About Last Night

“It has always been hard for me to think of extraordinarily handsome people ever being very intimate with one another.”

Gordon Forbes, Goodbye to Some

“I have come to the resolution never to write for the sake of writing, or making a poem, but from running over with any little knowledge and experience which many years of reflection may perhaps give me–otherwise I will be dumb. What Imagination I have I shall enjoy, and greatly, for I have experienced the satisfaction of having great conceptions without the toil of sonnetteering. I will not spoil my love of gloom by writing an ode to darkness; and with respect to my livelihood I will not write for it, for I will not mix with that most vulgar of all crowds the literary. Such things I ratify by looking upon myself, and trying myself at lifting mental weights, as it were. I am three and twenty with little knowledge and middling intellect. It is true that in the height of enthusiasm I have been cheated into some fine passages, but that is nothing.”

John Keats, letter to B.R. Haydon, March 8, 1819

“In a rain forest in Borneo the realities are so different. The popular cause is simply life and the reigning prejudice is death. Words are dust and without them we shall probably all find out what kind of men we are.”

Gordon Forbes, Goodbye to Some

So the Rachel Ries show Friday night was a lot of fun, though far shorter than I would have liked. There were highlights: despite forgetting to bring along her banjo, Ries soldiered on and performed on guitar one of my favorite of her songs, a simple but brilliant little song-poem about falling in love with a place. That place would be Valentine, NE, which sits on the Nebraska map like a trap–like an engraved invitation for someone to write a bad earnest or bad ironic song about it. Thank goodness, then, that in this case a greatly gifted songwriter took the bait. To wit:

Valentine, NE


Hey I found my home last night

On my way through Valentine.

Nebraska said, hey how you been,

Cause you’ve been gone for so long.

Hey how you been my sweet valentine?


Well, I’ve been in the concrete palace

Singing for rocks and dimes.

Wondering just how long I’d last

Living in the city on fire.

Hey how you been my sweet Valentine?


There’s a man down Chicago way

Thinking I’ll be home by suppertime.

But he’s no prairie, ain’t got no sky.

So goodbye my old valentine.


Hey I found my home last night

On my way through Valentine.

Nebraska said, hey how you been,

you’ve been gone for so long.

Hey how you been my sweet Valentine?

I love that the personification of the place in the first verse (“Nebraska said, hey how you been”) is mirrored in the third verse by the (unflattering) comparison of a person to a place. I love that she leaves this metaphor deliberately rough, likening apples to oranges without apology. And the understated way she juxtaposes valentine with Valentine in trading the man for the place.

But this song is better heard than read. You can listen to some of it at Amazon.

I’m burned out–too much travel, too much writing, too many shows. On Tuesday I leave for Washington, D.C., to spend three days in conference with the other members of the National Council on the Arts, and once I get back I’ll be seeing four plays in a row.

All this suggests that it’s time for a break from blogging. I’ll post the daily almanac entry, Thursday’s theater guide, and Friday’s Wall Street Journal drama column and “Sightings” teasers, but otherwise I’m taking next week off. Our Girl will post if she feels like it. If not, not.

Later.

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, I report on two of the shows I saw last weekend in Portland and Seattle, Portland Center Stage’s West Side Story and Intiman Theatre’s Native Son:

Even for a solidly established regional company like Portland Center Stage, “West Side Story” is a stretch, and I expected to see an ambitious but not wholly successful production about which I’d have felt honor-bound to write a tactful, encouraging review. Well, guess what? This “West Side Story” needs no apologies of any kind. Among other things, it’s the best-sung revival of a musical that I’ve ever seen, whether on or off Broadway.

Strong words, I know, but all the leads have splendid voices and compelling personalities, especially Carey Brown, who sings well enough to remind me of Kristin Chenoweth….

Intiman Theatre has done itself proud with “Native Son,” Kent Gash’s new dramatic adaptation of Richard Wright’s still-shocking 1940 novel about a young black man from Chicago who lays belated claim to his ravaged manhood through the act of murder. Few great novels have been put on stage without losing their souls along the way, but Mr. Gash, who doubles as director of this production, has wisely stuck close to Wright’s original text, cunningly shaping it into a Brecht-like chronicle play whose occasional moments of narrative stiffness do nothing to diminish its slashing intensity….

No free link. To read the whole thing, go out and buy a copy of today’s morning’s Journal, then turn to the “Weekend Journal” section. Better yet, go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you on-the-spot access to the complete text of my review, plus a plethora of other good pieces. (If you’re already a subscriber, the review is here.)

“Flies, bees and buttterflies flew in through the open window. The flies and bees settled on some spilled sugar. A butterfly hovered over a slice of bread. It didn’t eat, but seemed to savor the odor. To Herman these were not parasites to be driven away; he saw in each of these creatures the manifestations of the eternal will to live, experience, comprehend. As the fly’s antennae stretched out toward the food, it rubbed its hind legs together. The wings of the butterfly reminded Herman of a prayer shawl. The bee hummed and buzzed and flew out again. A small ant crawled about. It had survived the cold night and was creeping across the table–but where to? It paused at a crumb, then continued on, zigzagging back and forth. It had separated itself from the anthill and now had to make out on its own.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer, Enemies, a Love Story

Matt Zoller Seitz asks, “When did you first realize that movies were directed?” and describes his own enlightenment while seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark here. A great question and a fascinating answer.