Noel Coward

I discovered this exhibition last week when I went up to Lincoln Center to see Paul Taylor.

In conjunction with the exhibition the city is hosting a number events.  Yesterday I went to a marvelous party with Barry Dey, Simon Callow, Edward Hibbert, Dana Ivey, and Steve Ross at the Drama Bookshop.  Mr. Dey, O. B. E. devised the event.

Noel Coward, 12/16/1899 - 3/26/1973 made his stage debut at 11.  Then he proceeded to write 50 plays, hundreds of songs, dozens of musical theater shows, books of poetry, volumes of short stories, a novel [Pomp and Circumstance], and a 3 volume autobiography.
His first play was produced when he was 20.  When he was 25 he had 4 shows playing on the West End, among them 'Hay Fever'.  His first movie 'Cavalcade' in 1933 won the Best picture Academy Award.

Yesterday's show:
Steve Ross began with a performance on the piano, in Noel Coward's green velour dinner jacket, of 'Mrs. Worthington don't let your daughter go on the stage'.
Then Dana Ivey quoted Coward: "People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be.  It is what it used to be.  That's what's wrong with it." Then she continued for 4 or 5 minutes reading a poem? or song lyric? about what's wrong with opera.  Hilarious.
And so the show continued:
Mr. Dey, trustee of the Noel Coward estate and writer on Coward and editor of his collected works, narrated.
Simon Callow ... an essay on theater as an edifice.
Simon Callow and Edward Hibbert as 2 playwrights of differing theatrical philosophies
Simon Callow ...  reading an epithet for an aging actress
Steve Ross performing    'Why must the show go on?'   & Edward Hibbert doing 'Been to a Marvelous Party'
Barry Dey reading from an essay on 'Social Grace'
Everyone singing London Pride [the name of a London Flower].  It is a song from from WW-ll, that brought tears to Barry Dey and Simon Callow.  They said: "During the war years, and even after, that song was England's other National Anthem."
Then a reading  from a story about Coward's experience in London during the war years.    [ I think I mentioned in a previous piece that at one point in the war London was bombed for 70 straight nights]
Then everyone, including the audience, sang 'I'll see you again.'
Great time ... it had everything I love about theatrical events, wit, drama, terse-laconic-synoptic-pithy & breviloquent writing.  Plus, my 2 favorites, intimate space [ca. 80 seats] and  free!

There is a lot of Coward on you tube. & There are more events to come that I hope to see.

And on the street:

 
                                                     The Spirit of Audrey by John Kennedy.
Dedicated to the memory of Audrey Hepburn, UNICEF ambassador 1987 - 1993

Sisyphus

The April 9, 2012 New Yorker includes Adam Gopkin's review of books about Camus and other french writer/philosophers after the war: " Facing History, Why we love Camus".
Camus: "One must always imagine Sisyphus happy".
Gopkin: "to act decently while accepting that acts are always essentially absurd" is the only way to act.
Camus was not an evangelical.

My stones are moving and my Sisyphean smile is very weak.
It's been a busy week and writing will take me away from my absurd kidney.

Wednesday I saw a matinee of 'End of the Rainbow', starring Tracie Bennett.  It was written by Peter Quilter who has admitted that when he was writing the show he did no research.  Fans of Judy Garland are opposed to the show for that reason and also that the show is a very dark [negative] portrait of a great artist.  John Fricke, a Garland historian, has quoted Judy's daughter Lorna Luft who said Judy Garland's life had a lot of tragedy but she was not a tragic person.
My complaint with the show is that it is an impersonation, and about drug addiction more than anything else.  The story of great female performers who used drugs and died young is a popular pop culture topic.  Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Huston and others have battled addiction and died young.  Tragic lives?
For Garland see Jack Paar's interviews.  Not just witty, belly laughs.

Thursday I saw the Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center.  Talk about fun.  They always make me feel good.  They did Aureole, Troilus and Cressida, Beloved Renegade, and Promethean Fire.  They are on You Tube.  Not as good as seeing them live but worth a look.

  

      
Friday: dinner at the Natural Gourmet, very good vegan dinner.

Saturday was a matinee at Lincoln Center.
4000 miles, a very entertaining drama about a young troubled man and his grandmother, is written by Amy Herzog and stars the great Mary Louise Wilson as the grandmother and an equally good Gabriel Ebert as the young man.  I found some of the drama was centered on the 'mystery of the young man's problem' which for me was not the most engaging part of the show.  Similar to 'The Lady From Dubuque' the 'problem' is easily imagined or expressed early on.  What is wonderful about both plays are the portraits of the central character and the performances of the actresses.
I never knew my grandmother but after the performance of Mary Louise Wilson and also having seen my mother with her grandchildren, I miss not having had that relationship.  Different than a mother's love. Maturity brings acceptance of others' foibles.  A good thing to have in relationships in or out of family.
  
Sunday: a day of rest.