Archives for August 2007

I was saddened to learn of the death of Aura Estrada. A gifted writer, she was killed in a swimming accident on July 25 while on vacation in Mexico. A memorial website has been created, and it includes a collection of her writings as well as a remembrance, “Mi Aura,” written by her husband Francisco Goldman, which I urge you to read. Words Without Borders has also created a page in her memory that contains links to other tributes as well a couple of her essays available online.
I met Aura at a wedding last fall. She was the dear friend of dear friends and so I had heard a great deal about her before the meeting. She was exactly as she’d been described: Radiant and lovely, quickly intelligent and humorous. What I mostly remember about the wedding, though, is watching her and Frank dance; they themselves had been married only the year before, and their joy in each other was obvious. That weekend wasn’t enough time to get to know Aura well, only long enough to understand why her death is such a terrible loss to the many friends and family she leaves behind.

“‘Nothing makes sense.’
“‘Do you expect things to make sense?’ asked Oliver, in a spirit of sincere enquiry.
“‘Yes.’
“‘I’m not aware of any cure for that condition, Vice-Chancellor.'”
Alan Plater, Oliver’s Travels

Once again, this week’s Wall Street Journal drama column was filed from the road. It’s all about Shakespeare & Company, based in Lenox, Massachusetts:

In recent weeks I’ve been checking out regional productions of the plays of Tom Stoppard, whose “Coast of Utopia” trilogy dominated the New York theater scene this past season. Perhaps not coincidentally, Shakespeare & Company decided to have its first go at a Stoppard play this summer, and shrewdly picked one of his lesser-known works. “Rough Crossing” is Mr. Stoppard’s 1984 English-language performing version of “Play at the Castle,” a Ferenc Molnár comedy best known outside the author’s native Hungary in a 1926 adaptation called “The Play’s the Thing” that was written by none other than P.G. Wodehouse….
“Rough Crossing” is first and foremost a farce, meaning that it requires a combination of flawless timing and flamboyant physicality. Accordingly, Kevin G. Coleman, the director, has whipped his six-person cast into a veritable frenzy of laugh-getting. Not since the Peccadillo Theater Company’s Off Broadway revival of “Room Service” have I seen such manic energy expended to such potent effect….
The fun thing about repertory theater is that it allows you to see a troupe of gifted actors in more than one play–sometimes in a single day. Mr. Ingram, Jason Asprey and LeRoy McClain, all of whom made me laugh myself silly in “Rough Crossing,” changed costumes and left me spellbound a few hours later in Joe Penhall’s “Blue/Orange,” a three-hander that is as different from “Rough Crossing” as…well, as blue is from orange.
Mr. Penhall’s play, which was first seen in London in 2000 and has since been making the rounds of American regional theaters, is that rarest of rarities, a nominally political play that steers scrupulously clear of crude propagandizing….

No link, so kindly do the usual. (If you’re already a subscriber to the Online Journal, my column is here.)

In my “Sightings” column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, I reflect on the experience of seeing lots and lots and lots of Shakespeare productions, which I do in my capacity as the Journal‘s drama critic. What good does it do to see King Lear over and over again–and what, if anything, does it tell us about the reasons why postmodern audiences continue to embrace the Bard in spite of the fact that he’s soooo sixteenth-century?
To find out, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal and turn to the “Pursuits” section.

“Cellphones are wonderful, but they empower the obnoxious and amplify the ignorant.”
Peggy Noonan, Rich Man, Boor Man (Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2007)

Confidential to Phillip A. Evans Jr., vice president and chief communications officer for Turner Enterprises:
Now might be a good time to visit a certain house in Tallahassee. Once you’re there, rip the phone cord from the wall and disconnect the modem. You may be interrupted here by a man who is eager to continue “setting the record straight.” In a gentle, firm voice say to him, “Bob, why don’t you just sit still for a bit.”
Then make the man a nice big plate of scrambled eggs, some toast and a little Mandarin tea. For dessert, pour him out some whiskey. Let him choose what the two of you watch on TV.

In honor of new Poet Laureate Charles Simic, three prose poems from his book The World Doesn’t End (all untitled):

I was stolen by the gypsies. My parents stole me right back. Then the gypsies stole me again. This went on for some time. One minute I was in the caravan suckling the dark teat of my new mother, the next I sat at the long dining room table eating my breakfast with a silver spoon.
It was the first day of spring. One of my fathers was singing in the bathtub; the other one was painting a live sparrow the colors of a tropical bird.
* * *
We were so poor I had to take the place of the bait in the mousetrap. All alone in the cellar, I could hear them pacing upstairs, tossing and turning in their beds. “These are dark and evil days,” the mouse told me as he nibbled my ear. Years passed. My mother wore a cat-fur collar which she stroked until its sparks lit up the cellar.
* * *
I am the last Napoleonic soldier. It’s almost two hundred years later and I am still retreating from Moscow. The road is lined with white birch trees and the mud comes up to my knees. The one-eyed woman wants to sell me a chicken, and I don’t even have any clothes on.
The Germans are going one way; I am going the other. The Russians are going still another way and waving good-by. I have a ceremonial saber. I use it to cut my hair, which is four feet long.

This morning I hit the road for points north, mostly but not entirely to see shows in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine. I won’t be back until August 13. Any blogging I do between now and then will be strictly on the fly. During part of that time I’ll be totally inaccessible–I’m spending four days on Isle au Haut, an island off the coast of Maine that I last visited four years ago–and I’ll be on the move for much of the rest of it.
I’ll be leaving you in the more than capable hands of OGIC and CAAF, who have long since proven their ability to keep you busy and amused. Take it away, ladies!
Later.