Paul E. Fallon's Blog, page 4

Like a Pair of Gay Oligarchs on Charade

I have simple tastes. I prefer routine over surprise; water over wine; the train over the plane; the potato over the steak. I’d make a good monk, if I believed in a Supreme Being deserving of worship. Fortunately, those around me like their creature comforts, and sometimes they draw me into their thrall.

The Author at Raffles Long Bar for Afternoon Tea

Last December my housemate mentioned—in all innocence—that he’d like to have afternoon tea at Raffles. For all I knew Raffles was a new MassLottery game. Turns out it’s a chain of uber high-end hotels, the original dating to Singapore 1887 and named for Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, founder of that modern nation-state. A much more recent addition to the Raffles line is a glass tower in Boston’s Back Ba

Always in search of the right holiday gift for a housemate who has pretty much everything, a reservation for afternoon tea at Raffles Boston seemed just the thing. On a freezing cold February day of crystalline clear sky we ventured into the mid-afternoon city. We entered the boutique-scaled lobby with its Chihuly-esque ceiling, mentioned our reservation for tea, and the hostess smiled, “Yes, Mr. Fallon. We are expecting you.” I’m always a little creeped out by people knowing my name without mention.

Up the spacious elevator to the 17th floor sky lobby. (Architecture nerds can learn why the lobby is on the 17th floor. Everyone else can just read on.) More elegantly coiffed people. All of whom seem to know my name.

Long Bar at Raffles Boston is not very long, though the marble slab is plenty opulent. The room has very tall ceilings, full windows to the south, and serpentine banquettes that I sank right into. The place was mostly empty (after all, it is three p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon) but no so empty as to be resonantly awkward. Twenty-foot-high sheer curtains kept the sun’s glare at bay, while preserving the distant outline of the Blue Hills.

Our table was preset. Our waiter appropriately hospitable and unintrusive. None of this, “My name is Jason and I’ll be your server today.” The distinction between customer and staff at Raffles is clear.

The tea menu was extensive. We ordered our first pots. Chai for me; a floral mix for my housemate. Each steeped for the recommended time, then infused our bellies with winter warmth. Thereupon our delectables arrived. Eleven pair of delicacies, spread among three dishes encased in an open cage. A top plate of breadstuffs, a bottom plate of savories, a middle plate of sweets.

The Savories

We enjoyed our selections in order of breads, then savories, and finally sweets. Between each delight we sipped our tea, in no hurry whatsoever. Every item was delicious; some were extraordinary. The scone, perfectly rough, came to life smothered with coddled cream and pear jelly. The deviled egg, marinated to a purple was filled with scrumptious lobster. The caramelized cream puff lined with dark chocolate and topped with tangerine: incredible.

More than an hour passed in genteel sips and idle bites. We were, by far, the oldest and best dressed gents in the place, evidence that we took our afternoon tea seriously. Languishing in such opulence in the middle of the day made it seem all the more extravagant. I likened ourselves to Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson spinning time Lost in Translation. Also to a pair of gay oligarchs charading as winners atop the Trumpian world order.

Sometime after 4:30 the sun was far enough past. The immense drapes opened mechanically to reveal a splendid afterglow. The immense chandeliers came to soft life. The bar started drawing post-work patrons; exuberant in their business conquests. Tea gave over to bourbon. It was time to go.

The Sweets

If my housemate had never planted the seed, I might never have gone to afternoon tea at Raffles. I may never go again. It is as ridiculous as it is wonderful. An experience I’d never want to make routine, yet totally memorable. Not as remarkable as holding your ten-minute old daughter, or attending your son’s doctoral defense. More akin to seeing Picasso’s “Guernica” at MoMA, cycling the base of the Tetons, watching the sun drop into Bay of Gonave, or witnessing Bette Midler channel Dolly Levi. A one-time, illuminating immersion.

Also, a pretty neat way to spend a cold winter afternoon.

Life in a Nation of Tariffs

I woke up in the early morning hours after President Trump’s China/Mexico/Canada tariff skirmish. My first sleepless hours of national angst since his election and inauguration. Pretty good, compared to the angina I know others have endured.

Perhaps the reason this round of Trumpian chaos bothered me is that I know a thing or two about living in a nation that runs on tariffs. Not one of those gold-plated oligarchies like Hungary that our president likes to emulate so much. Rather, one of his so-called sh*thole countries. Haiti.

Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone

It’s been more than a decade since I was in Haiti. At the time, the world was focused on helping the earthquake ravaged nation, and I was one ray in that laser focus. Alternating bi-weekly between the U.S. and Haiti for over a year, I was always stymied how to describe the Magic Island to Americans. People asked questions like, “Why have they cut down all their trees? Or, “Why can’t the police maintain order?” My favorite was, “What do people do for work?” A regular job in Haiti is the exemption rather than the rule; the police are more than less corrupt; the trees have all been cut down to create charcoal to cook. Yes it is shortsighted. But if there was only one tree standing between you and hunger, you’d cut it down as well.

We Americans take order and prosperity for granted. So much for granted that we elect a disrupter like Donald Trump as our leader without truly considering the impacts of the radical changes he proposes. Most of his MAGA agenda is rooted in a nostalgia for the 1950’s: white men in control; women in subservice; colored people out of sight and mind; gay people in fear; and trans people barely even invented. But his tariff threats toss us much further back in history. All the way back to the Eighteenth Century, which though often referred to as the Age of Enlightenment, was also the era of pirates.

Haiti is a country that runs on tariffs. There is no income tax, as there are few jobs. There is no sales tax, as most economic activity is barter or cash. There are no property taxes, as property ownership is a precarious thing. What’s left to fund what little government exists: tariffs.

The United States—the wealthiest nation in the world—doesn’t like to be compared favorably to Haiti—the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, we have one important economic similarity. Both countries are big time net importers. With more goods and services coming in than going out, tariffs are an appealing idea. But tariffs are ripe with downsides. Corruption. Opacity. Inequity.

Every time we entered Haiti, laden with whatever materials we could pack into hockey bags, we played the arbitrary dance of import fees. Sometimes we’d be waved through as good-natured humanitarians. Other times, guys in uniforms with guns on their hips rifled through our stuff before they let us go. Still other times they’d quote a fee. $100. $250. We always carried a stash of US bills, in anticipation of this arbitrary process. We handed over greenbacks on demand, without the least pretense from either palm that the money was funding legitimate purpose.

Our president likes to frame tariffs as patriotic and independent. But really, tariffs are reactionary and isolating. They illustrate complete denial of the interplay that defines our global economy. There may be reasons to impose tariffs on certain items from certain countries who are not fair-trading partners. But broad tariffs on friends and allies? That’s Eighteenth-Century isolationism. That will shuttle the United States down a rabbit hole already occupied by the most isolated country in the Western Hemisphere. We’ll never know whether Haiti could have become a successful country because for over 200 years the rest of the world never gave the first independent Black republic a chance. What we do know is that a country that relies almost exclusively on tariffs to fund its government is a country bereft of healthcare, education, social services, or even the ability to defend itself. Why would we want to emulate their bottom-rung system of taxation?

Maybe because the real agenda of the Trump presidency is not to uphold our democracy and elevate the lives of our citizenry. Rather, it’s to reduce as many of us as possible to be servants of the rich. Tariffs will certainly noose us in that direction.

Then again, the threatened tariffs might be nothing more than the distraction of the week from our leading master of chaos. President Trump’s given Mexico and Canada a month’s reprieve. Three weeks from now, tariffs may once again be headline news. Or he may conveniently forget the whole thing to pursue some other media circus. Disequilibrium is key to the entire enterprise.

Just like every time I entered Haiti, I never knew if, or how much, I’d have to pay.

This Isn’t Who I Am

Courtesy PA Images.

A recent Boston Globe article about the ‘No Buy’ trend features an amiable woman from Utah, Stephanie Noble, who got so caught up in online shopping that she had boxes of unopened purchases, repeat purchases, etc. According to the article, the 38-year-old woman looked around her array of stuff and thought, “This isn’t who I am. It’s not what I value.”

Now, I don’t know Ms. Noble; she likely has many noble characteristics. But one thing I do know about her (if Boston Globe reporting can be trusted), is that she’s a compulsive online shopper. That is who she is.

When you meet someone at a cocktail party who says, “I have to watch my pennies” while describing the renovations to their summer house, you know they have plenty of money. Or the bloke who retorts, “You don’t me,” after you’ve pointed out a persistent trait so obvious, so elemental to their character, that you never imagined they might be sensitive about it.

Where did this cognitive dissonance between reality and ego come from? This habit of pretending away accurate assessments of ourselves in favor of protesting the opposite. Why are we so thin-skinned? Or simply delusional?

If proclaiming yourself to be the opposite of a clear reality was only a matter of pretend humility or extreme consumerism, we might be able to laugh it off as folly. But unfortunately it’s become the dominant factor in our national discourse.

We live in an era where a person’s perception is their reality, regardless how it corresponds with objective fact; a world in which objective fact is ridiculed and dismissed. Whenever anyone says anything that doesn’t align with your perception, you protest—loudly—and then assert the polar opposite. The volley of claims and counterclaims based on imagined realities simply makes our discourse louder, more divisive, and more aggressive.

I am riddled with foibles, insecurities and doubt. I have a terrible temper, quick-flare emotions, a history of depression, and a serious case of Irish Alzheimer’s (where you forget everything except the grudges.) There. I’ve said it. In print, In public. So next time you point out an objectionable behavior rooted in my turbulent innards, I won’t be tempted to defend my fragility by proclaiming what is patently incorrect. Instead, maybe, just maybe, I will hear what you say and gain some insight about how the outer world sees the actual me. Instead of building a thicker shell, I might actually develop more porous, healthier skin.

As for Stephanie Nobles. Apparently, she has gone six months without making any impulse purchases online. That’s a good long stretch. Perhaps even enough to change the habit of compulsive shopper to one of prudent shopper. Of course, the article reports that she had such a backlog of unopened make-up and clothes that she hasn’t run short of anything yet. So, although I wish Stephanie well, the skeptic in me considers the jury still out.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy

Crumbs from the Table of Joy

Lyric Stage Boston

January 10 to February 2, 2025

Madison Margaret Clark as Ernestine. Photo by Mark S. Howard

The phrase, ‘crumbs from the table of joy” comes from the 1947 Langston Hughes poem, “Luck.” It’s a perfect title for this memory play of shy, 17-year-old Ernestine Crump, a talented Black girl, transplanted from the South to 1950’s Brooklyn with her father and sister after her mother’s death. Her father Godfrey’s grief is ameliorated by the teachings of Father Divine, an influential Black minister of the era who advocated an assimilationist path to equality by advocating integration while operating through the system.

This somber domestic trio is stirred up by the arrival of Lily Ann Green, Ernestine’s mother’s sister, a curvaceous babe and radical communist who moved North to Harlem years ago. Lily seethes with life and secrets, including ones that involve Godfrey. She’s coy, but her intentions are clear—to get back into Godfrey’s heart, or at least his bed—until Godfrey up and marries a white woman. A German immigrant to boot!

Tomika Marie Birdwell and Dominic Carter. Photo by Mark. S. Howard

Lyric delivers a very credible production of this not very great play. Nevertheless, there are two notable reasons to see Crumbs from the Table of Joy.

First, the depiction of 1950’s Brooklyn is poignant. It’s a place where Blacks come north for opportunity, communists loiter to escape attention, and German immigrants suffer in the long and very recent shadow of the Nazi’s. A melting pot of opportunity and suspicion.

The second reason to see Crumbs from the Table of Joy is for serious students of theater to gain insight into playwright Lynn Nottage’s creative arc. Crumbs is Ms. Nottage’s first major play, first produced in 1995. Since then she has developed a working method that involves literally inhabiting the places and people from which she draws her drama. She’s also won two Pulitzer Prizes. Crumbs from the Table of Joy is a checkered piece of work: the monologues are stilted; the marriage plot is forced; as are the stage comings and goings. Nevertheless, the roots are greatness are present in the depth of issues that the play tackles with both grace and insight.

This is a play about how an impressionable young woman is formed into a force for our world. How much of the main character is actually Lynn Nottage is not for us to know; a good measure to be sure. Don’t go see Crumbs from the Table of Joy expecting a great play. Go because it is a resonant harbinger of so much creative genius to follow.

Required Reading in 2025

The Burning Earth

Sunil Amirth

Earth. iStock image.

The Burning Earth got a scorching hot review in The New Yorker, and so I ordered it from my local library, meaning that, as a new best seller, I’d have only two weeks to read it. No problem, since The Burning Earth is as fascinating as it is readable.

Sunil Amirth is a MacArthur “genius,” born in Singapore, currently a professor of history at Yale. These three attributes all contribute to the book’s important differences from many screeds about how we’re despoiling our earth. First, Mr. Amirth’s book reaches beyond Western contributions to climate change. His insights about environmental destruction in Asia, Africa, Indonesia, and other places provide a truly global perspective. Second, his historical perspective is unique in my reading about climate change. Lastly, his academic bent lends the book a scientific legitimacy that transcends mere doomsday.

Yet, The Burning Earth is not a scholarly read. Rather, it’s as if Malcolm Gladwell, that master of digestible vignettes as stand-ins for complex human experience, took up climate change. Rudyard Kipling, Willa Cather, Albert Kahn, Diego Rivera; the book draws an astonishing array of voices. Farming, mining, transit, famine, flood, fire; it recounts story upon story of human disaster, whether medical, social, economic, or physical. Mr. Sumil explains environmental disruption so severe it impacts the behavior of every form of life on earth. Until, one by one, the flora and fauna that define our planet become extinct.

While most analyses pin the origins of climate change on the Industrial Revolution, Mr. Sunil goes further back: all the way to 1200, when the Charter of the Forest, a companion to the Magna Carta, institutionalized cutting down forests to create arable land. Of course, things really started heating up with the steam engine, then railroads, and increased urbanization. Beyond the rise of capitalism and redefinition of human labor, Mr. Sunil presents this as a fundamental shift in our understanding of the relationship between man and our environment.

In 1842, on the cusp of the potato famine, Irish writer William Cooke Taylor wrote how the absence of smoke “…indicates the quenching of the fire on many a domestic hearth, want of employment to many a willing labourer, and want of bread to many an honest family.” Amirth notes, “Witness here the birth of an idea so powerful that it has reverberated around the world for almost two centuries: the idea that the degradation and sacrifice of nature is the necessary price of a human freedom from want.”

He then goes further to demonstrate how the rhetoric of freedom has become bound up with the triumph of the artificial over the natural. “Into the pursuit of freedom there crept, over time, a notion previously unthinkable: that true human autonomy entailed a liberation from the binding constraints of nature.” Which is how we arrive today at Elon Musk, a man of unbridled power whose ambition is to exhaust the resources of this planet in order to inhabit Mars.

The Burning Earth exposes our ceaseless penchant for war with a fresh, diabolical perspective. Ecologist Paul Sears wrote that “Violence toward nature is no less evil than violence against Man.” But Amirth illustrates how man’s violence against man actually produces violence agsint nature. His description of the landscapes destroyed by World War I is gripping, only to be eclipsed by the immense ecological damage of World War II, triumphed by the catastrophic havoc wrought by the atomic age.

iStock image. Credit Marcus Millo

Two aspects of The Burning Earth gnaw. First, the graphics are terrible. Beyond meaningless, they’re downright confusing. Since the book is finding a large audience, a second edition with worthy graphics is in order. And while publisher W.W. Norton is at it, they ought to invest in more proof reading. The book is chock full of statistics. Early on, I came upon this trio of numbers related to the horrific conditions and baked-in racism of South African gold mines. “By the end of the nineteenth century, the goldmines employed close to 93,000 workers. Just over 10,000 of them were white…Africans…made up 90 percent of the workforce.” 93,000 minus 10,000 leaves a large majority of ‘other’ but simple math shows it falls short of 90 percent African. This statistical ‘fudge’ cast suspicion over every subsequent stat. The travesty of environmental degradation is so huge, there’s no need to embellish.

Despite these shortcomings, The Burning Earth gets more compelling as we burn, baby burn. Part Three (1945-2025) lays out the complexity of trying to address our climate crisis along with the hypocrisy of our all-too-lame efforts to date. One chapter compares and contrasts three women of the 1960-1970’s era: scientist Rachel Carson, philosopher Hannah Arendt, and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. At first, it seems their understanding and approaches to the science, morality, and politics of climate change are aligned. But when actual action is required, conflicts flare.

These conflicts only become more intractable as time marches on (and men finally start paying attention). Regarding the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, the Dalai Llama said, “planetary harm is an outcome of a social order of atomized, desiring, acquiring individuals,” while US President George Bush said, “the American way of life is not up for negotiation.” No wonder there’s no agreement on how to proceed!

I was disappointed, though not surprised, that Mr. Sunil offers no worthwhile insight about how to address this intractable, life-threatening dilemma. Instead, the epilogue to The Burning Earth is laced with optimistic stories of young people’s awareness and commitment to rebalancing human’s place on this planet. As a Baby Boomer who came of age protesting war and chanting peace, forgive me for discounting the commitment of youth. After all our optimism, we baby boomers delivered to the world Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump. Two generations out from Silent Spring, more than fifty years since the first Earth Day, and over thirty years since Rio: what have we accomplished? We’ve emitted more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since 1990 then in all prior measured history.

iStock image. Credit: sankai

So. If our situation is so dire and the remedies so paltry, why bother reading this book? Because in the path of human development, knowledge, understanding, and perspective always trump ignorance. The better we understand how we got here, the easier it will be to find a way forward.

I am not hopeful for the future of humans on this earth. But I put my faith in two enduring truths. One: that humans are lame in anticipating problems, but pretty creative in addressing catastrophes. Two: that Mother Earth is more resilient than we deserve. It’s been almost forty years since Marc Resiner’s Cadillac Desert made the case that we’re out of water in the American West. Yet, the population sustained by the Colorado River system has almost doubled since then. In this book, Mr. Sunil spends considerable time discussing the population explosion of the 1960’s and 70’s, which many intelligent people viewed as impossible to sustain. Yet, the Green Revolution has created enough food to feed eight billion people. To be sure, we have ongoing problems of equity and distribution, and the environmental consequences of industrial agricultural have created new dilemmas, but at a first level approximation, we’ve figured out how to feed a heck of a lot of people.

Today, the proposed technological fixes to climate change give me the willies, the political will for change is weak, and the economic forces to bullying down our reckless path of destruction are strong. But despair is surrender, and so I force myself to a position of hope. That’s why everyone should read The Burning Earth, and then find a way, however small, to apply the cool hand of reason to the challenges we face.

A Holiday Wish…

Really, more like a fantasy, as this will never happen. But since this is the time of year when we celebrate a holiday with religious roots that supposedly champions goodwill toward our fellow man (all sarcasm intended), I am going to bring my fantasy to light.

Emergency Shelter in Massachusetts. Image courtesy of NBC News.

In 1983, in a gust of goodwill, Massachusetts passed a “right to shelter” law, guaranteeing all homeless families with children and pregnant women access to temporary housing. Forty years later, Massachusetts is the only state with such a law. In 2021 the state spent about $180 million housing homeless families. During the recent, unprecedented, surge of both documented and undocumented immigrants, the system collapsed. Annual costs ballooned to $1 billion. Money that kept folks sheltered in the short term did nothing to address the underlying discrepancy between a law that offered protection for all families and a state that already suffers from limited, expensive housing. Last July Governor Maura Healey truncated the law’s provisions (how I do not understand—I am not an attorney) and limited family stays to no more than five days in a state-sponsored shelter.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Central Square, yet another mainstream Protestant church with an extensive physical plant and shrinking congregation, decided to do something to address the state’s shortcomings. They curtained off portions of their community space and created space for three families to stay overnight, every night, from 5 p.m. until 9 a.m. The families have access to cooking facilities; they can stay as long as they need.

When this mini-shelter opened, the church solicited volunteers to stay overnight with its immigrant guests. I spent a few weeknights hanging out with families originally from Ghana and Haiti, sleeping on a floor mattress, reminding me of so many couchsurfing gigs I’ve enjoyed during bicycle journeys. Now that the families are acclimated, they are sufficient to spend overnight on their own, though volunteers still come every evening to open up and make sure things run smoothly.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Cambridge, MA. Image courtesy of St. Peter’s Church

Churches are supposed to be charitable organizations. The state forfeits millions of dollars of taxes by granting non-profit status to their valuable properties. What does the state get in return? How about we make the churches practice what they preach. Let them shelter those in need.

Mass.gov purports that there are over 2,000 churches mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship within our state. In July, when Governor Healy curtailed the state’s shelter responsibility, there were 3,534 families in stat sponsored shelters and 1,405 families in overflow motels. About a third of these homeless families were recent arrivals. If each church adopted three immigrant families, we could provide temporary housing for over 6,000 homeless families. Q.E.D.

And, with some forethought, we could reallocate that $1 billion to creating desperately needed housing to address our long-term needs.

In this season where darkness turns to light, let us remind our religious institutions that they have to live up to the human responsibility they preach. Let them earn their charitable status by offering charity, and sheltering homeless families in our state.

Diary of a Tap Dancer

Diary of a Tap Dancer

American Repertory Theater

December 12 2024 thru January 4, 2025

Ayodele Casel in ART’s world-premiere production of her “Diary of a Tap Dancer.”Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall

Diary of a Tap Dancer showcases everything that makes A.R.T. shine, and where it all too often overshoots the mark. I let my A.R.T. subscription lapse years ago, when its push to raise consciousness superseded their renown theatrical effects and pointed story telling. But hey, I love tap, so I purchased myself a holiday gift and looked forward to some spiffy dance.

Artistic Director Diane Paulus’ opening night remarks gave me great hope. “Tap is a language of its own. Listen to the stories told by the feet.”

The stories these feet tell are awesome, phenomenal, jaw-dropping. The energy of the excellent cast of eight female dancers fills A.R.T. immense main stage. The set projections are effective, though too many stage level changes sometimes challenge fluid movement. And despite a few missed spots, the lighting is fabulous; alternately casting mystery and glory.

The show, written directed, choreographed, and starring Ayodele Casel is, as described, a diary of her life. When that diary is written by feet, whether in sand dancing, soft shoe, hip hop or frenzied tap, it is thought provoking and inspiring. Unfortunately, when the diary is delivered as spoken word, the play falls flat.

Act One focuses on Ms. Casel’s journey from The Bronx to NYU and into the hallowed clubs of all-male tap dance. Ms. Casel has risen above many challenges that could thwart a less determined spirit: a favorite cousin who died too young from addition, a mother who exported her to Puerto Rice for six years, a father absent until she turned seventeen. Her talent and determination is inspirational, but I was confounded by the gentle glow she showers over these people who didn’t step up to their adult responsibilities. At the very least, smoothing over whatever anger, fear, or rejection she felt makes for tepid drama.

Ayodele Casel in ART’s world-premiere production of her “Diary of a Tap Dancer.”Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall

Act Two reels us back to the origins of tap. The most moving—and chilling—scene in the show is the dance of slaves who have been forbidden to communicate across plantations with drums, and thus communicate with their feet. It’s an amazing piece of theater. The history continues onto a celebration of female tap dancers. When the present-day ensemble assembles in cream-colored tuxedos, to voice these women, they express their talent, determination, and woe across time.

Anyone who has seen A Chorus Line knows that, once the dance line arrives in tuxedos, we’re at the finale.

Unfortunately, Ms. Casel was still a child in The Bronx when A Chorus Line broke all box office records, so I guess she missed it. For after an amazing number, she returns, alone, to deliver a too-long monologue about the trials of female tap dancers, past and present. Preaching to the audience about lunch counters and back-entrances deflates the powerful emotion, and empathy, of the dance tribute. Why did anyone connected with this large-scale theatrical effort think it was a good idea to tack on this limp coda?

Instead of leaving the theater exalted and thankful for the long line of female tap dancers, and savoring their contribution to this world, I left feeling that once again, I am being shamed for the sins of my fathers.

Any objective comparison of the life of Adeloye Casel and her forebears must reveal that conditions are not the same. Was the historical treatment acceptable? Absolutely not. Was it more difficult for Ms. Casel to open doors than for men of equivalent talent? Probably. Do we have further to go? For sure.

But the A.R.T. needs to lighten up. Instead of berating an audience of mostly white, mostly liberal Cantabridgians about how much more there is to be done, celebrate that Ms. Casel is able to lead a fuller, more open life than her tap-dancing predecessors. And end a holiday show that celebrates tap: with tap!

Respect Must be Paid (except for Billionaires)

This cult-like thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was at the premier performance of How to NOT Save the World with Mr. Bezos at Boston Playwright’s Theatre (BPT) when mid-way through the show there was a sing-along.

Mark W. Soucy and Becca A. Lewis in How to NOT Save the World Mr. Bezos. Photo by Benjamin Rose

BPT is such a bastion of political correctness; attending plays there feels retro as 2021. They offer select performances where all attendees must be masked. They make a land acknowledgement before every performance. The community expectations page on their website lists all the ways that everyone—on and off the stage—must be respected. Those expectations are also repeated on the email you receive with every ticket purchase.

And, of course, there are the trigger warnings, freshly renamed “Content Transparency.” The Content Transparency for Bezos lists: graphic violence, vomit and blood effects, as well as disrobement and discussion of drug use.

What? No warning of sing-alongs?

I’m a fair singer. I like to sing. But here’s the thing that bothered me about the sing-along. The audience got to choose between two ditties whose lyrics were written on placards. The first opened with “How to kill a billionaire…” The second set of lyrics began, “How not to kill a billionaire…”

Now, we are in a theater in the middle of the campus of an elite university, sixty minutes into a play whose premise is that Jeff Bezos, and the other 800+ billionaires in the United States, have neglected their social responsibility. Jeff Bezos has been portrayed as a deplorable man, at this point reduced to his skivvies. It is any surprise that 100% of the people who chose to sing voiced the “kill” verse, while exactly no one sang the “not kill” verse? Or is it perhaps more surprising that I was practically the only person who kept my mouth shut?

In BPT’s self-defined safe space, no one is allowed to be disrespectful based on age, race, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Surely, any playwright who wrote a sing-along suggesting that we “Kill the Poor…Unemployed…Homeless…” would be drummed out of the program. But apparently, billionaires are fair game because, somehow, all their money means they deserve no respect.

I went to a play but, apparently, I landed in a cult.

I’m cautiously optimistic that none of people singing would actually kill someone because they are a billionaire, and wishful singing doesn’t make something so. But I was amazed how this group of lefties who proclaim to care about everyone could invoke such violence. Such is the power of the crowd. “By the mere fact that he forms part of an organized crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization, Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual. In a crowd, he is a barbarian…a creature acting instinct.” (Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Crowds, 1895)

More than forty years ago, as a VISTA Volunteer in West Texas, I received an essential life lesson from Emmer Lee Whitfield, a woman on welfare upon whom I bestow great respect. She taught me that: “Each of us, every day, absorbs the world around us, assesses our strengths, our opportunities, and determines how to engage with the world. The systems our society has established, whether they be Wall Street or welfare, are key factors in these decisions.”

I’ve always thought about how people’s best interests are contorted by our social systems in terms of how the poor and marginalized navigate the world. But sitting among this cult of progressives literally singing out loud to kill billionaires made me see, for the first time, that the flip side is also true. Jeff Bezos can only be Jeff Bezos in a world that ridiculously rewards his behavior.

I have no interest in killing anyone, even billionaires. True, the world will be a better place without billionaires, but the way to get rid of them is not to kill them. Rather, let’s dismantle the systems that allow them to thrive.

EMMA!!!

EMMA

Actors’ Shakespeare Project

Cambridge Multi-Cultural Arts Center

November 14-December 15, 2024

Clueless. Photo courtesy of Town and Country

One amazing attribute of great art is how it can be twisted and bent into new shapes without losing its original power. Emma Woodhouse arrived in this world over two hundred years ago, the rather unheroic heroine of a beloved Jane Austen novel. In the intervening centuries Emma has been translated, staged, and filmed in marvelous adaptations. Remember Clueless? Nothing more than Emma, updated and reset—as if—in Southern California.

Actors’ Shakespeare Project is a production of EMMA serves up playwright Kate Hamill’s 21st century take on this Regency-era satire. Wed ASP’s craft with Ms. Hamill’s versatility with Jane Austen’s sensibility, and the result is simply: wonderful!

Backstory. A few months ago I enjoyed dinner with delightful friend and theatrical virtuoso, Regine Vital, who told me she was directing this production. Regine also confided that she’d never been much of an Emma fan; rather Persuasion was her preferred Austen novel. I’ve always been a garden-variety Austen fan, which is to say, I know Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice but never dipped into deeper (later) works. Given the luxury of advance notice, I got myself a ticket to EMMA, and was able to read both Persuasion and Emma before the performance. I can now proclaim that Emma is my favorite of Jane Austen’s novels. The plot more intricate than her earlier works, the satire less obvious but equally biting, the story more connected to the world beyond its provincial setting.

But how does Emma hold up as a piece of contemporary theater? Very well. Ms. Hamill condenses the plot in appropriate ways, even as she expands the characters to conjure convincing 2024 selves. She correctly stresses farce over verisimilitude and doesn’t forget for a moment that the audience is sitting right there: Emma direct addresses us so often, we’re essentially the ninth cast member. Meanwhile, Director Vital’s staging betrays her own Shakespearean training. The acting is broad, the actions enthusiastic, the overall energy effervescent. The production sizzles with the over-the-top effort required to make an Elizabethan (or Regency) audience understand what’s going on without benefit of amplification and raked seating. And folks…it is funny!

Alex Bowden and Josephine Moshiri Elwood in EMMA. Photo courtesy of ASP

EMMA at ASP must close on December 15 – dash over to the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center and see it this weekend. But if you miss this production, rest assured that Emma will come back around, in some from or other, over the next years and decades. The story is simply too human and too funny; the heroine simply too flawed and too true, not to resonate forever.

5 Plays in 5 Days

Boston’s theater scene continues to grow in every dimension. In the 1990’s, when I first moved beyond touring Broadway shows to discover local theater, Boston supported a handful of companies and few people made a livelihood in live theater here. Now, there are more companies doing more kinds of plays than ever. I even know a few full-time actors who choose to live in Boston over New York because the pool is smaller while the opportunities are great! A few weeks ago I saw five plays in five days. And there were some I missed!

Cast of Noises Off at Lyric Stage. Photo by Mark S. Howard

Noises Off

Lyric Stage

November 15- December 22, 2024

If you like slapstick, farce, Buster Keaton and Monty Python you will LOVE Noises Off. I know this for fact because I do not particularly like that kind of comedy, yet I was guffawing right along with everyone else. Act One of this play-within-a-play delivers a series of silly zingers during final dress rehearsal of a theatrical that appears doomed. In Act Two the set is literally turned around, so the audience is backstage during some provincial performance a month into the run. The same drivel we heard in rehearsal is now delivered to the rear wall, while the personal foibles of the off-stage cast are front and center. It’s perhaps the most perfect thirty minutes of choreography I’ve ever seen. Sardines fly, hatchets swing, lovers slap, then faint, then reconcile. It’s all hysterical. Act Three? Suffice to say this ain’t MacBeth. But if you want to know what happens…you’ll have to go see that for yourself.

Cast of How to NOT Save the World with Mr. Bezos. Photo by Benjamin Rose.

How to NOT Save the World with Mr. Bezos

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

November 7-24, 2024

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre produces only new work, mostly by MFA Students in BU’s playwrighting program. I’m always intrigued by things that are still finding their way. And though some plays at BPT that are interesting in their own right, what’s usually most interesting is registering the ways in which fledgling playwrights hit and miss.

How to NOT Save the World with Mr. Bezos has a promising premise. A journalist (Becca A. Lewis) interviews Jeff Bezos (Mark W. Soucy) to explore the social consciousness of a billionaire who’s materially changed our world. I can imagine that a fascinating conversation. But the premise is undermined before the journalist even opens her mouth when she unbuttons her shirt to expose cleavage in a most unprofessional manner. Having abandoned verisimilitude, playwright Maggie Kearnan serves up virtually every theatrical trick in the book. There’s a black out, clothes come off, necks are sliced, blood spurts. The content of the so-called interview is lackluster since Jeff Bezos doesn’t spout anything we don’t already know, and the so-called journalist is a sham from the start. Fortunately, there’s this wonderful other voice: the fact checker (Robbie Rodriguez), who turns out to be more engaging than the main event. The play is too literal to come off as absurd; too spot-on to play as satire. But I give Ms. Kearnan kudos for tackling so much.

Annika Bolton and Mairead O’Neill in Soft Star. Photo by Amelia Cordischi.

Soft Star

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

November 8-25, 2024

Soft Star, by Tina Esper, is Bezos’ polar opposite We follow a pair of lifelong friends in rural Minnesota as they navigate boys who become husbands, jealousy, and babies. The play has several well drawn insights into how we grow into adulthood, but ultimately the story’s too tame. Soft Star includes a few magical moments when Jane (Annika Bolton) displays her gift to nourish and communicate with birds. I look forward to Tina Esper giving us more of that magic.

Sandra Seone-Seri and Diego Arciniegas in Galileo’s Daughter. Photo by Maggie Hall.

Galileo’s Daughter

Central Square Theater

November 14 – December 8, 2024

Central Square Theater continues its admirable productions of plays that highlight women in science with Galileo’s Daughter. Italian scientist and heretic Galileo placed his eldest—illegitimate—daughter in a convent at a young age. 120 of her letters survive, portraying a devout daughter keenly interested in her father’s work. Those letters are the basis for the 1999 book, Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel, as well as this play. The story is touching, though hardly enough substance for a full-length play. Perhaps that’s why playwright Jessica Dickey inserted another character: the Writer, a contemporary New Yorker in Florence to research the letters. The theatrical device is compelling, but ultimately comes up short, as the Writer’s back story is offered in tiny nuggets, so the audience does not much care about her. Until, late in the play, we realize that she is the actual character going through a transformation, and we feel a bit cheated. As if the play is somehow mistitled. Nevertheless, the production is sharp and Diego Arciniegas as Galileo and a slew of other 17th and 21st century characters is just wonderful.

Cast of Tartuffe at Hub Theatre Company of Boston. Photo by Maggie Hall.

Tartuffe

Hub Theatre Company of Boston

November 9-24, 2024

Ten seasons in, Hub Theatre Company of Boston continues to dazzle on a dime. Lauren Elias, Founder, Artistic Director, frequent actor and all-around hilarious human being has made an astounding concept thrive: every seat at every performance of every Hub Theatre show is Pay-What-You-Like. I kid you not. Yet their productions are top notch. Tartuffe adds yet another quality notch to Hub’s belt of successes. Today is a perfect time to revisit Moliere’s satire on hypocrisy (in a witty translation by Richard Wilbur.) The set and costumes are a clever confusion of eighteenth-century French Court fashion layered over jeans from the actor’s home closets. The contrast works brilliantly, as does every contemporary touch director Bryn Boice brings to the play. The production sizzles with the gee-whiz enthusiasm of “Let’s put on a show.” The ensemble cast’s timing is impeccable: every joke in the script lands and the stage antics are hysterical. When Act One ended, with the audience howling, I could scarcely believe that time had passed. And Act Two was just as funny!