Brecht in the Park (7/21/13) – A Brief Report

Free theater in Central Park! Even though it was a hot day, I decided to take in Elephant Run District’s presentation of three Bertolt Brecht one act plays – The Elephant Calf (1926), In Search of Justice (1938), and The Exception and the Rule (1929).

The outdoor staging had a playful quality to it, including limited use of masks and puppetry. From the little reading I did about Brecht after seeing the production, the director included hallmark devices such as adding snippets of songs, addressing the audience directly, and so forth. The thrust of all three one acts was slightly political as well as slightly absurd.

All six in the cast were effective in their characterizations and their realizations of the texts. As I see it, this was not great drama but a nice summer divertissement, a little on the quirky side. And the price was right. For any New York readers, there are two more performances, July 27 and 28.

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The Silent Clowns, Again (7/20/13)

Saturday’s selection of silents featured Edward Everett Horton in a short, Horse Shy (1928) and the feature, Helen’s Babies (1924). Oddly, I preferred the short over the feature.

In Horse Shy, Horton plays a hapless fellow invited to a fox hunt. We first meet him struggling to squeeze into his riding boots. Once he’s booted up, he realizes that his jodhpurs are on backwards. And his main problem? He really dislikes horses. In a bit of a running gag, horses seem to sense this and snap at him, chase him, and generally make his life miserable. On top of that, the daughter (Nita Cavalier) of the Colonel (who owns the estate where the hunt will take place) takes a shine to Horton. Then on top of that, a prankster has told her that Horton is quite the accomplished rider, so he is assigned Keno, the most spirited horse in the stable.

The horns are sounded and they’re off! Mayhem ensues—Keno is off like a rocket, Horton is thrown, he ends up remounted backwards, at one point he vaults over a wall only to land on a donkey going the other way, etc. A lot of the sight gags were truly laugh-out-loud funny. In the happy ending department, he gets the girl but not the fox. In fact he gets a skunk!

The program notes for Helen’s Babies point out that Horton had two famous leading ladies in this film—Baby Peggy, at the peak of her career, and Clara Bow, rapidly rising to stardom. The plot? Helen and her husband have the two best children in the world. Helen’s brother, a bachelor who doesn’t even like children (Horton), has written a very successful book on how to raise children. He’s coming for a visit, so Helen and her husband decide to take a brief getaway, knowing that their wonderful children will be in the capable hands of Horton.

Well, these kids are kids. They “help” their uncle by unpacking his suitcase and making a shambles of it. Shirt collars are mashed, straw hats are squashed, etc. He really has his hands full. Humorous bits. But some were more disturbing. At one point, after shaving, Horton gets distracted. Baby Peggy, wanting to be just like uncle, climbs on a stool, lathers her face, proceeds to unfold the straight razor, falls off of the stool and ends up with the razor perilously close to her face. I found this a little less than humorous. A neighbor (Ms. Bow) happens by, helps out with the two little girls, takes a shining to Horton and invites them to Sunday dinner. After a faux pas involving giving Ms. Bow a doll baby instead of flowers (Baby Peggy strikes again), everyone prepares to go in to dinner. Oops. The girls get distracted by a doggie, chase it down the lane, eventually ending up on railroad tracks—with a train approaching! When Horton and Bow realize the girls are gone, they set off in hot pursuit.

The little girls are rescued just in time and reunited with their parents who, as fate would have it, happened to be on the train. Helen is furious, but calms down when the little girls show how much they love their uncle. And Horton gets the girl! I didn’t find the gags all that funny in this one, and the plot seemed convoluted and not all that interesting to me.

As usual, the program notes, by Steve Massa, were nicely done and very interesting. The second of the curators, Bruce Lawton, ended up being the projectionist, and Ben Model, providing superb piano accompaniment, was a true joy. There are two more programs in the summer series.

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Bargemusic (7/13/13)

 Saturday afternoon’s concert was a flute, viola, harp trio—Brandon Patrick George, Andy Lin, and Meredith Clark, respectively. The concert opened with a Rondo-Menuet from Partita #3 by J.S. Bach for solo violin played, and very well played, by Mark Peskanov, Bargemusic’s Executive Director. These free Saturday concerts are family concerts, and there were quite a few children there, so the noise level in the audience was higher than usual.

The program, announced from the stage, was Elegiac Trio (1916), Sir Arnold Bax (1883–1953); Sonata for flute, viola and harp (1915), Claude Debussy (1862–1918); and Triolet (1989), Samuel Adler (1928–). All in all, three very different works.

Sir Arnold Bax was an English composer, and his work was gentle and graceful, with a touch of added strength, especially from the harp—a reminder that it can be quite percussive. It was nice, though it had a slightly rambling quality toward the end. Debussy’s sonata – Pastorale, Minuet, Allegro Moderato – began with shifting moods and somewhat more fragmented and short-ish lines and phrases. It was hard for me to sense the Minuet in the second movement. Debussy was stretching form, as well as tonality, too much. The final movement had an ostinato-like figure (a repeated rhythmic and musical phrase) from the harp, pizzicato (plucked) strings from the viola, and then a much spikier sound from all three instruments. Overall, it seemed to me that Debussy set out to be deliberately modern, presenting his music in a new and distinct style. It was a nice piece but I’m not sure I would seek out a second hearing. These were two very different trios from the same era.

If Debussy was aiming for modern, the Adler trio upped the ante. This music was truly modern, including dissonances and, at times, even disjointed phrases. All three artists played very well and seemed to approach the three different styles head on.

There was a fun Q&A at the end that included a demonstration of the three positions for each of the seven pedals on the harp. As Ms. Clark said, “Sometimes it seems like you’re tap dancing as well as using both hands on the strings!”

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River to River Festival (Mid-June–Mid-July)

 This was a free festival in lower Manhattan encompassing music, dance, and theater (some of it experimental). Not exactly my comfort zone. When I printed out their schedule, I highlighted five choices and made reservations for two of them. All performances were free, but some required reservations. I figured that if I actually made a reservation, I’d actually go. And it sort of worked. Of the five I highlighted, I ended up attending only two, and I canceled one reservation for July 9, the evening I went to the Naumburg concert and got drenched!

At any rate, the two performances I saw were indeed experimental in nature. So Percussion’s Where (we) Live had the percussion quartet joined by a guitarist, an accordionist, and a note giver. I’m not making this up, you know! The performance had percussion, songs, video installations, etc. The note giver would periodically get up from her computer keyboard and hand out slips of paper to various performers. They would then follow her instructions—sometimes leaving the room for a while; sometimes picking up a set of children’s bells, taking them to a new area of the performance space, and playing the bells while sitting on the floor; and sometimes just getting up and running in circles. I did not find the performance interesting or enjoyable. Several people got up and left early on, middle on, and later on. Since the performance space (an empty storefront at South Street Seaport) was bathed in daylight, I couldn’t bring myself to join them. If I could have slunk out in the dark, I probably would have.

As luck would have it, the other performance I saw was in the exact same space, though with a reconfigured staging and seating area. 600 Highwaymen’s This Great Country, from Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, was a modern, updating deconstruction/reconstruction of Salesman. It included choreographed movements that were not quite dance, a declamatory style of acting, at least a half dozen actors assuming the role of Willy at various times (adults, children, males, females) as well as young actors playing the young counterparts of the main actors portraying Willy’s sons, Biff and Happy. To me, it was a performance that held some interest. In this case, some equaled not very much.

At least I experimented with experimental. I’ll try to choose more carefully, if I commit to R2R in 2014.

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Triple Bill (7/6/13)

Today’s program of silent films was dedicated to Forgotten Funny People. It must be true, because I had heard of none of them—Marcel Perez, Alice Howell, and Douglas MacLean. Ring a bell, anyone? Right.

The first short, Sweet Daddy (1921), starring Marcel Perez, was really quite amusing. He was a milquetoast-ish husband literally ball-and-chained in the kitchen. In fact, his wife knocked him out of the window (twice!) and he was only saved by the chain around his neck. When his dictator-like wifey sent him out shopping (her “Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little” friends were coming over for lunch), he managed to meet a showgirl, lose money and find money (hey, it’s slapstick comedy!) take her to a fine restaurant and almost be found out by wifey and her cronies. He feigns injury (showgirl plays a nurse, onstage) and mayhem ensues getting him home. While he’s at home, there is much hopping about (he’s bandaged head to toe), and mayhem. The ending was a bit of a ???, as he jumps out of the kitchen window using an umbrella as a parachute.

Under a Spell (1925 (1924 on the cover of the printed program)) starred Alice Howell, an actress who created a ditzy-dame character. As a side note, in real life, Alice Howell plowed her earnings into California real estate and comfortably managed her lucrative holdings until her death in 1961. But I digress.

Our heroine’s husband falls asleep downstairs. A cross-dressing bandit (I’m not making this up, you know!) sneaks in, steals the husband’s wallet, and slops her dripper—er, leaves a shoe behind. Wifey finds it and is furious and hires a hypnotist to get to the truth. The mesmerist hypnotizes hubby into thinking he’s a monkey. The hypnotist gets boinged! (hello, these are silent film comedies!) before he can break the spell, hubby (as monkey) escapes, butler (yes, wifey and hubby can afford a butler) hires a gorilla suit, and butler entices hubby back to the family home. The hypnotist eventually returns hubby as hubby, the police subdue and arrest the “Bobbed-Hair-Bandit,” wifey realizes her mistake, and THE END.

The feature was One a Minute (1921), starring Douglas MacLean. Apparently he was a light comedy star/leading man that several high-powered actresses (Alice Brady, Mary Pickford, and Vivian Martin) liked to have in their films. I don’t particularly see the “handsome leading man” qualities, but maybe that’s why the actresses liked him?

At any rate, in One a Minute, Mr. MacLean was a recent law school graduate returning to Centerville. On the train was a young girl (Marian DeBeck) also returning to Centerville! After some comical confusion regarding de-training, our hero goes to the pharmacy started by his father—he’s expected to take over. Across the street is a new chain store pharmacy, owned by (oops!) the young girl’s father. Our hero decides to “create” the all-curing panacea that his father was always searching for. He creates a concoction out of four hum-drum ingredients, hoping that the concoction will work—or at least give the impression of working. Lo and behold! everyone who uses the powder is healed! He calculates that (like P.T. Barnum) if he gets one sucker a minute his future will be more than rosy.

The young lady’s father, who wants to crush the competition, has the powder analyzed—those four ingredients can’t cure anything. A trial ensues and the judge! is incapacitated, takes a powder (no, not literally—and it’s a joke used on a text slide in the film), and miraculously feels better.

Father of young girl buys the company and formula from our hero—but insists on knowing what the fifth ingredient is that our hero will not reveal, but finally does. It’s – faith. (Sort of like the think system in “The Music Man.”)

At any rate, boy gets girl and all live happily ever after.

This is a wonderfully curated series and Ben Model was, once again, a superb piano accompanist/composer to all three films.

ConcertMeister

Summer Silent Clowns (6/29/13)

This was the first Saturday matinee of the four-part summer series. The short was Love and Surgery (1914) starring Billie Ritchie, followed by Syd Chaplin in The Missing Link (1928). N.B.: IMDB has the date as 1927.

Seeing such an early film side by side with a later film was an eye opener. Love and Surgery was practically all slapstick—I’m not even sure a stab was made at a discernible plot. And everybody got whacked (not in the “killed” sense), including the women. I found that to be a little off-putting. Also, it occurred more than once. There was some humor in the film but it was hard to come by—mostly just the physical slapstick/violence.

The Missing Link finds an English nobleman and scientist (who is also a misogynist), Lord Melville Dryden, trying to get his luggage on board a steamer to Africa, where Colonel Braden believes that the Missing Link has been spotted. Via letter, Colonel Braden has also stated that his daughter, Beatrice (Ruth Hiatt), will be more than happy to be Lord Dryden’s guide and companion. She already has stars in her eyes and is hoping to charm, and even marry, Lord Dryden. The luggage barely makes it on board after our hero, Arthur Wells (Syd Chaplin), hoping to make a little bit of money by assisting the rich Lord Dryden, goes through a lengthy series of mishaps, including being frightened by an organ-grinder’s monkey. After much difficulty, even involving losing his pants, Wells ends up as a stowaway in Lord Dryden’s dressing chamber. Lord Dryden comes up with a plan for Wells to pretend to be Lord Dryden, so that Wells won’t be thrown off the steamer, therefore allowing the real Dryden to not become entangled with Ms. Braden. With me so far?

When the steamer gets to Africa, all goes as planned until Wells realizes that he’s deathly afraid of going out in the wilds to try to find and capture the Missing Link. Beatrice gives him a leopard’s paw as a good luck charm, which unfortunately never makes into his pants pocket. Inevitably, he makes the foray, gets chased by all manner of wild beasts, especially a pride of lions, realizes that he doesn’t have his lucky charm, sees it on the floor of the jungle, and reaches for it only to find that it’s attached to a live leopard! The Missing Link, a close-to-seven-foot-man-like simian, is finally spotted and is chased back to Colonel Braden’s home, where he begins to wreak havoc with everyone, especially Beatrice.

Wells, still pretending to be Dryden, finds out that there was yet another stowaway from the steamer—the organ-grinder’s monkey. Even as he tries to keep away from the monkey and also tries to tame and capture the Missing Link, he ends up using the monkey to assist him. He perches the monkey on top of his head and wears a long coat over his entire body so that he is an even larger version of the Missing Link.

The Missing Link is cowed by fear, allowing Wells to use the monkey to subdue the Missing Link, and thus save Beatrice from harm. Beatrice is overwhelmingly grateful and pours her heart out to him, still thinking that he’s Dryden. He leaves for a moment to get something to help calm her and is tormented, knowing that he needs to tell her the truth. While he’s gone, Beatrice gets another fright and jumps off of the bed where she had been trying to calm down, and promptly hides behind the curtains. Without Wells knowing what has happened, the monkey has jumped into the bed and pulled the sheets up and over him.

Wells returns and pours out his heart to Beatrice (well, really the monkey) and tells her that even though he isn’t the rich and famous Lord Dryden, he loves her with all his heart and desperately wants to marry her. When he asks for her hand, the monkey pops out. Much mirth ensues when Beatrice reveals herself from behind the curtains and lets Wells know that she heard everything he said and—yes! she loves him for who he really is and will happily marry him.

The performances were uniformly good and there were ample sight gags, chases, pratfalls and the like. All accompanied, as always, by the more-than-capable Ben Model at the Steinway grand piano. Now if they only allowed us to eat popcorn in the Bruno Walter Auditorium, it would have been the perfect matinee.

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