Bye, Bye

I started Columbus GA Reviews as a lark. I figured some people would read it and think I had a point and some people would read it and decide it wasn't worth reading again. And that would be that. It was naive but it never occurred to me that readers would pay any attention to me or intensely want to know my identity. I didn't want to share that because I didn't want anyone to treat me differently.

Of course, one of the ways a reader decides whether the writer has a point is whether the writer's credentials are persuasive and I wasn't sharing mine so my excuse may not be all that good. For all anybody knew, I didn't know the difference between a half note and a half wit. Still I wasn't trying for a Pulitzer and I just thought nobody else is doing it so why not? It was a lark.

But readership grew about 50% a week and I realized that I might be in over my head. I deliberately held reviews until the end of a run so that I wouldn't be responsible for people skipping a performance based on what I had to say. And I began to hear the whispers about who I might be. I grant you I should have guessed that but there you are.

So I'm getting out before I become the subject of an Agatha Christie short story. Columbus has superb facilities (even though the River Center is impossible to work with) (there I go again) and talented people. One day, when we have longer runs, maybe we'll get a good critic. Till then, bye bye.

Charm School

For those of us familiar with a play it can be hard to see a director's different take when he/she interprets King Lear as a polemic about cell phone texting. That is what directors do though and finding something new in a play is a magical thing.

So I'm trying to accept Paul Pierce's take on Charm School as a new way to see the play. The way the play was promoted and, to a lesser extent, the way it was presented made it out to be about being more sensitive to others. The problem is, anyone who knows the playwrights, Lee and Larson, knows that was the last thing on their minds. Their whole body of work is about skewering other people's sensibilities and that's just their plays. Oh the stories I could tell!

Charm School is a play about an older worker, Ray, who tells an off color story and is accused of making the workplace unfriendly. He is completely confused by the reaction of the company which is sympathetic but sends him to diversity training. The premier production at Horizon with Lee and Larson in the main roles was more about how the world changed around Ray and the company and how they were having trouble coping with it. This, I imagine, came out of their own experience since the politically correct world we live in now is anathema to them. It's hard to imagine their Southern Theater Conspiracy company putting on the "Blood Orgy Trilogy" now.

I have to admit that I was dubious about Raymond Campbell as Ray since I've thought of his acting as one dimensional. I'm pleased to say that he was right on in his interpretation. As one patron who has seen most of Campbell's work said, "Who knew he could act!" I did expect a strong performance from Jens Rasmussen as Joe, Ray's boss and he delivered as good or better a performance than Larry Larson. Of the rest of the cast, Michael Stiggers as Rob, one of the diversity trainers, delivered both a powerful and sensitive performance that really added to the play and to the role. He clearly has set the standard for this role in the future.

The play was produced in Foley Hall and the stage ran the length of the hall with seating on both sides. This is a new arrangement for Foley and generally worked well although folks at the ends had trouble hearing when the actors were at the other end. The workmanship on the set was as shoddy and cheap as I've seen since high school. Cheap plywood wasn't nailed down. Astro turf presumably served as grass. Boards were cut unevenly. I was tempted to think there was something the director was trying to tell us with the run down condition but this was supposed to be a luxury hotel on a lake in Washington.

The Springer is to be congratulated for taking on a fairly edgy and new play and I hope it gained an audience here. Presenting it as a call to sensitivity probably helped.

Friends and Colleagues

I never cease to be amazed at how the Columbus Symphony manages to produce crisp programs with players from around the state and very little practice together. This is a tribute to Del Gobbo of course, but playing together well isn't just a result of good direction. It's discipline, talent, and dedication.

Admittedly, the Symphony was a little rocky in their last performance but they put all that behind them last night in a superbly sharp program with pianist Paavali Jumppanen. Mr. Jumppanen's resume reads like an elder statesman but his debut was in 2001 and he's already played all around the world to rave reviews. His program was Brahms' Piano Concerto No 2 in B-flat Major Op 83. This is no lullaby. The program notes called it "gentle in mood" and suggests that all except the second movement provoke "calm dignity". That may well be in the hands of another pianist but Mr. Jumppanen attacked the Steinway with a passion that invoked anything but gentleness or calmness. In fact, his right foot hit the sustaining pedal with such force as to shake the piano and add a Irish dance sound to the score. At times his foot was raised as much as 6 inches over the pedal before hitting it full force and one patron described all the movement as like an organist.

This is not intended to be a criticism, but rather illustrates how he interpreted the piece. Mr. Jumppanen's touch was gentle where it needed to be and the piano responded to him with a clear and passionate reading.

Once again, the horns were the backbone of the Orchestra, both in the opening piece and in the Schumann piece that closed the night. However, in the third movement of the Brahms, the Cellos came forward and delivered a counterpoint to both the horns and the piano that showed how strong they've become under Andre Gaskins. There's also two solo cello parts in this movement that gave Andre Gaskins an opportunity to show his extraordinary talent.

Unfortunately, the hall was not much more than half full. This Symphony is delivering a first class product but it continues to need an audience.

A couple of comments

I don't have a horse in the District Attorney discussion but I do congratulate the Ledger-Enquirer for the editorial that started it. I'm sorry that they had to put it on the front page in order to get it noticed since their editorials normally read like the output of an opinion poll. The fact is, local reporting on the vagaries of our officials is worth reading about and sells newspapers. And loses readers too I know. But if you're on the way out, you might as well go out fighting and people are talking which makes the paper relevant.
Of course papers like the Boston Globe, etc who report nationally still have a problem. If you wonder if we're seeing the end of genuine news coverage-and you would wonder if the newspapers are disappearing and you're stuck with Fox or CNN-go to http://trueslant.com/. They're starting with 65 journalists.
I've mentioned Columbus' participation in reading "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" as part of the "Big Read". If you go to the library, they'll give you a reader's guide which is a really terrific reading companion.
Speaking of the library, Tim Chitwood recently wrote about a movement to raise the price of a parking pass at our state parks. What he didn't write was that you can get a free one at your local library.

Machinal

There's good news and bad news about CSU's production of "Machinal". It's good news that CSU is bringing thought provoking theater like The Cripple of Inishmaan and Machinal to Columbus. And it's good news that Mandi Kerr's performance as a borderline schizophrenic is my nominee for the performance of the year on a Columbus stage.

The bad news is that there's no borderline schizophrenic in Machinal.

Sophie Treadwell's play is about a young woman who is trapped in a 1920s New York world in which most women have accepted their roles as wife and mother with no other ambitions. The young woman, who's name is Helen Jones (the play's notes don't give anyone a name to reinforce the idea that we're all just machines), marries her boss because he's the only one who asked her and then consents to sex and a baby because it's just one more step down the slope. She then takes a lover who, in Neil Young's words, is "bound for moving on"; in other words is free of society's rules. Eventually, her need to be free leads her to kill her husband and be executed for murder.

The problem here is that in the beginning of the show, Ms Kerr's Helen appears to be so fragile that she might come apart at any moment and even threatens her mother. One wonders what her boss sees in this nervous, tight hair bun of a girl. She only becomes more unwound as she has the baby and begins talking to herself or to someone unseen and seems suicidal. Then, toward the end of the first act, she shows up in a bar with her hair down picking up a strange man and turning obsessive.

Treadwell's intention was to show how a young woman who had few choices might rebel against the society which persecuted her. She might get along by going along but she might also eventually refuse to submit with disastrous consequences. Ms Kerr's performance was riveting but instead of coming away with a larger understanding of how society molds women (and indeed everyone) into its own image, one comes away dazed. This is also in part because Ms Treadwell ladles on issue after issue from abortion to the death penalty so that one only wants to come up for air.

There's more good news in the staging, directing and casting. Machinal isn't an easy piece to stage and director Dr. Becker found a strong cast and kept the staging tight.