Paul Auster’s Ethereal ‘Baumgartner’

 

I referenced this book in my prior entry and decided not burden an already long entry with a review.  Now that I’ve sat down with this lovely slender book in hand, this is not a formal “review” but, instead, an impression, and how it relates to my own life. 

 

Thankfully, I have not experienced a loss of a spouse, the main theme hanging over the protagonist, Sy Baumgartner who lost his wife, Anna to a drowning accident, after 40 loving years of being together.  She becomes almost a ghost which follows his next ten years.  It is a skillful memory novel, the author stepping into the past and then back to the present, and as a metafictional piece, into the process of writing, even giving Anna a voice from her poems and essays, and frequently blending Baumgartner the protagonist with the author, Auster.  There are so many tributaries he sets sails on, including his most personal one; a trip to Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine in 2017 which Auster had written about before and now reiterates as Baumgartner’s journey to find traces of his grandfather and his Jewish roots, but they are all skillfully connected. 

 

Three important characters fall into his life, Ed Papadopoulos, a seemingly ungainly new employee of the Public Service Electric and Gas Company, but a man with a heart of gold, and watch how he comes back into Sy’s life later in the novel.  Judith, the first woman he allows himself to love after dealing with such a prolonged bereavement, and, finally a young scholar, Beatrix Coen, who has discovered Anna’s work, wants to write her doctorate thesis on the thinly published poems, as well as her unpublished works and essays.  This gives Sy (and thus Auster) a reason for the next chapter in the book, one which is not there.  The book ends abruptly.  I have my ideas where that goes; yours may be different. I think Auster carefully thought through the unusual conclusion. As with his own his life, abrupt endings can be expected but not easily anticipated.

 

I said that there were also connections to my own life noted in my review of his novel, Brooklyn Follies.  There the main character (Auster as well) lived in Park Slope, as I did earlier in my life.

 

In Baumgartner his early adult years, where he connected with Anna, were on 85^th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam on NYC’s upper West Side, Mine were on the same street just off Columbus when I connected with my own wife-to-be, Ann.  Auster and I apparently missed each other by a year.  He doesn’t go into the detail about the UWS as he does about Park Slope in Brooklyn Follies, but the coincidence was a little eerie.

 

More significant, to me, the book serves as a wake-up call to finish my memoir, not that the story of my life or writing can compare to Auster’s, but we all share mortality and I think his later works reflect an acceptance of this reality.  When he (Baumgartner – now a retired philosophy professor -- and no doubt, Auster, who died only last April) has an epiphany about time running out, and the need to tie things together, Baumgartner thinks about a book he has not yet completed, interestingly entitled Mysteries of the Wheel.  He is seventy one while having this thought, daydreaming in his backyard, living in Princeton, now, about deceased friends, increasing memory lapses.  His writing is exquisite, greatly introspective and stream of consciousness, moving from amusing anecdotes to profundity, and he might as well personally be relating a cautionary tale to me:

 

Nothing to be done, he thinks, nothing at all. Short-term memory loss is an inevitable part of growing old, and if it’s not forgetting to zip your zipper, it’s marching off to search the house for your reading glasses while you’re holding the glasses in your hand, or going downstairs to accomplish two small tasks, to retriever book from the living room, and to pour yourself a glass of juice of the kitchen, and then returning to the second floor with the book, but not the juice, or the juice, but not the book, or else neither one because some third thing has distracted you on the ground floor and you’ve gone back upstairs empty-handed, having forgotten why you went down there in the first place. It’s not that he didn’t do those kinds of things when he was young, or forget the name of this actress, or that writer or blank out the name of the secretary of commerce, but the older you become the more often these things happen to you, and if they begin to happen so often, that you barely know where you are anymore and can no longer keep track of yourself in the present, you’ve gone, still alive but gone. They used to call it senility. But the term is Dementia, but one way or another Baumgartner knows, and even if he winds up there in the end, he still has a long way to go. He can still think, and because he can think, he can still write, and while it takes a little longer for him to finish his sentences now, the results are more or less the same. Good. Good that Mysteries of the Wheel is coming along and good that he has stopped work early today and is sitting in the backyard on this magnificent afternoon, letting his thoughts drift wherever they want to go, and with all the circling around the business of short term memory, he is beginning to think about long-term memory as well, and with that word, long, images from the distant past star flickering in a remote corner of his mind, and suddenly he feels an urge to start foraging  around in the thickets and underbrush of that place to see what he might discover there. So rather than go on looking at the white clouds and the blue sky and the green grass, Baumgartner shuts his eyes leans back in his chair, tilts his face toward the sun, and tells himself to relax. The world is a red flame burning on the surface of his eyelids. He goes on breathing in and out, in and out, inhaling the air through his nostrils, exhale through his partially open lips and then, after 20 or 30 seconds, he tells himself to remember.

 

And so I try “to remember” writing what is tentatively entitled “Explaining It To Me.”  It is a race with time to finish and publish it so it may accompany the ones I’ve already published, Waiting for Someone to Explain It: The Rise of Contempt and Decline of Sense, my 2019 book dealing with my times’ social, political, and economic breakdowns, and Explaining It to Someone: Learning From the Arts, published in 2020, a collection of hundreds of my theatre and book reviews, which might suggest some answers from our writers and playwrights.  “Explaining It To Me” will be personal and therefore even more challenging to write and finish.  Maybe I can complete and publish it next year if there is enough time to “forage around in the thickets and underbrush.” I have a first draft but it needs much more work and there are so many appointments to keep.

 

‘Going All The Way’ Rings True

 

 

They grew the boys down on the farm the same sex starved way they did on the East Coast.  No wonder Willard (”Sonny”) Burns of Indianapolis is reminiscent of Portnoy and Holden Caulfield, as portrayed in Dan Wakefield’s 1970 novel, Going All the Way.  This is an unlikely read for me but I was led to it via a recent New York Times obituary of the author, by a NYT writer who had, himself, died three years earlier, David Stout. 

As Wakefield was 91 when he died and had no longer been writing, retiring to the community he came from in the environs of Indianapolis, and had stature as a writer of non-fiction, fiction, and as a magazine writer, this was one of those prepared obits waiting for its inevitable moment.  

 

I am now a regular reader of obits as I consider them to be an overlooked source of sometimes great writing (and Stout’s is among the best), reflecting on the lives of others who are about my age who were enveloped by the same times as mine.  More frequently there are ones of people I either knew or at least knew of. 

 

Also, my friend Ron is from Indiana and he has told me a lot about his childhood experiences.  Between those and reading this obituary, scenes of “Hoosiers” and the evocative music of Jerry Goldsmith drifted through my mind. 

 

Wakefield was like a Thomas Wolfe character in “You Can’t Go Home Again” as when he left Indianapolis, he felt he couldn’t return having written about his childhood memories and friends.  But he finally returned after becoming a very successful writer of both fiction and nonfiction.  His memoir Returning: A Spiritual Journey was highly praised, detailing his personal round trip journey from being a man of faith to becoming an atheist and then to humanism and spiritualism in his later years.

 

The obituary led me to what is considered to be his definitive work of fiction but I was really drawn by the concluding paragraph:

 

Asked to define his philosophy of life, Mr. Wakefield quoted Philo, the ancient philosopher of Alexandria, Egypt: “Be kind, for everyone you know is fighting a great battle.” As for his life beyond writing, reading and reflecting, he said, “No golf, no horseshoes, no stamp-collecting, no hobbies.” And, he added, “No regrets.”

 

Amen to that.

 

Wakefield’s seminal novel Going All The Way (an amusingly lurid title), was published in 1970 and a movie was made from it in the 1990’s.  His novel was praised by another graduate of his high school, Kurt Vonnegut.  I have no idea how the novel and the film went under my radar at the time other than I still had my shoulder too much to the grindstone of work 

 

This would have appealed to me, and still does as the travails of its protagonist, Sonny, are painfully familiar.  I was the same timid boy in high school, wanting to fit in, but not considered to be part of the chosen cliques.  That was usually reserved for the jocks and the extraverts who also had their fair share of sex, if you believed them. 

 

The level of testosterone level ran high.  It is almost laughable in retrospect as to how much of our lives were consumed by trying to have sex.  And that is what Wakefield’s novel is about, Sunny trying to fit in, having his sexual fantasies fulfilled, and breaking loose from the hypocrisy of parental expectations.  

 

Returning from a stint in the service on the train in the early 1950s he has a chance meeting with another ex serviceman, one of the “chosen ones” in high school, Tom Casselman (“Gunner.”); you get the picture, a handsome popular boy, a jock. 

 

Sonny tries to act cool and is surprised that Gunner remembers him: “You were one of the quiet ones, you just sat back and observed. Watched us run around chasing our tails, a bunch of green asses. You were a detached observer.” Sonny shifted uneasily and took a gulp of beer. “Well sort of,” he said. The truth was he had been an unattached observer because he was never asked to be a participant. Now it was like he was getting credit for being something he had no other choice than to be. It was sort of weird….Denying the credit for having been something he couldn’t help being, Sonny realized it probably sounded like genuine modesty making him seem even more nobler.”… Gunner had this particular picture of him, and he liked the way that picture of himself looked.

 

It gradually becomes a coming-of-age buddy novel. Ironically, Sonny had a steady girlfriend who would have done anything for him sexually, but, oh no, he wanted what we all wanted at that age, the idealized, hard to get girl next door as pictured in popular culture and our favorite magazine Playboy, if you were fortunate enough to find your father’s stash, or successfully buy one at the corner store without being recognized.

 

As Sonny’s quiet presence with Gunner is mistakenly interpreted as his being profound, a notion he continues to do nothing to discourage, it culminates in Sonny having the opportunity to meet his ideal, set up by Gunner and his girlfriend, a blind double date in a parent’s empty house stocked with booze.  The latter renders Sonny unable to perform and this in turn leads to the kind of humiliation which Sonny (spoiler here) thinks about resolving with a razor blade and his wrist.

 

As a consequence, Gunner now feels an obligation to “fix” Sonny, which leads to an automobile accident (again, booze), minor injury to Gunner, but a major one to Sonny with a long recovery period during which Gunner sets out for NYC to find himself and reconnoiter for Sonny when he eventually emerges from the hospital and the cocoon of the mid-West.  Then life can begin as it so often does in the big Apple.  Mine did.  My wife’s did.  Wakefield’s did.  Add millions before and after.

 

It is a touching coming of age novel, funny, uncomfortably true, a young man making his way through the uncertainty about the future.  Page after page there were experiences I can relate to.  Dan Wakefield could have been a friend if I had met him.  And now I feel as if I did.

 

Reverence Must Be Paid; Palm Beach Dramaworks Stages ‘Death of a Salesman’

 

As the cast was taking their well deserved curtain call, tears were flowing from the eyes of the young actor who plays Happy, Ty Fanning, as visibly shaken as many in the audience.  Were they tears of joy being in such a landmark production or was he still in his character as the play ends with Willy’s sparsely attended funeral?  If a great tragedy requires the playwright, the cast, and the audience to climb an emotional mountain together, this production of Arthur Miller’s Death of the Salesman by Palm Beach Dramaworks reaches its summit.  

 

Celebrating its 75^th anniversary since opening on Broadway it is arguably one of the preeminent American plays.  The universality of its themes, although focused on the American Dream, has resonated around the world in many productions and languages.

 

This new interpretation makes seeing it again especially rewarding.  As a realistic drama, PBD’s version is stripped down to the fundamentals of the human experience.  Director J. Barry Lewis, while adhering closely to Miller’s textual suggestions, relies on the absence of realistic scenic design to enhance this performance’s artistic achievements.  His pacing of the play is electric.  The use of space and lighting, with ideal casting and extraordinary acting, with a few period props and costumes to define the realism of the 1940s, make this a fresh portrayal and another gem in PBD’s history.

 

The staging has a feeling of a Greek tragedy or a liturgical piece, where self deception and the worship of unrealized dreams of wealth and success are the essential tragic elements.  Miller mixes the stark realism with dream events such as Willy’s dead brother Ben appearing to incite him to make his fortune.  These themes were particularly potent to a depression generation when it was first performed, but the genius of this play is its endurance through time, past, present, and undoubtedly into the future.  Willy’s sons suffer the multi-generational curse of the American Dream’s tantalizing but deceitful promise.  We are left with it in a nation dedicated to amassing personal fortunes with little concern for the greater good.  Miller portrays the underbelly of capitalism in the play making it as relevant today as then.

 

The emotional interaction of the dysfunctional Loman family is at the core of the play and the orbiting characters provide fuel for this explosive production.

 

Rob Donohoe as Willy Loman skillfully navigates the fine line between reality and delusion.  Donohoe turns elation into despair and then back again with remarkable ease.  His emotional journey increasingly commingles the present with reveries of the past as he steadfastly adheres to the belief that “being well liked” is the path to success for himself and his sons.  Donohoe’s fluid interaction with the other characters is breathtaking.  His pitiable attempt to plant a garden during his emotional journey is tragic.  One of the most challenging of all stage roles, Donohoe takes it on with immense energy and artistic insight.

 

Rob Donohoe, Helena Ruoti, Photo by Tim Stepien

His wife, Linda, is played by Helena Ruoti (PBD debut) with an equally outstanding performance, emphasizing her character’s deep love for her husband.  She knows Willy is on the edge of collapse and does everything possible to protect and prop him up, creating excuses for his shortcomings, exhaustion, justifying his faith in the Dream.  Ruoti’s portrayal at the play’s cathartic conclusion is searing. 

 

Michael Shenefelt, Helena Ruoti, Photo by Tim Stepien

Willy’s two sons are the older, Biff, heartbreakingly played by Michael Shenefelt (PBD debut), and the younger, Happy, performed by Ty Fanning (PBD debut).  They both give first-rate performances, as their teen selves and later as lost adults.  Biff has returned home hoping to find himself after years away in a number of menial jobs and even spending some brief time in prison.  Shenefelt’s role has the more challenging arc to it and he rises to the occasion, expressing his character’s dismay and, ultimately, anger as old family dynamics quickly reemerge.  He is entrapped once again until his climatic confrontation with his father.  

 

Ty Fanning, Rob Donohoe, Michael Shenefelt, Photo by Tim Stepien

It is easier to sympathize with him than his brother who has the ironic nickname of “Happy.”  Ty Fanning plays him as manipulative and self deceiving, thinking of himself as a Lothario, and clearly destined to live a life like his father.  Yet he does everything feasible to keep the peace in the family by reinforcing Willy’s fantasies.

 

Another element of dream sequences is the leitmotif of the promise of great wealth represented by the appearance of Ben, Willy’s recently deceased brother, played by Tom Wahl with a taunting omniscience.  First appearing in a ghostly fashion to Willy and later interacting with his sons in the prism of Willy’s imagination, he heightens Willy’s dreams of success and wealth.  Ben had made his fortune in diamonds in Africa.  At one point he challenges Biff to take a swing at him, Ben prevailing, and scornfully delivering the memorable lines, Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You’ll never get out of the jungle that way.  It is yet another reoccurring theme in the play: the imagined path to wealth is to circumvent the system.

 

One more dream sequence is of Willy and “The Woman” seductively played by Gracie Winchester.  This is a shame based memory of Willy’s earlier years on the road, having an affair with The Woman in a Boston hotel.  The scene with Winchester toying with Willy, flattering him saying he always makes her laugh, is painfully juxtaposed to present day Linda, partially in the shadows.  Ultimately this liaison is pivotal to the plot as Biff surprises his father by visiting him on the road to urge him to help him graduate, discovering this duplicity.  This part of Willy’s recollection is conveniently dissociated from Biff’s later failure.

 

Willy’s longing for the promise of the past also brings in his longtime neighbor, Charley, staunchly played by PBD’s Producing Artistic Director, William Hayes, who is an actor at heart and is indeed an excellent one.  Charley is a businessman and Hayes plays him as all business.  Yet he is also an old friend, a foil to Willy, working the system well to achieve success and contentment.  He is indeed Willy’s only friend, something Willy sadly acknowledges. 

 

In more dream sequences of earlier years Willy interacts with Charley, and his nerdy son Bernard, as lacking the stuff to attain the Dream, but in the present it is Charley who advances money to Willy on a steady basis, even trying to hire him, an eleemosynary gesture at Willy’s nadir, and Bernard who becomes the true success as a lawyer.  Bernard is masterfully played by Harrison Bryan who idolizes Biff when in high school, and is respectful of “Uncle” Willy as an adult.  Charley and Bernard are the symbols of the success that elude Willy and his sons, playing the game by the rules.

 

Rob Donohoe, Michael Shenefelt, Ty Fanning Photo by Tim Stepien

The play’s denouement is the traumatic restaurant scene in which Willy, Happy, and Biff appear along with the waiter, Stanley, sensitively played by John Campagnuolo, who expresses more sympathy towards Willy than Happy.  There are also the two young floozies Happy has picked up, Nathalie Andrade as Letta (who also plays Jenny, Charley’s secretary) and Hannah Hayley (PBD debut) as Ms. Forsythe, each giddily caught up in the illusion of Happy and Biff being men of means.  It is at this dinner that truths come out, including Willy having been fired from his job by the son of the his firm’s founder, Howard, impatiently rendered by Matthew W. Korinko as a person who is gleefully more interested in the new technology of a tape recorder than the decades of Willy’s service to the company. 

Scenic design is by Anne Mundell, who adheres to Sondheim’s adage that less is more, creating a simple multilevel set for this potent drama to unfold. 

 

Video design is by Adam J. Thompson, PBD’s newly appointed resident projection designer who gets the audience’s attention immediately with a creative opening avatar of a salesman that dissolves into nothing.  He contributes some abstract geometric designs for certain scenes, all in keeping with the production.

 

Costume design is by Brian O’Keefe who focuses on the two different time periods, appropriate costumes mostly in neutral pastels for the 40s, adding warmer colors for the 1930’s.  Many of the scenes are of the brothers in nightclothes and especially Linda in her disheveled old nightgown and bathrobe.  “The Woman” appears in a slip and stockings and Ben is nattily dressed with a vest but rumpled sport coat, carrying a folded umbrella, ready to leave on the first boat to fortune.   

 

With the threadbare stage, lighting design by Kirk Bookman takes on an additional dimension to support what is going through Willy’s tortured mind, sometimes with a portion of the stage depicting the present and the other part, the past.  Shadows are as important as lighting such as the opening when the sons are in shadows and Willy and Linda discussing the return of Biff.  While the audience is being asked to create its own conception of setting, lighting supplies the focus.

 

Sound design is by Roger Arnold, with the requisite everyday sounds such as the barking dog here and there. More importantly the playwright specifically indicates the need for a background abstract piano or flute score particularly during those moments when Willy is in his idealized (or guilt ridden) dream world.  Most productions use the original score by Alex North but seeking to accentuate its original production, PBD commissioned a new wistful score by Josh Lubben.  Some of that music is used for transitional scenes.  Arnold also implements an echo chamber effect for some of “The Woman’s” laughter that eerily overlaps with the laughter of the women who briefly appear at the dinner scene.

 

It is only fitting that as Palm Beach Dramaworks enters its 25^th anniversary season, it has staged this great play.  J. Barry Lewis, PBD’s Resident Director, has made his interpretation of Death of a Salesman his masterpiece in its conception and how it flows.  This is why one should see this play, even again.  It is unforgettable.