Covid Blues

 

I was hoping my next entry would be about the joys and details of the 2024 Jazz Cruise.  Until….

 

Up until this point, Ann and I had avoided coming down with Covid.  Mostly everyone we know has had the virus in spite of, like us, having the full arsenal of seven shots.  Feeling invincible, we boldly resumed our normal social lives, wearing no masks, although we were about to go on the one cruise we treasure above all, The Jazz Cruise. We went to the theater several times before departure and Ann participated in not one but two Mah Jongg tournaments.  It was inevitable I suppose but the timing couldn’t have been worse, Ann coming down with Covid exactly one week before our departure. 

 

We had a devil of a time getting Paxlovid which was unavailable at the nearest two drug stores and then getting a voucher (for Medicare recipients) from Pfizer to cover the new $1,300 price tag on the prescription.  So within two days she was on medication but still it was a bad bout, the worst being three days of an extremely painful sore throat.  Yet, naively we still waited to pull the trigger on canceling the cruise, hoping, hoping, but two days before departure we had to throw in the towel.  Another experience lost to this pandemic, although luckily, never feeling her life was in danger.

 

Our first Jazz Cruise was right before Covid hit in 2020.  One wasn’t even planned for 2021 as we were all in the nadir of the pandemic. We booked the 2022 cruise as it looked feasible with certain precautions, but then the CDC suddenly advised against cruises because of a new Covid surge at the time. We patiently, no anxiously, awaited 2023 and by then it was considered safe and we had the time of our lives.

So we were looking forward to this year’s festivities until Covid came to visit.  Not living in NYC any longer, and now being only an infrequent visitor, the Jazz Cruise is our only opportunity to see some of our favorite jazz performers live.  My other entries in the links above mention the names of some of the jazz artists we closely follow.  Most are on the present cruise, with the exception of Bill Charlap (he will be on the 2025 Cruise which we have already booked).

 

Still another experience missed, three years out of five, not a very good grade, 40%.  At our age, how many more opportunities?  Besides not seeing family, Covid also canceled our 50^th wedding anniversary, one we expected to celebrate, possibly, in the presence of the great man himself, Stephen Sondheim.

 

Being marooned at home again, gave me more time for my own piano.  Bill Mays, a great jazz pianist who I met a few months ago when I was playing for a Christmas party (talk about being outside one’s comfort zone, playing with one of the greats listening), was nice enough to send me some lead sheets of his music and one by Johnny Mandel who he worked with and we mutually admire although he recently passed.  I thought I had most of Mandel’s music but I did not have the one he sent, “The Shining Sea,” such a plaintive, Mandel signature song.  I love it and will eventually try to record it.

 

Mays’ own “Gemma’s Eyes” is challenging for me, both rhythmically and harmonically and I’ve been practicing it.  I like challenges such as that as it helps one keep moving forward.

 

He also sent me Quincy Jones’ “Pawnbroker,” again a song I had never heard before, the theme from the film of the same title, which more easily fits into in my playing style and is a haunting melody.  From our brief encounter, Mays certainly put his finger on what I would respond to and I’m grateful to him, especially this week as I feel cut loose in a space we had reserved for non-stop jazz. 

 

This leads me another musical observation, a very unlikely one for me.  I just “discovered” Taylor Swift.  I’m not sure what led me to her other than having this void of a week of great music lost.   Whenever I’ve seen her it’s been in the context of her world tour concert, with music blasting, back up bands, strobe lights pulsating, hoards of screaming fans, and, well, essentially the way popular music is presented now, everything geared to overwhelm the senses (“deadening” might be a better word).  Maybe that’s what we need in this chaotic world but I’ve always avoided that scene.  But I’ve also seen her briefly televised at Kansas City football games, cheering on her man, the outstanding tight end, Travis Kelce.  Except for her exclusive seats in the owner’s suite, she seems like just another football fan.

 

As I never really heard her sing, I tried to find her in a more intimate setting without all the over the top fireworks of her concerts and I came across Taylor Swift’s NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert.  It is 28 minutes of her performing four of her well-known (well, not to me) songs "The Man", "Lover", "Death by a Thousand Cuts" and "All Too Well" at the Tiny Desk, indeed an intimate setting where it’s just her and the guitar or piano and a handful, maybe a hundred, standing, adoring fans.  It was so enjoyable to hear her singing solo. 

 

 

It's as if Paul Simon was reincarnated more than 50 plus years after I first heard him.  There are eerie comparisons.   I can see the attraction of today's youth to what she has to say.  (I first heard Paul Simon -- who lived in my neighborhood --in 1957 when he performed “Hey Schoolgirl” with his partner Art Garfunkel. They were then known as “Tom and Jerry,” that recording making it to the national charts at the time.)

 

Swift is a cross over country and folk, a little rock and a lot of pop.  Yet every generation has its troubadour (or in this case a “trobairitz” -- in my generation there were Carole King and Joan Baez).  My generation also had Bob Dylan as our troubadour, singing his songs of despair and political activism.  But most of all, Paul Simon is more relevant to Swift’s music, with his songs of lost love, sadness, nostalgia and of course, loss in general (“hello darkness my old friend”  “and we walked off to look for America”).  When I was going through my divorce in the 1960s, his songs spoke directly to me the way Taylor Swift’s speak to her generation now magnified by social media.

 

Just listen to her sing “All Too Well.” I was touched by her ability to evoke a certain kind of emotion like Paul Simon did with a guitar (or in this NPR concert, her playing the chords on the piano as she sang).  It’s a song about autumn and lost love, a sense of the same emotion in Simon’s “Leaves That Are Green” (albeit, different rhythm, styles, one contemporary and the other vintage 1960’s).

  

In “All Too Well” she writes about a boy who was her love.  She sings:

 

Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place

And I can picture it after all these days

And I know it's long gone and that magic's not here no more

And I might be okay but I'm not fine at all

 

Some of the lyrics from Simon’s “Leaves That Are Green” could be that boy answering:

 

Once my heart was filled with the love of a girl

I held her close, but she faded in the night

Like a poem I meant to write

And the leaves that are green turn to brown

And they wither with the wind

And they crumble in your hand

 

She's the real deal and this intimate NPR setting helped me to fully understand her popularity.   Maybe in these Covid infested times I’ll become a Swifty!  I certainly respect her values, encouraging her generation to vote.  So many of those in their 20s and even 30s haven’t the slightest interest in voting, not caring (or even being conscious of) that my generation is handing off a world where the existential threats are far greater than when I was of that generation.  Shame on my generation, but shame on them to eschew the only possible route to change.  Maybe she will continue to be a force to set that right.

 

So we beat on.

 

An Ovation for the 2024 Perlberg Festival of New Plays at Palm Beach Dramaworks

 

 

It was nearly ten years ago that Palm Beach Dramaworks’ Producing Artistic Director, Bill Hayes, implemented their visionary Dramaworkshop, dedicated to providing resources and support for playwrights to develop scripts.  The logic was if not-for-profit theatres don’t do it, who will?  Broadway no longer takes such chances.  It was a bold move as regional theatres typically suffer under some economic adversity and Dramaworks had just settled into their new theatre on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach.

 

Then came Covid, yet another strong headwind.  Fortunately, PBD had the financial reserves to wait out the storm, and has come back stronger than ever and, with an endowment gift from Diane and Mark Perlberg, their commitment to new plays has been secured for years to come.  The Dramaworkshop is under direction of PBD’s Bruce Linser, a gifted actor and director, and his enthusiasm for the program is infectious.  He and his committee sift through hundreds of submissions each year, winnow them down to five, workshop them, and those become dramatic readings as part of the renamed Perlberg Festival of New Plays.

 

It is hoped that one or two of the plays presented in the festival will make it to the main stage to join the classic plays presented each season.  Last month’s production of the highly acclaimed The Messenger by Jenny Connell Davis emerged from last year’s festival.  2024’s festival just successfully concluded and because of the Perlbergs’ gift the five new plays were also prefaced by interviews with two theatre luminaries, actor Estelle Parsons and playwright Mark St. Germain.  

Parsons appeared at PBD in My Old Lady (2014) and has originated numerous roles in new plays over her decades-long career.  PBD helped develop St. Germain’s script for Freud’s Last Session and produced its Southeastern premiere (2011).  A feature film based on the play, starring Anthony Hopkins, was recently released.

 

Parsons was interviewed by Bill Hayes on Jan 3, a great kick off to the festival.  They are not only theatre colleagues, but are now old friends and it was amusing to watch how Parsons, a veteran of six decades in the theatre, now 96 years old but feisty, sharp, and a take charge kind of person, just go her way with the interview, while Hayes was left holding his interview outline (although he did manage to hit his high points).  It was a friendly, even loving, give and take.  Parsons is also a director and when asked the question of what is the main role of the director, it was “to find the truth.”  Hopefully the video that was being taken of the interview will be made available in the future.  It was a “don’t miss” beginning to the festival and Parsons attended each and every performance in the ensuing days.

 

The following day Hayes interviewed Mark St. Germain.  Again, both have a long association.  This time, Hayes was on script and like his plays, St. Germain was thoughtful and passionate about ideas.  Many of his plays are a form of historical fiction and focus on single characters, or small casts.  They are intimate and cerebral.  He talked to an extent about bringing his material to film but with some regret because of the loss of control.  It was a memorable interview and St. Germain was also in attendance for all the new plays that followed.

 

So the first two days were these landmark interviews, then five new plays in three days (brief descriptions provided by PBD):

 

PROXIMITY

by Harrison David Rivers 

Newly divorced and sheltering at home with her two children at the height of the pandemic, Ezra hasn't been touched by another adult in eight months. At a virtual PTA meeting, she is introduced to the charismatic Irie, another single parent, and their immediate attraction causes Ezra to reconsider the limits of her Covid bubble.

 

STOCKADE

by Andrew Rosendorf  

Five years after the end of WWII, a group of gay soldiers gathers for a reunion on Fire Island. They are met by an outsider with a surprise that will cause them to question whether history is best left in the past. At a time when “security risk” is government code for “homosexual,” it will take courage for them to step out of the shadows and confront their present and future.

 

COLOR BLIND

by Oren Safdie   

In 2009, a jury was tasked with selecting an architect to design the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. This play is a fictionalized account of how that panel of diverse people and ideas may have come together – or been pulled apart – in making its decision, and in so doing, challenges the audience to consider the state of our current civil discord.

 

EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL HAPPENS AT NIGHT

by Ted Malawer  

Ezra is a successful children’s book writer. Nancy is his longtime editor. They are always on the same page, until someone new threatens to disrupt their friendship and influence Ezra’s next book. Set in 1980s Manhattan, this play explores the legacy of an artist, the meaning of intimacy, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

 

LITTLE ROW BOAT

by Kirsten Greenidge  

When 14-year-old Sally Hemings travels to Paris as nursemaid to her half-sister’s young daughter, the world appears to have opened much wider than Thomas Jefferson’s post-revolutionary Virginia plantation on which she was born. It is not until Sally’s brother James, also in France as he trains to be a chef de cuisine, points out the peculiarities of their circumstances that Sally begins to question the kindnesses their “master” has extended to them.

 

These are rehearsed presentations by professional actors, most Actors Equity members.  Although they have a podium for their scripts, there is no scenery, special lighting, movement, all the elements endemic to theatre.  Yet, the actors are emotive and draw the audience into the production; we, in our imagination, supply the rest.  While we are watching the playwrights’ work, they are watching the audience as these readings provide valuable clues as to what further developmental work might be needed, clarity, cutting, or maybe more humor, or laughter at the wrong spot?  After the play, there is a Q&A skillfully managed by Linser, encouraging the audience to give their true reactions. 

 

No doubt one of these, at least, will appear on a fully developed main stage production in the future.  I would hate to be on the “jury” to make those decisions as all have merit and as their descriptions indicate a special relevancy to our present times.  The arts are not a competition and to make such decisions more difficult is the fact that a reading is threadbare of staging.

 

Each of the plays presented touched me in some way but I’ll mention a few; and these are very personal observations, unique to my own theatre experiences and background.  So no intended judgment of the ones I fail to mention.

 

Color Blind reminded me in some ways of Tracey Letts’ The Minutes.  Although the latter is about a bickering City Council meeting turning into something very ugly about the town secret, Oren Safdie’s Color Blind uses a similar technique, projecting architectural designs as kind of Rorschach test for bringing out societal issues and the personalities of the jury.

 

Because I have a background in publishing, the relationship between editor and author as portrayed in Everything Beautiful Happens at Night rang true, playwright Ted Malawer exploring larger themes of loneliness, shame, and love.  That reading had two of South Florida’s premier actors, Tom Wahl and Laura Turnbull, which helped make it especially touching.

 

Although entitled “Little” Row Boat, it made a big impression on me because it was so challenging, with lots of symbolism and dramatic contrivances that could be highly effective in a fully realized stage production.  In a narrow sense the story is about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but the macrocosm is about slavery leaving an indelible imprint on our nation.  I can imagine if Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia was workshopped, there would have been similar difficulties (in my mind, Kirsten Greenidge’s Little Row Boat has a similar feeling and complexity).  It is certainly theatre to think about.

 

After the festival there was a Champagne toast to all who made the festival possible.  The collective energy that goes into staging this festival is monumental by very talented people.  Hopefully, it’s success represents an emphatic statement that theatre is back!  And maybe some mighty oaks will grow from these readings.

 

 

“Ghost of the Future, I fear you more than any spectre I have seen”

 

I borrow from Dickens to express a foreboding, in particular one that will culminate with this year’s Presidential election.

 

The December 5, 2023 New York Times carried a front-page article, “Second Term Could Unleash Darker Trump.”  I fired off a brief letter to the Editor to add my opinion and was surprised it was immediately published online and then in print under the rubric “Trump Unbound: An Autocrat in Waiting?”

 

To the Editor:

 

A second Trump presidency not only would be more radical, but also seems inevitable. Donald Trump and his handlers have learned to exploit every weakness in our democratic system of government.

 

Our founders must have assumed that those who gravitate to government service would essentially be people of good faith, and the rotten apples would be winnowed by our system of checks and balances. But here we are less than a year away from the election, and while Mr. Trump’s transgressions have drawn 91 criminal charges, there has been no justice yet.

 

He has proved to have a serpentine instinct to capitalize on weak links ranging from the Electoral College to our justice system, gathering strength every time he flouts the rule of law.

 

Perhaps the Times published my laconic letter as it encapsulates a sad truth: our form of government was never designed for the unthinkable. The greatest existential threat to us is, well, us. 

 

It’s simplistic to blame Trump for all of this, but he taps into popular discontent like none other before.  His brand of anti-intellectualism and affinity for reality TV and social media are in perfect sync with his minions.  Those "attributes," and his ability to exploit the weakness of our justice system, are a perfect storm for 2024.

 

Since I wrote that letter there have been further key developments, with certain States trying to keep him off the primary ballots, citing the 14^th amendment (lots of luck with that) and SCOTUS rebuffing special counsel Jack Smith’s request for an expedited ruling on whether Trump can claim presidential immunity from prosecution for crimes “allegedly” committed on January 6.

 

We all saw it -- suggested, aided and abetted by him --  and here it is three years later!  It should not be a presidential immunity issue but one of special presidential culpability.

 

A handful of States will again determine the 2024 Presidential election and Democrats are still making arguments about what has been accomplished, as if that reality will decide the forthcoming election.  President Biden, who has done what he intended, deserves our gratitude, should now be thinking of the greater good, and recognize his age and undeserved lack of popularity should be major factors in deciding whether he should run.  He could be the first incumbent president to substantially win the popular vote but lose the election by a few Electoral College votes (yet another seriously flawed factor in our Democratic system). 

 

Can democracy survive while Justice is further postponed?  Or will Justice be foregone by fiat in 2024?

 

This is not my first New Year’s message of cheer.  It is remarkable to read the New Years’ entries from 2021 and 2022 while we were all mostly COVID bound. It’s like mirrors in mirrors in mirrors: 

 

Saturday, January 9, 2021

The Revoltingly Horrid Year Continues….

 

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

A Ground Hog Day New Year

 

And so, with a little editing, as Tiny Tim observed, “God HELP Us, Every One!”