Happy Birthday Daddy.

Day 6…again. November 4, 2014. Happy, Happy birthday to my father. I am so happy he was born. Obviously. I love life and he helped give it to me. He would be 84 today. I miss him. The good, the bad, the seventies!

Just came off of the 22 hour shift. I earned my money. 3 Incidents in the span of my tour. We handled them all. Just as I was drifting off to Kalimba by 46 Bliss, Damon barges in and I spring into action. Rather fell. Into action. It is so autumn. It’s time to vote.

Is it any wonder why I lover her so? Wouldn't trade her for gold!

My wife and my dad. 2005 at his 75th.

4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane

See me, feel me, touch, me...heal me

Saint Ann’s Warehouse is currently located at the beginning of Jay Street in Dumbo. The last event we saw there was an all-female rendering of Julius Caesar set in a women’s prison. The institutional theme plays heavily in the TR Warszawa production of Sarah Kane’s swan song: 4:48 Psychosis a play about a woman dealing with mental illness.

This theater changed me. It is the epitome of theatrical power to express and transform. Magdalena Cielecka is riveting as the tortured protagonist. By the fatal end, I felt as if when she was looking right at me; she was looking right through me. Exposing my fear, my truth, my guilt. I swear we made eye contact. I was the dark figure of her madness. The specter of death itself.

 Adapted and directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna, I felt that I not only intimately witnessed the severe condition of a woman struggling to battle her affliction and express it through her art, but I also felt as if I was experiencing psychosis of my own. There were so many immediately identifiable and relate-able nuanced details that struck chords of truth like a dulcimer. By the end, the audience was torn to shreds.

My immediate thoughts jotted into my black berry on the subway trip home: Still stunned. I have seen greatness tonight. The searing truth. The truth kills. The audience is destroyed. The smattering of applause forced. No curtain call. No joy here. No vanity of craft. No need. All needs filled. Speechless. And thoughtless I am. Stunned into muteness...I will be landing in this for a long time. Sarah Kane was an English playwright whose plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, physical and psychological torture and death. Her plays feature poetic intensity, pared down language, exploration of theatrical forms and the use of violent stage action. Kane committed suicide in 1999.

"Love me. Touch me. Speak."

Precision. That is how I would describe the quality and skill with which Sarah Kane's 4:48 Psychosis eviscerated me. I came away from this performance with a new empathy for my fellow creatures. If you staged T.S. Elliot’s “Wasteland,” this is how it would look.

"I gassed the Jews. I bombed the Arabs. I raped the children while they begged for mercy." most probably the most horrid speech ever uttered in any language on any stage. And yet all I could feel was beyond profound pity for this miserable being. Profound pity and direct connection to parts of me experiencing the exact same condition. This tortured individual with whom I share so much, if not so intensely and severely, this same madness, is the “other” I recognize in myself.

Despite the final lines of her poem, Kane will never vanish. But this staging goes away on October 26^th. In Polish with English super-titles.

www.stannswarehouse.org

Mad Cow, Orlando: The Who"s TOMMY

Usually my reviews are from in and around NYC. Welcome to my first road review!

In 1975 I was having the best year of my life up to that point. I was a junior in high school, I had a beautiful girlfriend and Tommy was made into a film starring just a bunch of my favorite celebrities and artists. When the Rock Opera came to Broadway I was in a different place and I never did see the Broadway production. So when my beautiful wife suggested we go see a staging in downtown Orlando as part of out 11th wedding anniversary celebration I was so pumped!

I will be cruel only to be kind in this review.

Firstly let me commend the ensemble and all the leads. They were individually and collectively magnificent. The energy and commitment projected from that modest stage blew the roof off and kept my toe tapping and my seat rocking through out. Nothing could hold them back. Not the casting, the concept, the costumes or the set. Their brilliance lit the night sky of Orlando. Kudos to the musicians, costumer, scenic designer and choreographer as well.

A staging like this makes me want to go back to grad school and get my MFA in directing. With my biggest peeve the blocking during the opening moments of the Acid Queen number. I missed the entire opening tableaux because Captain Walker and his little son Tommy stood directly in front of me. If they wanted to see the Gypsy, played by the lovely Valerie Witherspoon, in all her revealing glory...they should have bought a ticket like I did and sat in a seat so everyone else could see!

I wanted to shout: Yo, I'm from Brooklyn! Down in front!

Other than that...I don't think it would be productive to go into further detail. My emotional attachment to the material may cloud my judgement. Though my wife, who had never seen the movie or the musical before, and knew nothing of the story going in, had a billion questions for me afterward. Such is life in the theatre!


Ciao for now.

King Lear...staged here...At NYU Skirball

It resembles a dolls house, (not the play, but literally). This is the functional set of a Shakespeare's Globe interpretation of King Lear now playing here in New York City at NYU Skirball. in the West Village.

I must admit, I was a bit trepidatious about going to see Shakespeare at the Skirball again. The first experience was a disastrous deconstruction of Othello with the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing  Iago.

No such high concept employed here. Pure Shakespeare as only Shakespeare's Globe seems to be delivering these days. That means the house lights stay on, the audience is included in the fun (in Shakespeare's day, the "4th wall" had not been invented) and a fresh, lively interpretation of text is delivered with great pacing, acting and stagecraft.

The last Lear I saw that had the same, bare bones, honest quality was when The American Bard Theater Company did it a few years back.

Joseph Marcell as Lear is sublime. When he declares "I am a man!" you will not be able to escape the message so timeless and subtle, yet so powerful and contemporary. He sent chills through me.

Yes Jacobi was inventive with his whispering of the speech during the storm on the heath. Yes, Langella was a powerful physical presence and "every inch a king." But the stripped down versions of Shakespeare's Globe provide a more accessible pathway to the words, the poetry, the music of Shakespeare.

In recent productions of Lear, that poetry, that music, would flash like lightening. In Shakespeare's Globe, the deluge of artistry never stops.

According to Executive Director of Skirball, Michael Harrington: this "...marks the beginning of our new partnership with Shakespeare's Globe..." Meaning we can look forward to more and more of this wonderful, exciting, and enlightening style of theater.

Bravo Globe. Bravo NYU Skirball.

They Got the band Back Together-THE PETERSON'S @ 54 Below

54 Below. September 27th. 2014. Been waiting all year for something special and this is it. They got the band back together. Tony Danza talking to Matt Saldivar at the bar. The room buzzing with excitement.

All I need is a good cigar and dedicated ventilation and I would have been as near to nirvana as I can get without my wife being next to me. 54 Below is opulent without pretensions. Festive like a secure speak easy of old. Pete Peterson (the drummer) is missing. Not the reason they have not played! They have not played because Mrs. Peterson had a baby. Julio got the baby sitter. Julio is "so tired.” Here is the blow by blow of this 11 round bout of non-stop laughter in a club featuring an audience with the likes of C. Michael Hall, Ben Shenkman, and James Naughton.

1. Throw Away the Past (Move On)

They all wipe with towels. Mr. Peterson is looking for Julio to set up the baby monitor. They are playing Frankenstein? No, it’s just like a radio. You have to tune it! Baby sleeping.

 "It’s like my heart is walking around outside of my body." Mr. Peterson explains parenthood...but with not so fond memories of the blessed event!  Trauma down there! Alien! Coming out of your body. 

 Mrs. Peterson wants to get naked and do shots! Mr. P can't do it. Yet...

2.(Get Wet) Down There!

Father Tom's sexual history. Father Tom was not visited by a priest.

3. Because, Because ! We were in Love!!!

Julio cries. And is really, really tired. Ricky (He's the new drummer) had to pump. 

Dios Mio! It's been 10 months and they have not named the baby!

Lazy drunk absentee mom. Mrs. Peterson is a feminist. WWDRD

4. (New song) What Would Donna Reed Do?

5. Matt Saldivar! No matter where you are...we think of you and smile!

More patter. More tired-ness. 

Beef jerky? Fruit roll up? "Is that my placenta?" Mrs. Peterson asks. Eating smoked placenta for energy! 

Brilliant!

Tony Danza comes on stage. He is the baby sitter! He's good with kids. Julio explains the long running documentary (Who's the Boss) about raising kids.

Tony does a song!

6. Donna was an extreme sunbather in Vegas...who died of exposure...2nd chance. “I couldn't have been rotten-er...I should have gotten her out of the sun!" (He rocks it out of the park!) A song from Honeymoon in Vegas coming to Broadway.

Mrs. Peterson is hot, hot, hot for Tony.

Mr. Peterson's wilted libido shows signs of life! (He's jealous).

7. Arwen- Aragorn-Misfits

Mr. Peterson wants to fight Tony Danza!

8.Bruce Lee! I gotta be!

He's calling Tony Danza out! Baby monitor going off! Baby crying.

 Let's sing him a lullaby.

9. $60.00 Dollar Bra (sotto voce)

Puts the baby to sleep. Matt (aka Julio) played the lil piano! Cracked me up!

Naming the baby after Tony Danza.

10. Michael Corleone-Apollonia… Blow Up-in a car. "You could be grotesquely obese and I'd still love you" Mr. Peterson croons. 

11...Encore! Matt Saldivar! New song? Johnny Loves You? Evans solo sweet. All -I-Know ...is I don't wanna lose you now...

Whew. I am so tired after that recap. I think I need a nap...later. What a great night. I hope they play more.

9/11/14 - 13 Years a Ghost

It's like the fires never went out. Even after the towers fell, after September passed, after 13 years. The fire still burns. Helplessly I gazed at the north tower and at the doomed face of a man above the flames. He was in a chef's coat and was hanging out a window and was trying to do what we were all trying to do...escape. I was on the outside looking in, yet I could not escape the horror. That man would not escape with his life. I feel as if I have just haunted New York City ever since. A restless spirit unable to comprehend or reconcile the massive heartbreak. 

Good came out of the rubble, out of the search and rescue of victims, out of the determination to fight back and win against tyranny, out of rebuilding. Though I know in my very small way I play an even smaller part in all that, yet, I still feel invisible. Stranded in a past that never existed. A place where lives were all saved and ruin prevented. Haunting the plaza where that brass globe sat between the two towers. Mesmerized by views from that observation deck. Feeling the thrill of those fast elevators to Windows on the World. Being with the people who never saw September 12th 2001.

It takes a lot of energy to keep my emotions in check. I want throw myself back into life with a vengeance but then I think...what the heck. I go forward anyway, haunting the city by night, sleeping by day. Responding to the fires after they are out. Searching for meaning. Helping where I can help. Giving where I can give. Wondering if  the joy of pleasure will ever be mine again.

Dear Dad,

September 8th, 2008 is a day I will not forget. I think of you everyday dad. I hope you and mom are getting along in heaven. This is a poem I know you read, I am sharing it today in an effort to touch your spirit, and to let you know your spirit lives in me.

Adams Street

Two men in warm thermal sweaters with hoods

Caper along planks fixed atop a stage of scaffolding

Bright Brooklyn October Sun rises, shines, and is

Absorbed by thirty pound black felt roofing paper.

A tape- measure razor thin is stretched between

Held in hands darkened by pitch dust

That gets between every skin cell.

How I remember your hands holding a stick rule

As you made deep gouges in soft black membrane

Glowing blacker soaking in all the sun it could.

I held one end of heavy cord full of yellow chalk

We pulled tightly while you tugged smartly snapping

Long straight parallels.

It was crisp, cool, and autumn. Good working weather.

I thought of you, of us together, when I saw hooded workmen

High above Adams Street getting set to strike lines

And begin starter courses of slate or tile.

I know we would have had more patience with each other

If we knew then what we know now,

But I am grateful for everyday you could still hear me say

“I Love You, Dad.”

Because

Love fueled our anger for so long

And we both know what it is

To be angry young men

Hammering away in sunshine.