Come Saturday Morning

I'm back from a few perfect days with friends in Pennsylvania (more of that anon, when I sort through my photos of the Solebury/New Hope area and write my review of the wonderful new Terrence McNally play we saw at the Bucks County Playhouse), and now home with my cats.  I will not write about my fury as I drove back to New York.  There is not now nor will there ever be any excuse for it to take an hour to go from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to my part of Queens.  A full hour.  Even the approach to the Bridge wasn’t as bad this time was as the BQE.

Enough of that.  I had my usual grumpy musings about the uselessness of vacations away that were obliterated by returning here.  But this morning, as I sat out back with my coffee before it gets too hot, I saw this:

Those, my friends, are zucchini blossoms.  It's a short-lived flower, and one must be paying attention to the garden (and you all know I'm a benevolently negligent gardener) to see it, let alone eat it.

I pulled out my best cookbook, Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and looked up the simple recipe. 

It's a boy!

 Pastella for dipping...

oil for frying (very quick frying)....  

Et voilà! Naturally, I made a large mess in a very short time, but none of that mattered.

 

What a lovely breakfast, fresh from my garden!  It’s the only time I’ll have this for breakfast, but how sweet that it wasn’t a Monday when I wouldn’t have had time to sit out back with my coffee, let alone cook them up. 

All this and the hydrangea are blooming too.

~ Molly Matera, signing off of electronic communications devices to read a real book.

Weekend in the 'burbs

Friday night I saw Joss Whedon’s newly released film version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (black and white, modern dress, modern sensibilities…except....) at Lincoln Center.  Saturday I watched the DVD of Kenneth Branagh’s film version from 1993. Branagh also directed Thor (2011), which led me to my DVD of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers from last year.  While I contemplate what to tell you about Whedon’s new film, I thought I’d bring you up to date on the garden.  And the cats.  And the squirrels.

I don’t expect any “squirrel-proof” bird feeder to be proof against New York City squirrels.  Their ways with bird feeders are imaginative as well as intrusive.  The birdfeeder hangs from a tree branch and even has a lid.  Which is no obstacle to a New York squirrel, who just lifts the lid and digs in.

 

 

The “small or medium-sized rodent of the family Sciuridae” are tough, fearless, and smarter than I’d thought.  You know those big tins that are given at holidays, usually full of pop corn, sometimes divided into three types?  Well, I like tins and save them.  For cookies, for popcorn, for anything.  My winter scarves and shawls and gloves go in this one.

And for some reason, I decided to use this one outside to hold plastic bags of birdseed.  Guess who’s smart enough to open it.  Greedy little thieves.

Watchful Wilbur and Millie

 The cats have been intent on the visiting birds as well as the resident squirrels who’ve ventured onto the garden shed to stare through the window.  No, of course I don’t let them go out to run off the rodents.  So they wait and they watch, they twitch their hind quarters, and then they nap.

Wilbur is trapped

Chick is rapt

This weekend in the garden:  The hydrangea I planted last summer near my front window is taking well and blossoming.

The crookneck squash plant and the zucchini plant are both doing nicely out back,

Alas, the cucumber is not taking.

Finally, inside, my experiment with organic celery seems to be going well.  I bought the organic celery at Whole Foods a few weeks ago, and then followed the instructions here: http://www.17apart.com/2012/02/growing-celery-indoors-never-buy-celery.html.  Five days after “planting” the base in water and setting the bowl in the kitchen window, this is what I’ve got.  It seems to be working.  How cool is that!

~ Molly Matera, signing off to enjoy the Sunday papers in my little hideaway.

7th day:  I transferred the celery base into a pot with some nice potting soil.  Watered.  Will water every day and see what happens next.  Tee hee!

 

EST Marathon of 1-act plays -- Series B (2 out of 3)

Back to EST for Series B, the second set of One Acts in the Marathon.  The clever and creative production staff at EST has created a mix-and-match playing area, with pillars offering their services as posts or door jambs or windows, transforming the space into different places for different plays.  Kudos to the scenic design by Nick Francone. 

Series B played like this:

Daddy Took My Debt Away (by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Jamie Richards) is a comment on our times, but it’s really just a sketch.  Potentially interesting characters are painted in broad strokes, all well acted by Emma Galvin, David Gelles, and Jonathan Randell Silver.  This begins the feeling that some of these one-acts are meant to be parts of a larger whole.

In The Favor, Leslie Ayvazian’s heartfelt story of Ralph and Ellen at a crisis point, we’ll never know if anyone changes or if the main question is resolved.  It’s a sweet and warm slice of a story, the characters are expertly drawn by writer/director Ayvazian and passionately and thoughtfully acted by Grant Shaud and Janet Zarish.  It’s a charming teaser to a potentially larger whole.

The very funny Grant Shaud and Janet Zarish in The Favor.  Photo courtesy Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Something Like Loneliness is a clever play with an interesting conceit:  We’ve all thought, “if only I could bottle that feeling….” Ryan Dowler wrote a world in which emotional moments can be preserved in Tupperware (or Ziploc) containers. Well directed by Colette Robert, apartment dwellers Dan (Chris Wight) knocks on Mia’s (Jane Pfitsch) door.  He lives upstairs and there’s nothing between her ceiling and his floor.  He hears her, and she him: “I don’t have to turn on NPR in the morning,” she says, “I can just listen to yours.”  These two characters capture moments (the sound of a woman pulling on her jeans in the morning, or of an orgasm) and then use the simple conceit of bartering with their containers to engage and maybe take a chance.  It’s fun yet somehow it seemed a bit cerebral.

Waking Up, by Cori Thomas and directed by Tea Alagić, is an impressive counterpoint between two women separated by continents and oceans, yet not separate at all.  The American woman (Amy Staats) finds a lump in her breast, as does the African woman (Lynnette R. Freeman).  The disparities in their societies and experiences make the women seem different as night and day, and yet, and yet….  they are the same.  Each survives breast cancer, and each ends up with hope because she’s alive.  The performances of Ms. Staats and Ms. Freeman are lovely and powerful.  But….it’s more a vignette than a play.

The second half of the evening gave us a gift by Sharr White.  In A Sunrise in Times Square (a phrase that now brings me a horrifying image because of the power of this play), Madeline and Marky take enormous emotional steps forward.  Claudia Weill directs this intense script in which the set is covered with bric-a-brac that disguises the fear and loneliness of damaged Madeline, played tautly by Julie Fitzpatrick.  Her gentlemen caller is Marky, played with simplicity and truth and heart by Joseph Lyle Taylor.  He is a retired fire fighter who instructs office building workers in the proper safety measures in the event of a fire.  He’s just doing a little favor for nervous Madeline, checking her apartment for safety.  But there’s more.  The plays is funny and heartbreaking, the characters meticulous and raw.  For Madeline and Marky, heart and soul and body and mind take chances, leap forward, and live.  These two characters are fully realized by the writer and the marvelous actors, who take on Marky and Madeline’s risks full throttle.  This was the high point of the evening.

The program closes on an odd note:  Love Song of An Albanian Sous Chef is witty and sexy; the title in particular is clever in that the Chef is truly sous la table.  Finally, though, this is a rather long, if deep and dark, sketch on the subject of seduction by food.  Sex, foreplay, promises, betrayal, and violence in about 15 minutes. Written by Robert Askins and directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel, it has sparkling performances by Danielle Slavick, Brian Luna, and Andy Nogasky, supported by quirky puppetry by Mike Smith Rivera as the Food.  Funny as it was, it won’t stay the course.

Through this interesting evening, I wondered what made a play work for me.  On this evening, it seemed "change" played a big part in my assessment, and the lack of change lowered a piece's "rating."  In the first two plays, nobody changed. In the third, two people took steps toward potential change.  In the 4th play, the characters had already undergone change and told us about it.  In the last play, nobody actually changed.  In A Sunrise in Times Square, however, Madeline changed from a frightened reclusive victim of her past to a vibrant, courageous woman looking for a future.  That was truly exciting.

Criteria incorporated or aside, Sharr White's play was the most involving and invigorating to me, and leaves me looking forward to Series C in a couple weeks.

~ Molly Matera,  signing off to enjoy the beautiful day before the storms hit.

The Not Great Gatsby

The best thing about Baz Lurhmann’s film of The Great Gatsby is that it inspires me to re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel for the first time in decades. I remember quite well that it was about much more than Lurhmann got or portrayed, despite his florid and opulent style of filmmaking. Much of the screenplay by Lurhmann and Craig Pearce comes straight from the novel, but without understanding and with a jumbled structure. The framework that they used as an excuse to tell the story is false and overdone as is most of Mr. Luhrmann’s work. Just tell the story.

Great Visuals, Lacking in Depth

Mostly I found Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby boring. In the same vein, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway was boring. Carraway shouldn’t steal the limelight, of course, but he need not belong nowhere to the extent Maguire’s Nick did.

The good bits:  
 

Myrtle and Tom standing, Nick and Catherine (c) 2013 Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow

Joel Edgerton was revolting as Tom Buchanan, therefore excellent. Tom Buchanan is a thug, born to old money or not, on the page and on the screen. Real emotion plays over his hard face, and much as I dislike Tom, Mr. Edgerton made me feel for him – just a smidge.  

Elizabeth Debicki appears sleek and smooth as Jordan Baker, with depths and humor peeking out from her eyes. She is the one character we don’t see enough of. There’s so much more going on with Jordan than we get to see, but that’s probably because Gatsby and Daisy are just not as interesting as she is. More Jordan would throw the picture out whatever balance it has.  
 

Jordan and Nick (c) 2013 Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow

Isla Fisher was striking as Myrtle, almost as vulgar as Tom. Her desperation came through every moment she was onscreen. As her sad husband George, Jason Clarke lived in the time and the town and the muddy dead end all too convincingly.

 Leonardo DiCaprio does a good job as Gatsby, making him untrustworthy while endearing, and perhaps slightly mad.

Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Nick.  (c) 2013 Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow

 I’m a Carey Mulligan fan, and she did a good job as Daisy, but Daisy is so boring it’s hard to recognize it. Daisy is pretty, shallow, helpless, and utterly unlikeable. Somehow that didn’t make the novel difficult to bear, but it does this movie.

 As Myrtle’s sister Catherine, Adelaide Clemens looked like an overly made up Carey Mulligan, so I did wonder what Luhrmann was up to. But he didn’t follow through, so I suppose he wasn’t up to much of anything interesting at all.

This film is full of throwaway characters, famous names, and hints that the story may have a point. Mr. Luhrmann doesn’t get it, so he didn’t give it. I’m tired of filmmakers taking books and leading people to believe the shallow films coming out of Hollywood and Australia and wherever else are actually related to the original books on which they’re allegedly, very loosely based (but from which they clearly have merely stolen the titles).

Reason to be glad to have seen it:  an actress I hadn't seen before but will remember:  Elizabeth Debicki.

~ Molly Matera, wishing she’d chosen to see Iron Man 3 instead.

First of Three Evenings of One Acts at EST

The Ensemble Studio Theatre’s 34^th Marathon of One Act Plays begins with Series A, running from May 18^th through June 2^nd. 

The first half of the evening includes three one-act plays.  First up, a short play that John Patrick Shanley probably had lying around on a floppy disc for years.  Poison, directed by John Giampietro, is cute and ends with a joke.  It’s merely a sketch, with Jacqueline Antaramian funny as the Gypsy, Aaron Serotsky put upon and impatient as Kenny, and Alicia Goranson mostly manic.

Next up was presumably an excerpt from a longer work, dramatic or otherwise.  Kandahar to Canada by Dan O’Brien, directed by Mark Armstrong, was rather pointless and lazy, but at least it was brief.  It is not a one-act anything, rather a chronology going nowhere but Ottawa.

The evening picked up a bit with Something Fine by Eric Dufault, directed by Larissa Lury.  Beth is a trucker, and her truck’s cab is depicted on the stage adorned with a balloon, a cooler with cake and ice cream for her daughter’s birthday, and a pair of statuettes on the dashboard:  a bobble-hipped hula girl and a Virgin Mary.  Beth (Cathy Curtin) is brash and crass and sleepless, chugging 5-hour energy drinks.  Hula Girl (Lucy Devito) and Virgin Mary (Diana Ruppe) also appear as full grown people – they sway and jiggle with the truck’s journey.  Hula girl chats happily, while Virgin Mary is furious that they’re merely plastic statuettes.  Beth has been driving for 36 hours without sleep, so we are in constant fear she’ll drive herself off the road before she makes it home.  Instead she comes to a different crisis.  Something Fine was quirkily entertaining, going from hilarious to almost poignant.

You Belong to Me by Daniel Reitz, directed by Marcia Jean Kurtz, opened the second half of the evening with a New York story that included gorgeous performances by Patricia Randell as Susan and Scott Parkinson as Robby.  Ms. Randell’s stark white face is frozen in horror as the lights come up on a subway car setting.  In a spring dress and lightweight cardigan, she stares at a man a few seats away, a rather messy man in a winter coat, his thin arms wrapped around his backpack.  He is apparently homeless.  Ms. Randell’s character finally speaks:  “Robby?”  The man recognizes his name, perhaps the voice, and turns to look at her.  “Susan?” he says.  Thus begins a surreal portrayal of a New Yorker’s nightmare, that we know the homeless man we are trying desperately to not see or hear or smell.  Susan and Robby knew one another well, when they were both at Columbia University.  Their lives took different turnings, his more obvious than hers, although Susan is lost in her way, too.  It’s a heartbreaking exchange between them, and Patricia Randell and Scott Parkinson both shine through.

The final play of the evening has a perfect title:  Curmudgeons in Love by Joshua Conkel, directed by Ralph Peña.  Curmudgeon #1 is Ralph (the wonderful David Margulies), a grumpy old man in a nice assisted living facility, who yells at his nurse (tough and tender Daniela was well played by Veronica Cruz), who yells back.  Ralph’s granddaughter Robin (Nina Hellman, who looks frail but can hold her own) comes to visit and he yells at her. When she yells back, it becomes clear that yelling means love.  Ralph is not a happy fellow, though.  After a 30-year marriage with children and grandchildren then years alone, at 80 he fell in love.  All he wants now is to live with Jackie, but he’s told he cannot.  Jackie’s grandson Brant (Alex Manette) comes to visit, and Ralph yells at him, too, so we know how he feels about Brant.  Finally someone else is yelling from outside, and Brant runs out to wheel in his grandfather, dressed in a tux but confined to a wheelchair.  This is Jackie (Martin Shakar), and all becomes clear.  Two old widowers fell in love, and their grandchildren connive to have them married now that same sex marriage is legal in New York. The old men who discovered true love late in life can live together in wedded bliss.  Totally believable robust characters give us the sweetest moment of the evening, when Jackie’s grandson dances as proxy with Ralph. 

Everyone left the theatre happy — smart programming.  Five plays in two hours (including a 10-minute intermission) is an auspicious start to this year’s marathon.  List of plays and playwrights at:  http://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/node/2009

~ Molly Matera, signing off, drying off, hoping everyone has a fabulous Memorial Day Weekend. 

The Next Generation's Star Trek, Take Two

It’s not that I’m a Trekkie, but I did read Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry’s book Making of Star Trek when I was in high school.  I learned spiffy things like how the doors were made to slide open and closed in that swooshing way, and that the phasers were made from salt and pepper shakers.  I watched most (not all) of the spin-offs of the original program (which I own in its original state — no fixing up of those cheesy effects for me).

When, in 2008 or so, I heard that a new movie was coming out with all the original characters in their youth, I said please!  That’s ridiculous.  They didn’t know one another at the beginnings of their careers, every body knows that Chekhov wasn’t even there until the 2^nd season, that Bones wasn’t the first doctor on board, and that Spock had ties to his former captain, Christopher Pike.  I was offended at the concept.  Yet somehow, director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman pulled it off.  They came up with a twist that changed the universe as we had known it just enough to throw our beloved original characters — Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Chekhov and Sulu, Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy, and Commander Scott — onto a magnificent starship Enterprise much earlier in their formation than in the former universe, essentially starting the relationships from scratch, with a difference.  And then another twist.  The 2009 Star Trek was a blast.

Bearing in mind that a good film director is a manipulator —Hitchcock manipulated the hell out of us, Spielberg manipulates us to feel fear, anger, hope, joy — the new Star Trek films work despite their holey scripts and bumpy (not edgy) storylines.  J.J. Abrams has manipulated us into ignoring what’s insufficient and remembering the fun.  I’ve got no problem with that.

I have issues with explosions and shoot-outs (the issue is that I'm bored) and making the Star Trek tradition just another special effects in space war movie.  Star Trek is supposed to be about the people and ideas and ideals.  Second time around for this alternate universe, and I was full of dread — according to the trailers, which of course are horrendous advertisements most of the time, and they’re certainly not directed at me — the new Star Trek promised to be overly noisy without enough character interaction.  Nevertheless, they’re trailers, so I would not allow them to stop me from seeing the new Star Trek Into Darkness, with my handy-dandy earplugs at the ready.

Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine (c) 2013 Paramount Pictures.

This second outing, written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof (all based, of course, on Gene Roddenberry’s original ideas) is another triumph of wooing the die-hard fans of the old show while inviting new fans into this new franchise.  Yes, there are explosions, but some are natural.  Yes there are “gunfights,” but they don’t take awfully long before they become interesting in a character-based way.  Characters matter, character growth occurs, relationships mature.  What a delight.  The hardest part of this post will be to avoid spoilers.  I want everyone to have as good a time when they see Star Trek Into Darkness as I had this weekend.

Chris Pine as Jim Kirk with Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike.  (c) 2013 Paramount Pictures

The story does still touch on a battle of ideals:  Is Starfleet a scientific organization engaged in exploratory voyages and peacekeeping, always abiding by the Prime Directive, or is it a military organization doing some science on the side?  Unfortunately it only just touches upon these important themes because the director/producer/writers do not trust the audience to live without the explosions long enough to think and question.  We all know the historical and present Kirks have nasty habits of ignoring the Prime Directive when they consider it needful, and Kirk does love to fight.  Orci, Kurtzman, Lindelof and director Abrams are trying to balance the thinking Kirk and the emotional Kirk, allowing him to learn to know himself better, but we’re losing patience with him.

Zoe Saldana as Uhura (c) 2013 Paramount Pictures

The gang from the last film is back, and each of them deserves praise, but particularly Zachary Quinto deepening his interpretation of Spock, Zoe Saldana as tough and tender Uhura, and the warm and wonderful Bruce Greenwood as Admiral Pike.  Simon Pegg’s Scotty is too good and funny and endearing (if a bit too skinny) to leave out, and then there’s the drop-dead gorgeous Karl Urban channeling DeForest Kelley as Bones.  John Cho is a powerful Sulu and Anton Yelchin is constantly on the run as Chekhov (including in one of the most absurd and overly long scenes of chaos).  New characters are Peter Weller as the leader of Starfleet, Admiral Marcus, Alice Eve as Dr. Carol Marcus (ring any bells?), and Noel Clarke (Rose’s sometime boyfriend Mickey in Doctor Who) appears as a Starfleet officer.  Of particular note, of course, is this film’s marvelous villain, Benedict Cumberbatch as John Harrison, rogue Starfleet operative.  He is lean and limber, wears long coats very well, and has a savagery and intelligence that drives him above and beyond other mere humans.  He’s a fine opponent for both Kirk and Spock, as partners and individually.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Karl Urban (c) 2013 Paramount Pictures

About Kirk, or Chris Pine…. I’m not a fan.  I’m not saying Pine’s not a good actor, I just don’t see him or hear him as James T. Kirk.  The James T. Kirk who grew up with a father in the other universe was running the Starship Enterprise before the age of 34.  This guy couldn’t run a horse at the age of 34.

The thing about this film is that it’s filled with delightful echoes, visual and aural, of the original series I grew up with, not to mention one of the better (although I can’t say “good”) early films. Thing is, I don’t want to give anything away (although we do see a tribble!).  I want each viewer to enjoy the surprises and the nods and the tugs on heartstrings as much as I did.  Go see Star Trek Into Darkness (2-D is just fine) and we’ll talk.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to watch an episode from Star Trek’s first season. No, I won’t tell you which one.

From French Film to Norwegian Theatre

I wasn’t in the mood for explosions or wearing my rock club earplugs to the movies, so the weekend Iron Man 3 opened, I went to my local movie-house and saw François Ozon’s Dans La Maison (or In the House).  Ozon wrote the screenplay based on Juan Mayorga’s play, with which I am unfamiliar, but the action probably played well onstage.  It’s a seemingly simple story simply told and I was riveted.  Fabrice Luchini plays Germain, who teaches literature and writing at the French version of high school; his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) manages a small art gallery for an owner who just died.  Germain’s newest and most intriguing student is Claude (an intense Ernst Umhauer), whose writing skills grab Germain’s interest. Claude’s writing assignments are based on his visits to a schoolmate’s home as he tutors the other boy (Rapha, realistically played by Bastien Ughetto) in math.  Claude has been watching Rapha’s house from a park bench for some time, hungry for what he calls “the perfect family.”  He involves himself with Rapha and his father (also Rapha, played by Denis Ménochet) and mother Esther (the wonderful Emmanuelle Seigner), insinuating himself into the perfect family he craves.

Fabrice Luchini, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Ernst Umhauer (c) 2012 Mandarin Films

Claude writes his adventures, Germain advises him on empathizing with and developing his characters. Germain also shares Claude’s stories with wife Jeanne, involving her in this questionable journey.  As we willingly follow along, the possibilities for nasty ramifications coming of Germain’s adventures with Claude amplify — not just in terms of how others may interpret Claude’s stories, but what Germain might do to ensure Claude continues writing the stories to which Germain is addicted.  Or is he addicted to Claude, his wife wonders. All the while, of course, we see Claude’s infatuation with Esther growing — Mother?  Lover?  We watch Claude revise his stories to please Germain, then watch as the experiences at Rapha’s house change. Which scenes that Claude wrote really happened?  The originals or the revisions?  How much of what Claude shows Germain is true, how much of what Ozon shows us is true?  How does one tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction?  What is truth in fiction, what is voyeurism?

Mind you, one does not wonder such things during the film.  During the film we are experiencing what Germain experiences, questioning when he does, taking his side when others are unjust to him.  And marveling at the light touch of the delicious Monsieur Luchini, at the clear and natural behavior of Ms. Scott Thomas and Mlle. Seigner, then gleefully watching this young man, Ernst Umhauer, knowing we’re witnessing the beginning of a fascinating film career. 

By the end of the film, Germain and Claude sit on a park bench looking at the windows of an apartment bloc.  Life is taking place through each window, and stories can be assumed or made up about all of them.  Dans la Maison is a fascinating piece of work, each character fully realized by the actor.  Monsieur Ozon captures the imagination and the conscience of his audience, and makes us question our own stories.

^^^^

Last night, I saw David Edgar’s adaptation of Ibsen’s The Master Builder at BAM, as directed by Andrei Belgrader.  Not fascinating.  John Turturro was a little bit of Pacino and a little bit of George C. Scott, but not particularly Halvard Solness, the egomaniacal Master Builder.  Santo Loquasto’s set was practical but disappointing, while the incidental music (by Christian Frederickson and Ryan Rumery, also credited with sound design) was lovely.  Wrenn Schmidt was alternately engaging and annoying as Hilde Wangel, the “other woman” who isn’t quite real.  The highlight of the evening, however, was watching, hearing, and delighting in Katherine Borowitz as Solness’ wife Aline.  Each time she entered the stage, the play picked up.  She was a human being, with ticks and character and a history lending her a fragility that drew us to her.  The rest of the cast paled beside her, but the most amateurish performance was by Ken Cheeseman as the local doctor.  

Katherine Borowitz, John Turturro, and Wrenn Schmidt.  Photo (c) 2013 Graeme Mitchell.

 So ends our spring season subscription to BAM.  Some good, some not, yet always worthwhile.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to get some sleep before the EST One Act Marathon starts.