Archives for May 2008

Bluetooth Headsets are a Singer’s Best Friend

The sight of people walking down the street yakking into cellphones via wireless headsets used to unnerve me. If it wasn’t bad enough that they were talking loudly and not paying attention to their immediate environment, the fact that they appeared to be talking to themselves owing to the absence of a phone clamped to their ears made their behavior seem all the more freakish.

So many people use wireless headsets these days that the “she’s not deranged, she’s just talking on her cellphone” phenomenon has become commonplace. And I’m happy to report that ever since I started taking singing lessons, I’ve found a way to turn the public’s gradual acceptance of the wireless racket to my advantage.

Whenever I walk down a street, I take the opportunity to practice my scales, arpeggios and songs. If I sing quietly enough, I just look like someone talking via a Bluetooth headset. A great way to squeeze in a bit of vocal practice without worrying that whether I look like a weirdo, it’s an ingenious ruse.

On another note, I’m skipping town for a conference in North Carolina on Sunday and may not have time to blog until I return to the office at the end of next week. Needless to say, I’ll be leaving my wireless headset at home.Â

Casting Against Type With the Aid of a Computer

When I first heard that Ray Winstone had been cast in the role of Beowulf in Robert Zemeckis’ digitally-enhanced movie adaptation of the famous Nordic legend, I was confused. I couldn’t quite see how the balding, middle-aged English actor with a pronounced paunch and history of playing thugs in terse British gangster flicks, could convincingly play the role of the sexy Scandinavian superhero.

It was only after watching the “special features” section about the making of the film on the DVD that I understood just how far the physical transformation of an actor can go in contemporary movie-making without entering the realm of cartoon animation one hundred percent.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the movie (which came out last year and starred, alongside Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover and Angelina Jolie) Zemeckis employs an unusal hybrid filming technique. The director and his team create a cross between a fully-animated film and a live-action feature by employing computers to capture and manipulate performances by real actors via the use of tiny electronic nodes attached to many parts of the actors’ bodies and faces.

The half-real, half-cartoon look gives the film an otherworldly aesthetic, which works rather well in the context of Beowulf’s larger-than-life story.

What’s interesting is to see the extent to which different actors are transformed on screen. While Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins are very recognizably Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins, Crispin Glover and John Malkovich look a lot less like their real selves. But even though Glover actually undergoes the greatest physical transformation of any actor in the movie in the role of the monster Grendel (his gnarled trunk is reminiscent of a Giacometti sculpture that’s been melted in an oven) Winstone’s Beowulf provides, for me personally, the biggest shock.

I think this is because of the unsettling relationship between the character’s appearance and the actor’s voice. The film mutates both Glover’s body and voice. But Winstone, though transformed from a pudgy middle-aged actor into a studly, 6-foot-five legend with flowing blond hair and a six-pack, retains his own purposeful-gritty voice. The combination is unnerving.

I like the idea of an actor getting to embody a character so vastly different to his usual physical “type” in a Hollywood movie. This happens rather more frequently on stage than it does on screen. For example, one of the best performances I ever saw in the theatre was the hefty actor Simon Russell-Beale take on the role of Ariel, the light-as-air spirit in a production of The Tempest directed by Sam Mendes at The Barbican in London about 15 years ago.

It’s a shame that the movie industry doesn’t take the risk of casting against type more often. It would be great, for instance, to see Zemeckis cast Winstone in a future production of Beowulf without feeling the need to enhance the actor digitally with the aid of a computer. I don’t suppose that’ll happen any time soon though.

F**k The Marquee

As a theatre critic, I count myself lucky that I don’t often find phrases lifted from my reviews and splattered across theatre marquees, press releases and ads for shows around town. This could of course be because my views are deemed unimportant by the producers. But I like to think that it’s because my prose makes for lousy advertising copy.

In any case, I was gratified to learn from Variety yesterday that the U.K. has passed legislation banning theatre producers from using out-of-context quotes from theatre critics’ reviews. According to the story, British theatres will no longer be able to use lines from reviews which, taken out of the context of the broader article, make potential audiences think a show is a triumph, when the review actually conveys a different opinion. Starting next Monday, misinforming the public in this way will become a criminal offense when the biggest overhaul of consumer protection law in the UK for decades takes effect. Producers could be fined up to Â£5,000 ($9,900) and/or face a maximum of two years in prison if prosecutors can prove that theatregoers were misled.

In the States, misquoting critics in ads is not as common a practice as it once was. But the tactic still appeals to some producers, especially to those looking for a way to fatten a turkey. Two notable examples culled from an old piece on the subject by ex-New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich are:

1. ”Marlowe,” a musical which ran ads claiming that one of Rich’s colleagues at the New York Times had deemed the work ”more fun than Laurel and Hardy.” What the critic had actually written, according to Rich, was that ”Marlowe” was a disaster akin to Laurel and Hardy sending a piano crashing down a flight of stairs.

2. The 1984 play ”Alone Together” posted ads boasting that the critics had ”compared” the play to such ”smash hit comedies” as ”Mary, Mary,” ”Never Too Late” and ”Any Wednesday.” Technically, this was accurate, said Rich, but the ads failed to note that the comparisons were all unflattering to ”Alone Together.” Apparently, the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs fined the show’s producers $800 for the misdeed.Â I’m not sure if actual laws exist in the US — like the ones about to take effect in the UK — banning the practice of misquoting. But it’s good to hear that at least local governments have been paying attention on occasion.

So why do I bring up this bit of theatrical arcana, when the modern world seems to be saying ‘who cares what professional critics think anyway now that we can get as many views about a show as we like from all over the Internet’? I bring it up because professional theatre criticism, at its best, is an artform and deserves more respect. And critics are fighting enough important battles on other fronts — e.g. for the health of the theatre scene, to persuade readers to try new things etc. — without having to deal with being made to look like cheerleaders, especially for productions they loathe.

In The Spirit Of Experimentation

A few months ago, I wrote a blog entry about being asked by local theatre company, Killing My Lobster, to participate in a fundraiser. The company’s plan, which sounded bizarre albeit intriguing to me, was to auction off “en evening at the theatre with Chloe Veltman.”

I didn’t think anyone would plunk down their hard-earned cash for the item, but much to my surprise and bafflement it started a bit of a bidding war.

As a result of the auction, I ended up spending a delightful evening with a few local theatre buffs who wanted to catch a show and thereafter, over cocktails, discuss its contents as well as what goes on in the mind of a theatre critic. All good clean fun. Or was it?

In the weeks that elapsed between blogging about being asked to undertake this task for KML and going out on the theatre date with the winners, I encountered some contentious responses to my involvement with the auction. Basically, people who got in touch with me in response to my blog post — mostly arts journalists — thought it strange and even unprincipled for a critic to participate in a fundraiser for a theatre company. I’m glad that those people raised their concerns as it forced me to think about why I believe going ahead with the auction was a good idea.

Here is my rationale for allowing myself to be auctioned off by KML:

1. Objectivity is a facade behind which media organizations hide. Maintaining an artificial distance from artists e.g. by refusing to have conversations with them, doesn’t necessarily make a critic’s view of their work less open to bias. In my experience, it is possible to be on speaking terms with an artist and still express an honest opinion about his or her work. This may sound hopelessly idealistic or self-deluded but I’ve been in this game for long enough now to have an inkling that it’s possible to operate in the real world and be true with one’s writing without paying lipservice to this untenable notion of “objectvity.” In my experience, artists value honesty and the critic’s task is to write first and foremost from a place deep in the gut — and only afterwards employ the services of the heart and head. Plus I don’t mind getting into a good fight over what I write. In general, I have found that worthwhile relationships with people I know in the arts world have remained cordial even when my responses to the work haven’t always been positive. And it’s important to bare in mind that even soured relationships don’t generally stay sour forever.

2. What are the arts for if they’re not about engendering discussion and exchanging ideas? If an individual or organization offers me a forum to get people talking about art, I cannot help but embrace it.

3. The critical process process shouldn’t be shrouded in mystery. We should take every opportunity we can to be open and talk about what we do. Critics’ livelihoods depend upon it — and, by extension, the health of the cultural conversation.

4. The Bay Area theatre community is a tight-knit entity. It’s ludicrous for a critic to think that he or she can maintain total distance from artists. We’re all in this together, I think. But, by the same token, this doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean that I see myself as a cheerleader. It’s my job to get ideas spinning in response to a work of art. Offering my opinion, positive, negative or mixed, is just part of a broader mandate. Like G B Shaw, I’m a gadfly; a necessary scourge.

5. Life’s too short not to try new concepts and see if they work. I went into this in the spirit of experimentation. So far so good, I think. We’ll see how things transpire in the future. As for my relationship with KML? Nothing changes. Why should it?

In Support Of Conversations Between Theatres and Audiences

Should audiences for performances be more vocal about how they feel about their experiences? Or should they keep their thoughts to themselves or the people with whom they attended the show?

I ask these questions in response to a conversation I had just a couple of hours ago with a few theatregoers following a trip to see a production of a new rock opera in Berkeley.Â I attended the theatre tonight with three articulate, brilliant people who see a lot of live performance and have strong opinions about what they experience on stage. One member of my party, a theatre producer with an eye for detail, mentioned that some of the lighting cues had distracted her from what was otherwise a terrific evening’s entertainment. “Some of the actors were standing there doing things in the dark,” she said. “I would have liked to see what they were doing.”

The point she raised was a good one. And it was the sort of thing that few people without practical experience in making theatre are able to articulate. But when I asked if she — or indeed any of the other people in my party — had ever taken it upon themselves to write to a director or producer to let them know their feelings about a show, I was met with a chorus of decisive no’s.

They explained to me that they don’t see it as their place to offer such feedback. Out of respect for the director’s vision and the production team’s hard work, they keep their thoughts to themselves. “I see it as my role to go to a play, pay attention, clap and leave,” my producer friend said.

Somehow, this seems all wrong to me. What is theatre if it isn’t a conversation between the stage and the stalls? I don’t think audiences should shy away from offering their thoughts, especially if those thoughts are well-thought-out, succinctly articulated and come from the heart. Audiences shouldn’t feel that the only place to give an opinion or ask a question about a production is during sanctioned forums like post-show talkback sessions with playwrights, directors and casts. These sessions are generally a waste of time in my opinion as they tend to breed nothing but sychophantic praise. Very few people are willing to stick their necks out and offer constructive criticism in public.

I’m not suggesting that a director should change his or her vision in response to what one audience member’s misgivings about the lighting design. And I think that theatre makers always have a right to ignore audience comments if they wish.

But the channels of communication should be open to the extent that members of the public should feel empowered to air their views. And under the best circumtances, artists should take the time to respond to the comments, if possible on an individual basis. Unlike fixed artforms such as movies, music recordings and oil paintings, live performances are mutable things. If enough audience members are bothered by the fact that they can’t see the actors in particular scenes and these shadowy moments can’t be justified by the overall aesthetic or theme of the production, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a case to be made for incorporating the feedback to make a better show before the end of the run.

The theatre never used to be a polite artform. Audiences in Shakespeare’s day threw rotten vegetables at actors if they didn’t like what was happening on stage, after all. Down with politess, I say, and up with vocal audiences.

On Wearing A Custard Yellow Tie In The White House

“Uh Oh” I thought to myself as Dana Gioia stepped on stage at The Merchants Exchange in San Francisco yesterday evening: The National Endowment for the Arts Chairman and former poet laureate was wearing a custard yellow knitted tie with a square end.

Turns out the tie was more than a fashion faux-pas. Startling in its guarish originality against the backdrop of a dullish tweed jacket, nothingy shirt and sensible slacks, it served as a metaphor for Gioia’s current situation as, in his owns words, “the chairman of an arts agency in a country that isn’t sure that it wants one.”

Inspite of myself, I found myself very much taken in by Gioia’s talk about “why art matters.” Like his poetry, Gioia’s approach to public speaking is refreshingly old-fashioned. He quotes liberally from literature to undersore his points. Shakespeare, Kafka and Tennyson, among others, all appeared during his deep-feeling half-hour lecture. He speaks without notes in a mellifluous voice. There’s earnestness in his words but he’s also very casual in his delivery, wanderning about the stage as he does, and stopping every now and again to loaf against a nearby podium.

What’s more, he’s passionate about his subject matter. Gioia didn’t say anything particularly revolutionary. But what he said needs to be restated time and time again so that people who don’t understand the value of art to society start to get it, and to remind even the most stalwart arts fans why they do what they do.

Gioia’s discussion about truth and beauty was like something Robin Williams’ character would have intoned in Peter Weir’s movie Dead Poets’ Society. I felt like an impressionable teen listening to him speak. Gioia’s desire to reconnect people with their culture and enable them to understand that art is an essential part of human life rather than a pretty luxury for those who can afford made a lot of sense.

But, oh, how I pity him! How often must his idealistic words fall on deaf ears in the White House? “Oh look,” the bureaucrats must say as they pass him in the corridor. “There goes the poet in the custard yellow tie.”

A Strange Start To An Interview

The funny thing about waiting for a few weeks before getting around to transcribing an interview from voice recorder to page, is that it’s easy to forget what the conversation with the subject was like in the first place.

I interviewed Mike Leigh in mid-April for a piece I am writing about the brilliant British film director for The Believer Magazine. For one reason or another, I’ve only just got around to listening to the recording I made of our morning together. It was quite a lively interview. The first few minutes in particular got things off to a rollicking start.

It all began with Mr. Leigh, who was wearing a baggy beige suit, exclaiming that his braces (that’s “suspenders” to all you Americans out there) had come undone.

“There are two kinds of men in the world,” I said, trying to be suave as we walked into the interview room together and the director fiddled with his trousersÂ (or “pants” if you’re tuning in from the U.S.) “The ones who wear belts and the ones who wear braces.”

Leigh said, “I wear both.”

“I know how it feels to lose your braces,” I continued, clearly on a roll. “Women are always worrying about their breasts falling out of their strapless dresses.”

Leigh then launched into a bizarre little story which went like this:

“One day a waiter I know at The Savoy Hotel was serving a woman when one of her tits suddenly fell out of her dress. So he very discretely popped it back in again with a spoon. When he was done, he went back to the kitchen where he was greeted by the head waiter. “I saw what you did. Bravo,” said the head waiter to his subordinate. “But remember this: Here at The Savoy we use warm spoons.”

On the recording, there was a barely perceptible moment of silence while my mind raced to process the anecdote. Then I started laughing perhaps a little too hard. “That’s a good story,” I said. My enthusiasm evidently knew no bounds.

“It’s what we call a joke,” replied Leigh, dryly, dippping his beard into a cup of tea.

Bad Is Good

I wonder if people have always been fascinated with bad art or whether it’s elevation to rockstar status is a symptom of our own particular post-ironic times?

My question is prompted by recent articles in the media on both sides of the Atlantic about the Scottish weaver-turned-poet, William MacGonagall.

“MacGonagall has long been celebrated as Britain’s worst poet, inspiring satirical tributes to his doggerel awfulness from Spike Milligan, Monty Python and even the Muppets,” writes Esther Addley in The Guardian.

Now, it seems that the poet who was once pelted with fruit during a reading and who his own appreciation society call “without talent”, is in demand. A collection of MacGonagall’s poems, on A3 newspaper-style leaflets the poet is believed to have printed, was auctioned yesterday at an Edinburgh saleroom for Â£6,600 (about $13,000).

This is hardly a vast amount of money in manuscript auction terms when you consider that J K Rowling’s limited edition handwritten The Tales of Beedle Bard sold for $3.98 million in 2007 and an original copy of the Magna Carta sold for $21.3 million. But it’s still quite a sum for the work of an artist who is universally pilloried.

MacGonagall’s cultural notoriety today isn’t by any means an anomaly. For some reason, human beings love bad art. You only have to look at the sold-out performances of such music ensembles as the UK’s Really Terrible Orchestra and the Bay Area’s Porn Orchestra (that performs its ear-splitting works to projections of equally inept old porn movies — yay! two bad artforms for the price of one!) not to mention the cult status of the films of Ed Wood to see just how passionate people can be about bad art.

Awful music, films, paintings etc inspire us because they make art feel less remote and high falutin’. Bad art puts artists on the same playing field as everyone else. And that seems to be comforting, in a perverse kind of way, to many people.

But I’m not sure how I feel about the hype surrounding mediocrity. I must admit that there’s a special place in my heart for MacGonagall’s terrible “Bridge of Tay” ode, mostly because my father used to recite it at the top of his voice in a hammy Scots accent every now and again when I was a kid.

But while reciting bad poetry is good for the soul in the sense that it makes us giggle, it’s not great for culture as a whole. If we continue to make a big fuss of bad artists, then discerning quality from crap might become quite challenging for many people.The war against mediocrity must continue on all fronts.

Good Stage Gore

In general, the theatre doesn’t do blood well. It’s somehow pretty hard for live audiences to suspend their disbelief at the sight of a guy sticking a retractable plastic knife or blunt-tipped sword into the gap between an adversary’s left side and his arm and watching a load of radioactive-looking ketchup spurt out from the fake wound. The cinema does gore so much more believably.

That’s why the most engrossing plays and compelling productions so often use language to describe bloody scenes of violence and death or use sound and or/visuals in an artful way to convey grizzly actions. The Greeks understood this and kept fratricide, matricide and all other kinds of -cide in the wings, leaving the horror to our imaginations.

Every now and again, though, I come across a theatre production which manages to cause the bile to rise in our throats by finding a way to make gore work on stage. But even when these effects succeed, more often than not, they make us laugh as much as they shock us. This is frequently the case with the sheep’s eyeballs and severed rubber heads used by San Francisco’s grand guignol company, Thrillpeddlers.

At the weekend, however, I caught a production of Tracy Letts’ Bug at San Francisco Playhouse which not only managed to put blood center stage, but also made it truly stomach-churning.

The drama pretty much reads like a knock off of every classic thriller in the movie cannon from The Fly to Psycho. The play tells the story of Agnes, a down-and-out junkie alcaholic who takes in a tortured young man Peter, who says he’s on the run from the military. The two of them spend their days holed up in a seedy midwestern motel room. In between trying to keep Agnes’ abusive ex-husband at bay, the two of them develop a crazy phobia about tiny insects invading their bodies.

When Gabriel Marin as Peter suddenly takes off his shirt to reveal a chest lacerated with wounds like he’s some kind of latterday St Sebastian, responses from the audience range from sharp intakes of breath to uncomfortable laughter to cries. It’s quite an effect. Marin’s completely off-kielter (without going over the top) behavior makes us believe that he’s suffering from some terrible inner torment. The wounds are a manifestation of the turmoil he’s experiencing inside. It’s truly frightening.

It’s so rare to see blood done well on stage. Now at least I know it’s not impossible. This clever marriage of taut writing, compelling stage makeup and brilliant acting may is very hard to achieve though. As the saying goes, kids: don’t try this at home.

Chanticleer Embarks Upon The Mission Road

Some pilgrimages must be made. I spent Thursday night three and a half hours down the California coast in San Luis Obispo listening to Chanticleer, the renowned San Francisco-based a capella male vocal ensemble, perform music from the Mission period.

Over the next couple of weeks, the Grammy-winning group is undertaking a tour of eight of the 21 missions on the California coast’s legendary Camino Real, including two concerts in San Francisco’s Mission Dolores, where it made its inaugural public appearance in 1978. I’ll be witnessing the first of those concerts tomorrow evening. If it’s as mesmerizing as the San Luis Obispo soiree, then I’m in for a treat.

Hearing the group perform songs by such 18th century west coast musical luminaries as Juan Bautisto Sancho and Manuel de Sumaya in the very buildings in which this music was originally played is what makes the concerts truly special. Chanticleer’s clarity of tone and gentle expressionism probably has something to do with the magic too.

For the story behind the tour, check out my article in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.

Bleached Whales

Last weekend, American conceptual artist Spencer Tunick photographed around 1,800 naked people lying prostrate on the bleachers at the Viennese soccer stadium that will host the Euro 2008 soccer final on June 29.

Tunick’s body of work comprises many projects involving large numbers of naked people posing together in unlikely surroundings. One of the artist’s latest endeavors took place on a glacier in Switzerland, where 600 people stripped off in temperatures of about 10 Celsius (50 F) last August. His biggest project to date involved 18,000 people in Mexico City last year. In the coming months, he’ll be shooting hundreds of nudes in Ireland. So much for Catholic schoolgirl modesty.

It’s remarkable that so many people flock to participate in Tunick’s massive projects when you consider the uncompromising demands he makes on his “models.” Yet people must find the process of stripping off en masse so wonderfully life-affirming, communal-spirited and plain bonkers that they leap in. I know I would if the artist ever came to the Bay Area to undertake a project. Seems like that won’t be happening anytime soon though. According to a Reuters story about the artist’s soccer stadium session the other day, Tunick has trouble persuading U.S. authorities to go along with his plans for photo shoots (Down with Puritans.) As a result, he works much more frequently in other parts of the world than over here. Though, it seems to me that San Francisco would be them perfect place for a Tunick installation. The city is renowned for its nude bicycle brigade and naked fun run competitors. It would be great to see him bring thousands of people together for a shoot on Golden Gate Bridge.

Until that day arrives, I guess I’ll have to make do with his photographs. There’s something so arresting about the end-product of Tunick’s work — all those frail, flushed bodies facing off against the elements; against something much bigger than themselves.

Josh Kornbluth’s New Blog

Somehow inbetween launching a production company, performing his latest monologue Citizen Josh all over the country, planning a new TV/Internet program and starting work on his next solo show, Josh Kornbluth has managed to find the time to revamp his website and join the blogosphere.

I don’t know how the man does it.

Most people know the Bay Area-based performer for his politically-charged solo shows and the Sony Pictures Classics feature Haiku Tunnel which caused a stir at The Sundance Festival in 2001. But beyond all these worthy achievements, Kornbluth will always have a special place in my heart for his enthusiastic and quite lovely oboe playing. I had the pleasure of playing klezmer oboe duets with him a few months ago on the opening night of Citizen Josh at Berkley Repertory Theatre. It’s not an experience I’ll forget in a hurry.

At any rate, a warm welcome to a fellow blogger.