In the Press

A few interesting items from newspapers:

On a personal note, I am chuffed to discover that Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Uptown Players is a hit.  According to the Fort Worth Star Telegram:

 "It’s the best production of a play that Uptown Players has ever done, and it doesn’t hurt that the script is one that, like the great writer from which it takes its inspiration, is destined for classic status."  

Wohoo!  Read the rest of the review HERE.  I really do admire this script and cast.  Earlier post on the show HERE.

Les Demoiselles de Avignon, Pablo Picasso - public domain at Wikipedia

On a non-personal but still theatrical note...

There's an interesting op-ed in the New York Times written by actor James Franco about the recent plagiarism scandal around another actor's, Shia LeBeouf's, creative? endeavours...  It's an thoughtful and maybe even a plausible take on behavior that, in anyone not a famous actor, would be considered mere cheating and brattiness.  Read it HERE.  

I think Franco may have a point (I've seen a few actors let much less fame that LaBeouf's go straight to their egos), but it seems... inconsistent... for anyone to act out because they're treated "special" while counting on that "special"ness to shield them from the consequences.

More and more I come to think that we have to separate the work from the man (or woman).  

Picasso was a kinda nasty person who painted well.  Charles Dickens was more flawed than his own Scrooge. More recently, Woody Allen... sigh.  I deeply love many of Allen's movies, but I have no idea where the truth lies in the ugly 20 year old accusations against him that have resurfaced.   I can only be glad that I need never decide whether to let him babysit my kid and can, instead, just rewatch Manhattan.  Whatever Allen is or did I choose not to devalue his work, just as I'll always love the story of Scrooge's redemption and Picasso's blue guitarist.  

I think it's often true that the artist puts the best part of themselves into their work (leaving the worst for us to cope with in daily life), while The Work seems to go on to develop a  life independent of its creator.  

In which case... maybe LaBeouf's biggest sin isn't so much plagiarizing others as that, by casting doubt, by NOT putting his best self out there, he betrays his own body of work, past and future.

Comments?

Charles Dickens

Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.  One of the greatest best-sellers to force his way into English Literature.

From academic or high-brow critics you'll occasionally read whines that Dickens was  too broad in his literary effects, too exuberant and showman-like, too crowd-pleasing with his characters, and sometimes sentimental in his situations.  Translate these complaints as, "too popular to be good."  (The same elitism undervalues modern writers like Stephen King or J. K. Rowling.)

It IS true that Dickens' writing was sometimes sloppy: he wrote fast, for newspaper serials, with no chance to go back and edit things.  By nature, he was not primarily a language stylist.  He was a story-teller.  Terrific, memorable characters!  Some of the sentiment in his work comes from his era - oh! those lace-valentine Victorians! - but much from his own heart.  The young boy who had to glue on labels in a Victorian factory knew the dark side of the Industrial Revolution.

In his own day The Pickwick Papers was smashingly popular comedy (the sisters in Little Women play Pickwick Club).  Nowadays, some of his most popular books are: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Hard Times, A Christmas Carol, and Great Expectations.

There have been countless films made.  On-stage?  I've gotten to design for Edwin Drood, there are famous versions of Nicholas Nickleby, there is the musical, Oliver! and never forget that perennial fund-raiser, upon which so many theaters depend, A Christmas Carol.  Scrooge alone would make Dickens immortal.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, WaterTower Theare, set design Clare Floyd DeVries

Yet... Why still so popular?

Basically, Dickens gets it.  He understands us and our plight.  He could be writing today - as this famous beginning from A Tale of Two Cities shows:


"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."

Just read today's headlines.