There’a a moment in William Goldman’s novel “Magic” that I remember well even thought I read it 30 years ago… a magician does a very difficult, subtle trick, and the audience hardly notices. He starts to shout at them, “Do you have any idea how hard this is?”
Sometimes I wonder why actors in musicals don’t ever do that, although I’m sure they’re tempted. Back when I was a literary manager, reading unproduced plays, we would always laugh when somebody sent in the manuscript for their new original musical. Writing a good, produceable play was hard; writing a musical anyone could or would stage is practically impossible. To a first approximation, it never happens. Even if you have the most glorious collection of performers, writers, composers, designers, directors, and a mint of money (cough cough “The Addams Family” cough cough) things never work out.
So I’m particularly pleased to tell you about two that did, which you should see at the earliest opportunity:
In Chicago: The House Theatre (full disclosure: I’m on their board and I love them and wish I could I be them) just opened their original rock musical “Girls Vs. Boys” at the Chopin Theater. Adolescent agonies and sex and drugs and lust, written by Nate Allen, Chris Matthews and Jake Minton, set to an amazing score by Nate Allen and Kevin O’Donnell, choreographed by Tommy Rapley, staged by Nate. It’s raw and funny and loud and kinetic; the actors are gorgeous and passionate and, as Nate put it to me, “will melt your face off.” This is the show the cast of “Spring Awakening” might have put on after hours just to amuse themselves… you know, when they could really cut loose. Ticket info is here.
And in New York: my dear friend Jack Lechner, one of the cleverest people I know, wrote the lyrics for a new musical based on Dan Savage’s moving memoir of adoption, “The Kid.” This seems like the happiest collision of geniuses I’ve come across in a while. New Yorkers: go see it.
I had a thought regarding thediscussion I sponsored on this blog a little while ago, in re: the nature of Obama hatred and Bush hatred, and the similarities and differences thereof.
I was re-reading Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, which I do every once in a while, as it (and not, in my view, the Gettysburg Address) is the single most astonishingly great political utterance in this country’s history. Lincoln decided to speak about the Civil War which was then, finally, coming to a close, and instead of glorying in the by-then inevitable victory of the Union, or even gloating a bit at all those who had doubted him — hell, I would’ve — he gave a remarkable capsule history of the war and its causes. It is remarkable, more than anything, for its rhetorical distance. It’s almost as if Lincoln is already speaking to future generations, who would not know the combatants or even their cause. Of the two sides, he says:
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.
Now, look at that last line. He spends four sentences, each rung in with a word of equivalency (Neither, neither, each, both) establishing how alike the two sides were. As well he should: he had staked his presidency and his life on the proposition that “both” sides were in fact, one side. And then, with a masterful touch of understatement — “It may seem strange…” — he alludes to the underlying vast, categorical distance between the two sides: one of them fought for the right to enslave other human beings. In the speech, he has more to say about slavery and the blood drawn by the lash, but by then he has moved on to a general context of national guilt, implying, as the war comes to an end, that slavery was not the Southern sin, but a national one, and thus all the vast suffering, on both sides, was somehow divinely (or, I might say, karmically) just.
But what’s fascinating for me is Lincoln’s understanding that no matter how similar the two sides of that political argument may have been, there was, underneath the equivalent protestations about freedom and democracy and liberty, something profoundly different. Lincoln doesn’t go so far to suggest that one side, his side, was right — as he alludes to, ending slavery was not the aim of his government as the war began — but he does indicate, in his elegant way, that one side was, essentially, profoundly and objectively wrong. And thus, all the superficial similarities become moot.
Back to our current disputes, which has already begun to have subtle and not-so-subtle echoes of the Civil War. There is a lot of similarity to those who say “I want my country back,” and those who demand the restoration of our Constitution, whether they did those things in 2004 or 2010. But there must be, and I think there is, a profound difference, if only because of the nature and policies of the regime they are protesting. But let us judge not, lest we be judged.
In tribute to the late Daryl Gates, former LAPD Chief, I am reposting a story I told last year as part of a Chicago Public Radio event. I apologize again for the typos, etc… this is my rough notes for the story I told out loud that night.
I also want to recommend the LA Times obit of Chief Gates, linked above. He was an fascinating figure in Los Angeles’ history, and the country’s. He was an incredibly polarizing figure, especially along racial lines, but he would have denied, quite sincerely and fervently, being a racist. In my view, he had a very simple view of the world: there were good guys, and bad guys, and his job was to protect the first group and aggressively pursue, arrest, and if need be kill the second. That the second group seemed to be mostly Latino and African American was an accident of history or sociology or maybe personal choice, who knows. In fact, he probably bristled at the people who pointed out that the wrath of the LAPD seemed to fall so often on minorities… they were the bad guys; what did race have to do with it? Why, he was proud to serve with many fine Black and Latino officers…
I lived in the city he helped to burn and I knew people who feared Gates’ officers because of the color of their own skin so I can’t help but think the city and the country is far better off now that he and his generation have left positions of power, particularly positions wielding deadly force. But it’s worth a moment to consider, at his passing, how he looked at the world, and how, at some deep level, he simply could not understand why people were so mad at him.
You can find it here. A commenter has already taken me to task for not mentioning Diane Johnson, the co-screenwriter of The Shining. It is true, and I’m slightly ashamed, as a writer myself. That said, Kubrick was known for running roughshod over his writers, and I don’t think anyone would deny that what you end up with is, almost purely, his vision. And I wonder what Ms. Johnson thinks about the finished film… if anybody knows, say so in comments.
My latest column addresses and rights an injustice that happened only in my own mind. Scary.
By the way, one of the commenters asked me what I thought about the sequel, presumably, “Hannibal.” For the record, I thought the book was hateful and awful, dripping with contempt for the reader and its own characters, and I refused to see the movie. So there.
