Drawing

A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster

A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster
by Wendy Moffat


This book is just amazing. Wendy Moffat has done a terrific job, brilliantly researched and so sensitive to the interior life of the 20th century homo. Academic biography aside, Moffat creates a compelling polemic on the damage a narrow minded society imposes on gay men and women. "Yes, yes, I remember feeling that," I would say as the author parsed the homophobia that caused Forster so much suffering and distraction. Things are different now, I would tell Morgan, knowing he would be pleased with the progress we have made. On the other hand, Morgan's life-long task to protect his mother's sensibilities hit close to home, a reminder that some things remain resistant to change.

Best of all, unlike so much of today's cultural debate where gay criticism addresses the "choir," Moffat's biography will reach a wider audience, those seeking appreciation of 20th century Brit. Lit, and pushing academia a few more inches out of the closet.

Morgan, via Moffat, makes me proud to be an American, as least one lucky enough to be out in the 70s. Morgan’s wide-eyed appreciation of America’s ghetto culture, the openly gay enclaves of Greenwich Village and Santa Monica canyon, for example, registered for him as hope in the future. Imagine his bearing witness to both the Oscar Wilde trial and the Silverlake riots of 1967. Despite his long life, he was fortunately spared the epidemic of the 80s and 90s, exacerbated by this same “liberating” ghettoization he so admired.

Through this astute biography, I hope Moffat reaches a larger audience, be it academic, religious or Republican, with the awareness on the enormous cost culture pays to maintain policies of homophobia.

Drowsy Chaperone at Actors Cabaret, Eugene

I attended a performance of Drowsy Chaperone last night, in a local production at Actors Cabaret located downtown Eugene. It is a well modulated, consistent production that, nevertheless fails to deliver the “magic” as promised. The mise-en-scene was inadequate, the direction lackluster, the comedic acting and vocal quality uneven. The plot, the fractured memories of a sun-downing Broadway queen, is loose enough to allow, nay require, a strong cast to excel. Didn’t happen.

Admired was the postmodern dramaturgy...historical allusions to New York in the late 1920’s, constant self-reference to its simplistic plot and stock characters, lyrics full of irony, sarcasm, parody that occasionally approach the surreal, set to catchy, seeming-authentic period melodies. A masterpiece of confection but sadly under baked.

I have another theater venue logged into my (loosely) comprehensive catalog of theaters in the Eugene area. Some favorites begin to emerge—Silva Hall at the Hult Center (decor) and Performance Hall at Lane Community College (lights well, great sight lines). The Actors Cabaret ranks somewhere in the middle or maybe, considering the subcategory of “dinner theater,” near the top. I liked having the option to get tickets without pressure to buy dinner. Those who were there for dinner were finished as we arrived, their tables cleared and the bar closed before the house lights dimmed. This is much appreciated.

Honestly, the show was pleasant enough... with several laughs, several enjoyable vocal performances, and a glimpse of the area’s musical theater talent and potential. Despite the limitations of “locally grown” community theater, the production retained the essence of the underlining creative impulse.

Built to Spill at the WOW, Eugene

Built to Spill members Doug Martsch (guitar, vocals), Brett Nelson (bass), Scott Plouf (drums) Jim Roth (guitar), and Brett Netson (guitar) put on a terrific show last week at the WOW. Their music is dense, creating a complex weave of sound that envelopes the listener. The love between the band and spectators is visceral. During the final song, members of the audience raised their cell phones to the stage, capturing a laudatory video of the band (replacing waving Bic lighters) as a show of appreciation.

It was my second venture to the WOW. I attended a West African dance class there a few weeks ago. It is a great venue; the right size as both an auditorium and studio, sufficient lobby space, good sound equipment, adequate lighting and the management/security is unobtrusive. The hall has a welcomeness, like a well used facility at your old high school. The wood interior has softened from use, polished like a pew in an old church. 


"The Community Center for the Performing Arts is the nonprofit (501c3) arts organization that owns the historic Woodmen of the World (WOW) dance hall at the corner of 8th and Lincoln in Eugene and operates the facility as an all ages performing arts venue. The organization currently enjoys the support of approximately 900 members and 400 volunteers."

“Creating Community”

"Creating Community" Benefit for the Guinea Land Project

Agate Hall is a trip. It's a square auditorium with antiphonal balconies. There is installed seating at the back of the first level under the balcony, and temporary seating set up in the "orchestra." Everything seemed dusty, and rarely used as a proscenium performance space. But it was my first foray onto the University of Oregon campus for an arts performance and the hall deserves mention.

"Creating Community" featured six drummers from Guinea, West Africa. Songs and dance also presented, but the drumming was most noteworthy. With so many drums and drummers at it at the same time, the sound produced is very dense, always loud, against which comparatively subtle variations in accents and rhythms slowly manifest and disintegrate within the larger stream of sound. Somewhat mechanical, somewhat mesmerizing, yet the blast of energy coming from the stage commands attention.

Two dances, the Tantamba and Boa were performed by students from Alseny Yansane's six week dance intensive, in groups of six to eight women. Being familiar with West African dance only as a student myself, I was particularly impressed with the gestural quality of the head and torso of these dances. Not quite as narrative as classical Indian dance, it seemed more like Hula, from Hawaii, pleasant, propitiative and feminine. Meanwhile the feet and lower body mark the square rhythms in place, with very little movement across the floor.

Interspersed through the evening, several men put down their drums and performed solo movement, quite different from the women. With heightened athleticism, the men engaged in flashy tumbling and capoeira-like engagements with one other. This was very high energy and won applause from the spectators.

Overall, the performance was a fundraiser, to purchase land in Guinea for the future home of an international arts center, a space for Guinean cultural performance artists to work, teach and preserve their cultural heritage. Nice. Even abroad, the core musicians and dancers did not stop creating community.

New and Improved

Kelly Brown, a Boise-based dancer, choreographer and dance educator, presents a concert of four works at Stage II, Morrison Center, BSU, May 23 and 24, 2008.

Kelli Brown delivers an engagingly varied program with both directorial breadth and accessible choreography, generously sprinkled with moments of exceptional beauty and compositional effect. Three of the four works on the program fit within the genre of modern repertoire—dances that are dancerly, whose movements are closely linked to the music, and involved in a poetic/kinetic narrative. The last of these works, and the concert namesake New and Improved, seems to anchors all the works, presenting the clearest statement of what just might be on Brown’s mind—cultural critique from a woman’s pov.

In New and Improved, the cast of five women frantically drive their 4-wheeled kitchen stools pell-mell across some imaginary suburban landscape, stopping suddenly only to strike tableaux of 1950s pinup poses. The Bing Crosby songs propose a veneer of domestic tranquility, ironically soothing a subliminal Stepfordian dystopia. Added are audio tracks from radio and TV commercials of the 50s. The cleaning products advertised are those needed by every modern homemaker, to maintain a praiseworthy household.

These iconic assumptions regarding women’s roles in the 1950s create the emotional bottleneck of the piece, and the impetus for this kinetic unwinding. “It’s hard to be pinup-pretty and to keep the kitchen sparkling clean” goes the familiar rant.

With hope, and tongue in cheek, Brown proposes better living through medication. It is cigarettes--and their soothing narcosis, with one dangling from the perma-smiles of each of the dancers—that provides the relief for our cultural binarism. The ridiculousness of the solution somehow undermines the severity of the problem, but it’s all in good fun. Brown never takes things too seriously.

Duende, a quartet for four women, is the lyrical work on the program, technical and formally decorous. Based on Latin rhythms, with movement and costuming suggesting Latin ballroom dancing, the piece cycles through partnerships created among the four women, with nary a male, hip-swiveling, ballroom-lothario in sight. Compositionally, the piece works on its own: sensuous, well-crafted and straightforward. Brown’s characteristic irony and comedy takes a break.

Taken “in concert” with the other works on the program, Duende champions women’s sexual empowerment, a party-line approach to the problems located in feminist critique. Duende serves also to feature Brown’s considerable musicality, sculptural craft and her gentlest of an always-gentle touch.

The opening work, Sisters and Brothers, is the most narrative work on the program. It combines several poetic/kinetic episodes evoking the life of evangelical Aimee Semple McPherson and her congregations in early 1900s America. The cast of ten dancers engage in a lot of frenetic movement, running in circles, skipping, flopping over from the waste, shared weight, rolling on the floor, pushing and catching one another; movement easily recognized, by any good Christian, as the dance of spiritual revelation. In contrast to this, the solo figure of McPherson is revealed, sometimes alone, pondering the problems in promoting her anti-rationalism. “Sometimes to gain faith we must give up our logic,” as stated in the program notes.

In Sisters and Brothers, Brown’s choreography resembles works we’ve seen by Mark Morris; sharing a method of painting movement with broad strokes, building kinetically on the synergism of continuous movement. We are overwhelmed (or so the intent) when confronted with the repeating roil of bodies engaged in muscle release. (Typically, we understand dance as a product of muscle contraction, not release.) We witness, both as audience and, by implication, as a member of the McPherson congregation, an emotional and spiritual exhaustion. Thus, the piece offers an invitation: to destabilize the rational for the promise of spiritual gain. Stated in secular context, Brown suggests replacing the process of living with the experience of living—well-chosen themes for exposition in dance.
 

Amidst the three modernist works, the fourth work, SWF (single, white, female, as in personal ads) stands apart, heading straight for a postmodern mix of performative text, first person declamation, pedestrian movement and in your face (although mild) transgression. The piece is spare, raw, and presentational—far from the technique and musicality of the other works.

In SWE, the three women perform a round robin of verbal/movement invectives; one allowing us to sneer at the de-humanizing language of the personal ad, another extolling the sublime addiction/risk of falling in love. Before long, a token Everyman is moved onto stage, a cast member, yes, but a prop with which the women explore the proxemics of contemporary sexual relationships. Kudos to Janelle Wilson who mixes things up by bringing her performance experience in hip-hop and poetry slam to stage, and for her contribution of original poetry.

So, in program order, we see a woman who wields spiritual power, women who celebrate their sexual power (defined in the absence of men) and women brought the verge, both now and as it has been. The polemics borrowed from feminist critique ties the four works together beautifully. Brown is never heavy handed; instead, she makes her arguments with comic irony and a metaphoric wink of the eye. Brown moves ably across the spectrum of dance/music genres and performative modalities. There are many, noticeable, good decisions made by her discerning directorial eye, indeed, a concert of work linked temperamentally and thematically.

The talented “pick-up” cast of dancers Brown assembles rivals those of established dance companies around town, in particular, fine performances from Katie Ponozzo, Lesley Thompson, Echo Waldron, Amanda Watson, and Teresa Vaughan. Thanks to the dance program housed in the BSU Theater Department, for its production support and for nurturing, in some way or another, the talent of every member of the cast. The Dance program has, and continues, to develop and influence dance in our community. 

Catharsis inturruptus: Are the Metropolitan Opera Live HD Transmissions authentic theater?

Last Saturday (01/12/2008) I attended my first Metropolitan Opera HD Live performance via a high-definition transmission at our local Edwards 21 movie theater. Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth was the opera.

I was full of anticipation of every sort, but I wanted to focus on similarities—and differences—between sitting in the audience at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, and sitting in a movie theater in Boise watching the simultaneous stream of the HD transmission. In other words, it was time to consider the authenticity of the out-of-theater performative experience: Are aesthetic appetites sated in HD? Who is the target of our bravos? What would Verdi do? Will I be able to enjoy this?

The house lights dim. Oh, wrong... those were the house lights at the Metropolitan. Why didn’t Edwards try to dim the house lights in the movie theater at the same time? Wouldn’t be nice to coordinate lighting calls in an effort toward an authentic experience? I’m I the only person to be distracted by this? I make a note to send a pointed letter to Edward’s management, and then try to relax. I take a deep breath and think buffo thoughts. But just as unwillingness begins to destabilize suspended disbelief, the house lights at Edwards dim. Things are moving forward. Willingness returns in the forgiving darkness.

Act one, scene one: a large close up of the singing character of Macbeth fills the giant screen, followed by a quick cut to the same character from another camera. Then, there is a sequence of cuts, from many cameras, each from their own angle and degree of zoom. Violations of the rule of performative authenticity mount, and we're heading for multiple citations.

After all, brick-and-mortar audiences don’t have the option to vary their sight lines. At the opera our seats are fixed, our heads face one direction, in the dark, and oblivious to others sitting around us (ideally). And, on the other hand, brick-and-mortar audiences can focus on anyone or anything on stage as they choose.

But not so, with cameras and video directors who limit our options. The multiple and oblique camera angles, quick cuts, mediated POVs and the added sense of movement that this creates begin to chip away at the authenticity of the experience. It destabilizes our internal, self-directed, connective experience; the very reason live theater was invented in the first place. (You remember then.)

If producers were sincere in their attempt to recreate the experience of sitting in the Met, then they should limit camera movement, or at least make dramaturgical choices. For example, if I want to focus Macbeth’s reaction to his wife’s meltdown, then frame both characters, not just the soloist. Request denied. The apparent directorial rationale—amount of screen time is equally proportional to body weight—forces me to focus on the single character of Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth's reaction (contrived to reflect my own) is hidden from view.

By and by, I witness the most exquisite aria in the operatic repertoire, performed by the supreme diva du jour. It stopped the show on stage in New York, but the local theater is completely quiet. 

Great performances incite thunderous applause, bravos and bouquets of flowers raining upon the stage. Being part of that energy is thrilling; the shared experience an important element of theater. But the relative quiet at Edwards is disquieting. I want rise to my feet and howl “bravo,” but I don’t. Why? why not? whatever. When composing this area, Verdi had loftier intentions than to challenge my esprit. Do I applaud or not? How else am I to put a lid on the fervor that burns within?

So, is there any hope for HD transmissions? Of having an authentic experience as if attending live opera? Can I enjoy the music as drama as Verdi intended without the distraction of technology and obstacles to my full participation? Well... yes.

By Act II, I was properly transported, mostly by the incredible vocal performances of the artists on Metropolitan stage. The audio and visual quality is excellent and being technically enhanced, it could be argued, to surpass anything one could experience in the theater. The distraction of camera angles evaporated, as it does for a well-directed film. For the most part, technology serves performing arts very well. Verdi wrote so his audience could touch the sublime and, damn it, I’m there, even if I don’t show it.

Pragmatically, I consider comfort and convenience: a short drive from home, a $22 admission cost, enjoying an in-show mocha and biscotti. Think briefly on the cost of traveling to New York, hotel accommodations and the price of a ticket at the Met. ‘Nough said.

As far as my intrapersonal catharsis, I’m there. My communal expression of choice...tears. I have no problem with tears. I cry at good theater, even if no one else is. For me, a well performed opera touches the sublime. The music, text and spectacle have a cumulative effect that short-circuits my emotional center. The best will bring on the tears: tears of sadness, tears of joy, tears of orchestral richness, tears of exceptional set design, even tear of vibrant gel colors! It doesn’t matter the cause because good theater is non-rational. Today, several arias touched my t-spot and, as the house light came up, I saw I was not alone. A darkened theater is the sanctuary for the exposed heart...very real, very communal, HD notwithstanding.

So I’m a believer. The Met’s HD Transmissions are an exceptional opportunity and I look forward to continued and expanded programs in future seasons.

In this production: Lado Ataneli as Macbeth, Maria Guleghina Lady Macbeth, John Relyea Banquo, Dimitri Pittas MacDuff and whose performance of "Ah, la paterna mano" is among those sublime. Conductor James Levine is the world’s greatest lyric-theater conductor, no contest.