From Macy's to medieval music; from Scrooge to the Bolshoi

Back in the balmy days of August when we made our entertainment choices for the months ahead, Christmas looked something like this:

As I always think it's nice to incorporate some theatre and music into the Christmas rush, we went ahead and scheduled our outings and bought our tickets not really remembering that the reality of Christmas is often this:

We managed pretty well though and only had one day where the weather was unpleasant and — being in Halifax — it was more rain than snow. Rain and wind.

Ever since William was a little guy, we've tried to go to the Neptune Theatre Christmas production each year. In August, when we were getting the tickets, we had no idea where William might be during the holidays so we bought two tickets. But William is home from university and was happy to join us for the family tradition so Dan searched out a third ticket. Neptune had only two tickets left, both in the balcony, on opposite sides from each other. I said I'd be happy to go to the balcony (not!) so the ticket was bought.

They didn't make me go to the balcony though. Dan went up and William and I sat in the aisle seats of Row E. You get good seats when you buy your tickets in August.

Neptune's Production was Miracle on 34th Street. (Photo borrowed from Local Xpress.)

It was really good and we all enjoyed it. It runs until well after Christmas so you might enjoy it too.

That was indeed a busy day for us as we had two major events. We had a delightful early dinner at Brenton Persian Grill. I had Fesenjan:

A traditional Persian stew made with pomegranate molasses, walnuts & sauteed onions served with (or without) sliced chicken breast and saffron basmati rice. We recommend you have it with our Shirazi salad.

I took their advice and had it with the Shirazi salad which was finely chopped cucumber, tomato and red onion in lemon juice and mint and was delicious. I took home some leftover Fesenjan which Dan ate the next day and said my dish was probably the best of all three that we'd ordered.

Then we were off to the Cathedral Church of All Saints for A King's Christmas 2016, music from the University of King's College Chapel Choir.

The music was magnificent, the narrator was dramatic and accomplished, the stories and poems were eclectic. Some of the music was sung in Latin, in French, in olde English and in Gaelic. A lot of it was quite profound.

A very different evening was spent with the actor Rhys Bevan-John who did a one-man show of A Christmas Carol. It was nothing at all like I expected but it was great fun and it retained the message of the original story and the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. We're big supporters of Eastern Front Theatre whose production this was and we were pleased when the artistic producer, Jeremy Webb, told us that he had solicited support from the business community to provide a theatre experience for families who can't usually afford tickets. That will be a Christmas Eve event.

I'm very glad we were able to take in these live productions but in the end, it may turn out that the highlight of our season was on a movie screen — the filmed live performance of The Nutcracker by the Bolshoi Ballet.

What is it that makes something the "best in the world"? The Bolshoi has often been called that and from the very first movement of the dancers, you would get no argument from me.

The two principals dancing the roles of Marie and the Prince were Anna Nikulina and Denis Rodkin.

Anna was born in Moscow. In 2002, she completed her training at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography (teacher Elena Vatulya) with distinction and joined the Bolshoi Ballet Company. She rehearsed under the late Yekaterina Maximova. In 2004, at the age of 19, she danced Odette-Odile for the first time. Today her teacher-repetiteur is Nina Semizorova.

Denis was also born in Moscow. In 2009, after graduation from Moscow State Academic Dance Theatre Gzhel he joined the Bolshoi Ballet Company where he started to rehearse with Nikolai Tsiskaridze. Now his master-repetiteur is Yuri Vladimirov. In 2013, graduated from Bolshoi Ballet Academy (The Faculty of Education).

When Anna and Denis danced — alone, with other members of the company, or in their breath-taking pas de deux, it was easy to imagine that their feet were not touching the floor. I can't begin to describe the transcendence I felt while watching them.

Our host at the ballet did a short interview with Denis Rodkin at intermission. She introduced him to us as the "most beautiful man in the Bolshoi company." He's a beauty all right. He played the Prince a little shyly, a little distant, but also warm and loving. He was very appealing.

There you have it, some of our Christmas entertainment. There may be more to come; I'll keep you posted.

Looking at love and conflict inside our relationships

I wonder if I can make some interesting connection between Father's Day and our trip to the theatre to see She said/He said. Probably not so I won't even try.

The play is our second in the Stages Festival of Eastern Front Theatre. Last week, I told you about Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel. They are two very different experiences.

She said/He said is the creation of Anne-Marie Woods, an award winning multi-disciplinary artist — an arts educator, producer, director and creative consultant. With roots in London, England and Trinidad, her life and career have had no regional boundaries. I think of her as a poet and a spoken word performer but I also remember her beautiful singing voice from when she was part of the a cappella group, Four the Moment.

SHE is a Black woman asking real questions about life. HE is a Black man searching for meaning and understanding. Together, they fight to make their relationship last in a world where “the rules” are always changing.

A fusion of personal experiences and fiction… playwright Anne-Marie Woods conveys in this new work the vulnerability felt in romantic relationships and the importance of communication.

Through compelling monologues, poetry and song, the female/male rapport is laid bare in this tragicomic battle of wits. She Said/He Said is a fresh and nuanced look at relationships through a script that cleverly meanders through the present and past experiences of its two main characters. Where time is subjective, the fourth wall is intermittently torn down… and location though specific is universal. Woods has taken a non-conventional approach to telling a modern day love story.

HE is played by Neville Coke.

Neville is a Toronto born actor and singer of Jamaican and Barbados heritage.

The play is a mixture of dialogue and individual reflection as each of the characters play out the conflicts they feel within the relationship. Some of the emotion they express is common to many relationships; some are related to family and culture that are specific to this couple. A lot about love is universal and it's very easy to get drawn into the lives of others with all their similarities and differences. It's just the kind of thing I enjoy.

Because we were going out, I had announced earlier in the day that we wouldn't have a fancy dinner for Father's Day. But after thinking it over, I changed my mind. We're Spaniards at heart and usually eat dinner around 9:00 p.m. but I thought it would be nice to eat early — a late lunch, let's say — around 4:00 p.m. And because it was a nice day, we had our first meal of the season on the deck.

Usually if we have steak, we have a rather modest piece of meat which we slice diagonally, put on a platter, and share. But every now and then, Dan likes a nice steak all his own. If not on Father's Day, when?

William may look relaxed but he's always on guard when he's outside, on the watch for flying creatures. He doesn't like bees. Or wasps. Or anything that could be a bee or a wasp.

It wasn't really a fancy dinner/lunch but I did make some molten brownies. I even whipped the cream to put on top.

Those brownies are so easy, I can't really take much credit.

James Joyce, Sigmund Freud: a Sistine Chapel encounter

It's interesting when you go to the theatre and when you're walking up the street on your way home, you talk about what you've read by James Joyce, you reminisce about your visit to the Sistine Chapel, you share what you know about the progress of the development of Artificial Intelligence, you tell a corny Freud joke — all subjects directly inspired by the play you've just seen.

The play was the world premiere of Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel, produced and performed by the 2b theatre, part of Eastern Front Theatre's Stages Festival.

The play was held in the theatre-like space in our brilliant library which gives me a chance to show it to you in case you haven't seen it:

The play is imaginative and original. It recreates the Sistine Chapel with the use of projectors and beams the unmistakable Michelangelo masterpieces on to the ceiling and walls of the stage area.

[It] tells a story about buried urges, artificial intelligence, and an unlikely encounter between Minna Bernays and Nora Barnacle, accompanied by their respective partners: Sigmund Freud and James Joyce. A parallel contemporary story features a young academic and a brilliant entrepreneur who clash over how to fill in gaps in the historical record, what makes history come alive, and who should be able to tell these stories.

Funny, smart, and sexy, the play imagines a collision between two of the great revolutionary thinkers of the modern period, and introduces us to the women who inspired them, challenged them, and were ultimately eclipsed by them.

You can see why our conversation on the way home took the turns it did.

When we visited the real Sistine Chapel, we did so in the company of several hundred other people. We all remember the stentorian tones of the security fellow who stood up on the altar and bellowed SILENZIO! every few minutes. It didn't work and the cacophony in there was not surprising, with all of us packed in like sardines. As well as calling for quiet, he was warning "No photos! No videos!" which we dutifully obeyed although we were the only ones. Most people around us were clicking and whirring as though the man was talking to everyone else but not to them. It's quite rude when you think about it.

I've been reading for years that the vast numbers who visit the chapel can't help but have a negative effect on the art. There are often more than 20,000 visitors in a single day and art experts say that the breath, sweat, dust and pollution brought in by such crowds are doing permanent damage. It seems hard to know what the solution is to this problem.

Everyone would like to see the chapel looking like this:

And this:

For most people though, it's like this:

Meanwhile, back in Halifax, Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel runs until June 26 and if you're anywhere near, I definitely recommend it.

Theatre, travel, art and history on the big screen

Nowadays, "going to the movie theatre to see a show" doesn't necessarily mean you're going to see a Hollywood blockbuster. The big screen is changing and I'm pretty sure it will continue to change. In five years, who knows what we'll be going to see at the movies?

We've recently seen The Shakespeare Show, The Winter's Tale, and Hamlet-the-character: regularly re-defined — all of which were live shows on film and all of which I've reported on in the designated links.

I've loved seeing them all: next best thing to being there.

The most recent show we've seen is called St Peter’s and the Papal Basilicas of Rome. It comes in a 3D version but we didn't go to that one and I'm glad. There was a lot of dipsy-doodling around Rome in a helicopter (and I thought maybe a drone but I didn’t find any info to that effect). I think 3-D might have made me a little nauseous. As it was, it was very gorgeous and very informative.

The film dealt first, as expected, with St. Peter's.

St. Peter's Basilica (Italian: San Pietro in Vaticano) is a major basilica in Vatican City, an enclave of Rome. St. Peter's was until recently the largest church ever built and it remains one of the holiest sites in Christendom. Contrary to what one might reasonably assume, St. Peter's is not a cathedral - that honor in Rome goes to St. John Lateran.

St. Peter's Basilica stands on the traditional site where Peter - the apostle who is considered the first pope - was crucified and buried. St. Peter's tomb is under the main altar and many other popes are buried in the basilica as well. Originally founded by Constantine in 324, St. Peter's Basilica was rebuilt in the 16th century by Renaissance masters including Bramante, Michelangelo and Bernini.

If you've been there, you don't need me to tell you — and besides that, you've read it everywhere — it's vast and yet, it's all done to such perfect proportionate scale, that it's only by considering yourself and looking at other humans that you comprehend its immensity.

The cameras and narration covered art and sculpture, most notably Michelangelo's Pieta and the statue of St. Peter himself:

Pieta

St. Peter

There's so much in St. Peter's Basilica, the film did its best but it knew it could have spent its whole duration in that one location. You can spend days there really.

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Santa Maria Maggiore — St. Mary Major — is the church you often see on the news when Pope Francis is travelling. He stops to say a prayer to ask for safe travel on his way to the airport and when his trip is over, he drops in there to say thanks for getting him back safely before he heads home to the Vatican.

Santa Maria Maggiore: One of Rome's four patriarchal basilicas, this monumental 5th-century church stands on the summit of the Esquiline Hill, on the spot where snow is said to have miraculously fallen in the summer of AD 358.

It was August 5 when the snow fell. The liturgical feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major is celebrated each year on the 5th of August. It is now a custom to remember the miraculous snowfall. At the conclusion of the Solemn Mass of that day a shower of white rose petals falls from the dome of the Chapel of Our Lady.

St. Mary Major was not very far from our hotel when we visited Rome and we went to Sunday Mass here. The interior is spectacular and, as with so many of the ancient churches, worth spending many hours just taking in the art and the history.

The other two Papal Basilicas are St. John Lateran and St. Paul Outside the Walls. The film did them justice also and so will I when I visit them in person. Next time.

If you're interested in some of the live shows on the big screen — for example, Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth in The Audience will be playing in theatres in July — I recommend a visit to National Theatre Live where you will find schedules, dates, titles etc.

Shakespeare strikes again, as timely as ever

William Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday. It was April 23, 1616. On April 23 of this year, 400 years since his death, his life and work were once again celebrated in his hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon.

You may wonder — and it's worth wondering — how it could be possible to find new ways to honour Shakespeare after 400 years of continuous production of his work and of the recognition of his place at the top of the list of acclaimed writers.

They managed. Today we went to see the big-screen presentation of the show they put together for April 23. It was filmed by the BBC — shown live in the UK — and is now playing around the world.

It's a two hour and 40 minutes show and when it was over, I said, "There wasn't one minute in that production that I didn't like." This is unusual; I'm no pushover.

The show was done at the Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre in Stratford.

The stage was in the centre, the orchestra was elevated behind the stage, there were several pathways leading offstage and there were balconies which were used by the actors for certain scenes. The audience was on three sides, on several levels, all tucked in quite close to the stage.

The show included everything. Some of the critics said when they heard there would be "something for everyone," they cringed and expected a "low-brow" evening of dumbed-down Shakespeare. That's a pretty snobby attitude but anyway, that's not what happened.

What they wanted to show us was Shakespeare and the wide and often direct influence he had on culture throughout the ages. The show included amazing scenes from the plays and beautiful and often touching renditions of the songs. But it also included broad comedy, high drama, Broadway music and dancing, ballet, opera, jazz, hip hop and Rufus Wainwright.

Each piece was either direct Shakespeare or a story inspired by his genius: West Side Story from Broadway, for example; Brush Up Your Shakespeare from Kiss Me, Kate (The Taming of the Shrew); a Duke Ellington composition inspired after he saw a play at Stratford in Ontario (Canadian content!); the pas de deux from the ballet Romeo and Juliet which followed the balcony scene from the play. When the dance ended, we could see Romeo and Juliet from the play, up on the balcony, watching with us.

A funny scene that got a lot of publicity at the time involved the well-known soliloquy from Hamlet. The current Hamlet from the Royal Shakespeare Company had begun to recite it when a director came out and made a suggestion about which word to emphasize — to be or not to be. The joke, which soon becomes obvious, is that more and more Hamlets begin to appear, all to offer their two-cents worth about which word to emphasize.

By the time they've all appeared, Paapa Essiedu has accepted advice from Tim Minchin, Harriet Walter, David Tennant, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rory Kinnear, Ian McKellen and Judi Dench — Hamlet the Dame, she declares.

But the final advice is yet to come. It may be considered that the Prince of Denmark could be well-played by the Prince of Wales and indeed, he was there and he joined the advice party.

You'll be glad to know that after the fun, all the Hamlets except Paapa Essiedu left the stage and he delivered the soliloquy with heart-touching feeling.

The show was efficiently run and well-paced. The hosts were David Tennant and Catherine Tate. They did a lovely job. (She looked very familiar to me and I couldn't place her until I got home and looked her up. She played Nellie in the American version of The Office.)

Helen Mirren made a short appearance near the end as Prospero from The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended./ These our actors,/ As I foretold you,/ were all spirits and/ Are melted into air,/ into thin air. . .

And David Suchet (best known as Hercule Poirot) and Judi Dench appeared as Oberon and Titania from A Midsummer Night's Dream as the celebration ended.

There was so much more. I could sit here for hours, telling you every detail of the show. I won't though but if you can get to see it, I recommend it. I can't imagine that you wouldn't enjoy it.

Musicals that meet with my approval — and then some

I honestly didn't know — I had never given it much thought — how many musicals there are in the world of entertainment. I only began to realize how many when I was checking out certain movie critics to see what kind of consensus there is about what are the best musicals.

I realized another thing: I knew that I could never pick the "best" musical. I wouldn't even be able to pick my "favourite" musical.

For example, I love The Music Man — but do I love it because it's a great musical or because Robert Preston is one of the great loves of my life?

He's an unusual leading man; he's not mysterious or enigmatic. He seems open and joyous and fellow-next-door friendly, all of which is so attractive. But his IMDB biography calls him a "leading man of vast charisma" so perhaps he's that too. Whatever, he's the only Professor Harold Hill I can imagine so he did something right.

Singin' in the Rain is high up on most critics' list of best musicals. Gene Kelly is, without a doubt, one the great dancers and he was lucky to be able to dance with Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds in this one.

Debbie was just 19 when she was cast in Singin' in the Rain. (Gene, her love interest, was 40. The more things change. . . eh?) She was not a dancer but she had won a beauty contest and one of the big studio heads wanted her in the movie and that's how things were done in those times. Gene was very hard on her but she became a dancer of acclaim because of this experience so she eventually forgave him.

It's amazing that this movie was pulled together at all as the songs had been around for awhile — some of them, including the title song, had already been used in other movies — but the songs were dumped on the writers and the writers were told to make a story around the songs. And they did!

Gene Kelly was a perfectionist and although he was ill and had a high fever while he was filming the title song, he kept at it until it was perfect.

There it is: perfection.

And then there's Cabaret.

I've seen only the movie and I was interested to discover in the reading I've done recently that the movie and the stage production are completely different from each other.

The film is loosely based on the 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret by Kander and Ebb, which was adapted from the novel The Berlin Stories (1939) by Christopher Isherwood and the 1951 play I Am a Camera adapted from the same book. Only a few numbers from the stage score were used for the film; Kander and Ebb wrote new ones to replace those that were discarded.

People who don't like musicals complain about characters bursting into song in strange and unusual circumstances. They like Cabaret because, with one exception, all the songs are performed in the Kit Kat Klub which strikes people as being appropriate.

The exception to this is surely the most chilling moment ever caught in a musical. It's the young boy — the Nazi youth — singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me. He sings in a beer garden, in his sweet voice, his Aryan features emphasized by the sun shining on his fair beautiful face. As he sings, others begin to join in and at one point, his sweet face changes and becomes frightening with anger before it reverts to innocence, even while most of the people in the beer garden have stood to sing out along with him.

Cabaret has very dark themes as it is set in Germany during the rise of the Nazis but it also has romance and comedy and memorable music. I rank it quite high on my personal list.

I wrote about Fiddler on the Roof here and here. It's obviously on my list.

But what about My Fair Lady? Oklahoma? Guys and Dolls? The King and I? West Side Story? Show Boat?

So many musicals; so little time. It's fun writing about them though so I suspect I'll be back to them at some point.

Musicals that go over the line and need a re-write

When I wrote recently about Camelot, I made a blanket statement. "I love musicals," I wrote.

But musical theatre covers a wide range of tastes and it's not really possible to love it all. In fact, the only show I ever walked out of was a musical comedy.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was playing at Neptune Theatre here in Halifax — probably in the '80s. It had played on Broadway and in London to great acclaim, had won Tonys and other awards, had made stars of some of its actors. I knew little about it except that music and lyrics were both written by Stephen Sondheim and the production we were going to see had some excellent local actors.

I was looking forward to it, as I always look forward to the theatre.

I knew early on that I wouldn't be there for the curtain call.

I was simply appalled. It was openly and blatantly sexist and for those who don't mind if their plays are sexist, it was also stupid and embarrassingly unfunny. It wasn't something I could just shrug off with a cringe and a grimace. It's a damn wonder I didn't get up and throw something at the actors on stage.

The male characters in this play are buffoons and/or slaves. The female characters are shrews or subjects of ridicule and humiliation. The young beautiful women are being trafficked for sex. The virgins are the ones with highest value.

I can't even believe I'm typing this — and this musical is being performed to this day!

We left at intermission. I think — I hope — I was gracious enough to tell Dan he should stay and I'd make my own way home but Dan left with me. Solidarity, I trust.

The hardest part was that our beloved friend, the late Sudsy Clark, had a fairly large role in Forum and I didn't know how we would handle talking about it the next time we saw him. And to be honest, I can't remember how we handled it or if it even came up. I was a militant, angry feminist then — even more than I am now — so it may be that Suds would know that this was not a play I could easily tolerate.

Having said that, I have some very mixed feelings about Stephen Sondheim. I hated A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and I've never understood the appeal of Sweeney Todd. He wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy both of which I like. He's been called the "greatest lyricist of all time" which I wouldn't concede but he's been widely acclaimed by people who should know. Maybe I just can't get the taste of Forum out of my mouth. (Eww. What an ugly image!)

The other well-known musical that I have a problem with is Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel.

I don't remember having a problem with it when it first came out as a movie — 1956 — because it wouldn't have been seen as anything unusual at that time. But Carousel is built around a plot of domestic violence which it romanticizes and eroticizes.

I saw it recently and I was shocked — again — by some of the lines: “Is it possible, mama, that you can be hit and it doesn’t hurt? He hit me — and it didn’t hurt! It felt like a kiss.” And Mother assured her it was indeed possible. It’s love. That is so much the age-old mantra — of beaters and beaten.

Carousel is still performed regularly. It was one of the headliners at Stratford last summer. The Globe and Mail gave it a scathingly bad review.

If ever a Golden Age musical called for sensitive reinvestigation, it’s this one – especially at a time when sexual harassment has become front-page news and public tolerance for the trivialization or romanticization of violence against women is at a new low.

Near the end of Carousel comes the infamous line from Julie to her daughter: “It’s possible for someone to hit you, hit you hard, and not hurt at all.”

How do you create a convincing journey to that line in 2015?

Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote some of the most wonderful songs of the era for Carousel: The Carousel Waltz; You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan; (When I Marry) Mister Snow; If I Loved You; June Is Bustin' Out All Over; When the Children Are Asleep; Blow High, Blow Low; Soliloquy

This Was a Real Nice Clambake; Geraniums in the Winder; There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman; What's the Use of Wond'rin'?; You'll Never Walk Alone; The Highest Judge of All; Ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey; If I Loved You (reprise);

Finale: You'll Never Walk Alone

It's hard to harbour completely negative thoughts when those songs are involved but there's only so much one can take. Carousel steps over the line and if it's going to be performed, it needs to be changed.

For one brief shining moment. . .

Cooperstown, New York is mostly known for the Baseball Hall of Fame and a fine attraction it is, too. I love baseball and I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the Hall of Fame; I would happily go again.

But Cooperstown offers more than baseball and one of my favourite memories from our last visit there was live theatre at the Glimmerglass Festival.

The author, James Fenimore Cooper, was born and grew up in Cooperstown. The town was named after his father who was a judge. It's situated on the shores of the beautiful Otsego Lake. It was James who first called the lake "Glimmerglass" in his novel, The Deerslayer.

(A short aside: The name Glimmerglass was not new to me. You may know — because I've probably told you — that I'm one of the self-described experts on the works of L.M. Montgomery. There was a time when I could recite by heart whole pages from her books — and I was just a little kid! Anyway. . . when I saw the Cooper reference to Glimmerglass, I went to Anne of Avonlea and turned to page 106. I found Anne and three of her friends roaming through woodlands where they found a small shallow pool. They ran a little contest to choose a name for the pool. It was Anne's friend, Priscilla, who chose Glimmer-glass — it wasn't the winner — and there was no mention of James Fenimore Cooper.)

The Glimmerglass Festival started out as The Glimmerglass Opera and its opera is still its major production. But it's branched out enormously and now does, in repertory, a Broadway musical, youth productions, second-stage plays, workshops etc. The opera being performed the summer we were there was The Flying Dutchman and I honestly didn't think I could happily sit through three hours of Wagner on a beautiful summer's day. (The opera this summer is La bohème. I would happily sit through that.)

We decided to do the Broadway musical — Camelot. I was glad to be able to see it on stage. I had never seen it anywhere although I knew the music well. I knew the music from the original Broadway production although for some awful reason which I don't know, I own the long-playing soundtrack of the movie. I feel such hostility even thinking about it that I should go routing around in the basement until I find it and make sure I put it out in the yard sale. I think I got it at a yard sale, now that I think about it.

While I've been writing this, I've been thinking of successful Broadway musicals that were turned into terrible movies because Hollywood producers were too short-sighted and greedy to put the Broadway stars into the films. But that's a story for another day. For sure.

Part of the experience of Glimmerglass is just being in that lovely setting. When you take your seat, the walls are still retracted so you're in an open-air theatre. As the production starts, the walls descend as the lights go down.

This photo was taken in the aisle, right beside our seats.

It was a beautiful production. It starred Nathan Gunn in the role of Lancelot, with David Pittsinger as King Arthur and Andriana Chuchman — from Winnipeg — as Guenevere.

At Glimmerglass, the music was provided by a 42-piece orchestra and the singers don't use microphones so it was a beautiful authentic musical experience. The songs — I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?, The Simple Joys of Maidenhood, Camelot, C'est Moi, The Lusty Month of May, Then You May Take Me to the Fair, If Ever I Would Leave You, What Do the Simple Folk Do?, I Loved You Once in Silence, and others — are as lovely as they ever were (and much nicer than the renditions on my movie record.)

I love musicals. I listened earlier to Robert Goulet, as Sir Lancelot, singing If Ever I Would Leave You. It was a sublime experience. I intended to come here and write a few pleasant things about musicals I've loved and others that I haven't loved. I'll be sure and do that — soon.

2 pianos 4 hands brings back musical memories

No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get out of the habit of doing a roast for Sunday dinner. The only difference is that nowadays, I usually serve Sunday dinner on Saturday. William works the overnight shift every Saturday night – his shift starts at 11:00 p.m. – so I like to serve a late dinner which is both substantial and a little special.

This past weekend, I did a lovely pork tenderloin. Here it is:

For a little change and to add some extra pizzazz, I opened it up and added stuffing. That stuffing was the highlight of the meal. I made it by finely chopping celery, red onion, garlic, black and green olives and capers. I mixed all that with some bread crumbs and to hold it all together and add another layer of flavour, I added some olive oil and a dollop of moutarde avec figues (oui, mustard with figs.)

It was very well-received. I served it with green beans and carrots and rice cooked in a herby vegetable stock.

There was enough left over for a second meal so it turned out there was Sunday dinner on Sunday after all. For its second go-round, we had it with noodles tossed with tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil and cheese – just as I described right here. We also had Caesar Salad and fresh biscuits.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to the theatre to see 2 pianos 4 hands. It's a play that's been around since 1994 but somehow, I've never been in the right place at the right time to see it and it's always been one of my theatrical regrets.

Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt wrote the play and are also the names of the characters, even though they're now played by different actors. In the production we saw, Ted and Richard were played by Richard Todd Adams and Bryce Kulak.

It's an account of what both fellows went through from childhood through young adulthood in their experiences with piano lessons and their piano teachers. It's very funny and there's lots of nice piano music too.

Some of their experiences took me back to my own piano lessons in Chatham, NB. I wrote about them here and of course, I'd be delighted if you dropped over and had a look.

The poet from Desolation Creek, Nova Scotia

I was thinking about an old friend, Alden Nowlan, earlier today when Dan and I were recalling a drive in rural Nova Scotia where we came across his birthplace. We reminisced a bit about his memories of the place. The conversation reminded me of a column I'd once written about him and I decided to share it.

We'd also been talking earlier in the week about rural poverty and I've written recently about vinegar and about molasses – so this column touches on a number of recent references.

It was written for The Daily News in 1990 and some of it is dated because it's about summer theatre productions way back then. I enjoyed remembering them anyway. Maybe you saw those productions also and if so, maybe you'll enjoy this too.

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Whenever poet Alden Nowlan was asked where he came from, he would answer – his gravelly voice booming – “I am from Desolation Creek, Nova Scotia.” There were people who believed him and went home to look it up on their maps, but mostly, people understood that he was speaking metaphorically and in general, they didn't really care much where he came from. The question was polite, a form of small talk.

Alden came from an area of rural Nova Scotia that was hopelessly poor. It was something he talked about often, the brutalizing effects of such poverty, the despair of the people who saw no way out. His friends heard many times about childhood winters when his family had only potatoes to eat, seasoned today with vinegar, tomorrow with molasses, the next day with simple salt and pepper. Served with tea. People loved to be shocked by the realization that one of Canada's most distinguished poets had left school in grade five to work in the woods and in the mill.

During the '70s, Alden published his only novel, Various Persons Named Kevin O'Brien.

It was the story of a young man growing up in rural Nova Scotia, dealing with a brutal father, understanding that he, Kevin, would have to escape from the life he was expected to live. As all writers do, he insisted that the book was fiction, based on some actual incidents and characters from his own life. Most people who had talked to him and listened to his stories believed, however, that Kevin O'Brien was Alden Nowlan and that this was the story of his own life.

When the book was published, I think he had long since come to understand, to sympathize with, and to have forgiven his father – “poor old bugger,” he used to call him. Alden had no fewer human failings than anyone else but he was a compassionate person, knowing that extreme poverty sours the soul, able to exorcise the bitterness he had carried because of the harshness of his own deprived past. He had made his peace with his father and through that, had made a start on making peace with himself.

Alden died in the early '80s. By the mid-'80s, Paul Hanna, a “theatre person” who had been active with TNB for a number of years, had completed a first draft of a play called Lockhartville (the fictional community where the fictional Kevin O'Brien was from), based on Various Persons Named Kevin O'Brien and incorporating some of Alden's poems. Tragically, Paul died very suddenly at the age of 37. The play was taken over by Terry Tweed who workshopped it with six actors provided by TNB. It was produced for the first time in New Brunswick in 1988.

This month, it's playing in Parrsboro at The Ship's Company Theatre. It's a wonderful piece of work. Acting, direction, set design – all are superior but, as everyone knows, the best actors in the world can't save a production if the writing is poor. This is Lockhartville's major strength.

The play is stylistically unconventional – the young Kevin O'Brien and the adult Kevin appear together, for instance – but it's also realistic and rings true. The poems, including two of Alden's best known – Ypres 1915 (pronounced “Wipers” as Alden's father pronounced it) and The Bull Moose – are incorporated with a naturalness that is nevertheless dramatic.

This is the second summer in a row that my best theatre experiences of the season have happened in Parrsboro. (Last year, it was To Far Away Places, the story of Joshua Slocum's round-the-world journey.) Of course, it's a novelty to go to the theatre in a beached, restored ferry – the Kipawo – but without a good production, that novelty would soon wear off.

It's no accident that the best theatre in Nova Scotia is being presented by the smaller companies. Nova Scotia is not unlike other centres around the country, where the larger theatres are floundering for lack of money, are at the mercy of board members whose first concern is the bottom line, and are forced into producing conventional, recognizable comedies and musicals, seen to be guaranteed moneymakers.

But both the Parrsboro plays I've mentioned, as well as a couple of others, are more than worthy of Neptune's main stage and I'd love to see them there. I won't hold my breath though.

Meanwhile, Lockhartville will play in Parrsboro until the end of this month. It's worth the trip.

Wonder of Wonders (Part Two)

Wonder of Wonders Part One is right here.

After I wrote Part One, I was feeling dissatisfied and I think it's because I started out and ended up without really knowing what I wanted to say. It was as if I had an assignment but no one had told me precisely what was expected of me.

I didn't manage to make the connections between the musical and my patients I had hinted at when I wrote Miracle of Miracles a couple of days ago although I guess it's obvious. The story of Jews being forced from their shtetl in Russia into the diaspora is a pretty specific connection.

But the universal message of the musical is not only literal, it's also symbolic. It's a story of oppression and deliverance and that's why it had — and continues to have — cultural repercussions around the world.

That message is seen so clearly in the story of the junior-high school production in Brownsville, Brooklyn in 1969. It was a time of school strikes, of bitter battles between the school boards and the teachers' unions, and of black-Jewish tension throughout the neighbourhoods and the schools. I remember the unrest of those times. The story of the school's production of Fiddler on the Roof was new to me, however.

The drama teacher in charge of the production was Richard Piro. He believed that working on this show would give his black and Puerto Rican students a more sympathetic understanding of Jews. It was a controversial choice. The principal of the school wanted to do Guys and Dolls.

As told in The Jewish Week:

While many in the school and the community tried to stop the production, Piro and the students persevered, rehearsing in his Manhattan apartment during the teachers’ strike. Sheila, the young woman who played Chava, Tevye’s daughter who falls in love with a Ukrainian, felt her character deeply, as her own parents wouldn’t let her date, and her brothers kept an eye on her.

Many of the students had witnessed evictions, and understood the sadness as families left Anatevka. Like many high school plays, the production became their own Anatevka, a small shelter of warmth and family, before they too must move on.

There were still people in the community who wanted to stop the show and their final move was to alert the Broadway producers because the student production hadn't got the authorization they needed to perform. It brings tears to my eyes to think about it but the show went on for the brave students and their wonderful teacher, Mr. Piro, when the Broadway producers granted them special permission and when producer Hal Prince, Jerry Bock (composer), Sheldon Harnick (lyricist) and Joseph Stein (librettist) travelled to Brownsville for opening night! It's an unforgettable story!

The true story of Richard Piro himself, a music-drama teacher, who worked in a junior high school where black and Puerto Rican students put on a Jewish musical, Fiddler on the Roof. It is about the tragic realities he had to combat: black anti-Semitism, the fear of Jewish teachers who believed the children would ridicule them, the anger of black militants who did not want excellence to be shown in a ghetto school.

It is the story, too, of how the Jewish principal and black parents and leaders joined with Piro, a gutsy and deeply devoted teacher, in the battle so that the show would go on. The youngsters' production was so successful that it was nationally televised. And finally, and most important, it is about children, their humor, their passion, their despair, and their triumph.

When I started reading Alisa's book, I was just interested in the simple story of how the musical came to be. By the time I read the story of the junior high production, the open-air production in Poland and the making of the Norman Jewison-directed film, it turned out to be so much more than that. Fiddler on the Roof is a phenomenal work on so many levels — literature, music, community, politics, oppression, fear and courage and hope.

Because it's all of that, it's life itself.

To Life!

Wonder of Wonders (Part One)

I first read about Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof on Facebook. One of my Facebook friends knows the author personally and he congratulated her on winning an important award for this book.

I took an immediate interest for three reasons: first, I love musical theatre and I've loved Fiddler on the Roof many times; second, I've always made a connection between the fictional characters in Fiddler and the patients at Maimonides that I wrote about yesterday; third, the author is Alisa Solomon.

Alisa was a theatre critic and general reporter for the Village Voice from 1983 to 2004. I remember her work well. We used to subscribe to the Village Voice and there was a time when the stack of Voices in our house was almost as tall as I am. When I began to read her book, I felt as if we were getting reacquainted.

Years ago, I had read the short stories of Sholem-Aleichem, including some about Tevye the Milkman. I don't really remember them as stories — more as images. It's fascinating to look back at them though and consider the journey that Tevye has made — not just from Anatevka to America but to the Broadway stage and from there, around the world.

The first long chapter of Wonder of Wonders is the history of Sholem-Aleichem and his stories and his struggle simply to make a living as a writer of Yiddish stories. This chapter took me longer to read than the whole rest of the book. I might have decided to skim over it except for this: I was so impressed by the depth of the research that had gone into it, I simply was incapable of showing that kind of disrespect to the writer. A review in The New York Times said:

In my family, we have a ritual. (Tradition!) After a particularly wonderful Shabbat or holiday dinner, we channel my great-grandmother Pearl Gottler and chant in unison, “Ach, I’m stoffed. I’m bloated. I couldn’t eat another bite.”

That’s what reading “Wonder of Wonders” is like. It is as rich and dense as a chocolate babka. Delicious, yes, but so crammed with tasty layers you have to pace yourself. You appreciate the gazillion buttery striations while wondering if there had to be quite so many of them.

In the end, I'm glad I persevered because the strength of that foundation was what raised the content of the book to such an impressive height.

The book is about the making of the musical — the writing of the book, lyrics and music (Joseph Stein, Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, the direction by the legendary Jerome Robbins and the production by Hal Prince. Before I read this book, I couldn't have imagined the process and in fact, I'm pretty sure it's different with every production. But if you've ever wondered how a song like Tradition! or If I Were a Rich Man comes about, here's where you'll find out.

I've worked in some pretty bizarre situations over the years but I can't even imagine what it must be like to work with temperamental ego-driven artists like Robbins and Zero Mostel and others in the production team. The world of show business is rarely glamourous; it's eccentric at best, soul-destroying at worst.

Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway in 1964 with Zero Mostel as Tevye. It ran for 3242 performances, then the longest-running show on Broadway.

Since then, there have been four Broadway revivals, most recently in 2004 with Alfred Molina and then Harvey Fierstein playing Tevye. The 1971 film directed by Norman Jewison, was also a huge success.

Alisa Solomon's book doesn't end with Broadway. There are a couple more stories I want to tell you about Fiddler on the Roof and that will be a story for another day. Tomorrow, I hope.

Part two is right here.

Back to Shakespeare

We went to see The Winter's Tale this evening, another filmed London stage play. It was broadcast live to Europe and we saw it on a bit of a delay.

As we were leaving, some people sitting around us said, in our general direction, "If you ever get a chance, tell us what that was all about!" They were laughing but they seemed to imply they'd had a hard time following it.

Dan and I enjoyed it. I had a short text exchange with William during intermission and he said, "How's the play, Mum?" I said, "It's intense Shakespeare."

And it was. You really needed to focus; if your mind wandered, you were in danger of losing the thread.

The acting was superb. A Reuters story said this:

Her cutting words were written by William Shakespeare, but the withering stare the straight-talking Paulina focuses on co-star Kenneth Branagh's insanely jealous King Leontes in a new production of "The Winter's Tale" is pure Judi Dench.

Dench's stare, at the end of the first half, has had audiences sitting on the edge of their seats since the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's late-life portrait of the wreckage wrought by jealousy opened this month.

It is a "moment I shall long remember," Guardian critic Michael Billington wrote.

The play is thought to be one of Shakespeare's later works and was first performed in 1611. It's not performed as often as many of his other works but it's getting a warm reception in London right now.

During intermission, we were amused by a recitation of Bernard Levin's Shakespearean quotes. Here it is although it's probably more fun to listen to than to read yourself.

On Quoting Shakespeare

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me,"

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning,

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you recall your salad days,

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you act more in sorrow than in anger;

if your wish is father to the thought;

if your lost property has vanished into thin air,

you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy,

if you have played fast and loose,

if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle,

if you have knitted your brows,

made a virtue of necessity,

insisted on fair play,

slept not one wink,

stood on ceremony,

danced attendance (on your lord and master),

laughed yourself into stitches,

had short shrift,

cold comfort or too much of a good thing,

if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise

why, be that as it may,

the more fool you,

for it is a foregone conclusion that

you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare;

if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage,

if you think it is high time and that is the long and short of it,

if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out

even if it involves your own flesh and blood,

if you lie low 'till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play,

if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason,

then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head)

you are quoting Shakespeare;

even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing,

if you wish I was dead as a door-nail,

if you think I am an eyesore,

a laughing stock,

the devil incarnate,

a stony-hearted villain,

bloody-minded

or a blinking idiot,

then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for

you are quoting Shakespeare.