his plays in his hometown? Because, as such actors in the group as Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance should well know, the audiences in Shakespeare’s London had no interest in slice-of-life, lower-class drama. They wanted exactly what Shakespeare wrote: history plays, high tragedy with great people falling far and hard, comedies of disguise, romances. How many writers today truly limit themselves to their own experiences?
    And how did Shakespeare “become so familiar with all things Italian so that even obscure details in these plays are accurate?” As scholars have shown for decades, he borrowed heavily from other plays and printed sources. It’s called research. Sometimes it’s even called plagiarism.
    Perhaps some or all of Shakespeare’s plays were not written by Shakespeare, but the inquiry should be conducted by people with greater insight into human character than has been displayed by this coalition.

CHERRIES AND ROSES

posted by James Reel

    I saw two very good productions last weekend, and you can see them, too, if you hie thee to the theater in time. One was the Rogue Theatre’s version of The Cherry Orchard:

    The question that drives the action of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard will resonate with Tucsonans: Should a cash-strapped family sell its land to a profit-driven developer?
    Yet that question isn't what the play is really about. The Cherry Orchard is a snapshot of Russian society in disintegration, a story of well-meaning fools who can't manage change; as we now know, not even the reformers would handle it with any decency or competence.
    That this 1903 play—Chekhov's last—can strike a chord with contemporary audiences despite being tied specifically to its original time and place proves that it's a classic, not just a relic. The Rogue Theatre is giving it a production worthy of a classic, with an exceptional cast and intelligent direction.

    My full review can be found here. Also in the latest Tucson Weekly, I cover a production of a more recent play:

    If it's hard to get the tone right in Chekhov, settling on an approach to Frank Gilroy's The Subject Was Roses is as daunting as deciding between paper and plastic.
    Gilroy won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for this work about a dysfunctional family, and so it must be a Serious Play. Yet much of it can be read as comic. The trouble is that the characters don't usually realize that they're being funny, and so the audience--to say nothing of the actors--constantly has to wonder: Is it OK to laugh at that?
    Live Theatre Workshop usually emphasizes the humor, and even the campiness, in its chosen material, and indeed, its production of The Subject Was Roses reliably draws titters from the audience. Yet the actors and director Chuck Rankin never strain for laughs; they refuse to undercut the bitterness and anger behind most of the lines.

    Read the rest here.