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: 'A Measure of Human Frailty'

The cascade of allegations, accusations, apologies, and resignations that has followed news reports about Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Al Franken, Charlie Rose, Roy Moore, and many other powerful and celebrated men may suggest to a visitor from Mars that sexual harassment is a concept with its origins in the 21st century. Far from it, as this 20th century review of a 16th century play will show. Whether William Shakespear's Measure for Measure is the first dramatic piece about sexual harassment to be performed may be up for dispute, but it surely is the one with the greatest longevity.

This review of Mask & Bauble's production of Measure for Measure was originally published in The Metro Herald in October 1995.

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A Measure of Human Frailty

(Review of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at Georgetown University)

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

In the 1960s, before the professional theatre scene in Washington blossomed to the extent we now know it, the Mask & Bauble Dramatic Society at Georgetown University (M&B) was the Capital's premier venue for classical and modern drama. Mask & Bauble members were invited to perform at the White House by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Mask & Bauble alumni of that era include Tony-award winning director Jack Hofsiss (The Elephant Man) and Tony-winning playwright John Guare (The House of the Blue Leaves).

With the opening of the Kennedy Center, Georgetown University Theatre lost some of its lustre relative to the new works available on the banks of the Potomac, and with the Kennedy Center as their furrow, newer and more ambitious theatres sprouted around town. Yet the student actors, directors, and technicians at M&B -- the oldest continuously operating, student-run theatre society in America -- still plow forward.

To open its 143rd season, Mask & Bauble offers William Shakespeare's comedy, Measure for Measure. "Comedy" is used here in a broad technical sense, because despite a few bawdy and funny moments, this is a serious play in which the the threat of death and dishonor hangs over the characters throughout. It is a comedy in that all the protaganists remain alive at the closing curtain and there is, in a sense, a "happy ending." The path to reach that ending is no primrose lane, however. Rather, it forces the audience to consider eternal questions of right and wrong, of tyranny and justice, of mercy and legal precision.

Producer Philip Hammack told the Metro Herald that he and director Jack Shay were drawn to Measure for Measure because of its theme of "human frailty" and its requirement of "self-reflection in the light of self-deception." To convey this theme graphically, the play takes place on an austerely decorated set, which consists largely of blocks of wood, dappled with drab grey and embedded with shards of mirrors. A full-length, two-way mirror predominates upstage, so that surreal actions can take place behind it and explain off-stage elements of the story wordlessly.

The plot, in a nutshell, is this: The Duke of Vienna takes leave of his subjects and places responsibility for government, in his absence, in the hands of Lord Angelo. Angelo begins to enforce some of the stricter moral codes that the lenient Duke has ignored during the previous 14 years of his reign. Caught in this new legalism is Claudio, imprisoned and sentenced to death for fornication. Claudio's sister, Isabella, about to become a nun, pleads with Angelo for clemency for her brother. Angelo refuses to commute Claudio's sentence -- unless Isabella has sex with him. With no witnesses to this callous request, Isabella knows that no one will believe her if she tells them that the upright Angelo has behaved like this. She goes to Claudio in prison and tells him she cannot sin to save his life. At the same time, the Duke, who has disguised himself as an ordinary priest, finds out what has happened. He arranges for Angelo's jilted former fiancée to substitute herself for Isabella. Then he returns without his disguise and tricks Angelo into admitting his calumny. He commutes Claudio's death sentence -- but orders him to marry the woman Claudio had impregnated -- allows Angelo to marry the woman he mistakenly seduced, and asks Isabella to be his wife.

The overriding theme is one of whether and how mercy can temper justice. In this, it is carried over from some of Shakespeare's other works, notably The Merchant of Venice. Superimposed on this is, for modern audiences, a potent political message. It asks: What happens when a liberal government -- one that does not enforce severe and strict laws addressing personal morality -- is replaced by a more puritanical one? Indeed, what role does government have in using its coercive power, even the threat of death, to make its people virtuous?

Virtue, of course, cannot be coerced. Otherwise it is not virtue, because virtue must be freely chosen. Shakespeare surely recognizes this. The evidence is the contrasting characters of the Duke and his deputy, Angelo.

Angelo is a prig who becomes a hypocrite. The Duke is a liberal-minded ruler with a "live and let live" philosophy. He is righteous without being self-righteous. From the very first scene, we know the Duke is modest and lacks ambition for himself. He genuinely cares for his subjects. Angelo, in contrast, cares more for the letter of the law than for its spirit. He cares less for his people than for justice most narrowly defined. He cannot, in the Duke's words, "condemn the fault" without also condemning "the actor of it."

The student actors convey these themes with strength and understanding. Claudio, played by Andrew Owiti, breathes pure desperation as he begs Isabella (Leila Howland) to forsake her own -- and her family's -- honor to save his head from the hangman. Angelo (Patrick McFadden) reeks self-righteousness, but falls short in making us believe he has fallen in love with Isabella; his stolid emotions do not vary from before and after their first meeting; he is indeed a stoical puritan. Jason Heffron as Elbow provides strong comic relief, and Henry S. deGuchi as Claudio's friend, Lucio, presents a convincing "man-about-town" who finds himself participating in a life-and-death dilemma.

The theme of sexual harassment is not something recently discovered by the likes of Michael Crichton (last year's hit movie, Disclosure) or David Mamet (his play, Oleanna). Shakespeare was writing about it 400 years ago. In the bard's own words, there is "nothing new under the sun." And so we continue to wrestle with our own frailties, our own inclination to deceive ourselves and our fellows.

Measure for Measure continues through October 21 at Stage III, Poulton Hall, 37th and P Streets, N.W. Tickets are $5 for students and $8 for general admission. For reservations, call 202-687-6783.

From the Archives - "The Gate of Heaven": Two Lives Examined

This review appeared in The Metro Herald in November 1996:

"The Gate of Heaven": Two Lives Examined

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Usually, when artists portray the meeting of cultures, they express it as a confrontation, a "culture clash." Seldom do they show the other side -- the meshing of cultures, their ability to complement each other, the capacity of people from different backgrounds to learn from each other and to grow more completely as human beings.

This "other side" is shown with accomplishment by the creators of The Gate of Heaven, which opened at Ford's Theatre in Washington on October 23. Ford's outgoing artistic director (and main engine of growth) Frankie Hewett introduced the play to the audience by saying there is "no better theatre, and no better city in America, to present this play." The Washington premiere was made possible through a financial partnership with General Dynamics, which underwrote much of the costs for transferring the production from San Diego, where it was first produced.

The Gate of Heaven is a collaborative effort in which the two actors -- Lane Nishikawa and Victor Talmadge -- are also the playwrights. They benefited from the dramaturgical contribution of Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) and director Benny Sato Ambush. It tells the story of two men, Japanese-American soldier Kiyoshi "Sam" Yamamoto (Nishikawa) and Leon Ehrlich (Talmadge), an East European Jew rescued by Yamamoto from the Dachau concentration camp at the end of the Second World War.

Ten years later, after searching far and wide, Ehrlich locates Yamamoto in San Francisco, eager to thank the American for saving his life. In the decade since the end of the war, Yamamoto had become an accountant while Ehrlich had, in turn, moved to Israel, fought in the war for independence there, come to America (where he became a citizen and a psychiatrist working for the Army).

From that point forward, Yamamoto and Ehrlich -- Sam and Leon -- become fast friends. Each teaches the other about his life and culture. Leon, who never marries, is adopted into Sam's family. Despite arguments and personal tragedies, their friendship persists throughout the next 40 years of their lives.

The Gate of Heaven deals with issues that many Americans would like to sweep under the carpet, including racism and the forced relocation of Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps during World War II. Sam's family had been relocated while he volunteered to serve in the 442nd Regiment, the most highly decorated unit in American history -- consisting almost entirely of Japanese-Americans whose families were living in horrid conditions in prison camps in Utah and Arizona. Worse, even while wearing his country's uniform and medals awarded for valor and several Purple Hearts, Sam and his fellows from the 442nd are derided and spat upon when they return home from the war. Restaurants refuse to serve them because they are "Japs."

The issue of racism comes to the surface -- and works dramatically as a means to cause a temporary estrangement between Sam and Leon -- on the occasion of the U.S. Bicentennial, the 4th of July in 1976. A seemingly simple conversation about what restaurant they should patronize -- Sam wants "American food," like steak while Leon wants something exotic, like sushi -- turns into a vivid exposition of racist undercurrents in American society. One example stands out: Earlier in the day, tourists had approached Sam and Leon asking for directions. They spoke only to Leon -- the immigrant with a foreign accent, who happens to have white skin -- while ignoring Sam -- the native-born American with no accent but with a different complexion. The tourists simply assumed that Leon was American and Sam was foreign, even though the opposite was true. This, Sam says, is one of the subtle but constant reminders of America's residual racism.

To Leon, this seems trivial. He had, after all, lived through the Holocaust, when his entire family and 6 million other Jews had been exterminated by "real" racists. He had seen the ethnic conflicts in Palestine after the war, and in contrast America is a paradise.

Voices are raised, leading to a separation of the friends lasting for several years.

The Gate of Heaven is an episodic drama. Many of the plot lines are revealed not linearly, but through flashbacks and asides and allusions. There are twists that do not become clear until late in the play. Nonetheless, the various facets come together seamlessly, creating a luminous gem of the theatre.

Much credit goes to the actors, Nishikawa and Talmadge, who have chosen difficult parts to portray. Not many actors can carry off the aging process of two men over a 50-year period with the same level of excellence as these two do.

Both actors are approximately the same age as their characters are at the beginning of the play. Nishikawa does a marginally better job at aging his character, Sam, in large part because his aging process is more subtle. He does this mostly through changing his voice, making it, over the years, huskier and more gravelly. For his part, Talmadge ages his character more physically -- letting his hairline recede, growing a mustache, slouching at the shoulders -- but he also uses his voice to show the passage of time. As Leon, Talmadge begins the play with a heavy East European accent, but slowly discards it so that by the end of the evening, one can hardly tell Leon's foreign origins. This is a realistic way to portray an immigrant, most of whom lose their accents over time. He easily could have kept the dialect throughout the play, but by choosing this method, he underscored the "Americanness" of Leon, his equal status to Sam.

The first performance of The Gate of Heaven actually took place at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, a quite appropriate venue. The play provides a starting point for discussing the Holocaust and also the culpability of the U.S. government in oppressing its citizens of foreign origin (primarily Japanese-Americans). As a matter of fact, Ford's Theatre has provided a study guide for the play that can be used with high school (or college) history classes ("Backstage View: A Teacher's Guide to The Gate of Heaven," by Davi Walders, available from the Audience Development Director at Ford's Theatre, 202-638-2367 or http://www,fordstheatre.org).

The Gate of Heaven is simultaneously entertaining and instructive. It is poignant as well as hard-hitting. It successfully demonstrates how individuals can adapt to changing circumstances, how we can learn from each other and adopt other people's customs as our own, and how we are all better people when we do so. It accomplishes this without being preachy or didactic, keeping entirely within the dramatic context set by the playwrights, director, dramaturg, and scenic and costume designers.

Because it is a two-character play, The Gate of Heaven will probably gain a great following among community-theatre groups around the country. Props and setting are simple, so even the smallest low-budget company might be able to mount an adequate production. Whether amateur groups can find actors as excellent as Nishikawa and Talmadge remains to be seen, however.

Ford's Theatre deserves commendation for bringing The Gate of Heaven back to Washington for an extended run. Performances are Tuesday through Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m., Thursday matinees at 1:00 p.m. (perfect for class trips) and Sunday matinees at 3:00 p.m. Signed performances will take place on Wednesday, November 13, at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, November 17 at 3:00 p.m. For ticket information, call the Ford's Theatre box office at 202-638-2367 or ProTix at 703-218-6500.

From the Archives: Reevaluating 'Fiddler on the Roof' from an economic perspective

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 18, 2010. 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.

Reevaluating 'Fiddler on the Roof' from an economic perspective
April 18, 2010 9:41 PM MST

It’s time to reassess one of the central claims of the classic American musical play, Fiddler on the Roof. The current engagement at Washington’s National Theatre offers a chance to look at the play with fresh eyes, adding a different sort of vitality to a work that is so familiar that we may have begun taking it and its characters for granted.

Tony®-winning Broadway actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein is the star of the latest national tour of Fiddler, playing the role of Tevye, the Dairyman, a character created a century ago by Yiddish short-story writer Sholom Aleichem and beloved by millions of readers and playgoers around the world.

'If I Were a Rich Man'

Tevye sings one of Fiddler’s biggest hit songs, “If I Were a Rich Man,” in which he first complains of his own poverty and then daydreams about what it would be like to be a wealthy man.

Tevye’s life, however, belies his plaintive pleas of poverty. Digging deeper into the text reveals that, far from being a poor man, Tevye is a man with assets and means – someone we might call a working-class entrepreneur. Indeed, nearly all of Tevye’s neighbors in Anatevka are working- or middle-class and not at all poor in any objective sense.

Although Tevye’s wife, Golde, tells one of their five daughters “you’re a girl from a poor family” and although Tevye says to God, “it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either,” the circumstances of their family are not those of poverty, especially not the sort of poverty one would expect in a pre-industrial, traditional society.

Four Pieces of Evidence

First, Tevye is a self-employed farmer. He owns at least one horse and other livestock –probably several cows. Not only that, he has sufficient cattle to meet his customers’ needs and he can every so often sell a surplus cow. (Tevye assumes that the butcher wants to buy his “new milk cow,” which implies he has old milk cows and that he has enough cash to periodically buy a new one.)

Second, Tevye is sufficiently secure economically that he is able to hire a tutor for his daughters (“food for lessons,” he says to the itinerant Perchik) at a time when girls were expected to stay uneducated. His third-eldest daughter, Chava, has enough pocket money to buy books for pleasure reading.

Third, when the Russian authorities force Tevye and his neighbors to leave Anatevka, he is given three days to sell his property. What does Tevye own? A house, a barn, and a plot of land big enough to feed his livestock. His ownership is clear enough that he has the courage – and the right – to order the constable off his land while he still owns it.

Fourth, Tevye has disposable income above the subsistence level. He husbands his assets so effectively that he can buy luxuries (candlesticks, goose pillows, and a feather bed) as gifts for his daughter on her wedding day and pay for the food and drink and musicians that make a wedding celebration, too.

To return to “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye is not so much asking to be a “rich man” as he is expressing his desire to be a “man of leisure” – a person who does not have to work for a living and who can enjoy a mansion, servants, and free time for prayer and contemplation.

There is no question that Tevye is not “rich” in the sense of a Rockefeller or a Rothschild. Neither is he poor. His family has enough food to eat – indeed, they have enough food that they can routinely share it with strangers and friends who visit for the Sabbath.

Tevye works hard, to be sure, and like any dairy farmer must rise before dawn to feed and milk the cows, plus toil through the rest of the day to make cheese and butter and deliver his goods to his customers. This is not a life of impoverishment. It is a life that produces something of value to trade for other things of value. It is essentially middle-class.

Neighbors and Friends

The other characters we meet in Fiddler on the Roof are in similar economic circumstances. Except for Nachum, the beggar, nearly everyone in the play has means and assets.

Mordcha and his wife own a tavern, where they serve anyone from the village, Jew and Gentile alike. Lazar Wolf is a self-employed butcher who could afford to buy strings of pearls for his wife. Motel Kamzoil (Tevye’s eventual son-in-law) owns his own tailor shop and has saved enough money to buy a modern sewing machine. Yussel is a hatmaker. Even the widow, Yente, is an independent woman who provides a service much in demand in a traditional society like Anatevka’s – she is a matchmaker (much like that independent woman of the Broadway season that preceded the premiere of Fiddler on the Roof, Dolly Levi).

We are told, over and over again, that Tevye’s family and the people of Anatevka are poor, but what we see contradicts what we are told.

Tradition Meets Modernity

All that said, it’s not possible to gainsay Fiddler on the Roof’s other theme: what happens when modernity intrudes upon tradition, and the topsy-turvy world that results (or, at least, that is perceived by those who have to engage the intrusion).

Fiddler on the Roof is set in 1905, the time of the first Russian revolution and, consequently, an era of turmoil and upheaval. For centuries Anatevka has been isolated from the outside world and thus, its inhabitants think, the village need not concern itself with the politics of far away. Those politics arrive with a growl and a bite that are unwelcome, and the people of Anatevka are subjected to a pogrom that eventually results in their exile.

Yet the hidden future-story offers a bittersweet life beyond the final curtain.

Bittersweet Future

Through government-induced violence, Tevye and his family lose their home in Anatevka, which, though fictional, in real life would have stood in eastern Poland or western Ukraine.

By being forced to leave their ancestral home in 1905 and emigrating overseas, the people of Anatevka – including Tevye and his family – were spared the scorched-earth battles of World War I. They were spared the horrors of Stalin’s induced starvation of the 1930s. (As a landowner, Tevye would almost certainly have been executed as a capitalist exploiter along with the other kulaks.) They were spared the torture and genocide of the Nazis.

They were, in fact, the lucky ones.

From the Archives: Review of TAP's 1999 'Damn Yankees'

Searching through the archives, I found this article from 17 years ago, the same day that my review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was published.

The following review of a community theatre production in Arlington, Virginia, appeared in The Metro Herald (Alexandria, Va.) on May 21, 1999:

TAP’S DAMN YANKEES HAS A LOT OF HEART

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

One of the great things about community theatre is that, when the cast is having fun on stage, the audience knows it. The sense of delight – and, yes, community – imparted by amateurs having a good time is infectious. While the Washington area is blessed with numerous top-notch professional and semi-professional theatres, there is something refreshing about seeing a group of actors, singers, and dancers putting on a show for the sheer joy of it, without worrying about the next audition, next paycheck, or the next job waiting tables.

Thus it is with the Arlington Players’ current production of Damn Yankees at the Thomas Jefferson Community Theatre. It may be true that not every step is in place, not every not is hit just so, and not every line is delivered with equal panache – but the energy and enthusiasm of the cast and enthusiasm of the cast and crew shines through and overcomes any “amateurism” in the pejorative sense. This sensibility even comes through in the sound of the community theatre (and also the high school theatre) orchestra, which has a certain raw, rough-edged sound that, while never being exactly “off,” still lacks the pristine precision of a professional ensemble. This lack of polish is not a flaw; instead, it is endearing.

It is particularly gratifying that director-choreographer Christopher Dykton has chosen to use the original script of Damn Yankees from the 1950s, rather than the compressed, rewritten book from the 1995 revival (which played the Kennedy Center in late 1996 with Jerry Lewis as Applegate; see The Metro Herald for December 28, 1996). That latter work eliminated some characters and changed others (“Sister,” for instance, is a hometown friend of Meg Boyd in the original, but she becomes Meg’s sister – what else? – in the rewrite.) Although the original script has some lame jokes and some anachronisms, it retains a better exposition than its successor. We learn, for instance, that Meg and Joe Boyd are two members of a colony of transplants from Hannibal, Missouri, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Who knew? (Two of the puzzling anachronisms: The play is set in 1955, yet Lola is introduced to Joe by Applegate as “Miss West Indies of 1957.” And in the opening number, “Six Months Out of Every Year,” Meg sings that she and Joe met in November of 1938 and married soon thereafter; later in the show, Joe says he got married at age 20. This means that Joe would be about 37 years old in 1955, yet he is played as someone in his mid- to late 50s. A simple change of that lyric to “1928” would solve the problem.)

Perhaps it is this hearkening to a simpler time that allows the cast to relax and enjoy themselves as they recreate the material on stage. All the performers put their all into their roles. You can almost see them licking their lips in satisfaction after a number ends successfully.

Of the principals, perhaps Chuck Dluhy is the most perfectly cast as Mr. Applegate, the devil who comes to Washington. Dluhy’s slinky performance reminds us of Bob Fosse as the snake in The Little Prince, and how appropriate can that be? After all, the original Damn Yankees was choreographed by Fosse, and there are echoes of his style in Dykton’s dances. Unfortunately, despite the enthusiasm of the chorus, the choreography here is much better conceived than it is executed.

Dluhy is well-matched with Kathryn Fuller as Lola, the vamp who used to be “the ugliest woman in Providence, Rhode Island.” Fuller’s height contrasted with Dluhy’s diminutive stature turns them into a Mutt-n-Jeff team that works remarkably well. And the red and black costumes designed for the pair by Susan Chong are delightfully devilish.

If there is any problem in casting, it is, unfortunately, in Darrin J. Friedman’s Joe Hardy. He seems weaker than he should be, and this manifests itself the moment Friedman appears on stage, taking up the song “Goodbye, Old Girl,” where his older alter ego, Joe Boyd (Jim Golterman) leaves off, Friedman turns out to have a lighter voice than Golterman, when the opposite should be true. Boyd should have a voice that sounds worn, while Hardy should be booming. That’s not the case here.

Much of the rest of the show relies on good, strong ensemble work, and Dykton squeezes that out of his cast to good effect. It is difficult to pick out the stand-outs, but special message should be made of Kerry DeMatteis as Rocky, Christopher Smith as Vernon, Matt Steffens as Strane, Steve Gluckman as Mickey, and Wyatt Fenner in multiple supporting roles.

Damn Yankees has a number of wonderful, tuneful songs, including “You’ve Gotta Have Heart,” “Whatever Lola Wants,” “A Man Doesn’t Know What He Has,” and the comic baseball song, “The Game.” It also has what is perhaps the most clearly superfluous song in all of musical theatre, “Who’s Got the Pain,” a mambo number that was obviously designed to give Gwen Verdon (the original Lola) a chance to show off her special talents. It serves no other purpose.

If you want to have a good time and escape into the arms of a strong community of players, then go see Damn Yankees.

* * * * *

Damn Yankees continues through May 29 at the Thomas Jefferson Community Theatre, 125 South Old Glebe Road in Arlington (near the intersection of Route 50 and Glebe Road). Performances are Friday-Sunday, 8:00 PM, with a matinee this Sunday, May 23, 2:30 PM. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for seniors and juniors (18 or younger).

For reservations, call the Arlington Players, 703/549-1063, or visit the TAP Website at http://www.come.to/the_arlington_players.

For the record, the current web site of The Arlington Players is http://www.thearlingtonplayers.org/. Damn Yankees was written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (music), Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (lyrics), Douglass Wallop and George Abbott (book; based on Wallop's novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant). The original production was directed by George Abbott.

Radio News: Vote for Rick Sincere

This past July, I had the pleasurable opportunity to sit in for radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM 107.5 in Charlottesville, while he was on vacation.

More recently, Coy left the show to pursue other fascinating opportunities, making the host's chair vacant. WCHV program director Joe Thomas announced he was looking for a permanent host for the afternoon drive time show (it runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. each Monday through Friday).  I put my name in the hopper.

Over on SoundCloud, Monticello Media is hosting an "American Idol"-like contest among the three contenders for the WCHV gig.  The "votes" consist not only of direct emails to the program director, but numbers of plays, downloads, and "likes" on each of the three audition hours.

I encourage you to visit WCHV Afternoon Auditions: Rick Sincere and say something supportive.

While you're on SoundCloud, visit my own page to listen to some of those interviews from July, including:

Science journalist Maryn McKenna
United States Sports Academy president T.J. Rosandich
Lawyer and ethics blogger Jack Marshall
Philosophy professor (and "Gay Moralist") John Corvino
New World University president Steve Foerster

In addition to those radio interviews, I have also posted audio of my recent interview with political scientist Larry Sabato about a new documentary from the UVa Center for Politics about the 1968 presidential election, called "Ball of Confusion" (after The Temptations' song of the same name).

Remember to go to the auditions page to vote yes for Rick Sincere to host the still nameless afternoon talk show on WCHV-AM and FM.

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.

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: Review of a 1997 'Sunday in the Park with George'

Having previously thought that all of my theatre reviews from the late 1990s had been posted here for archival access, just this week I uncovered a piece that had been inaccessible because it had somewhat mysteriously been converted into an old WordPerfect format.

Yesterday I found an online resource that will convert text documents from one format to another and -- ta-dah! -- I have a review of the 1997 joint production by Washington's Arena Stage and Arlington's Signature Theatre of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George.

So, for the first time on line, here is my May 1997 review, which appeared in the Metro Herald under the headline, "Sunday Sings!"

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Washington audiences have an embarrassment of riches available this spring. Within a few days, Chicago, The King and I, and Sunday in the Park with George all opened. Together, these three plays offer examples of the best by the giants of American musical theatre: Bob Fosse, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim.

In a historic collaboration, Arlington's Signature Theatre and Washington's Arena Stage have joined forces to present a play that neither could produce on its own: the Pulitzer-prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George, by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. This production is directed by Signature's Eric D. Schaeffer, whose work at the tiny but innovative Signature Theatre has earned him a national reputation, and produced by Arena's outgoing artistic director, Douglas C. Wager.

Like most Sondheim musicals, Sunday is not for everyone. For Sondheim fans, however, it is bedazzling. The intimate setting of Arena's Kreeger Theater is far superior to the larger auditoriums in which earlier Sunday productions have been staged. Sondheim's sophisticated lyrics and intricate melodies and counterpoints are far more easily heard in such a venue.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the smaller auditorium is the ability of the audience to see more closely Patricia Zipprodt's costumes. Because of the foresight of Schaeffer, the costumes used in this production of Sunday are the same ones used originally on Broadway (and since used by the Arlington Players a few years back). Zipprodt has successfully simulated the pointillist style of painting invented by Sunday's protagonist, neo impressionist Georges Seurat, for his masterpiece (now hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago) Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte.

Seurat's work and style of work is the focus of the first act. George (played by Sal Viviano) is obsessed by light, color, balance, design. He has discovered that it is possible to create the illusion of mixed colors by setting discrete points or dots of color side by side, in juxtaposition to each other. He is fully absorbed by his work, ignoring and therefore losing his mistress, appropriately named Dot (Viviano's real-life spouse, Liz Larsen). We meet the characters whom we see in the final painting, but whether they are real people or the imaginings of George is hard to say.

The second act focuses on another artist, also named George, who may be the great grandson of the first act's George. At least his grandmother, Marie, insists that this is so. Act II's George also works in a new medium, but his primary challenge is raising the money to pursue his art. Tired of criticism that he has lost his way, that his work is no longer new or creative, he travels to France to visit the island of La Grand Jatte. There, he encounters his (perhaps?) great grandmother, Dot, who counsels him to "move on."

This synopsis cannot do the play justice. Sunday in the Park with George is not a typical musical. This is not a simple boy meets girl, boy loses girl scenario. Indeed, there is no conventional plot at all. Through the integration of music, lyrics, movement, lighting, and costumes, composer and playwright raise important issues about artistic integrity, personal relationships, and the importance of family.

Viviano plays the two Georges in contrast. Act I George is cold, obsessive. At first Viviano's stiffness in the first act is off putting, but soon it becomes apparent that this is what drives Dot away, into the arms of the more caring Louis, the baker who takes her to America. Highly rational and highly intellectual, focused laser-like on his creative endeavors, this George will be all too familiar to Washingtonians, who encounter this type every day. Act II George is more well rounded, though still devoted to his work. He seems more able to connect to his fellow human beings, particularly his grandmother, and has a deeper understanding of his own faults and shortcomings.

As Dot and Marie, Liz Larsen is astonishing. Her voice is as clear as a bell, her emotions sincere and convincing. We know she genuinely loves George, but cannot spend her life with him because he has another love his art. Her warmth contrasts suitably with George's chilliness, and the comparison helps us better understand the central character. Singing "Children and Art" in the second act, we begin to understand what really counts in life. And her rendition of "Move On" to and with George in Act II makes it hard to believe that Sondheim has written anything more, well, moving.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. Drawn from the professional ranks of New York, regional, and Washington theatre, this cast includes a number of Arena and Signature veterans.

Anyone who works in the non profit world or, for that matter, anyone who is engaged in campaign fundraising will be captivated by the action, lyrics, and dialogue of the Act II number, "Putting It Together," which describes the schmoozing and bootlicking that are necessary to keep one's head above water in these situations.

Schaeffer has done well in bringing Sunday in the Park with George up to date. The modern art in Act II is now computer generated graphics and music, rather than the laser light show that was so cutting edge in 1984. One quibble, however, may be necessary as future productions are planned. The script requires that Marie be born in 1885. With the second act set in 1984, this was not hard to believe many people live to be 98 or 99 years old. Now that the second act has been brought forward to 1996, however, it stretches our credulity to have Marie, now 111 years old, as the grandmother of a 32 year old grandson. Will a revival in 2007 have a 122 year old Marie?

The Arena/Signature Sunday in the Park with George is breathtaking. I hope it will have an extended run that will allow multiple visits for those of us who are truly moved by Sondheim's best work.

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As I dig through paper and virtual files, more surprises may turn up.  Please stay tuned!