Collected Stories – Literary Lives Diverge at Dramaworks

Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories is a fascinating look into the creative process and the relationship between writers, compellingly brought to life by Dramaworks.  For more than two hours an intense emotional struggle unfolds between two women, one ascending and the other descending, leaving us to wonder who “owns” the stories of our life?

Paul Stancato’s PBD directorial debut is an auspicious endeavor, taking what is already an engaging play and transforming it into a mesmerizing evening.  He not only had the Dramaworks’ extraordinary technical team to assist his efforts, but the notable debut of the two fine actors who inhabited their roles, Anne-Marie Cusson as Ruth Steiner, the mature writer and teacher, and Keira Keeley her star struck, initially compliant student, Lisa Morrison.  From Stancato: “they taught me as much as I taught them.”  Cusson and Morrison are the consummate actors in this production, connecting with one another to the point of perfection.  Their bravura performances makes this the must see play in Palm Beach this season.

Paul Stancato

Although emotionally turbulent, there are many subtle comic moments, not only in some of the dialogue, but pauses where even facial expressions allow a twitter to ripple through the audience.  These are welcome interludes, carefully orchestrated by Stancato.

At the onset Lisa insinuates herself into Ruth’s well ordered life.  Ruth, an established writer, has published numerous short stories, collected as well as uncollected.  Lisa, arriving at Ruth’s apartment for her first out of the classroom session with her mentor, marvels “What I'm trying to tell you, Ms. Steiner, in my very clumsy stupid way... Being here?, studying with you ... ? It's like a religious experience for me. No, really, it is. I mean, your voice has been inside my head for so long, living in this secret place, having this secret dialogue with me for like years? I mean, ever since high school when I had to read The Business of Love ... ? I mean, from the opening lines of ‘Jerry, Darling,’ that was it for me, I was hooked, you had me. I knew what I wanted to do, I knew what I wanted to be.”

Keira Keeley, Anne-Marie Cusson; Photo by Alicia Donelan

Lisa speaks in the vernacular of innocence and youth, one of the many layers in this play, the process of Lisa’s maturing and Ruth’s aging.  This theme is as dominant as the teacher/student relationship and Margulies continuously weaves these leitmotifs.  As with any great short story itself, Margulies moves the plot along within a structure which is ripe for complication, confrontation, and in this case an intentionally ambiguous resolution which is sure to keep the audience talking long after they have left the theatre.

Teaching writing is the ultimate paradox.  As Ruth attempts to explain in her deprecating way that it really can’t be taught:  “Please. Never pay attention to what writers have to say. Particularly writers who teach. They don’t have the answers, none of us do.”  Cusson infuses this role with bravado, a self assuredness that comes from her many years of teaching experience and professional success.

Photo by Robert Hagelstein

The setting is Ruth’s Greenwich Village apartment.  Scenic designer K. April Soroko has faithfully imagined an apartment filled with the very publications, relics, and books that define her life, the view from her window which changes with the seasons, the sacred place of her writing desk, her selection of music and the prominent placement of Matisse's The Dance.

Photo by Samantha Mighdoll

This setting of a writer’s life combined with reminders of Ruth’s cultural heritage are well mined in Cusson’s performance and proves to be a source of Lisa’s jealously, something she can admit to at the point in the play when she is no longer the star struck student and is coming into her own as a writer.  Lisa complains to Ruth about her limited experience and one could look at this as a climatic part of the play from which the scales tip dramatically afterward:

LISA: You had all that rich, wonderful, Jewish stuff to draw on.

RUTH: Why was that luck? That was what I knew; I started out writing what I knew, just like you and everybody else who writes.

LISA: Yeah, but that culture!, that history! The first generation American experience and all that. Nothing in my experience could possibly approach that. What do I have? WASP culture. Which is no culture at all. 

RUTH: Oh, really? Tell that to Cheever and Updike.

LISA: Oh, God, I've got to write a novel, don't you think? Isn’t that what they want?

RUTH: Who?

LISA: Isn't that what they expect? The literary establishment. I mean, in order for me to be taken seriously?

RUTH: Why? I never did.

And there is the crux of it all.  All writers draw from experience in some way.  Short story writers aspire to the holy grail of novelist, something never achieved by Ruth.  The line between fiction and memoir can be hair-thin.  Philip Roth once said “I wouldn’t want to live with a novelist. Writers are highly voyeuristic and indiscreet.”  Ruth, as Lisa’s mentor and teacher, urges her to not censor herself:  “You can’t censor your creative impulses because of the danger of hurting someone’s feelings…If you have a story to tell, tell it.  Zero in on it and don’t flinch, just do it.”

Photo by Alicia Donelan

Early on in the play Lisa comes across a volume in Ruth’s collection by the poet Delmore Schwartz and a letter slips out by him addressed to Ruth.  She puts it back, embarrassed, as clearly this is something Ruth does not want to talk about.  Later when Ruth and Lisa have more of a mother/daughter relationship, Ruth unburdens the story of her liaison with Schwartz to Lisa, with pride and regret.  He of course was an older man; she the young (and she proudly exclaims, “pretty then”) student, dazzled by meeting Schwartz in a pub and becoming a companion afterwards…  “…the power was undeniable….What sheltered Jewish girl from Detroit, what self-styled poet, what virgin, would not have succumbed?”  Ruth’s story is mostly a long monologue and Cusson delivers it with such heart and vulnerability.  Keira Keeley’s Lisa listens with wide-eyed amazement, taking it all in.

The play moves to the next level.  Lisa has had a short story published. They are now colleagues.  Ruth, the teacher, had given Lisa a story of hers to critique.  Lisa recognizes one of the characters, Emily, as resembling herself.  In fact, this heartfelt moment in the play is almost a play within itself, the story line about a mother and a daughter without a clear resolution.  Ruth defends the latter to Lisa saying: “But that’s life, isn’t it? What relationship is ever truly resolved?  People, perfectly likable people, inexplicable, inconveniently, behave badly, or take a wrong turn…it happens.”  This conceit is not lost on the audience, foreshadowing their own relationship.  After hearing Lisa’s criticisms of the story, Ruth has a sad epiphany: “I’m jealous that you have all of life ahead of you.  I can’t sit back and watch you do the dance that I danced long ago and not think about time.  I can’t….That’s what it’s about.  Don’t you see?  Time.”

Photo by Alicia Donelan

One could see where this remarkable play is taking us. The last scene in the second act is explosive, raw, and Cusson and Keeley plumb the depths of their characters at the climatic denouement.  By then the scales have tipped the other way, Lisa appropriating the essence of the Delmore Schwartz story for her first novel, one she claims was written as a tribute to Ruth (was it or wasn’t it?, the audience must decide for itself), but a story Ruth feels was purloined from her (contradicting her earlier advice that Lisa must write whatever story without regard for hurting anyone).  Where does the moral compass point? Whose literary life is it anyway?

The costume design by award-winning Brian O'Keefe captures the passage of the six years beginning in the 1990s as well as the maturation of Lisa from girl student to published author in her stunning black outfit of the last scene.  As this is not a period piece and the passage of time allows for only subtle changes in dress, O'Keefe’s costumes appear to be designed more for the emotional moment.  

Time passage was clearly the focus of lighting designer Ron Burns, both the realism of the time of day and the surrealistic feeling of its passage over years.  The latter in particular was the fulcrum for sound designer Matt Corey, jazz interpretations of classics such as “Guess I’ll Hang my Tears Out to Dry” and “In a Sentimental Mood” playing as seasons roll by.   Music also distinguishes Ruth’s listening habits which reflect the jazz of the 50s and 60s while Lisa listens to the urban rock of the time.

Regret and loss permeate the play; loss of time, loss of friendship, loss of loves.  Yet there was real love between these two women.  Ruth transitions from self assured, in control, to friend, and ultimately to feeling utterly betrayed by Lisa, who in essence has now become her mortal enemy.  Margulies has created an extremely thought provoking, powerful story and the Dramaworks ensemble delivers it with high-intensity and top notch acting power.  The play and the performance are true to the epigraphs cited by Margulies in the printed edition of the play:

Influence is simply transference of personality, a nod of giving away what is most precious to one’s self, and its exercise produces a sense, and, it may be, a reality of loss.  Every disciple takes away something from the master.

-- Oscar Wilde

Time is the school in which we learn,

Time is the fire in which we burn.

-- Delmore Schwartz
 

Photo by Robert Hagelstein

Protect Our Free Press

Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work. You’re the opposition party. Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party. The media’s the opposition party.”

Stephen Bannon

“You [the press] always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

Kellyanne Conway

“I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.”

Donald J. Trump

"Never forget. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it."

Richard Nixon to his national security adviser Henry Kissinger in a taped 1972 Oval Office conversation

We all know how it ended in the Nixon administration when he was forced to resign in August, 1974.

But it’s different this time as Trump and his ministers of propaganda are “crazy-makers.”  There is a concerted effort to make the lie indistinct from reality. Responsible journalists must stand united with the facts, clearly pointing out the dangers to the Republic.  We, the citizens, must take up each and every infringement of the Constitution and iniquitous Executive Order with our representatives, focusing on the mid-term elections to bring about an effective opposition Congress – and the removal of the “ministers of propaganda.”  

Fortunately some former congressional staff members have put together “A practical guide for resisting the Trump agenda.”  It is better to read that, join local groups, than reacting to every Presidential tweet and proclamation, chasing our tails with frustrated tweets and retweets.  Even though it’s been only a week since the inauguration, it seems like a lifetime in dog years. 

LA,LA,LA, In La La Land

It might seem disrespectful.  In many ways it was, a silent protest, seeing La La Land instead of our new President’s inauguration, the first one we’ve missed in decades.  It seems like yesterday when we were filled with hope as evidenced by what I wrote exactly eight years ago.  The complete text is at the end of this entry.

After watching the never ending ennui of the Republican primaries and the solipsistic behavior of our new President-elect, how could anyone welcome his presence in the oval office?  And I’m referring to his behavior, not necessarily his policies, which, to be fair, remain to be seen.  We had hoped Obama would have been more effective, but how could he given the illegitimacy narrative so infused by the right and particularly by the new President himself?  All those years contending he was not born here, that he is a secret Muslim, ad infinitum.  It was their objective to block any and everything and for the most part they succeeded.  Still, the unemployment rate has dropped from 9.3% when he took office to below 5% and the Dow has tripled (although I am not naïve enough to singularly credit President Obama for these changes, but his leadership had an impact). Obama was not a “perfect” President, particularly in foreign affairs, but he was a decent, rational person.  Can we say the same, now? 

And now there are accusations of Trump being an “illegitimate” President because of Russia’s interference (not to mention Comey’s).  As there is no evidence that ballot boxes were hacked, he is not illegitimate in the legal sense of the word, but one can reasonably conclude the election was tainted.  One cannot prove an alternative reality but no doubt these events impacted the election results.

 

I had to laugh (or cry) at Trump’s assertion that “we have by far the highest IQ of any Cabinet ever assembled.”  You would therefore think that his pick for Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, would have a better excuse for his failure to reveal $100 million in assets and links to a tax haven company, than saying “as you all can appreciate, filling out these government forms is quite complicated.”  After all, isn’t he a genius like all the rest of the Goldman Sachs ringers appointed to the Cabinet?  Not that I have anything against Goldman Masters of the Universe other than when Trump was running he equated them with the “swamp” of the establishment, paying Hillary Clinton for speeches.

But I’ve now read Trump’s Inaugural address which, when read, sounds like many of his impromptu electioneering stump speeches, but pulled together into one dystopian narrative.  I’m ready to embrace a stronger economy, jobs for all, but we’ve been on that trajectory for years now.  Rather than rebutting some of the speech, point by point, NPR has done a good job with fact checking.  Not that facts matter anymore in this post-factual, reality TV world, but here is their take on it.

So, to us the perfect antidote to the malaise of fear and despair over the election was seeing La La Land while the new President was sworn in and fêted.  The movie is a sweeping reaffirmation of the power of music and the arts, and a declarative statement that the American film musical is back.  It’s wonderful that a new generation is ready to embrace this art.  There’s a lot to be said about living in fantasy when one goes to a movie theatre, but it’s another matter to live one’s real life in the real world with leadership in serious doubt.  I hope President Trump transcends all these concerns.

Nonetheless, what a difference eight years make…

Monday, January 19, 2009

Early in the Morning

It is early in the morning on the eve of President-elect Obama’s inauguration – in fact very early, another restless night.  When it is so early and still outside, sound travels and I can hear the CSX freight train in the distance, its deep-throated rumbling and horn warning the few cars out on the road at the numerous crossings nearby.

Perhaps subconsciously my sleeplessness on this, the celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday, relates to the incongruous dreamlike images of the bookends of my political consciousness, from the Little Rock desegregation crisis of 1957, the freedom marches that culminated with the march on Washington in 1963 and Martin Luther King’s historic "I Have a Dream" speech, to the inauguration tomorrow of our first Afro-American President.  All this breathtaking demonstration of profound social change in just my lifetime.

Much has now been said comparing Obama to Lincoln.  In my “open letter” to Obama that I published here last May I said “Your opponents have criticized your limited political experience, making it one of their main issues in attacking your candidacy.  Lincoln too was relatively inexperienced, something he made to work to his advantage.  Forge cooperation across the aisle in congress, creating your own ‘team of rivals’ as Doris Kearns Goodwin described his cabinet in her marvelous civil war history.”

The Lincoln comparison is now omnipresent in the press, not to mention his cabinet selections indeed being a team of rivals. But I am restless because of what faces this, the very administration I had hoped for: a crisis of values as much as it is an economic one.  The two are inextricably intertwined.

I am reading an unusual novel by one of my favorite authors, John Updike, Terrorist. One of the main characters, Jack Levy laments: “My grandfather thought capitalism was doomed, destined to get more and more oppressive until the proletariat stormed the barricades and set up the worker’ paradise. But that didn’t happen; the capitalists were too clever or the proletariat too dumb. To be on the safe side, they changed the label ‘capitalism’ to read ‘free enterprise,’ but it was still too much dog-eat-dog. Too many losers, and the winners winning too big. But if you don’t let the dogs fight it out, they’ll sleep all day in the kennel. The basic problem the way I see it is, society tries to be decent, and decency cuts no ice in the state of nature. No ice whatsoever. We should all go back to being hunter-gathers, with a hundred-percent employment rate, and a healthy amount of starvation.”

The winners in this economy were not only the capitalists, the real creators of jobs due to hard work and innovation, but the even bigger winners: the financial masters of the universe who learned to leverage financial instruments with the blessings of a government that nurtured the thievery of the public good through deregulation, ineptitude, and political amorality.  This gave rise to a whole generation of pseudo capitalists, people who “cashed in” on the system, bankers and brokers and “financial engineers” who dreamt up lethal structures based on leverage and then selling those instruments to an unsuspecting public, a public that entrusted the government to be vigilant so the likes of a Bernie Madoff could not prosper for untold years.  Until we revere the real innovators of capitalism, the entrepreneurs who actually create things, ideas, jobs, our financial system will continue to seize up.  That is the challenge for the Obama administration – a new economic morality.

Walt Whitman penned these words on the eve of another civil war in 1860:

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it would be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

It is still early in the morning as I finish this but the sun is rising and I’m going out for my morning walk.  Another freight train is rumbling in the distance.  I hear America singing.