How Do You Measure A Year?

So, a year. Wow! It’s been that long since 16 March 2009, the date I posted my first column on ROT, launching this blog. A new administration had barely begun in Washington. 

In the year that followed, the flu scared everyone, Michael Jackson died (and so did Walter Cronkite, Jack Kemp, Farrah Fawcett, Horton Foote, Karl Malden, David Carradine, Charlie Wilson, and Pernell Roberts--among many others).

Iran exploded over a disputed election, and North Korea tested nukes. Scientists discovered water on the moon. Ted Kennedy’s senate seat went to a Republican. Having gotten the city council to extend term limits, Michael Bloomberg was elected to a third term as New York mayor. 

West Side Story (1957) and Hair (1968) came back to Broadway. So did Desire Under the Elms (1924), Blithe Spirit (1941), Finian’s Rainbow (1947), Waiting for Godot (1956), A Little Night Music (1973), and Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988). A Neil Simon revival flopped (Brighton Beach Memoirs) and a Schiller soared (Mary Stuart).

A year. I can’t speak about the quality of the content of ROT; that’s for others to say, I guess. I think I’ve done a pretty decent job in terms of breadth, though--even if I hewed pretty closely to the main topic of theater. 

I don’t do current events (though I did do a column on the dismissal of reviewers from the Tony voter rolls: “Tony Committee to Theater Journalists: ‘Yer Out!’” 17 August 2009)--I’m not really a reporter--and I stay away from politics and religion (and, I suppose, sex, too--though that’s not so much by design). 

Still, there was a post on Judaism (“Crypto-Jews: Legacy of Secrecy,” 15 September 2009)--more sociological and historical than theological, however. I ventured into true crime once (“The Con Game (A True-Crime Story),” 22 October 2009). And there’s a column on scholarship and gifted students (“Davidson Fellowships,” 18 October 2009). 

There were several on theater for children (“Missoula Children’s Theatre,” 25 August 2009; “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Children's Theater in America,” 25 November 2009). I dipped into art and artists a number of times (“Pudlo Pudlat, Inuit Artist,” 28 September 2009; “Art in D.C. (Dec. ’09-Jan. ’10),” 18 January 2010; “Dada,” 20 February 2010; among others). 

Of course, there were several performance reports--not as many as I’d have liked, but I didn’t get to as much theater as I would have liked this past year. 

I reminisced a bit: columns on two dogs I loved (“Sobaka: A Memoir,” 31 July 2009; “Thespis,” 10 February 2010), some recollections about Berlin in the Cold War (“Berlin Station, Parts 1 & 2,” 19 & 22 July 2009; “The Berlin Wall,” 29 November 2009), a snowstorm that fouled an inaugural 49 years ago (“JFK Inaugural Snowstorm,” 22 April 2009), a TV movie I remembered from 38 years ago in Germany (“Der Illegale,” 5 July 2009). 

There was some other history, too: a peculiar British actor from the early 19th century (“Romeo Coates, Parts 1-3,” 30-31 May & 2 June 2009), a passel of French writers in the late 19th century (“The Group of Hissed Authors,” 7 May 2009), and the only man who served as both a general in the U.S. Army and an admiral in the U.S. Navy (“Sailor on Horseback,” 1 September 2009). 

I even found space to post pieces by other writers, including my friend Kirk Woodward as well as some others like Francis Pharcellus Church and David Macfarlane (“How America Eats: Food and Eating Habits in the Plays of Suzan-Lori Parks,” 5 October 2009; “’Is There a Santa Claus?’” 25 December 2009; “’For Real Actors, Eyebrow Grooming Is Not The Highest Art,’” 10 March 2010). That looks like a pretty good assortment to me--a kind of Whitman’s Sampler of topics. (ROT is like a box of chocolates . . . .)

Of course, I’ve been publishing what interests me; I don’t know if anyone else is interested. I hope those who’ve found ROT have discovered articles that have piqued their curiosities. For all I know, though, I’ve been felling the proverbial tree in the unpeopled forest. 

I don’t know if anyone’s been reading ROT--at all, much less regularly. Few people have left comments (though, I’ve learned that the site sometimes balks at letting readers make comments; maybe more people have tried than is evident). Even my friends seem to check in only when I tell them there’s something that’d interest them on the blog.

A whole year. I never really thought about it, but if I had, I don’t think I’d have figured I’d last this long. I don’t know how much longer I can keep ROT up, but I still have a few ideas left. For now, I plan just to keep on truckin’ and see where that leads. 

I have to say, it’s been fun these past 12 months--finding material to write about (even if that meant resurrecting some old pieces--though that has been interesting as well) and trying to write it up so that everyone can get it. That’s been a real challenge with some of the more esoteric topics like Susanne Langer’s philosophy and the theory of rasa-bhava (“Susanne Langer: Art, Beauty, & Theater – Parts 1& 2,” 4 & 8 January 2010; “Rasa-Bhava & The Audience,” 13 January 2010). 

Trying to keep my thoughts down to a digestible length (I can tend toward logorrhea sometimes--maybe you’ve noticed) has been another challenge. Not having an editor (except my own self, that is) has been both a blessing and a problem. No one’s watching over my shoulder. On the other hand . . . no one’s watching over my shoulder.

Eighty-one posts. That’s how many I’ve come up with since last 16 March. Some have been harder than others. Some have required research, some have been founded on research I already did, and some came from right off the top of my head. 

Some were clearly opinionated, based on my feelings about the topic, some were intended to be scrupulously objective and reportorial. Some ended up being both. I couldn’t hide my enthusiasm, for instance, concerning the Davidson Fellowship program or the Missoula Children’s Theatre even though I was trying to describe them with detachment. 

In the end, however, they were all interesting to craft, one way or another. Of course, I hope they were interesting to read, too.

My original intent, encouraged by a friend who’d been reading my e-mail reports on plays and performances I’d seen, was to publish those reports and other pieces about theater. Hence the rather unimaginative title of Rick On Theater. 

The description in the heading includes the words “perhaps other topics of interest to me” because I knew at the outset that I might wander off point from time to time. I suspect I’ve done that more in reality than I had thought I would, but I’m going to keep the original title even after a year of meandering thoughts. 

My intention is still to discourse mostly about theater and the arts, so the title will serve as a reminder--to me, at least, if not the readers--of what I’m supposed to be up to. Maybe it’ll be more of a reprimand than a reminder. 

If I make it to another anniversary, we’ll see if it is. Meanwhile, ROT it is, and ROT it’ll stay. (My friend Kirk, who was the one who urged me to launch the blog last year, pointed out that those initials aren’t original with me. 

“Do you remember what great movie the initials ROT play a (small) role in?” he wrote me a few days after I started the blog. “I can't think of the movie with ‘ROT’ in it,” I responded--great movie maven that I am. "’North by Northwest,’” responded Kirk. 

“Roger O. Thornhill is Cary Grant's character, and as I recall, he gives someone a business card with his initials.” Who’d 'a' thunk it! It’s one of my all-time fave movies, too.)

First anniversary. Well, I just wanted to mark the occasion. I don’t know where I’ll go from here with ROT. I have a couple of posts ready to go, in the same vein as what’s gone before. I don’t plan any changes--hell, I didn’t plan this; it just sorta happened. 

I guess that’s how I’ll keep going--just sorta let it happen. If a better idea--or any idea, really--comes along, I’ll try it out. I’d like to get more “guest bloggers” to chime in, the way Kirk did on Suzan-Lori Parks. 

I also have a few pieces published by writers and thinkers in the past like the commentary about actors by David Macfarlane and I may post some of them because they’re interesting and provocative. (Wait till you get a load of a couple by Antonin Artaud I’ve got in reserve. They’ll blow your minds!) 

I expect I’ll continue to share my research with you all--I have some more on Leo Shapiro I haven’t used yet that I think people will find intriguing, and there are other odd subjects yet to be unveiled. I’m not done yet. 

And when I am, Kirk’s said he can’t wait to see some things from my “archives”--performance reports from the past. I’ve posted one or two of the OBG’s when they seemed à propos (“Ian McKellen’s King Lear,” 28 March 2009, when it aired on PBS and “Woman of the Year (1981),” 26 April 2009, when Marilyn Cooper died). 

So, we’ll have to see what comes, won’t we. (As Fats Waller was famous for saying, “One never knows, do one?”) Stick around. Should be fun.

~Rick

A New Venture

Hello. This is a new venture for me. I've never written a blog--or really ever read one! For the past several years, though, I've been sending long e-mails to a few friends who asked me to keep them apprised of what I see in the theater back here in New York. (They all used to live here and now live far away, including abroad.) Some of them keep telling me I should try to publish my opinions, but since I only write when I see something and I write about only what strikes my interest, it's not likely anyone would pay me to do what I do. The idea of a blog came up, so here's the result so far. I have no idea where this will go.

Two things need to be clear for anyone who happens on this blog. First, as I suggested, I only write about what interests me. This is a decidedly first-person account of my private experience at the theater. It's not a review and I make no pretense at universality or omniscience, or comprehensiveness. It's not unlikely that someone who reads my entries will disagree, even strongly, with what I say. So be it. As I have often told my writing students, your perceptions are always true--because you had them. No one can tell you that what you felt didn't happen. Of course it did. My experience might be diametrically different from yours, but we both experienced what we experienced. That doesn't mean I didn't miss something, misunderstand something (though I try to acknowledge my own ignorance if I'm aware of it), or overlook a connection someone else spotted.

This approach also means that I don't always cover everything about a show that a reviewer would make a point of describing. I'll write only about what caught my eye, so to speak. Sometimes that means focusing almost entirely on the script, sometimes on the acting and directing; sometimes, though, I touch a little on many aspects of the production. I may also throw in some history (theater or general), commentary, or even personal asides. Some of this may seem irrelevant or frivolous--but that's the way it'll be. You'll get an idea of how my mind works--or fails to (depending on your point of view). In other words, this will be a very personal take on stuff.

The second thing you should understand here is that I don't write my reports with any regularity. Sometimes weeks or even months go by between productions that warrant a write-up. Sometimes I see two or three shows in a row, and I save them all for one report. Occasionally, after seeing two shows in a short period, I decide one is more interesting than the other, and spend most of the report discussing that one and giving short shrift to the other. That's the luck of the draw (even if someone else might disagree with my appraisal). I get to decide what's interesting to me.

Though the initial impulse to start my theater reports was to tell my friends about New York shows I've seen, I expanded that charter to include theater I attended out of town as well. I go to Washington often and usually see something while I'm there--the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, the Studio Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre, the Round House, and others. Other reports I've composed in the past have included the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, W. Va. I also spent a long weekend in Staunton, Va., to see the Shenandoah Shakespeare Theatre, which had then just opened its new home, a reproduction of Shakespeare's winter theater, the Blackfriars. As I indicated, things strike my fancy.

You might also like to know that I sometimes don't confine myself to theater. I've always enjoyed going to art museums and galleries, and when I see an exhibit that intrigues me, for good or bad, I sometimes include it in one of my reports. My training and experience is in theater, and I have no academic background in art--but I sound off on it anyway. I have had some little experience, as an amateur, since I began this interest as a small child when my parents invested in a private gallery in Washington, where I grew up. (My mother still counts among her acquaintances several local artists. Most people don't know, I think, that Washington has a fairly well established and renowned art community of its own. There was even a "Washington Color School" back in the mid-20th century.) That makes about a half century of seeing art all over the world, and I seldom miss an opportunity to check out the art of some place I'm visiting. Like trying the food and drink, it's a way of learning more about a place and a people than looking only at their monuments and relics. Besides, it's fun! Since New York is not only the theater capital of the U.S. but one of the world's great art centers, I see some really marvelous exhibits here. I also go to Washington often to visit family, and the Nation's Capital is a pretty hefty art museum town; the National Gallery and the Smithsonian alone account for a good half dozen galleries. (After his retirement, my father served as development director of the Museum of African Art in Washington--the predecessor to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art on the Mall.) So don't be surprised if you stumble on a report of a show at an art museum sandwiched between theater reports. It happens.

It's also possible, as I see how things develop here, that I will fill in the time between shows with other commentary, such as trips I've taken (I did a lengthy e-mail a few years ago describing my 17-day visit to Alaska to see the fjords and glaciers) or personal history (I wrote a friend a multi-part message recalling the 2½ years I spent as an intelligence officer in West Berlin). I may also share some of my research if I think it's especially interesting. Who knows.

It also happens that I may describe something else entirely--like a strange little house my mother insisted on showing me when I was visiting Washington one time. I think of it as the Hobbit House, but it's commonly known locally as the Mushroom House. It's so odd, I had to share the experience with my friends, so it found its way into the next theater report. I get to do that if I want, self-indulgent though it may be.

So, if you all are going to share my thoughts on theater and check in from time to time, you should know what to expect. Well, what to expect most of the time. Since no one's editing me, I get to meander wherever the notion takes me. In the Southwest, the Chicanos call this "going paseando" (and, if you know about the Situationists, you might recognize this as what they called the dérive--going off the plat). Since I've never done this on a blog before, I have no idea where it may lead. So, I guess we'll find out together.

To get things started, I'm thinking of posting my last e-mail report, or maybe parts of it, until I have a fresh play to write about. (In the middle of next month I'll be seeing one, but I don't want to spoil the surprise so I won't preview it now. Besides, I may decide not to write about it--though that's not very likely.) Then we'll see how things work out.