Dark Ages Descending

This is for readers who regularly visit this blog, an explanation why my theatre reviews will cease, hopefully only for a while, and my writing in general will be curtailed.  I hope this is merely an “intermission.”  COVID-19 is the reason.  My wife and I have decided to begin immediate social distancing, and this includes the activities I’ll go as far to say defines our very existence.

Since writing a draft of this entry, everything is being appropriately cancelled anyhow. We love all things cultural, but these are extensive social activities and until this pandemic gets under control, we and presumably many of you, are staying in place, nearly hostages of our home.  It means not going to NYC, where my heart is, and the area our two sons and daughter-in-law live.  It looks almost certain we will miss celebrating our 50^th wedding anniversary there with family and attending the 50^th anniversary of Sondheim’s Company, one of my favorite shows.  It opened on our wedding day.  Our “kids” surprised us with tickets for that very day.  But compared to sacrifices other families will be forced to make, and some with serious economic consequences as well, it is something we accept.

Regional theatres will be cancelling their productions. They are particularly vulnerable and those of us who have subscriptions, and we have several, will be asked to donate them back to the theatre rather than asking for a refund. They need our support to survive and if you care about the future of the performing arts, it would be wise to donate and not refund.

More than three years ago, when I was writing more about the serious deficiencies in Donald Trump’s experience and psychological nature to handle the responsibilities of the Presidency, I said (Feb. 16, 2017) “I merely thought [his] behavior ‘crazy making’ but it may be more -- preparation for almost anything, totalitarian rule by the Plutocracy, religious wars, the demolition of the Republic, a nuclear winter, or all rolled up into the Trumpocalypse….Instinctively, even if we survive we all know this will not end well.  I hope I am very wrong, and that the next four years will be bigly amazing, devoid of losers, with tremendous, terrific winners, but I fear it’s not gonna happen, zero percent.”

As long as he was riding on the coattails of international agreements made over decades before, and had the rising economic prosperity that was already underway before he became President, my secret hope was we might stagger to the finish line of November 2020, no matter what he does. But he was ill prepared to handle a truly national Black Swan emergency. 

His failures relating to COVID-19 have again exposed him as a worthless incompetent, now with very serious consequences. His Oval Office speech was incoherent and lacked what we needed to hear: how the Federal government was going to provide massive support for our medical infrastructure, and the resources needed to ramp up immediate testing, more ICU beds and ventilators, protection for our medical personnel, as well as concrete guidelines for social distancing in the midst of this crisis.

As he said when this crisis was first gaining attention, he didn’t want that cruise ship off the west coast to dock because the COVID-19 “numbers would go up,” the implication that it makes HIM look bad.  If there ever was a case for impeachment it is this:  his failure to take this seriously, listen to the experts, and take actions to protect the American people, all of which is an egregious breach of his Presidential responsibilities.  So, instead of a “nuclear winter” we have a COVID-19 winter ahead.

The thrust of his speech was to build a figurative wall across the Atlantic that will somehow protect us from Europe. This virus is not only already here, but is probably many-fold pervasive than reported.  Ironically, while he was talking about keeping people out of the country from those areas (and even that was unclear), a JetBlue plane was landing from NYC at Palm Beach Airport (his and my airport too), with an elderly man who had just tested positive for COVID-19 and after feeling ill during the flight a medical emergency was declared.  After landing he and his wife were deplaned, while the other 100 passengers were delayed for 2-3 hours as I guess officials were wondering what to do.  Refuel it and make it circle as a cruise ship? In the absence of guidelines, they released all the passengers into the general population and advised them to contact local health officials if they felt ill.  We know symptoms may not manifest themselves for weeks, so all these passengers are now free to mingle throughout our area with no self quarantining or monitoring?   This is how such a virus spreads like wild fire.

Trump’s address did nothing to ameliorate this crisis.  He may even have exacerbated it as he mumbled meaningless measures from the teleprompter.  He likes to use the stock market as a barometer of his “winning.” How’s that going, Mr. President?

Meanwhile, back in the fall I had explained that my I was working on a second book which although derivative from my blog would be highly edited and focused.  This has been slowly and painstakingly moving forward although in the shadow of COVID-19 everything seems pretty meaningless.  But this is the culmination of a my work for decades, so I feel compelled to follow through, and now I will turn to it more full time.  Hopefully, by the time it is published, probably spring or summer, this crisis will be a fading memory (doubtful) and we will all be able to return to a semblance of our former BC (Before C-19) lives.

I have a final title, ISBN and a nearly final structure: Explaining It to Someone: Learning From the Arts ISBN: 978-0-578-65465-2.  It is much larger than my prior work.  Here is a tentative blurb:

“This is a companion work to “Waiting for Someone to Explain It: The Rise of Contempt and the Decline of Sense” (Lacunae Musing, 2019) which focused on the political and economic landscape at the beginning of the 21st century.  While I was writing about those issues, I was also writing about what I was personally experiencing in my cultural life, particularly the literature, music, and theatre of the same period.  If I was seeking “answers” in my previous work from politicians or economists, perhaps better clues can be found in the works of some of our most creative people.  I think of them as our greatest philosophers.

Unlike most other works of literary or theatrical examination, this one is clearly idiosyncratic.  The works covered are tied together by the unique thread of my own life and times.  Sometimes I wonder whether I chose these works, or whether they chose me. Hundreds of dramatic and literary works are reviewed, along with impressions of musical performances and composers, mostly focused on the genres of The Great American Songbook and Jazz.

Together, these give a unique view of our times as well as a much needed respite from the economic and political morass we find ourselves in at the beginning of the 21st century.”

So while my blog will be relatively quiet, this is what I’m working on.  I’m hoping to resume my theatre work when and if the coast is clear.  I also hope anyone who reads this stays safe and avoids this virus.

The Maltz Production of ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ is a Classic

Neil Simon might be the most underappreciated “serious” playwright for today’s audiences.  Sure, my generation knows and loved his plays, many of which have migrated to TV or film. 

Perhaps because they were so entertaining that he is not often thought of in the same pantheon of our “serious” playwrights such as Arthur Miller, but by sticking with his characters and extensively drawing on his own life, he created meaningful drama, capturing the way people think and talk and experienced angst and love during the 1960s to 1990s.  I think of the Brooklyn of Brighton Beach Memoirs in the 1930s and consider it as dramatically meaningful a place as Grover’s Corners in Our Town at the turn of the century.  Both examine a slice of life so real that by the end of the play, we know these people and the times in which they lived.  The themes are universal, but in the case of Simon’s work, he was able to magically weave laugh out loud humor into his serious dramas.

Time has come, now a couple years after his death at 91, to reevaluate Neil Simon’s works and polish them off with today’s theatrical sensibility, and this is exactly what the Maltz Theatre has done with Brighton Beach Memoirs, the first of his “Eugene Trilogy” his most autobiographical work, which was later followed by Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.

What makes a great playwright?  Simon, in an interview with NPR in 1996, said ‘when I was a young boy - 5 and 6 and 7 years old - my parents would take me to visit their relatives. And for some reason, I think they thought that I was invisible because they never talked to me….I could hear, but they were talking family matters - or gossip or whatever. And I just sat there. And once in a while, they'd give me a cookie or something. And I just listened. It stuck in my head. And what I managed to learn was the way they talked, the choice of words they made, what it was that they were interested in. And years later, without knowing it, when I started to write about these people, I was able to draw on my own memory from what happened in those days.”

That in essence is the foundation of this great play, set in the pre WW II Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn.  Because family dynamics are so universal, we see our own family life and foibles.  It is a coming of age play for Eugene, with all of the other characters experiencing some harsh lessons too.  Most poignantly portrayed, is America itself, painfully digging out of a depression, only to be facing the bleak beginning of WW II.

The Maltz production is directed with loving attention by award-winning South Florida director J. Barry Lewis.  He has mined every drop of significance out of Simon’s intentions and infused this play with laughs all along the way.  He is helped enormously by casting one of the most talented assembly of actors we’ve seen in a long time.

Anthony Zambito stars as Eugene

Anthony Zambito gives an award winning portrait of 15 year old Eugene Jerome, vacillating between his fantasies of pitching for the New York Yankees, somehow knowing his destiny as a writer, but meanwhile frequently being sent to the store by his mother for the smallest of items.  “Eugene!” is a constant refrain.  Zambito’s enthusiasm on stage is infectious, frequently breaking the fourth wall, but with a naturalness that makes you know this person and feel he is talking to you as a friend but from another era.  Naturally many in the audience actually remember those times or at least our parents talking about them.  Eugene’s struggle with the joys, vicissitudes and the wonders of puberty are amusingly portrayed by Zambito.

Margery Lowe and Laura Turnbull

Laura Turnbull is Eugene’s mother, Kate, the quintessential harried Jewish housewife.  She freely expresses her views, and prejudices, but it is all in the service of protecting the family she fiercely loves.  Turnbull’s performance is tender and heartfelt, but beneath the veneer, there is a steely anger that eventually erupts.  Her stellar performance is true to life every moment she is on stage. We sympathize with her trying to keep the household together on a shoe string budget, especially after taking in her widowed sister and her two children.  She is the enforcer, especially attempting to keep her two sons on the straight and narrow.  Her major worry is her husband, Jack, who works two jobs to keep his household afloat which also includes Eugene’s older brother, Stanley.

Anthony Zambito and Alex Walton

Kate’s sister, Blanche, is majestically performed by Margery Lowe.  She exhibits a touching uncertainty about her future, how she should raise her two teenage daughters, Laurie and Nora.  She is grateful to her sister, but hates having to be a dependent on an already burdened household.  She is inexperienced in dealing with her teenager’s theatre ambitions as well as with her own lonely life.  This role requires a consummate actress and Lowe delivers.

Daughters Nora and Laurie are played with conviction by Krystal Millie Valdes and Alexa Lasanta.  Valdes gives a performance that increases some of the tension in the play, by wanting to break away from the family to pursue a “Broadway career” and at the same time unconsciously feeding the fantasies of puberty crazed Eugene. 

Avi Hoffman and Alex Walton

Alex Walton as Stanley, Eugene’s older brother, delivers a strong performance as the son who, right after high school has gone into a soulless job to bring in that extra paycheck.  He wants his father’s approval, but is still growing up and making youthful mistakes.  He also acts as a surrogate father aiding in Eugene’s sexual education, with many laughs populating the truths which shock Eugene.

Avi Hoffman plays Jack Jerome, the heavily troubled father, clearly the patriarch of the family, but one with a sense of justice.  When big family decisions are necessary, the family turns to him.  Excepting his fate, he says "when you inherit a family, you inherit their problems." Hoffman is another extraordinary actor, with a long history of experience in the theatre.  It shows.  His portrayal is so natural and yet commanding. 

Krystal Millie Valdes and Margery Lowe

Scenic design is an integral part of making this production such a success.  Scenic designer Anne Mundell creates a three tiered stage, the lowest level representing the outside where some of the scenes take place, the next level the dining and living area, where most of the action transpires, particularly the comic dining room scenes (the liver and mashed potatoes scene is a riot, and rings with truth), and the upper level, where we see two bedrooms, one for the boys, Eugene and Stanley, and another for their cousins, Nora and Laurie.

Costume designer Tracy Dorman has created splendid period costumes, perfectly conjuring up the house dresses worn before the war and a few very colorful ones that brightened up the set.  Blanche’s dress, prior to a date, is a stand out.  Lighting design is by Kirk Bookman and the award-winning resident sound designer is Marty Met.

The Maltz production of Brighton Beach Memoires does justice to Neil Simon as one of the most important playwrights of 20^th century America. 

All photos, except for the program, by Zak Bennett