From the Archives - A Rare Treat for Theatergoers: 'Lady in the Dark' (1998)

This review appeared in The Metro Herald in May 1998, twenty years ago this month.

A Rare Treat for Theatergoers: Lady in the Dark

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Idiosyncrasy saves us from boredom and blandness. In a world of popular culture driven by focus groups, polls, and plagiarism, it's no wonder that television and the theatre seem infected by a sameness virus. Luckily, individual human choices are able to transcend this groupthink. And the American Century Theater (TACT) in Arlington shows us how the idiosyncratic choices of a few individuals can slash through the morass of predictability and yawns we have grown to expect from so many cultural institutions.

Last season's Orson Welles' Moby Dick Rehearsed, for instance, was a triumph of physicality and illusion. The show had to be extended several times -- yet it was a play that hardly anyone had ever heard about before the TACT production.

Artistic director Jack Marshall has done it again with Lady in the Dark. Except, in this case, TACT is presenting a play that almost all literate theatergoers have heard about, but hardly anyone under the age of 80 has seen.

Lady in the Dark, with a libretto by Moss Hart, music by Kurt Weill, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, frequently appears on lists of the "greatest American musicals." Yet it is not part of the basic musical theatre repertoire. Some plays become classics because of repetition -- what community theatre company has not already performed Guys and Dolls or The Fantasticks three or four times? Some become classics because of a special cult status. Anyone Can Whistle achieved this when it closed after nine performances, but its producers were canny enough to record an original cast album.


Lady in the Dark is of a different breed. It closed after less then a year when leading lady Gertrude Lawrence left the show. It had no original cast album (the concept had not yet emerged in 1941). According to research by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, fewer than 20 productions of Lady in the Dark have been mounted since 1942. This production by the American Century Theater is the first since 1965. Its reputation grew through the Hot Stove League of musical theater aficionados. It's discussed with the same distant admiration as baseball fans banter about a one-season pitching phenomenon of the 1930s. Textbooks explore it at length. Anthologies include it. But no one has seen it.

Except for three songs in the second act -- "Tchaichowsky," "The Saga of Jenny," and "My Ship" -- hardly a soul has heard any of the score. Yet Lady in the Dark is legendary. Why?

In January 1941, Lady in the Dark set records for expenditure. The production cost a then-unimaginable $150,000. (At the time, top ticket prices for Broadway plays were $4.40.) It had four interlocking turntables, extravagant sets and costumes, and a cast of 50 that included Danny Kaye, Victor Mature, MacDonald Carey, and Natalie Schafer (later Mrs. Thurston Howell on Gilligan's Island). Weill scored the show for a full symphony orchestra.

Theater lore has it that later producers found the show entirely too daunting. Jack Marshall, however, is dauntless.

It is said that theatre requires nothing more than actors, a performing space, and lighting. Everything else is gravy -- bells and whistles, smoke and mirrors. TACT proves that it is possible to mount a complicated, literate musical play without the special effects that so frightened other producers. In the small black-box theatre at Gunston Arts Center, set designer Hal Crawford and lighting designer David Walden have created a workable space that does all that is necessary to convey what Hart and his colleagues intended.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Lady in the Dark is basically a non-musical play with extended musical sequences. The musical sequences -- little one-act operas -- exist only in the dreams of troubled magazine editor Liza Elliott (Maureen Kerrigan). The non-musical scenes are played out in the drab offices of Elliott and her psychoanalyst, Dr. Brooks (Bernard Engel). Significantly, these scenes are played at the most distant edges of the stage, as far from the audience as possible. This allows the musical scenes to take up the fullest extent of the performing space, literally blossoming before our eyes with the colorful costumes of designer Edu. Bernardino.

Liza, a driven career woman, has suddenly begun to have panic attacks and fits of depression. For these, she seeks the help of Dr. Brooks. In what may be the play's most unsatisfactory facet, she resolves her problems in barely a week. Within that week, however, we are able to observe the inner workings of Liza's mind -- the "lady" in the "dark."

Given the structure of the play, with dream sequences being as disjointed as dreams are, the commercial temptation for Weill and Gershwin would have been to write a collection of potential hit songs -- something in the revue tradition of the Ziegfeld Follies or Garrick Gaieties. Instead, they wrote integrated, operatic playlets in which discrete songs are difficult to discern at all. Ironically, the play itself does not nearly approach the full integration that Rodgers and Hammerstein achieved with Oklahoma! two years later, setting the standard for American musical theatre for the next quarter century.

The play does, however, give opportunities for both dramatic and musical virtuoso performances. Standout Jason Gilbert is manic as photographer Russell Paxton. Buzz Mauro is pleasingly sleazy as advertising director, Charley Johnson, a perfect foil for "boss lady" Liza. Timothy Hayes Lynch is appropriately, WASPishly staid as Liza's longtime live-in lover, Kendall Nesbitt. In a small but important role as high-school student Ben Butler, Kerry DeMatteis is sweetly but unintentionally inconsiderate (and well-cast for age -- DeMatteis seems not to have aged a day since his Washington area debut in a Georgetown University production of Gemini almost 14 years ago). Somewhat off the mark, however, is Tom Manger as Randy Curtis, who simply fails to come across convincingly as a Hollywood matinee idol.

Aside from Liza, the female roles in Lady in the Dark are underwritten, but Mary McGowan is a finely-tuned Maggie Grant, Liza's right hand, and Brenda Wesner gets a few comic turns as Allison DuBois.

There is a reason, unfortunately, to feel sorry for all these talented cast members. They will now put Lady in the Dark on their resumes -- but no one will believe them. No one, that is, except for those who hear about the American Century Theater's bold decision to mount a play that scares off richer and more powerful producers.

Lady in the Dark has been extended through May 30 at the Gunston Arts Center, Theatre II, 2700 S. Lang Street, Arlington, Virginia. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with 2:30 matinees on May 16, 17, and 23. Tickets are $20 and $17 (students/seniors). For information and reservations, call 703-553-8782.

From the Archives: 'Four Strong Women' (1996)

This review of British playwright Alan Bennett's Talking Heads appeared in The Metro Herald (Alexandria, Va.) in March 1996:

Four Strong Women

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

What a study in contrasts! The Studio Theatre has shown its range this year, with two remarkably different yet similarly superior productions mounted since January.

The Studio Theatre's first offering of 1996, Two Trains Running by August Wilson, was an ensemble production, in which various characters existed as parts of a larger whole. No single character stood out, with the result being a portrayal of a community.

Flip this over by 180 degrees and you have the Studio's second major production of the year, Talking Heads by British playwright Alan Bennett. Not a play in the classic sense -- there is no plot, no action as such -- it is instead a series of four monologues, each delivered by a different actress portraying a different character. The absence of plot or action does not, however, mean the play lacks energy. Not at all -- it turns out to be gripping, moving, driving.

The first monologue, "A Lady of Letters," is a lightly comic piece about a neighborhood busybody, Irene Ruddock (played by Nancy Paris), who has an insatiable appetite for writing letters -- complaints, compliments, criticisms. Irene seems not to have any other occupation but a combination of spying on her neighbors and writing -- in elegant longhand -- strange letters to anyone for whom she has a postal address.

The second piece, "Bed Among the Lentils," is a powerful monologue about the wife of the local vicar, Susan (played by Jon Tindle). Of the four monologues in Talking Heads, this is the only one I had seen previously, when Dame Maggie Smith played the part on television. Smith and Tindle have created significantly different interpretations of the same role, yet both are powerful and emotive. Tindle gives us a cynical, boozy Yorkshirewoman who carries on petty jealousies about her priest-husband's "fan club" even as she pursues an affair with a local Asian grocer half her age. Tindle, who despite his age and gender makes a quite convincing middle-aged woman, pulls a star turn here.

A short intermission precedes "Her Big Chance," featuring Vanessa Maroney as small-time actress Lesley, who's biggest claim to fame is appearing as an extra in a TV soap opera. Lesley could be one of Tracey Ullman's Emmy-winning characters. Although created, of course, by Alan Bennett, Lesley has the mix of confidence and naivete that defines much of Ullman's work. This monologue describes Lesley's experience "acting" in a film that everyone but she understands to be a cheap pornographic video. As an actress, poor Lesley may not get the parts she desires, but she does get to see the insides of many producers' bedrooms.

The final piece, "A Cream Cracker Under the Settee," is the most poignant of the four. Elderly, widowed Doris (June Hansen), who insists on living on her own despite offers by the local social worker to give her a place in a pensioners' home, has just injured her leg while cleaning her house. The sun is setting, and no one is scheduled to visit for several days. Dragging herself across the room, Doris yields to the inevitable as she reminisces about her late husband, their inability to have children, and the nosy social workers who intrude on her life.

All four of these women are from Yorkshire, England's moral equivalent to Texas. As such, they each have a special pride that breaks through the darkness of their lives. Bennett wrote Talking Heads during the Thatcher years, a time in recent British history in which the North/South divide was very strong -- Thatcher's policies had the effect of ginning up the economy in the South, in and around London, while the North (places like Liverpool in the west and Leeds in Yorkshire in the northeast) suffered high unemployment and declines in property values. Bennett himself comes from the North and has always had an affinity for the Labour Party's socialist inclinations. While Talking Heads never addresses either politics or economics, its tone is meant to convey a subtle criticism of the establishment (witness Susan's cracks about life in the Church of England) and of attitudes toward the poor (such as Doris' meager life in retirement).

As entertainment, the Studio Theatre's presentation of Talking Heads cannot be faulted. It is a real gift to the Washington community, making concrete Lesley's comment about her own aspiring profession: "Acting is really just giving."

Talking Heads continues through April 7 at the Studio Theatre, 1333 P Street, N.W. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 8:00 p.m., Saturday at 2:00 p.m., and Sunday at 2:00 and 7:00 p.m. (tickets $18.50 and $23.50). Friday and Saturday evening performances (8:00 p.m.) are $24.50 and $29.50. For ticket information, call 202-332-3300.

From the Archives - Not for Women Only: Luce's 'The Women' a Triumph of Style, Substance

This article appeared in The Metro Herald (Alexandria, Virginia) on February 19, 1999:

Not for Women Only: Luce's The Women a Triumph of Style, Substance

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Dr. Laura would approve. The popular radio moralist (heard locally on WMAL-AM) nags her callers and listeners frequently about the evil nature of gossip. To gossip, she says, is morally wrong, both intrinsically and because it inevitably hurts someone, if not the object of the gossip, then the one who spreads it.

And The Women, Clare Boothe Luce's classic 1930s play now at the Arena Stage, is nothing if not a moral tale of the evil consequences of gossip, especially that practiced by catty (and witty) women of leisure in the upper crusts of society. To get to the moral of her story, however, Luce delivers a funny, bitchy, cynical script that, under Kyle Donnelly's direction, is as relevant today as it was when first produced on Broadway back in 1936.

What's more, Luce (wife of Time magazine founder Henry Luce, and later Ambassador to Italy and U.S. Representative from Connecticut) does not limit herself to the society matrons (and mistresses) that so titillated Depression-era New York audiences. Like Shakespeare, she sometimes turns to the lower classes -- in this case, the servants -- to comment on the action in a clownish but insightful manner. This offers a perspective that allows us to see the protagonists not just as victims (or vixens) but also as fools who fail to recognize their own imperfections.

Arena's production of The Women has its share of great performances -- Nancy Robinette is positively manic as the Countess de Lage, Stacey Leigh Ivey is seductive as Crystal Allan, Sarah Marshall is Gertrude Steinish as the professional writer, Miss Blake, and Ellen Karas is steadfast as Mrs. Stephen Haines, the evening's primary divorcée.

Still, the real stars of The Women are the sets and costumes. Thomas Lynch's set design is sleek, convertible, and practicable. At the same time, Paul Tazewell's costumes are breathtaking. Moreover, the two designers have worked for convergence -- no costume seems out of place vis-à-vis the set decoration, and no aspect of the set overshadows the costumes. And, like the play itself, which builds through several scenes to a climax and denouement at a rooftop party, the final scene's evening gowns are absolutely fabulous. (Karas' red gown is worth the price of admission by itself.)

On leaving the theatre on opening night, my companion and I discussed the possibility of a musical adaptation of The Women. Only later did I find out that such a thing exists -- a 1956 musical film called The Opposite Sex, starring June Allyson, Joan Collins, Agnes Morehead, Ann Sheridan, Charlotte Greenwood, and Ann Miller, and including men in the cast. The movie obviously did not have much of an impact -- the composer, Nicholas Brodszky, apparently wrote nothing else of consequence -- but might make a fun video to rent. Nonetheless, if your only choice is to rent The Opposite Sex or the original film with Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Marjorie Main, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, and Hedda Hopper, go with the 1939 non-musical. Or, even better, wander over to the Arena Stage and see it live.

The Women continues through February 21 at the Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth Street, S.W., in Washington. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m., with selected Saturday matinees at 2:30 p.m. and selected Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m. Ticket prices range from $24 to $45. For ticket information, call the box office at 202-488-3300.

From the Archives: How Can 'Twilight' Be So Bright? (1997)

This review of Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, appeared in The Metro Herald in February 1997:

How Can "Twilight" Be So Bright?

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Roget's Thesaurus offers the following words as synonyms for "brilliant": luminous, luminiferous, lucid, lucent, light, lit, well-lit, floodlit, flooded with light, bright, gay, shining, nitid, fulgent, resplendent, splendent, splendid, flamboyant, vivid, neon, colorful, radiant, effulgent, refulgent, dazzling, blinding, glaring, incandescent, flaring, flaming, aflame, aglow, afire, ablaze, fiery, glowing, blushing, auroral, rutilant, luminescent, fluorescent, phosphorescent, noctilucent, soft, lambent, playing, beaming, glittery, flashing, glinting, scintillant, scintillating, sparkling, lustrous, chatoyant, shimmering, shiny, sheeny, glossy, polished, reflecting, catoptric.

It is hard to find a word in this list that does not describe Anna Deavere Smith's remarkable performance in her current one-woman show at Ford's Theatre, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.

Based upon more than 175 interviews she conducted with participants and observers of the Los Angeles riots of 1992 (those which followed the acquittals of the LAPD officers accused of beating Rodney King), Twilight features more than 200 "characters" who are, in fact, real people. Smith portrays them all, male and female, black and white, immigrant and native, young and old. Her performance ranges from breathtaking to poignant to comic. In every case, Smith is brilliant. She never wavers, never lags, never fails to hit her mark.

Anna Deavere Smith is part anthropologist, part monologist. She has written this play but is no "rugged individualist" -- indeed, she called in four dramaturgs to help her write the piece and relies on the excellent direction of Sharon Ott. She works to be a bridge between people of different backgrounds, different races, different points of view. (Even as she was preparing to mount this production at Ford's Theatre in Washington last week, Smith made a special trip to New York to moderate a debate between Pulitzer-prize winning playwright August Wilson and theatre critic Robert Brustein on the topic of their long-simmering dispute about the future of "black theatre" in America.)

Smith says that the speeches in this play -- technically, there is no "dialogue," because there is only one "speaker" (Anna Deavere Smith) but in fact and in effect, the evening was one continuous dialogue -- are verbatim reproductions of statements made by the people she interviewed in the aftermath of the riots. What she has recreated is, in many cases, "found poetry." She plumbs the actual statements of real people and finds humor, rage, sorrow, arrogance, and incompetence. In short, she explores all the emotions and characteristics of real people in real situations.

At times, Smith had the audience nearly rolling in the aisles with laughter. The comedy was a soft comedy, however, not raucous or slapstick. The humor derived from the characters' apparent incapacity to understand that what they said was funny. An example: Elaine Young, "real estate agent to the stars," who talks about "huddling" at the Beverly Hills Hotel during the riots "because I've eaten lunch there every day for the past 36 years."

At other times, one could hear a pin drop -- the audience literally stopped breathing to better listen to the words from the stage. An example: Elvira Evers, a Panamanian immigrant who was shot during the early stages of the riot, but not until near the end of her monologue does it come out that she was pregnant and that the bullet was stopped by the baby in her womb. (A real tear-jerker, this, particularly when the audience learns that both mother and child survived, healthy.)

An interesting question: How is it that Anna Deavere Smith can recreate these actual personalities on stage without the risk of falling afoul of libel or slander suits? After all, some of these people are not very sympathetic. This problem didn't occur to me until the character of Elaine Young came on stage -- her name was familiar because she has been the real estate agent trying to sell the home of an acquaintance of mine. Should Ms. Young or any of the others disapprove of Smith's characterization of them, wouldn't they be inclined -- in these litigious times -- to sue the pants off the playwright?

That aside, Anna Deavere Smith proves once again that theatre requires little more than a performing space, some light, and an actor. She is able to create some 30 characters merely by putting on a scarf or a tie or a jacket, sitting in different chairs, lighting a cigarette or cigarillo, and adopting a new voice. One soon forgets that this is a "one-woman show." This is a multifaceted, multiple-personality show that happens to be performed by one actress.

It's a real shame that Ford's Theatre has booked Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 for only 16 performances. This theatre is an excellent venue for this play. It is small enough that no electronic amplification is necessary for the audience to hear and understand the performer. This maintains a sense of intimacy and engagement that enhances the experience. Perhaps we will see a return tour someday soon.

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, continues through February 14, 1997, at Ford's Theatre, 511 Tenth Street, N.W., in Washington. Performances are Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m., Thursday matinees at 1:00 p.m., and Sunday matinees at 3:00 p.m. Tickets are available through ProTix at 703-218-6500 or at the Ford's Theatre Box Office.

From the Archives: Kennedy Center chief Michael Kaiser touts economic benefits of arts education

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 5, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Kennedy Center chief Michael Kaiser touts economic benefits of arts education
April 5, 2011 8:47 PM MST

Michael Kaiser

Academy Award®-winning actor Kevin Spacey set off a minor stir in the Twittersphere on April 5 when he Tweeted “Return on investment of 1 billion of arts funding (from base of 167 mil from National Endowment) is 29 billion for local & State coffers.”

Someone must have objected to his assertion, because he later followed that up with “For those who [question] the stats I have Tweeted about return on arts funding, I am getting proof u require & will Tweet it soon.”

By the time this article went to press, however, he had not provided the statistics to back up his claim.

Spacey is not alone in thinking that government funding for the arts has concomitant benefits.

Different emphasis
One who takes that position, with a slightly different emphasis, is Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Last month, at a luncheon following the annual season announcement at the Kennedy Center, Kaiser responded to a question posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about the message he takes to policymakers – such as Members of Congress – when he meets them in the course of his job.

Kaiser first pointed out, as a disclaimer, that he is not allowed to lobby Congress on behalf of the Kennedy Center -- a condition of its congressional charter -- so he talks to legislators “about the arts, in general, almost exclusively.”

More particularly, Kaiser said, he focuses on “arts education more than I do on performances or exhibitions because, frankly, the money they can provide for arts education [and] the leadership they can provide is more important.”

Changing economy
Kaiser gave an overview of the 21st century American economy to explain why arts education deserves more attention.

The United States, he said, “is not a manufacturing economy anymore” – although, as Richard Lorenc pointed out in The Daily Caller on April 4, “U.S. manufacturing output grew 120 percent from 1970-2009 and 10 percent in the past ten years. American manufacturing output totaled about $2.1 trillion in 2009 compared to China’s manufacturing output of around $1.5 trillion.”

As a result of what he claimed is a decline in manufacturing, Kaiser said, “we need a different kind of work force.”

This has ramifications for politics, too, Kaiser argued.

“I believe all the political anger we see,” he said, has to do with “the fact that there’s a whole part of America that used to have their whole family income came from manufacturing, from working an assembly line, where you didn’t have to be particularly educated, but you made a very good living.”

At that time, Kaiser went on, “fathers had that living and their sons had that living and that’s gone. That part of America, that part of the economy is gone. Those people who were part of that don’t know what to do and they’re mad. I really think that’s where so much of the political anger comes from.”

The point, Kaiser continued, is that we have “to train people to participate in the creative economy,” which requires that students “exercise their creative muscles in schools" through arts education programs.

That, he said, is “something we can do very inexpensively. To save a few bucks here and there per student and to cut out everything that doesn’t allow them, I think, to become fully functioning members of our economy, I think is really crazy.”

Budget cuts
That is the message Kaiser takes to Members of Congress and other policymakers.

The new, Republican-controlled House of Representatives is making cuts in arts education that Kaiser thinks are ill-advised.

“The big area that we’re worried about specifically is arts education and VSA” (Very Special Arts, a program aimed at the disabled), he said. “In the first version of the budget came out, we lost $16 million.”

Kaiser said that he and his colleagues are “hopeful, not optimistic,” that some of that money will be reinstated “but it’s very scary.”

Congressmen, he said, “don’t even know what they’re cutting. I talk to members of the legislature and say, you know you’ve cut this and they say, ‘We did?’ And I say, yeah.”

The arts education funds are “embedded in other things,” Kaiser explained, so Congress is “cutting in big chunks and they don’t really know. It’s a scary time for us.”

Scary topic
Kaiser is not really worried about the Kennedy Center itself.

“This is a building that they own. They can’t let it fall apart.”

That is why, he said, “I’m mostly scared for the education of our children, much more than I’m scared for the Kennedy Center.”

Kaiser noted that “everyone says we want to cut the deficit in order not to saddle our children with the deficit. I would rather also give them an education and give them a chance to earn and be productive members of an economy. That’s a big concern I have. We’ll see.”

He concluded, ominously, “It’s a scary topic.”

From the Archives: Holland Taylor supplies engaging on-stage portrait of Ann Richards in ‘Ann’

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on December 22, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Holland Taylor supplies engaging on-stage portrait of Ann Richards in ‘Ann’

'Ann,' a new play written by and starring Holland Taylor, at the Kennedy Center through January 15, 2012

On its way to Broadway in 2012, Ann, an affectionate portrait of the late Texas Governor Ann Richards (1933-2006), officially opened at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater on December 21 for an engagement that ends January 15.

Starring Holland Taylor, who also researched and wrote the script, the play’s setting is a college graduation ceremony, where Richards is the commencement speaker. (This kind of set-up seems almost required for one-man or one-woman shows. Thurgood, which also played at the Kennedy Center, had Laurence Fishburne as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall deliver a lecture on a college campus. A lecture is, perhaps, the most believable conceit that can explain why one person on stage talks at an audience for two straight hours.)

Holland Taylor has a long list of distinguished credits on stage, screen, and television, but today she is best known as the acerbic mother/grandmother on CBS-TV’s Two and a Half Men. Known for playing strong (sometimes headstrong) women, Taylor brings all of that attitude and edginess to her portrayal of Ann Richards.

History lesson

Richards begins by noting that she was not the first female Texas governor. That would have been “Ma” Ferguson, wife of the aptly named “Pa” Ferguson, who was elected in the 1920s after her husband was impeached and sent to prison for selling pardons to convicted criminals. “Ma” Ferguson’s winning campaign slogan was “Two governors for the price of one.”

Taylor’s script does not make the explicit connection, but this episode in Texas history may explain an aspect of Texas law that comes up in a later sequence, when in the second act Richards, who is trying to figure out what to do about the fate of a death-row inmate, complains bitterly that only the state’s parole board can grant a pardon, while the best she can do to prevent the man’s death is to issue a 30-day stay of execution.

Ann’s “commencement speech” traces her life from her childhood in a hamlet near Waco called Lakeview (“where there was no lake to view”) through her marriage and divorce and her early political career, first as a county commissioner, then as a state treasurer, and finally as governor from 1991-95, with a coda regarding her post-statehouse activities.

Along the way the audience is treated to a stream of quips, slightly dirty jokes, shaggy dog stories, and a “day in the life of the governor” when the stage is transformed from a lecture hall into Ann Richards’ office in the state capitol.

Hard work

Not shy about expressing herself, Ann says “I have a lot of opinions. Can you imagine if I were your mother-in-law? I could fix you.”

Reflecting on her work ethic, which she absorbed from her parents, Ann remembers a slogan of her local civic group: “If we rest, we rust.”

Even when the play takes a darker turn, Ann keeps her sense of humor. In discussing her battle with alcoholism, which hit her hard in her early 40s, just as her political career was about to launch, Ann says she “was like a poster child for functioning alcoholics everywhere,” because she never let her drinking get in the way of her many tasks and commitments.

At the time, she claims, being an openly alcoholic politician was something novel and noteworthy. “Nowadays,” she points out, just about rolling her eyes, “you can’t even get into a primary unless you’ve been to rehab.”

What’s missing?

Oddly enough, the play continues for two hours without Richards ever mentioning the names of her two bêtes noires, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush (who defeated her gubernatorial re-election bid in 1994).

Even more amazingly, although the play opens with a “clip” of the 1988 Democratic National Convention speech that made then-state treasurer Ann Richards a national celebrity, Taylor’s script never quotes the snarky line that made Richards famous: “Poor George! He can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” That comment alone sent Michael Dukakis’ poll numbers soaring – although that may have been the high point of his ill-fated presidential campaign.

Throughout the play, and especially in the extensive “day in a life” sequence, Taylor’s Richards expresses the political and social values that animated her: concern for equality, racial harmony, gender equity, justice, and a “government that looks like Texas.”

“Life is not fair,” says Richards, in one of many epigrammatic utterings, “but government should be.”

Given the subject, it should come as no surprise that the play has a liberal bias. There’s no hidden agenda, though it was somewhat disconcerting when some in the opening night audience applauded Richards’ mocking of Second Amendment rights. (Ann speculates that her pro-gun control views were what led to her defeat for re-election.)

Despite exhibiting the rough-and-tumble life of the governor, the on-stage Taylor always looks elegant as Richards, from the famous silver beehive (“Molly Ivins said I have Republican hair”) to her businesslike jacket-and-skirt combination. In this, Taylor is ably assisted by costume designer Julie Weiss.

Production design

Other aspects of the physical production are noteworthy, as well. Scenic designer Michael Fagin has created a fluid set that benefits from projections (by Zachary Borovay) of long-ago Texas scenes and from the lighting design by Matthew Richards (presumably no relation to the title character).

Benjamin Endsley Klein took on the difficult task of directing an actress in a play of her own creation. Not to suggest that Holland Taylor is herself a diva – I have no evidence of that and suspect that it is not true – but it must be daunting to translate page to stage when the playwright is also the star.

It is clear from this production that Taylor has a great deal of respect for her subject, and also substantial affection. At the risk of committing a cliché, she embraces the role with gusto, radiating both energy and intelligence along the way.

Ann continues at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater through January 15, 2012. Ticket prices start at $54. For ticket information, call the Kennedy Center box office at (202) 467-4600 or (800) 444-1324, or visit www.kennedy-center.org. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

A Look Back at the Making of the First 'Peter Pan' Movie (1924)

With the much-hyped television broadcast of Peter Pan Live!, starring Allison Williams, Minnie Driver, and Christopher Walken, coming up on Thursday, December 4, on NBC, it seems worthwhile to look back on other versions of the classic J.M. Barrie work.  (On Twitter, the show is being promoted as #PeterPanLive.)  This production is a follow-up to last December's virally successful The Sound of Music Live! The cast also includes Broadway veterans Christian Borle and Kelli O'Hara and (relative) newcomers Taylor Louderman, Jake Lucas, and John Allyn as the Darling family.

I have seen Sandy Duncan on stage as Peter Pan and Mary Martin on TV, as well as the 1953 Disney animated production with Bobby Driscoll voicing Peter.  I missed Mia Farrow and Cathy Rigby in the role but, for my money, Jeremy Sumpter was the most heatedly erotic Peter in the movies, but most audiences are not looking for that particular quality in what is usually intended as a children's story.

The first movie presentation of Peter Pan was released in 1924 by Paramount.  It was produced by Adolph Zukor and directed by Herbert Brenon.  Sir James M. Barrie was involved in the project and approved of the casting although -- as the anecdotes recounted below note -- his original screenplay was set aside for one credited to Willis Goldbeck.  The film was shot by renowned cinematographer James Wong Howe.

In 2007,  screenwriter Stewart Stern (Oscar-nominated for Rebel Without a Cause and an Emmy winner for Sybil) appeared at the Virginia Film Festival, where in addition to a shot-by-shot workshop of Rebel Without a Cause he offered opening remarks at a screening of the 1924 Peter Pan.

Stern, then 85 years old, recalls the casting process that resulted in the choice of Betty Bronson as the first screen Peter but he also describes his own experiences in seeing Eva Le Gallienne and Elsa Lanchester on stage as Peter, and the personal touches he received not just from those actresses but also from J.M. Barrie himself.

Here is video of screenwriter Stewart Stern, speaking at the Paramount Theater in downtown Charlottesville on November 3, 2007.  Part I offers some anecdotes about Barrie and the first stage production of Peter Pan and the casting of Bronson in the title role.  (Partial transcript follows the video clip.)

Stewart Stern on Peter Pan - Part I

It always begins with a writer. Sir James Matthew Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, was a very small Scotsman, barely taller than a child, with a very large head, deep melancholy eyes, a mustache to cover his shyness, and a pipe that made everyone cough.

He rarely smiled but he could wiggle his ears and he mainly trusted children and certain Newfoundland dogs of his acquaintance, whom he would one day roll up into Nana. There were those five little boys in Kensington Gardens whom he fell in love with, and the Davies boys, whom he wisely treated as his superiors, and grew so close to, that in a way he stole them, even as Peter Pan stole the Darling children, and they made up Peter's story together.

It was born as a game they played at Barrie's country house, and it just kept making itself up as he and his boys played it – sometimes this way, sometimes that way – and that's how Barrie put it on the stage and that's why it always keeps changing. That's the character of Peter, too: he won't stand still, never remembers what he did last, and he's always finding new adventures to hide his loneliness inside.

During rehearsals, Barrie would sit huddled in the dark of the Duke of York's Theatre in London, his great coat and bowler hat, watching the children with envy as they practiced flying around the stage, until one days someone asked him what the matter was. He said, “I would very much like to fly, too!”

So, they hoisted him up in the magical arrangement that helps you do it, and flew him around the stage in absolute ecstasy, bowler hat, pipe, greatcoat and all, twinkling like a firefly, until they finally sat him down.

Barrie's favorite critic on opening night was a little boy whom he'd taken to the theatre. And he asked him, what part of it did you like best, when the final curtain came down. And the little boy said, “Oh, the part I liked best was tearing up my program into little bits and throwing them down on the people!” And of all the reviews his play received, Barrie liked that one the most.

In about 1920, my uncle, Adolph Zukor, who started Paramount Pictures, decided to make the first movie of Peter Pan. He had to find the perfect Peter to please Mr. Barrie, so a nationwide search began all across America.

Betty Bronson as Peter Pan

Countless screen tests were made and the best ones were taken to London on an ocean liner by the movie's director, Mr. Herbert Brenon, and by another uncle of mine, Mr. Albert Kaufman, who was Uncle Adolph's studio manager. These men would show the tests to Barrie for him to choose his favorite, and among the candidates was a tiny, 17-year-old girl from New Jersey who had come to Hollywood to break into movies and who called herself Betty Bronson. She banged on every door at Paramount Studios until Mr. Brenon agreed to see her, and she told him that she was born to play Peter, she had to pay Peter, she would play Peter, and so Mr. Brenon had no choice but to make a test.

In the London screening room, the two Americans unreeled those tests for Barrie, day after day, and to break up a long afternoon, Barrie invited them to his flat, overlooking the River Thames, for tea.

They were awed to be at the home of such a famous man, a man great enough to be knighted by the king. Barrie left his guests in the big inglenook by the fire, where he wrote, to go and see about the tea. But while they waited in their straight-back chairs, saying very little, for the whistle at the kettle to come from the kitchen, there was such a long, alarming silence, that they went exploring through the flat, and they finally found Barrie frozen at the kitchen door with his shoes in his hands and his face a mask of terrible guilt. “It's housekeeper's day off,” Barrie said, “and I'm not allowed in the kitchen. Mrs. Porter absolutely forbids me to set foot in it.”

Uncle Al said, “Well, I'll go in. I'll make the tea.”

But Barrie said, “No, no, no, no. She'll be able to tell. She puts things around I have to move out of the way and that gives her hints.”

So that was it for tea.

The very next day, a telegram reached Uncle Adolph's desk in New York. It was from London. “Betty Bronson chosen to play the role of Peter Pan. Signed, Barrie.”

In part two of the video from the Virginia Film Festival, Stern describes the magic of Eva Le Gallienne as Peter Pan (in a production she also directed), and the fright that Elsa Lanchester brought to the role. He describes his own two degrees of separation from Sir James Barrie and his particular attachment to thimbles. (Partial transcript follows the video.)

Stewart Stern on Peter Pan - Part II

The film was a huge success and many of the effects in it – the great broom sweeping the fairies away, Captain Hook's Jolly Roger rising up off the mermaids' lagoon and flying the children home – were all Barrie's own ideas for the movie version, special effects way before their time. And it's a wonderful script to read. It's a complete screenplay and filled with fancy but they decided, no, they wouldn't use it – just this and that of it. And so the movie has a more theatrical look than what might have happened if Barrie had had his screenplay used.

Like all very old children who never grew up – this isn't a hook, by the way, it's to do Charlie Chaplin imitations and it's also a reminder that I'm 85, so I'm only half young – anyway, I have loved Peter Pan my whole life. My first Peter Pan when I was little was the great Eva Le Gallienne. She gave special children matinees at the old Civic Repertory Theatre in New York at 11 o'clock Saturday mornings, and then she went on in the rest of the day to play grown-up roles in the afternoon and evening, in plays like Camille, Romeo & Juliet, and Ibsen's Ghosts, and the next morning she was back being Peter Pan.

But they weren't half as exciting as Peter Pan, those other plays, those grown-up plays. So Saturday after Saturday, my mother moved us up to the cheaper and cheaper seats, up to the tip-tip-top of the theatre, where the poorest children sat on benches that only cost 50 cents.

Sitting on those hard seats, miles above the people, we had the best thrill of anyone in the theatre because at the end, Peter Pan flew, not just over the audience way down there but above the balconies that were below us – there were two that were below us, and then the audience down there – but all the way up here, she touched our hands as we leaned out over the railing and shouted good-bye as she flew past us and then zoomed down to the stage. It was the most thrilling thing I've ever seen in my life and it still stays with me.

Stewart Stern in Charlottesville, Nov. 3, 2007

All children who saw Peter Pan wanted to fly. Until I was ten, I dreamed of flying out my window so many times that one morning I found my bare footprints in the snow on my window sill facing out over New York City, eight floors up. The next my dad had metal guards attached to the window. I could never fly again.

I pleaded with my mom to make me a Peter Pan costume and I wore it everywhere except to school. I'd come home, climb onto my book case in my Peter Pan suit, doing my homework with Peter's rubber dagger stuck in my teeth in case Hook came into the room.

And one day, on Uncle Adolph's golf course, I was up in my usual tree, dressed as Peter and tootling on my pipes, when my father came along with a man I didn't know who had an English accent and wore knickerbockers. When he heard my tootling, as he was about to hit the ball, he said, “Good lord! That's the 'Pirate Song' from Peter Pan. What's it doing in that tree?”

My dad said, “It's just Peter, otherwise known as my son.”

The man peered through the leaves until he found me, and we stared at each other for one long meaningful moment, and I won.

He said, “By George, it is Peter Pan, the real one! Bicarbonate of soda, it is!”

That man with the accent turned out to be Sir William Wiseman, a friend of Barrie's, and a few weeks later a package came in the mail from London, a first edition of Peter Pan and Wendy autographed “To Stewart Stern, kind regards, from J.M. Barrie.”

I wished he had sent me a thimble in it, that silver thing you wear on your finger when you sew a button on, that Peter called a kiss.

My letters from Eva Le Gallienne all had thimbles in them. She'd write, “Bless you, my dear, I send you a very nice thimble.” And my letter from Betty Bronson had thimbles in it, too.

But not Elsa Lanchester's, who came down her flying wire like a black widow spider after its prey and acted the whole part – and she told me this – pretending to be Hitler at the age of 6. Children shook when she came on and they rushed to Captain Hook to comfort them – and Captain Hook was Charles Laughton, her husband.

Stewart Stern is still alive at the age of 92. No doubt, if he watches Peter Pan Live! next Thursday, his TV viewing experience will be warmed by his childhood memories of Peter Pan and the actresses who played him.

Signature Theatre to Resurrect Political Musical 'The Fix'

Welcome news arrived in the form of an emailed news release from Arlington's Signature Theatre this week.  To mark the end of its 25th anniversary season, Signature will be reviving The Fix, a musical play about political corruption that was produced there in 1998 in its first American outing.

For someone like me, whose interests in musical theatre and politics rarely overlap, this is a development worth celebrating.

As explained in the press release:

The revival, directed by Signature’s Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, will round out an anniversary season chock-full of work by some of the Theatre’s brightest collaborators from the past 25 years.

“The Fix paints a picture of American politics that’s part fun-house, part haunted house,” said Schaeffer. “It’s twisted, and it pushes boundaries. It instantly became one of Signature’s favorite projects. And on top of that, it’s one of the shows most requested by our audiences. It’s only fitting that we close the season celebrating our first 25 years by bringing it back in an all-new production.”

With a rock-laced, eclectic score and scandalous lyrics, The Fix skewers the American bureaucratic machine. Reminiscent of Sondheim, with tinges of Kander and Ebb and a voice uniquely its own, it is a darkly brilliant, over-the-top, audaciously fun ride through the shenanigans of political elections.

When a popular presidential candidate dies in his mistress’s bed, his ambitious wife Violet thrusts their lackluster son Cal into the spotlight. With the help of her strategic brother-in-law, Violet transforms Cal into the perfect citizen. Together they create one of the most dysfunctional – and brutally entertaining – almost-first families ever.

(My original review of The Fix from April 1998 can be found here.)

Writing in the Washington Post Style section, Jessica Goldstein reports:

For its 25th anniversary season, Signature is bringing back “The Fix,” a production which, unless the political process somehow gets squeaky clean between press time and when you read this, is as relevant a show today as it ever was. “The Fix” will run in 2015, from May 12 to June 28.

“I say it’s ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ meets ‘Caligula,’ ” said Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, who directed the 1998 production and will helm 2015’s as well. For the young’uns, that basically means it’s like “Scandal” meets, well, “Scandal.”

The script will be getting some tweaks to allow for changes in “the communication things, sending this picture and that,” Schaeffer said. Even our fictional politicians don’t know that no one wants to catch them with their pants down on Twitter. “John [Dempsey, who wrote the book and lyrics] is looking to make it even more dangerous.”

Signature's current musical production is the classic Gypsy, with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.  The show, directed by Joe Calarco, has been extended through January 26 and first reviews should appear early next week.

Georgetown's Mask & Bauble Launches Fundraising Drive to Light Stage III

Just in time for #GivingTuesday (which follows #BlackFriday, #SmallBusinessSaturday, and #CyberMonday), the Mask & Bauble Dramatic Society at Georgetown University has announced a fundraising drive to purchase new lighting equipment.

Now in its 162nd season, Mask & Bauble claims to be the oldest continuously-operating student theatre troupe at any U.S. college or university -- and, even if it's not the oldest, it certainly is in the top three or five.

Mask & Bauble's storied history includes putting on shows at the White House during the Kennedy administration, helping to create the legend of Camelot that was revisited so extensively last month. It launched the careers of Tony-winning playwright John Guare, Tony-winning director Jack Hofsiss, and Oscar-nominated actor Bradley Cooper, among many other theater professionals too numerous to name.

According to an email sent to M&B alumni and a post on the group's web site:

Our current lighting system in Stage III is on its last leg, and needs to be replaced. As many alumni can attest, the current dimming system in Stage III has been a problem for the past several years, with many productions suffering from flickering lights and spontaneous blackouts. In order to keep the electrics in Stage III in show-ready condition, we are officially launching our "Keep the Lights On!" campaign to raise the funds necessary to purchase and install a new lighting system for Stage III!

I know the current lighting system at Stage III in Poulton Hall is far more modern than the one in use during my years as a lighting technician and designer there. I remember how we used to have to jump into a pit below the tech booth and grab live electrical cables to switch them from one circuit to another. It's statistically incredible that nobody was turned into a human lightning rod.

The M&B email continues:

Replacing this system, which is about fifteen years old, will cost an estimated $33,000. Mask & Bauble has already committed $5,000 to the project, and we are hoping to secure an additional $5,000 through Georgetown funding outlets.

That leaves us with $23,000 to raise, and together, we can make that happen!

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Mask & Bauble today by clicking the button below. For larger gifts, feel free to make arrangements with the Department of Performing Arts' Administrative Director, Ron Lignelli. All donors will be acknowledged via Mask & Bauble's standard tiered gift recognition structure, with two additional tiers*.

Sponsor: $50+ (your name appears in our program, newsletters and notices)
Benefactor: $150+ (a season subscription for 2)
Name Your Dimmer!: $700 will purchase a whole dimmer for M&B!
Angels: $1,000+ (complimentary invitation to our annual Banquet and Awards Ceremony)
Name Your Dimmer Rack!: $8000 will purchase an entire dimmer rack for M&B!

All donations large and small are very greatly appreciated, and every little bit will help us reach our goal. All donors over $700 will be acknowledged on a plaque that will be hung in Stage III.

To contribute something to this campaign to bring light to the stage, visit this secure donations web site:

https://www.vendini.com/donation-software.html?d=34861356102ed9f0a76fab4ab0c92dbf&t=donation

If that URL is too long, try this one: http://bit.ly/18WFBBw

From the Archives: 'West Side Racist?'

In a recent commentary on controversies surrounding sports team names, Winston Jones wrote in the Douglas County (Ga.) Sentinel:

Our society has gotten too picky and thin-skinned so that too many people are offended by too many things. And too many people are running circles around themselves to try to be politically correct on everything. Don't take life so seriously.

That's the point I tried to make in an opinion piece I wrote 14 years ago in reaction to complaints about a New England high school's production of West Side Story. The article appeared on November 21, 1999, in the Daily News of Bowling Green, Kentucky, under the headline, "West Side racist? - Objections to classic play is a sad commentary on our times." The only other place it is available on the Web is here.

This text, however, is more accessible.

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Word comes from Amherst, Massachusetts, that some students and parents object to a planned production of the classic 1957 musical play, West Side Story, at the local high school. They are insisting that it be canceled.

The local newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette noted in its Nov. 11 edition that a petition presented to the school board with over 150 signatures states: "The play continues to generate negative stereotypes of Puerto Ricans in society and perpetuates the racism that we as students have been working so hard to eliminate in our school and community." Other complaints cited the play's use of violence as a way to solve problems.

This is yet another case of ill-informed cultural critics failing to see the forest for the trees. Anyone who has seen West Side Story - or performed in it - cannot help but be touched by its message against prejudice and violence. The message is not subtle. It is not hidden. It is not difficult to grasp.

Like a previous protests against such literary works as Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the complainers seem not to understand that in order to present a theme that condemns racial prejudice and stereotyping, it is necessary also to present unsavory characters and dialogue that express the ideas and conditions to author wishes to condemn. Because these types of protests are successful, students are denied an opportunity for fruitful exploration of some of the complex and sad problems faced by our society.


West Side Story is itself based upon an earlier classic, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In its original concept, it was called East Side Story and its focus was to be on a conflicted Catholic-Jewish relationship. As creators Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents (and later Stephen Sondheim) moved forward on the project, they became aware of the tensions in Los Angeles between Americans and Mexican immigrants and in New York's West Side between native English speakers and recent migrants from Puerto Rico. They decided to reset their play in this environment.

But does it "perpetuate stereotypes"? Does it inflame racial or ethnic tensions? Hardly. As Ethan Mordden notes in the chapter on West Side Story in his history of the Broadway musical in the 1950's, Coming Up Roses, "West Side Story is about real people: real life, real love and something is possible, for all the despair."

In Amherst, one alumna said the possibility of her high school presenting West Side Story is "humiliating." A parent, Elizabeth Capifali (a doctoral candidate in the multicultural education at the University of Massachusetts), called it "a very racist play" that is "replete with racial discrimination, creating negative images of Puerto Ricans and poor European immigrants."

Which European immigrants? The characters in the play are all "Americans" - but the ones who speak English and originally lived in New York come off looking much worse, morally speaking, than the Americans who speak Spanish and come from Puerto Rico. It is the "Anglos" who are unwelcoming, disrespectful and hostile toward their new neighbors. It is the "natives" who would rather fight the Puerto Ricans than work and play alongside them. The "natives" are blustery Archie-Bunkers-in-training, with a violent, gangster-like bent. The Puerto Rican characters - also Americans, as they don't hesitate to remind us, and their adversaries - simply want to make a better life for themselves. What kind of negative stereotype is that?

Bowling Green Daily News, November 21, 1999

Aside from the play's message, which can only be missed by someone wearing blinders and earplugs, it is a landmark of the American stage that deserves to be seen and performed by young people who wish to be culturally literate.

West Side Story was cutting-edge in 1957, yet seems somewhat old-fashioned today. (This was my reaction to a London revival earlier this year [1999] that recreated the original production, including the sets and costumes.) Still, students of the theatre recognize its innovations: in music and lyrics, in its focus on young people to the exclusion of adults, in its daring realism in a medium that relies on fantasy. Its progeny include Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Sweeney Todd, and Ragtime. To deny members of the Amherst Regional High School community an opportunity to participate in, observe and learn from West Side Story is petty and barbarous.

We can only hope that the level-headed faculty, students, and school board members stand up to these philistines. The show must go on.

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For more discussion about West Side Story, check out these videos of a post-screening discussion about the movie from the 2008 Virginia Film Festival.

Part I:


Part II: