Riffs

On several disparate topics, sort of a "catch up" posting.

First and foremost, the Boston bombings, deplorable, despicable, cowardly. The stark, almost naked vulnerability of the runners, makes it especially gruesome to me, and on Patriot's Day in Massachusetts, the symbolism of the act is unambiguous.  If it was carried out with assault weapons rather than the anonymity of trash can bombs, would it speed  national gun control legislation as Connecticut commendably passed?  I wonder, but violence in our great land is intolerable and must be dealt with through education and legislation and improved economic opportunity for all. 

Then, on a less important subject, but a continuing frustration, is the foolishness of the Florida Legislature which is actually considering massive increases for windstorm insurance coverage through its state supported "Citizens Insurance."  The unintended consequences of such an increase will destroy the nascent housing and construction recovery and, long term, turn coastline communities into ghost towns, the very communities that draw tourism, Florida's most important revenue source.  The "need" for such an increase is to buy even more reinsurance for a once in a hundred year storm but one has to wonder how much the insurance industry has cozied up to Florida legislators. 

As it is, there is a "cauldron of misconduct alleged at Citizens Property Insurance" but as a state designed and operated institution, it seems to be immune to corporate codes of ethics. The bottom line is the entire state is vulnerable to destructive weather, be it hurricanes, or tornadoes, and the state needs a plan other than a usurious tax on coastal citizens.  It could create its own reinsurance pool with a quarter of a percent sales tax increase (some of which would be paid by tourism), with, of course, still higher insurance rates for coastal homes, but not at levels that would destroy those communities.

 

Our friends Ray and Sue were briefly here, making a detour on their way back to Connecticut from the Abacos on their boat 'Last Dance.'  Always wonderful to see them and to learn more about their living full time on their boat as well as being part of a boating community in the Bahamas, the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club -- scores of boaters doing the same thing during the winter (although most have homes to go back to in the summer). 

So Ray and Sue arrived here on Sunday and I followed them on "Spot Me" which broadcasts their position every twenty minutes or so superimposed on Google Maps.  A remarkable technology.  Here's their last leg of the trip from the Bahamas to here. 

I helped them untie their lines on our dock early this morning and they've begun their 1,200 mile trek "home" to Connecticut where we will join them on our boat later this summer.

Earlier this month, Ann took me to see my first opera since my college days, Richard Strauss' gruesome Salome, at the Kravis Theatre in West Palm Beach.  I went as much for the spectacle as I did to understand how Ann has "spent all that time" for the last decade with season's tickets.  She usually goes with her friend, Lois, and there they meet our friend Roy, who we also see at the Dramaworks functions, for a bite of lunch beforehand,.  Ann and I were photographed with characters from next year's program of operas.

I used to apologize for not liking Opera (Stephen Sondheim, however, gave me permission).  It was a epic spectacle to see Salome, the main part being sung superbly by Erika Sunnegårdh and it was helpful to have the English translation in the subtitles overhead.  The music is almost oppressively beautiful, but, to me, the staging seems so wooden compared to, say, a Sondheim musical.  Perhaps it measures up to Sweeny Todd for the bloodiest musical stage production.

A notable article appeared in the April 7 New York Times by André Aciman, How Memoirists Mold the Truth.  It certainly hit home with me as most of what I write is indeed memoir and I know exactly what he means by the following:

Writing the past is never a neutral act.  Writing always asks the past to justify itself, to give its reasons...provided we can live with the reasons.  What we want is a narrative, not a log: a tale, not a trial. This is why most people write memoirs using the conventions not of history, but of fiction.  It's their revenge against facts that won't go away ...And maybe this is why we write.  We want a second chance, we want the other version of our life, the one that thrills us, the one that happened to the people we really are, not to those we just happened to be once.  There is a lot more to take away from this profound article, but it reminds me of the fine line I sometimes walk between fact and fiction trying on the one hand to be truthful, but sometimes circumventing facts, frequently to keep certain people anonymous, and perhaps to remember the past as I would have liked it to be (frequently being unable to distinguish it from the real past which, ironically, it really may be!). I must confess it's also a delicate balance between honesty and privacy.

But my writing has led me to places and people (although I do not have a comment section, an email address appears in my profile) and most recently I was contacted by someone I hired 44 years ago.  She had found me through my blog and wanted me to know that I served as an important mentor (unknowingly to me) to her early in her career.  Since then she has gone on to very significant accomplishments, in business, and, more importantly, in her empathic quest to make a difference in one of the great tragedies of the past decade in our economy: the high unemployment rate and its impact on individuals (statistics aside).  I might say more regarding our distant relationship over the a narrow alleyway of time, but that will have to wait. 

My blog will probably go quiet for a while as I am preparing a piano program and will be recording it at a studio, so lots of practice in the days ahead.  I'm calling it "Music Makes Us" after a quote from David Byrne's recently published How Music Works: "We don't make music; it makes us." How true. And we are sort of defined by the music we listen to. For myself, it is the Great American Songbook, music we sometimes refer to as "The Standards."  I'll have more to say about this, and the specific pieces, after I've taken this on, difficult for me, a mere amateur, but isn't that what an engaged life is all about, setting demanding goals and doing one's best to attain them?  I've used those piano skills to bring some joy to people in retirement homes and will continue to do so.  It's makes all that time and commitment that much more meaningful.  

Meanwhile, I leave with a photograph of our seasonally flowering pink Bougainvillea tree, highlighted by my lovely wife, Ann.

 

Anniversary, Time and Again

I started to write this entry, one which was to mark the second anniversary of my open heart surgery. It was to be an upbeat commentary, following upon a wonderful week we had just spent with our very good friends Beny and Maria visiting us from Palermo. But when I sat down to write a draft, heartbreak intruded, perversely imitating the ethos of Exit the King which we saw only a few days earlier.

Last Monday morning we received a call from Suzanne, the daughter of Ann's cousins, Sherman and Mimi, who had suddenly arrived in Florida where her parents now live. We immediately thought of her father, Ann's first cousin, Sherman, who had just been released from a prolonged hospital stay and ninety days of rehab, who can no longer walk without assistance, and has advanced dementia.  His wife of 56 years, Mimi, had been by his side every day and was now caring for him at home with the help of round-the-clock nursing aids.

But exactly on the second anniversary of my being put into a four day induced coma after open heart surgery, Ann and I rushed to the ER of a Broward hospital that Monday night, as it was not Sherman, but his caregiver, his wife Mimi, who had collapsed and was in a coma. Mimi had been like a big sister to Ann, particularly during Ann's first years in New York City when she arrived as an eighteen year old, fresh from high school graduation in her hometown, Atlanta.

They became close companions in spite of the 11 year age difference and loved living in the Big City which was Mimi's adopted town as well. They biked down to hootenannies in Washington Square park in the early 1960s, went to jazz concerts and Operas in the Village, dancing at the Latin Quarter and Roseland, enjoyed folk singing concerts, Shakespearean plays in Central Park, and took trips to Philadelphia and The Cape and Newport, RI together.  Mimi was her mentor to NY life and they became best friends.

Fast forward, closer to the present. Mimi and Sherman had moved to FL part time when Sherman retired from his long tenure (1960 - 1992) as a Physics professor at FDU.  They were happy in the community they chose in Coconut Creek, but rather recently, Sherman was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  Rather than commit him to a home, Mimi was determined to stay in their complex, selling their upstairs apartment and buying one on the ground floor for easy egress, and hiring competent home healthcare aids for her husband.  In spite of their age (83 and 85 respectively), she was determined to shelter her husband in familiar surroundings rather than consigning themselves to an independent / assisted living facility.  

Mimi was like a force of nature, self actualizing and one always thought indestructible until we got that call last Monday from her daughter, recounting the sketchy facts as she knew them at that point:  her mother had had a very severe headache, and soon thereafter passed out.  It was a severe brain hemorrhage and she was rushed to ER and when we saw her, unconscious, on a ventilator and life support systems, those memories of my own medically induced comma came flooding back.  But this was very different.

We returned to see her on Wednesday. and Friday and during that time, testing for brain activity was negative.  She was moved to ICU and she lay there looking peaceful, even healthy except for the tubing and the wiring that was basically breathing for her and keeping her hydrated.  Their son, Michael and his wife Miriam, had arrived as well and the decision was finally made to transfer Mimi to the Hospice unit of the same hospital and to disconnect her from life support.  Friday was a day of misery for all.  Suzanne and Michael, of course, carrying the brunt of the grief, we and others there trying to support them. but being deeply distraught as well.

Mimi was a special person.  Her home was open to all.  If a foreign exchange student needed room and board for a school semester or even a school year, Mimi would provide it. If there was a foster child that needed looking after, she stepped up.  She sat with friends who needed care, wrote long letters to each and every one of the hundreds of friends she made along the way, her giving knew no bounds; she was larger than life, the last person one would imagine dying so suddenly.  But she lived life with zest and a song, particularly folksongs and Broadway melodies.  Her children set up a CD player at her bedside and we listened to all her favorites while waiting, waiting, for any sign of life.  When I first entered the room, I heard "Don't Fence Me In" being sung.  When she was taken off of life support she died with the refrains of a Pete Seeger folksong in her ear.

Our hearts go out to Suzanne and Michael, such difficult decisions, but the right ones.  We all recognize that Mimi really died the moment of the massive brain hemorrhage and she only medically survived as the 911 EMT was so swift and efficient.

My own memories of Mimi go back now about 44 years, one of my favorite was a vacation the four of us took up to Lake George, enjoying Oktoberfest at a resort and even managing to get them both out on the Lake itself for a boat ride.  And how do we count all the many family gatherings as well, Mimi and Sherman and Suzanne and Michael were always there, at our home in Weston, CT or we at theirs in New City, NY. So many years, so many wonderful memories. 

As King Berenger says in Exit the King, "Why was I born if it was not forever?" Thanks to that play, I've become pretty hung up over how I "spend" my time.  (what an expression -- time as some sort of a currency, only one that you can't make any more of.  We're all born with a certain quantity in the bank, unequal ones thanks to genetics, environment, accidents, and the twists and turns of life, and choices we make.  I guess we "buy time" with medical advances -- I certainly have.)

I suppose that is one of the main reasons I write this blog.It is not only a record of where my time goes, but it also forces me to think about it.  I could more easily just go see a play or read a book, but I would surely forget about much of it and perhaps understand less of it without delving into the details with an essay.  It is of course merely my take on those matters and, to a degree, I probably remember the past here as I want to and record the present as I would like to remember it in the future. It matters little to the world, but as I've said frequently, I write this mostly for myself. 

Others live those moments on line differently.  I don't Twitter, those ephemeral little birds of thought that go out there and then get lost (or is there a database of Tweets?).  Then there is the ubiquitous Facebook which could be easily renamed "Hey, look at me!"  I guess we're all trying to be the stars of our own reality shows.  One could accuse my blog as being just one big self indulgent look-at-me exercise, but I would like to think that the differences (between this, Twitter, and Facebook) are obvious. This endeavor really does involve a lot of thought, albeit perhaps time not wisely spent, so I return basically to the beginning of this entry, anniversaries.

Given my medical history, every day since my heart surgery and comma of four days has been a "bonus" day.  Even before Mimi's ordeal, I was fully aware of the approach of this anniversary during the last few weeks. It hit home as our friends, Maria and Beny arrived for a brief stay with us from Sicily. Only two months after my operation two years ago I had flown to Sicily (where Ann already was visiting her best friend, Maria), to join everyone in the celebration of Maria's son's wedding to Mariana, and meeting Mariana's parents who were so thrilled to have their daughter marry David.  It was undeniable that the two sets of parents had become best friends and loved being together. The year following their wedding was hell as within months, Mariana's mother was diagnosed with cancer and sadly she is also now gone, a relatively young and vibrant woman just turning 60.  All of that just during the last 24 months.  

With Maria and Beny here, we were able to "spend" some quality time with them, including a day on our new boat, the 'Reprise'. Coincidentally, we planned a small trip up the Intracoastal to  Guanabanas Restaurant in Jupiter, one that we had last been to by boat with our friends Cathy and John only a week before I entered the hospital for that surgery which turned out to be much more serious than anyone could have imagined.  (In fact, as we gaily ate lunch with Cathy and John, my "widow maker" artery was already 99% blocked, of course unknown to me, and I was a candidate for a massive heart attack as I munched on my grouper.)

Arriving at Guanabanas with Maria and Beny I could not help think of the irony of being there again, precisely two years later.  How strange it all seemed, but our visit with them was wonderful, the weather finally cooperating for boating, the clear blue water near the Jupiter Lighthouse reminding us of the waters of the Bahamas.

Meanwhile, I conclude this sad anniversary entry with other photographs of Mimi and Sherman, and Ann and I, taken during that Lake George vacation more than thirty years ago.  Although scanned from faded black and white prints (I used to do my own developing in those days), they capture the essence of her personality (she's in the foreground on the right in each).  This is the way I would like to remember her.

 

Letting Go -- Dramaworks' Exit the King

It is the rare regional theatre that would commit to the infrequently performed Exit the King by Eugene Ionesco.  It is so much easier to win over an audience, particularly here in South Florida, with a traditional play grounded in realism.  But Dramaworks is open to almost any theatrical challenge and it has earned the right to take on the occasional unconventional and controversial piece.  However, will it's loyal devotees follow them into the veritable shadow of the valley of death?  I think they will provided they check their usual theatrical expectations at the door, and give themselves over to a leading playwright of the Theatre of the Absurd, a skillful director, an incredibly talented cast, and supporting technicians.

While we are all reconciled to the inevitability of our own deaths, at least philosophically, how about being told you have an hour and a half to live, as does our "everyman" 400 year-old King Berenger in Ionesco's Exit the King?  Here's a fable on the art of dying, staged with the only sword we can thrust at the thought: humor.  The corollary is to learn the art of living.

I was more than curious how Dramaworks would stylize Ionesco's play, recently reading the play to familiarize myself with the possibilities. (The Dramaworks' production is based on the more recent, contemporized translation by Neil Armfield, the director of the 2009 Broadway production, and its star, Geoffrey Rush.) Without the strong hand of a director and superlative performances on the part of the actors, it could be a very maudlin evening -- as some earlier versions were purported to have been when the play was first staged in the 1960's.  Fear not, get ready for many hilarious moments with this production. 

The "Theatre of the Absurd" finds its philosophical roots in Albert Camus' 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus which presents the ultimate philosophical conundrum:.....much of our life is built on the hope for tomorrow yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live as if they didn't know about the certainty of death; once stripped of its common romanticisms, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. "From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all."

Playwrights like Ionesco, Genet, Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee, brought this philosophical view to drama.   It was critic Martin Esslin who defined this genre in his 1960's study, Absurd Drama: The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.

At the time Esslin considered Samuel Beckett to be the leading playwright of the genre, and having seen his Happy Days a couple of years ago at the Westport Country Playhouse, I can see why. That play taught me the lesson of reading the script of an Absurdist drama before seeing it, saying at the time,  Happy Days is the kind of theatre that one thinks about as much in retrospect as when one experiences it. In fact, I would have been happy to have had a Samuel French edition in my lap with a tiny flashlight to follow what is mostly an uninterrupted monologue. It is so rich in meaning and innuendo.

But Ionesco is an equal master and Dramaworks' production of his Exit the King indeed releases "laughter of liberation" displacing any "tears of despair,"  watching clown-like King Berenger's kingdom go to rack and ruin as his control over it and as his own life slip away. Although he is given credit for virtually every invention of mankind, he also shoulders the blame for letting his kingdom devolve.  He has been oblivious to the passing of time, and has narcissistically whiled away his days  .  Like the rest of us in our own little kingdoms, we exercise the illusion of control in a world that will forget us in a nanosecond when we are gone. 

The play more or less follows the progression of the stages of dying as set forth by Kubler-Ross in "The Art of Dying": denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (not necessarily in that order, and sometimes going back and forth) with all of these stages facilitated by interaction with the five other characters in the play, mostly with the timing of a slapstick comedy. (Ionesco's own stage directions for one scene reads "This scene should be played like a tragic Punch and Judy show").

The skillful hand of director William Hayes applies Ionesco's instruction to much of the production, balancing the weighty philosophical content with some belly laughs. As Hayes said in Dramaworks' customary "Knowledge and Nibbles" session the afternoon before last night's preview, "The production has some aspects of a Monty Python film to lure the audience into turbulent territory.... having some characteristics of epic theatre, vaudeville, circus clowns and a puppet show, with a gradual shift in the middle of the play [at which point the audience begins to identify more with King Berenger]."

Last night was the first preview performance and as it is such an intricate play to stage, there were some off moments in this dress rehearsal but one can clearly see where Hayes is going with the orchestration, having selected the ideal actor for each role, choreographing their intricate movement on (and off) stage, and introducing sound effects of the opening and closing of doors, a cacophony of mostly circus sideshow music, bells, whistles, kettle drums and let's not forget the sound of the cuckoo clock, as well as a strobe light enhanced Keystone Kops chase scene.

Our 400 year old King Berenger is told he is dying and has 1 hour and 30 minutes before the play ends to do it. His kingdom is dying as well. He at first protests: "I'll die when I want to."  He asks the fundamental philosophical question: "Why was I born if it wasn't forever?"  Colin McPhillamy gives a tour de force performance as King Berenger.  Even before the actual performance begins he mingles with the audience, in good humor, just a regular guy like the rest of us.  His transformation through the various stages of his impending death on the stage requires great poise and physicality, constantly shifting between vaudevillian comedy to great pathos such as this monologue which settles down the hilarity, solemnly delivered with the cadence of a Gregorian chant: "Help me, you countless thousands who died before me! Tell me how you managed to accept death and die. Then teach me! Let your example be a consolation to me, let me lean on you like crutches, like a brother's arms. Help me to cross the threshold you have crossed! Come back from the other side a while and help me! Assist me, you who were frightened and did not want to go! What was it like? Who held you up? Who dragged you there, who pushed you? Were you afraid to the very end? And you who were strong and courageous, who accepted death with indifference and serenity, teach me your indifference and serenity, teach me resignation!"

It is Queen Marguerite, his first wife, played by Angie Radosh, a seasoned Dramaworks actress, (one of our favorites) who provides the constant voice of reason, telling the King over and over again to prepare for the inevitable: "It's your fault if you've been taken unawares, you ought to have been prepared. You never had the time.  You'd been condemned, and you should have thought about that the very first day, and then day after day, five minutes every day.  It wasn't much to give up.  Five minutes every day.  Then ten minutes, a quarter, half an hour.  That's the way to train yourself."

Radosh's role is often as challenging as McPhillamy's. Unlike the other characters she does not share in the slapstick frivolity, never appearing like a marionette figure.  She is the consummate actress and it is Queen Marguerite who carries the heavy lifting of the final scene in the play, as the King does indeed "exit" (after the other characters have left him alone to do so). Radosh delivers a moving performance in that scene, compassionately assisting the King to the final acceptance of the end of his life.

Countervailing the "old" Queen, is the young and beautiful trophy wife Queen Marie, who entreats the King to live, to fight death by exhorting him to "Cling to me, don't let go! It's I who keep you alive.  I keep you alive, you keep me alive.  D'you see, d'you understand?  If you forget me, if you abandon me, I no longer exist, I am nothing."  Claire Brownell, a newcomer to Dramaworks plays Queen Marie with the right balance of passion, and humor, reminding us at times of a vulnerable Sugar Plum Fairy.

Rob Donohoe performs the role of the Doctor, also Surgeon, Executioner, Bacteriologist & Astrologist!  His riotous first appearance on stage with his wild hair, hack saw in hand and bloody stains on his apron is a harbinger of more humor to come.  Donohoe, another seasoned Dramaworks actor is perfectly cast..  He sides with Queen Marguerite.  The king is dying.  Prepare.  Although he is mostly playing a caricature, he delivers one of the more profound Ionesco lines concerning the relative insignificance of a single life, even though it is that of the King's: "He will be a page in a book of ten thousand pages in one of a million libraries which has a million books." (Although, added to this is a line, presumably from the recent translation, "Or they can Google him.").

Juliette, "the domestic help and registered nurse," is persuasively and amusingly played by Elizabeth Dimon, wearing a sort of worn Raggedy Ann doll attire. The King has always taken her for granted, but she becomes a real person to him while dying, his being accused by the Doctor and Marguerite of trying to "gain time" in taking such interest, as illuminated by this interchange: "King: Tell me how you live. What sort of life do you have? / Juliette: A bad life, Sire. / King: Life can never be bad. It's a contradiction in terms. / Juliette: Life's not very beautiful. / King: Life is life." 

The Guard, performed by a helmeted and heavily armor breasted Jim Ballard, is the comic Greek chorus providing some of the heartiest laughs of the evening. These come from his deadpan announcements of what appears to be happening on the stage such as :"The King is walking! Long live the King!...The King is down! The King is dying!...The King is up! Long live the King! Etc., etc.

Suddenly the guard has a heart to heart talk with the audience, reminiscing about his great days (centuries) with his King and the King's accomplishments which naturally range from inventing gunpowder, steel, zeppelins, airplanes ("At the start it wasn't a success.  The first test pilots, Icarus and the rest, all fell into the sea."), tractors, the building of Rome, New York, Moscow, Paris. Etc. "He wrote tragedies under [the secret] name of Shakespeare." Ballard has played in several Dramaworks productions before and we'll never forget his wonderful voice in Caldwell Theatre Company's concert staging of Sondheim's classic Into the Woods.

When presenting a play that is not a period piece, but a more abstract philosophical concept, the nuances provided by the set design conceived by Michael Amico go a long way to tie the production together.  The set has sort of a three dimensional children's pop out book feel to it.  The costume designs by Leslye Menshouse are spot on, mostly emphasizing caricature, but with regal aspects particularly for Queen Marguerite. Lighting design by John Hall and sound design by Matt Corey are equally important to the overall artistic shape of a production such as this.

When the end finally comes, to our poor King, to his kingdom, to the play itself, we are left with an exhausted emptiness. We've laughed in the presence of the human predicament, sadly knowing what will happen sooner or later to each and every one of us..  But we  have more time, don't we?  It is not a play that will appeal to everyone.  The man next to my wife was very uncomfortable during the performance, while the one next to me just laughed the whole night long.  We exited to the melody of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"  from Monty Python....

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true

You'll see it's all a show

Keep 'em laughing as you go

Just remember that the last laugh is on you