Somewhere between Swift and Orwell

9/17/14

Back to church after the monthly SWEAT rally in front of the Department of Labor.

Another meeting with composer/conductor Thomas Bo.  I share with with him our vision/plan for Sunday mornings as a time of exploring music with special guests. With a  flash of inspired connection, he reaches into his briefcase and brings out the score for his composition Prophecy from a Refrigerator Box, written to a poem exploring the inner life of a street person who sleeps in a refrigerator box. Scored for a jazz trio. It’s neither ideological nor didactic but makes visible and demands reflection on what is often invisible. And how homelessness itself causes people to disappear, becoming invisible leads to disconnection leads to a retreat into an interior world. I say that Marc Greenberg of the Interfaith Assembly told me the first year I was here that more important than giving money to homeless people was simply seeing them, acknowledging their humanity. Marc’s principles and Thomas’ score are right in line.We also talk about Kristen Leigh’s ideas about performance and the sacred, how a musical creation is its own doorway into the spirit without needing didactic road maps. The same thing we’ve been working on with Mario and Jeremy G. Okay, Thomas, we’ll do something with this.

Anna and I sit and talk about what it means to be Presbyterian. The good and the bad. Our horizontal governance. The equality of ordinations of elders, deacons, pastors. Differences  in function, not importance or value.  And how my main role is that of teacher, and facilitator, not mediator. After years of being a congregant participant, she is ready to make a commitment, become a member. All that’s left is to  make to official and to welcome her.

Brian S is busy repainting the 86^th street door what I call Holy Spirit red, the traditional church door color. I had previously made a blog complaint about the color and he reminded me that I should have spoken to him before writing about it and that he gladly would have repainted. He was absolutely right. And as true to his word as he is to his work. I hope that there will be room for further discussion. He’s bringing back to life a definitive era of American drama.

Officially welcome back the whole Noche core, Martin, Marina, Soli, Mitchell. Good to have them back in the house. 

The Session meets for its weekly update. It can be draining and exhausting, all the bureaucratic ins and outs of dealing with the city. Soviet bureaucracy had nothing on New York City’s labyrinthine ins and outs of permits and expeditors and commissions and dead ends. Somewhere between Swift and Orwell.

The week is underway

5/8

Late last night, after I left our night serving at the homeless  shelter, after Dion helped me set up the beds and get all the towels and sheets and everything out and Kate served another full course meal with glassware and real plates and silver, everyone deserves Sunday dinner, she says, and one of our guests gives a full detailed report on the Joan Rivers funeral with a full run down of celebrity sightings, and we cleaned up and did the dishes, I stopped by the church to wait for the 7 bus home.

The only person there was Geoffrey. Bobbing and rocking back and forth like a davening chasid chanting in a language I can’t understand.

I go for coffee with Brian from ReGroup. Reviewing our experiences of his production of the Texas Trilogy. Leanings on both our parts. I appreciate his graciousness for issues that came his way from our direction. Not to mention his dedication to mining an important vein in American theatre history. Brian’s work helps us experience the roots of modern American drama. We talk about  future projects potentially at West-Park.  And my appreciation for what he  and his company brought to us.

Pat K comes in. She’s been busy enjoying being a grandmother, and other family projects. She’s anxious to get back to work, we need to find time to get our beautification committee together.

Pat O and I are going through the latest developments with architects and then Jerry our construction manager comes by for an update and I remind my self this is all about reconstruction.

Jeremy G and Rishika are out on the steps waiting the arrival of other Work Center friends for the weekly Seed Group meeting. We talk some about Sam and Ryan’s Cymbeline and some of the ideas about performance and the sacred that I’ve been talking about with Kristen. Need to get her involved in the next conversation with Mario, Jeremy and all.

Angelo appears out of the blue, as he always does, this time with stacks of his special 9-11 commemorative post-cards.

Two Japanese artists come in with paintings for Berik and Leila’s next show.

The cast members of Frog& Peach’s Titus Andronicus are arriving. I talk with one who I saw the other night in the immersive performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream in Washington Square Park in the Village last week. Their all-white costuming was reminiscent of the Guilty Remnant on HBO’s post-apocalyptic Leftovers series. I say I admire their courage in tackling Shakespeare’s Grand Guignol of a play.

Jamie pulls up in a cab, ready to take me up to 475 for another conversation with the Presbytery Trustees about our future.

Sam and Ryan wrestled. And won. (Cymbeline....)

8/30

Back to the church in time for the second night of Ryan and Sam’s Cymbeline. As their show opens in the chapel, I can see what they’ve learned from Dzieci. There’s bottles of wine, cold cuts, cheese and fruit. A banjo and a mandolin playing Appalachian music. Sam telling everyone this is a story about his family. And soon enough, the stage set, the play begins.

This is one of Shakespeare’s stranger plays. And that strangeness increases as they lead us from the chapel up to Mc Alpin and ultimately to the 3^rd floor gym.

There’s a place in this play where Shakespeare’s text completely jumps the rails and I didn’t realize it until I got home, but what they did completely got that. When all of a sudden Jupiter appears with lightning bolts and a seriously wtf moment, they launch into a vaudeville song and dance. Which turns out to be exactly right.

I leave thinking about all who have performed in these spaces. The Woodshed summer and fall with the Tenant. John Hudson and the Dark Lady Player’s museum theatre. The amazing show that had a cast of 30 and audience of 1 (at a time.) Jeremy M’s de/reconstruction  with Alivewire of the Crucible over 3 floors. Dzieci. And ReGroup’s Trilogy. And now Ryan and Sam’s Free Theatre. All those spirits remain.

And gentle spirits they were. Respectful. Appreciative. Enjoying RL’s attention and parental concern. And, seriously, no attitude. That says a  lot.

Sam and Ryan have much to feel good about. They tackled a tough play and at least wrestled it to a draw. They treated Shakespeare with the same respect they treated us. They drew full (and overflow) houses. And put on a damn fine show.

They made my day.

Bradleyville on the second floor

8/17

I’ve come back for the final installment of  ReGroup’s Texas Trilogy, The Oldest Living Graduate. 

This morning, I had once again told Marsha, our own Texan,that she needed to see Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander. And she said she had seen it yesterday. She too felt that the Lu Ann of the play was just like women she had known. And as one who works with senior citizens, she found one line very moving. When Lu Ann is asked why she doesn’t put her mother in a home, now that she's a vegetable, she responds, My mother’s not a vegetable, she’s a flower. That’s an example of the rich humanity of Jones’ plays that ReGroup has brought to the stage.

Even though I’m exhausted after a long day, it was worth it. As the director explained, there is a progression in the Trilogy. A progression of seriousness, poignancy. Loss. The character’s lives reflecting the life of their town. And although there’s a Texas particularity to the plays, this could  be any small town, like the Pennsylvania mountain towns we drove through last week.

And as the plays progressed, so has the cast. This last deals with memory. Development. Change. Loss. And like the damaged Corky Oberlander, so effectively played by Conrad Shaw, who was also so painfully familiar to Marsha, the effects of war on soldiers that never goes away. The cast was consistently strong with John Lenartz as Colonel Kincaid in a truly memorable performance. You hold your breath through his final scene as he maintains his passion and dignity to the end.

Following  the play, there is a celebration for a couples’ 50^th wedding anniversary. But there is much else to celebrate. This production has had its share of adversity, some environmental, some internal, some random, and they triumphed over it all. Their project of bringing these plays back to life is important work. In McAlpin, they created a world and filled it with real characters, real people. Like you weren’t in a theatre space, but in a living room, a lodge hall, a bar, in Bradleyville.

It’s been an honor to have ReGroup’s Bradleyville come to life here. And for that we are thankful.