Homeland as a Buddy Story

I watched season one of Homeland with Mrs. Buce over the past few weeks (we live on Netflix time).   I found myself diverted by Mandy Patinkin as Saul, the guy who plays mentor and counselor, best friend, rab--well, no, not exactly rabbi, but I gather Patinkin has a long career behind him in hooferhood, including klezmer, and everything about him cries out Second Avenue schtick.  Which is not a complaint: I have a soft spot for klezmer and I'm pretty sure I have some Patinkin around the house although I didn't at first connect Saul the CIA spook with Mandy the mamaloshen guy.

I see the producers give star billing to Claire Danes as the hyped-up high-maintenance CIA spook, along with Damian Lewis as her double-triple-whatever agent charge.  But I share a widely held view that there is a lot more chemistry between Danes and Patinkin than there is between Danes and her nominal co-star.  And it's a recognizable trope: the high-energy, perhaps somewhat unhinged, protagonist and the selfless sidekick who repeatedly saves his (her) bacon.  Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.  Jeeves and Bertie.  John Tanner and (what was the name of his chauffeur?--in Shaw's Man and Superman).  Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller.  At a stretch, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.  Hey, Gilgamesh and Inkidu.  And my all-time favorite buddy story, here.

Here's Mandy in a turn that would probably cost Saul his security clearance:

Lithgow Remembers Lithgow (and So Do I)

I've written before about how one of the cherished memories of my not particularly corrupt youth was watching Shakespeare plays in the outdoor theater at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  Here's another who seems to share my nostalgia: John Lithgow, the actor, son of Arthur Lithgow: Arthur served as the driving force behind those unforgettable performances.  In his new memoir, John Lithgow writes:

 In the summer of 1951, in league with two of his faculty colleagues, [Arthur Lithgow--ed.] launched “Shakespeare Under the Stars,” otherwise known as the Antioch Shakespeare Festival. It was to last until 1957. The plays that had sparked the imagination of that lonely boy [=Arthur] in an attic room in Melrose, Massachusetts, came to life on a platform stage beneath the twin spires of the stately Main Hall of Antioch College.  In every one of those summers, my father’s company of avid young actors ... would achieve the impossible. Each season they would open seven Shakespeare plays in the course of nine weeks, rehearsing in the day and performing at night. Once all seven had opened, the company would perform them in rotating repertory, a different play every night of the week, for the final month of the summer.

Yep, I remember too.  I showed up at Antioch in the fall of 1953, unencumbered by any Shakespeare knowledge except a single viewing of Olivier's Hamlet at the old Rex Theater in Manchester NH (I didn't fancy it--and now that I'd think of it, I'd still say it is not one of Olivier's better efforts).  Well, that and compulsory school readings of Hamlet and Macbeth, which I may or may not have actually carried out--I took my academic responsibilities lightly in those days.

I can't remember which Antioch Shakespeare play was my first, but I know I was electrified.  I still carry vivid memories from the Festival of Othello, Tempest, Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It. Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar.  Perhaps there were others I have forgotten; and sadly, I do know that in a spasm of adolescent folly, I eschewed the opportunity to see them all. 

One consequence of my early viewing is that I got to see the young John Lithgow at work.  He's about 10 years younger than I.  He reports that he played Mustardseed, one of the Fairy Queen's attendants, in Midsummer Night's Dream.  Bottom the Weaver says "I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed." and of course, that is exactly what we all wanted and got.

 I said I was "electrified."  Indeed I'd say that for several of the plays, I have never seen better.  I am intrigued to find that young Lithgow has a slightly different take.  He asks, "Were the shows any good?"  And he answers his own question: 

 In those days I thought they were magnificent. To my young eyes these were the greatest stage actors in the country, my father was the finest director, and Shakespeare couldn’t possibly be performed any better. As the years passed, I began to doubt my childhood impressions. How good could the productions have been with such hasty rehearsals, such threadbare costumes, and such an untested troupe? A twenty-six-year-old King Lear? A professor’s wife as Olivia? Grad students sprinkled among all the minor parts? Though I never lost my sense of awe at the magnitude of my father’s achievement, a certain skepticism crept in when I grew to be a theater professional myself.

On the next page, he softens his judgment.  He tells how he came by a copy of an original recording of a performance of Merry Wives of Windsor from Antioch in 1954:

The scene was spirited, fast-paced, and riotously funny. The tape captured the sound of the audience, roaring with laughter and showering the actors with exit applause. The actors’ unamplified voices were ringing and clear, their timing was expert, and their command of the material was unerring.   They were hilarious.

I'll see him and raise him here.  I think his original judgment was correct: The 26-year-old Lear he remembers with skepticism was Ellis Rabb; Rabb also played Ariel and Benedick and I suspect others that I have forgotten.   He died 15 years ago (way too soon), but I think he established himself in a long and distinguished career as a kind of director's director..   In any event, the Benedick was the best I've ever seen and the Lear was astonishing (I was understanding enough to grasp that a Lear so young--and skinny--was a tour de force).    I suppose I will have to concede, however, that they were perhaps best at comedy. Apart from many other examples, I still remember the Dogberry from Much Ado--would that have been Arthur Lithgow?  I remembered him with ironic fondness years later when I saw Kenneth Branagh's earnest effort at the same play on film, with a Dogberry who didn't seem to realize that it was all a joke.

Anyway, enjoy your memories, John.  It sounds like you had a magical childhood, and many ways a magical life.  I guess Shakespeare can do that to a guy, along with loving parents who know how to build such  framework for it.  

Quotes from: Lithgow, John. Drama: An Actor's Education  Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.

Groucho: Why does he Walk That Way?

My friend David asks: why does Groucho Marx walk with that weird slouch-like lope?

Bear with me, there's a purpose behind the question. The subject is the (generally, quite good) new production of the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. A purpose, but first the answer. The answer is: we don't know why Groucho walks around that way but Groucho knows. It's part of his existential essence; we aren't meant to know.

Which explains the difficulty faced Mark Bedard as he tries to mimic Groucho. We know he's got almost everything right. Cigar, check. Fast talker, check. Wisecracker, check. And slouch--well, the best conceivable imitation, but still and imitation; you know that Bedard knows as we know that we don't know why the real thing.

The fault (if it is one) isn't really Bedard's. The problem is that Groucho is so much of a compelling presence that he drowns out all imitations. It's like the time I went to a performance of Bellini's Norma with a good, but not quite astounding, soprano in the title role. On the way home, the only voice in my head belonged to Joan Sutherland. I had heard Sutherland sing Norma--the night before, actually--but only on CD. Still, her digital performance was so pervasive that it overwhelmed all competition. You might call it the flip side of the "George Costanza problem," where Jason Alexander was so good in his role as number one sidekick to Seinfeld that we'll never recognize him as Jason, only as George.

Luckier was Brent Hinkley as Harpo, a fine scene-stealer in his own right. He looked and acted enough like Harpo that you knew what he was up to, but your mental picture of Harpo was never so strong as to trump the image in front of you.

Luckier still Daisuke Tsuji as Chico--good enough as imitation to satisfy the purists, but so good comic in his own right that he was able to carry off riffs that Chico never thought of.   The show's a bit weird overall and I'm not 100 percent sure it survives transition back to the scripted stage (although I suppose the stage, if not scripted, is where it all began).  Still, it's full of the kind of stuff that Ashland does well, and as a long, loving look into the metaphysical rear-view mirror, it's probably the best you have any right to expect.
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Pedagogy as Theatre

Pick of the day for me is the piece I find at The Atlantic's website on what the folks at the University of Phoenix do when they wants to film a roomful of attractive and engaged students--they hire models.  Wouldn't want to distract the viewers with the likes of, say, Walden College, and don't even think of  Animal House (told you...).   Though personally, I'm always saddened that I didn't enjoy the ministrations of Quincy Adams Wagstaff, as in "Now then, baboons, what is a corpuscle?"

But I'm not at all sure Phoenix has gone far enough.  My friend John says his students have dinged him on his evaluations for imperfect use of PowerPoints.  Couldn't we raise the general level of beatitude if we hired an apprentice Vanna White to highlight the bullet paragraphs as John proceeds through what he calls his "Socratic monologue?"  And why stop at one?  How about twins?  And in spray-on bikinis?

He could even position one outside the classroom door during open enrollment.  As in, "hello, student, going my way?"  Who knows, a few of his aspirants might wake up in a rustbucket en route to Macao.  Now, that is education.

Ed and The Flowering Peach

Through the magic of Facebook, I've lately made contact with my old college friend Ed.  I am happy to report that Ed seems to be thriving.  After years of grinding labor in Cleveland, he's now securely ensconced in Pompano Beach, full of years and honors and surrounded by family and projects.


 Particularly theatre: Ed has rekindled his youthful affinity for the stage.  These days he is producing, including Jersey Boys (well: by his own account, one of 75).  But in fact,  I remember his on-stage  career.  I told him that I think the last time I laid eyes on him, he was a son of Noah, lamenting "what am I without my money?" (Ed was Shem, Noahs eldest, on the make).     That was 53 years ago; I wondered if Ed would remember.   Quicker than you can say "okay animals, two by two," he responded:

THE FLOWERING PEACH is a favorite play. I wonder why it has never been revived. Also remember that we had to eat "biblical" food when we were on stage...dates, figs, etc...and one night the ark wheels got stuck on a fig...took four folks to get it moving...Glad you recall the play, and it brought back many memories. 

Right, the The Flowering Peach.   Not that I remembered; nor did I remember that it was by Clifford Odets, still a name in our youth, hardly a memory today.  Well, at least a memory: I remember seeing an Odets on Broadway just a few years back, though I don't think its hearty proletarianism wore very well.

The Flowering Peach is perhaps a slightly different animal.  It's a warm-hearted (yech) family comedy.   That is, Jewish family comedy--only the Jews here sound less like the Fertile Crescent than they do like the Lower East Side.  I remember it fondly also and like Ed, I would be glad to see it again. But wait: for a comedy from Second Avenue, how would you find a cast, unless you can get Jackie Mason to take a victory lap?

Translated,  I suspect it is a cultural remnant that has been lost--maybe a whole cultural world.  This is the tail end of the great immigrant generation, the memory of the holocaust still warm, the bitterness of postwar politics still stopping the breath of the old loyalists (Odets himself had gone over to the dark side, losing the sustenance he had enjoyed among the lefty companions of his youth).   Ed and his classmates could do it not because they spoke much Yiddish (I suspect that none of them knew any but catch-phrases)--but because at least they had heard people from the generation of their parents and grandparents.  I can't imagine how you would recreate that knowledge today.

Still, it could be fun to try. There was even a musical version, with Danny Kaye.at least as much of a stretch as Jackie Mason.  If only we knew someone with the grit and determination to take it on as a producer.  Hello, Ed?  Hello?  Hello?