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Election Day Distraction
Don’t know if it’s true for anybody else, but I’m just trying to get this day out of the way. Latest avoidance tactic, an hour or so at the City Diner with my dog at my feet, reading some chapters in Jan Herman’s biography of William Wyler, A Talent for Trouble, about Wyler shooting Mrs.… Continue reading
Abraham, Bill Bryden, City Diner, City Hall, democracy, Directors Guild of America, Ex Libris, Film Forum, Frederick Wiseman, Green Mansions, In Jackson Heights, Ira Krutch, Isaac, Jan Herman, Mrs. Miniver, National Theatre of Great Britain, New York Public Library, Ol’ Man Adam an’ His Chillun, PBS, Rex Ingram, Roark Bradford, television, The Bible, the Blitz, The Golden Age of Television, The Mysteries, Tony Harrison, William Wyler -
Two Contrasting Plays
I continue my casual tromp through plays of the past, alternating reading from an anthology of early Pulitzer Prize-winners and an anthology of postwar African-American plays. The two most recent plays I’ve encountered, by coincidence, are about flawed Black authority figures. The Amen Corner (published in 1954, premiered in 1965) by James Baldwin is about… Continue reading
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TROUBLE IN MIND — Alice Childress
I continue to read plays from the past I’ve never gotten to see. Mostly, as I’ve said before, I’m alternating between an anthology of plays that won the Pulitzer Prize early on and an anthology of post-war plays by Black writers. Finally caught up with Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress. It’s been going through… Continue reading
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Another obscure Pulitzer Prize-winning play
Continuing my lackadaisical progress through Pulitzer Prize-winners of the past, hit Hell-bent Fer Heaven by Hatcher Hughes. As the “fer” in the title suggests, this is a play written in dialect about hill people in the South (reportedly based on a branch of Hughes’s family). And yes, it is troublesome to plow through the dialect.… Continue reading
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SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING — today
Watched the British postwar classic, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, written by Alan Sillitoe and directed by Karel Reisz, starring Albert Finney, Rachel Roberts and Sally Anne Field. The central character is Alan Seaton, who works as a machinist in a bicycle factory in Nottingham just as the Sixties are beginning. As is common with… Continue reading
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Terrence McNally
I had the pleasure of knowing Terrence McNally from his off-off-Broadway period. Because I worked free in those days, I played keyboard for the 1973 production of his play WHISKEY at St. Clement’s on West 46th Street. Kevin O’Connor directed. It was about a group of alcoholic country-western stars and their horse (Whiskey). Quite a… Continue reading
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THE BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
Watched a documentary, THE BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN (available through Amazon for $3.99). It’s about a real estate developer named Bruce Ratner who uses all of his influence and connections to get the powers-that-be in New York to use eminent domain to sweep aside a neighborhood in Brooklyn so he can build a vast development including… Continue reading
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Maps of Different Orders
I’ve been listening to Jamie Bernstein read her book, Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein. Much of it is set in the Park Avenue apartment where she lived with her father, Leonard Bernstein. When she mentioned the address, I thought, “Hmm, that sounds familiar.” Then I realized it’s the address where my… Continue reading
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Joan Littlewood and “Sparrows Can’t Sing”
The British Film Institute is offering a streaming channel called BFI Players Classics through Roku for $5.99 a month. Mostly on offer are things like Ealing comedies, Hammer horror films, costume dramas, etc. There are a few oddball discoveries though. I was attracted to a film I’d never heard of called Sparrows Can’t Sing, largely… Continue reading
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Spoiler Alert
If you haven’t seen Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and Yesterday and intend to, now’s the time to stop reading. If you have seen them, did you notice that both use the same plot gimmick for similar effect? Hollywood posits that three members of the Manson family switch targets at the last minute… Continue reading
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Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 