Theatre Buff? Look at EXIT THE ACTRESS.

Exit the Actress is a first novel by Priya Parmar, a young woman with roots in English Literature and the Theatre. It recounts the life of the 17th century Restoration actress Nell (Ellen) Gynn via a sequence of fictional diary entries and a series of gossipy news items, letters from royalty, and even period recipes for food and medicines.  Nell is portrayed as an independent woman who will play by her own rules and not those of the men around her. She lives out her unmarried life as the mistress of three different Charles', but is faithful to each in his time. Above all she is adamant about not being kept and continues to insist on control of her living space and her professional life in the theatre.

 

The diary format tends to diminish the tension somewhat as the conflicts are narrated rather than dramatized, but the theatre buff will still be caught up in the Restoration ambiance and the treatment of familiar stage figures such as Thomas Killigrew, John Dryden, and the third Charles, King Charles II of England. At over 400 pages of smallish print, you will not be polishing this off in an afternoon at the beach, but I think you will find Ms. Parmar's take on Nell quite endearing and somewhat different from some of the more salacious takes on her life.

 

Bit and pieces post firecracker day

Blogging is tough to keep up.

Gee, nothing since Fathers Day.  What's been going on?  Not a whole lot and that's good at my age.  Surprises mean change and change requires energy. 

Did learn a thing or two in the last few days though.   For instance in a lovely program on Hampton Court, the royal residence just outside of London, I learned that those little figures peering down from overhead in the eaves of the great hall are the source of the word "evesdropping".

After that came the first episode of "Endeavor".  Yes, PBS is our channel of choice.  It is a Masterpiece Mystery prequel that takes us back to Inspector Morse's first days on the job as a smart but naive young investigator.  The portrayal of the young Morse seems too precious. He seems too willing to show off his observation skills, but perhaps this will mellow as the series progresses.  I also wonder why there is anyone left in Oxford after all these years of seemingly continuous multiple murders.   Is this series a setup for a pre-prequel that will give us the very young Morse making the decision to become a cop? 

Rain has once again put the golf on hold and may also put the library board picnic indoors tonite.

Working on an entry on the Ringling Estate in Sarasota.  Maybe tomorrow.   Meanwhile the grandsons play a mean game of baseball and the granddaughter is looking to start walking any day now.

The rich are not like the rest of us. Because, well, they're rich.

Some Post Fathers Day Notes

T'was a busy three day weekend of travel, observation, baseball, reading, and live theatre.

Off on Thursday to see the grandchildren play ball.  The team of the youngest didn't quite have the mustard this time.  The game of the oldest was forfeited when the opponents couldn't field a full team.  No runs, no hits, no errors, no player or fan broke a sweat,  and still a win.  So we were fifty fifty; can't beat that.

While looking at the Skogman Real Estate ad in the Cedar Rapids paper, I was intrigued to note that there were three full pages of pictures of their agents.   Not a single face of color visible.  Hmmmm!

More irony.  We were browsing the CR Barnes and Noble and came upon a display of books advertised as gifts for Dad on Fathers Day.  Every single volume on the table was about war or weapons.   HMMMMM!   The caps mean Hmmmm intensified.

Home on Saturday to do a two hour stint at our local history museum and then on Sunday up to the Quad City Music Guild's production  of Cabaret.  Playing Sally Bowles was former student Melissa Anderson-Clark.  I am most proud when those young people continue to do theatre after they leave college.  Art as a key part of life exemplfies the core of the liberal arts experience.  And in addition both of her children are active in performance.  To top if off her dad, a successful MD and also a Monmouth College grad, participates in theatre as well.   Kudos to a remarkable family giving back to the Quad Cities.

Need a read?    A challenging article in the May 20th New Yorker is titled "The Ivy League's Online Push."  It explores in some depth both the potential strengths and weaknesses of  formal internet education.    It moves us to consider once again the mystery of education.  Why do some students remember a moment in a classroom years before as a deciding path in their lives and some find difficulty in stopping the moment for even a second before it passes out of the other ear unfettered by thought or consideration?   Does the fact that Zuckerberg and Gates dropped out of college demonstrate that their  education was a success or a failure?   Check it out.  As the author, Nathan Heller, notes: ". . . the mechanism by which conveyed knowledge blooms into an education" may "either enrich teaching in this country or deplete it."  Now if we can just understand the mystery of the mechanism.

Need a longer and more theatrical read?  Try Priya Parmar's EXIT THE ACTRESS.  I guess I would call it bio-fiction.  It pretty accurately chronicles the life of famed Restoration actress Ellen "Nell" Gwyn, but it is couched in the form of a diary, which as far as we know, Nell never wrote. 

Now on to deeper things like the sand trap behind number two at Gibson Woods. 

 

A Little Breakfast Aubade from the Professorial Side of the Desk

This photo was taken by my grandson Mikel and is one of my favorites.

 

 

A Little Breakfast Aubade from the Professorial Side of the Desk

An aubade is an ancient French word meaning “dawn song” or a song composed to be sung in the morning.  You can be comforted that I will not sing to you this morning.  Instead I’ll simply say a few brief words about my love affair with Monmouth College and liberal arts education.   

I first heard the word “aubade” at Beloit College in 1950’s when my mentor and head of the theatre department, Kirk Denmark, used it in a talk he gave at a morning convocation. The second time I used the word was in a speech I gave to our student body in the 1980’s at our Spring Honors Convocation.  This is the third time. (It’s not a word you can find an excuse to use very often.)  And now former Speech 101 students, on to the body of the talk.

About two weeks ago a former student, now in a graduate program in Texas, wrote to me:  "If it weren’t for you, I most likely never would have discovered theatre. Thank you, Doc, for playing such a pivotal and supportive role in helping to shape my life. I look forward to sharing a Guinness with you when I add Dr. to my name. :)"

I mention this not to aggrandize myself but to remind all of us that there is always someone who came before.    

For me it was my parents and it was in their honor that I made my small gift to Monmouth. Neither of them had a college degree.  My mom graduated from high school and went directly to work.  My dad had a tougher task. He had to leave high school after two years in order to help support a family whose father was away fighting in WW I.

My mom with me and my sister in 1946

My dad with me in 1938

 

In later years, my parents were both determined that their children would get the educational opportunities that they never were able to have.  And both of their children became first generation college graduates just as did many Monmouth graduates over the years. 

My dad, my future wife, me, my mom, my future wife's mom and dad at the Beloit College graduation in 1959

 

As a matter of fact, our family could qualify as ACM (Associated Colleges of the Midwest) poster children.  I went to Beloit College because my uncle went there.  My wife and I graduated from Beloit. My sister and her husband graduated from Coe College and they lived in Ripon for a time while my brother-in-law taught there. My son graduated from Grinnell and my daughter has both a BA and Master of Arts in Teaching from Coe.  And of course I taught here at Monmouth for thirty nine years. We must clearly have seen some value in a liberal arts education.  

One of the most important things we learned in those years of attending or serving at small colleges was that giving back, in the measure you can afford, is a part of life.  For me “the give” was to the theatre program at Monmouth; for you no doubt, something else equally important.        

But whether your motivation was a discipline, a professor, or the liberal arts concept itself, it is all summed up beautifully in Alan Bennett’s remarkable play THE HISTORY BOYS. Hector, the elderly teacher says at the end:

“Pass the parcel. That’s sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it, and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys.  That’s the game I wanted you to learn. Pass it on.”

This was a brief talk delivered by Dr. Jim De Young. Professor Emeritus of Communication and Theatre Arts at the McMichael Heritage Society Breakfast on the Monmouth College Campus on June 8, 2013

The McMichael Heritage society honors people who have given substantial gifts in a year, made estate gifts, and employees with more than twenty-five years of service to the college.

The Wells Theatre was dedicated in 1990 and De Young Theatre Arts Education Fund honors
Dr. De Young's parents and will help fund guest theatre artists on campus and defray travel costs for current to off-campus theatre arts events. If you wish to add to this fund, contact Mr. Steve Bloomer, Director of Principal Gifts at Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL 61462 or email him at sbloomer@monmouthcollege.edu

 

Just finished a book titled Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told."   Papp was the guiding light behind the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater for many years and shepherded a host of  new playwrights including David Rabe, Jason Miller, and Ntozake Shange.  His hand was also on breakout Broadway hits including  Hair, Chorus Line, and Pirates of Penzance.

The format of the book carries us through his career and the shows produced in Central Park and at the Public Theater through  the vehicle of interviews with Papp, the directors, actors, and other personnel who were involved in the productions.  This makes the narrative a bit jumpy and sometimes repetitive, but for any comtemporary theatre historian, dramaturg, or director of the works covered, there is some fertile loam to sift through.  Think of it more as a research tool for the professional rather than something the casual reader might pick up and read from cover to cover.

I did enjoy one fine pun story from the 1975 production of Hamlet in Central Park. John Lithgow was playing Laertes and slipped while leaping into the grave during the fight scene.  He injured his knee and had to be taken to the hospital.   Mr. Papp was heard to say after the event, "Well I guess you can't make a Hamlet without breaking some legs. "    

Could we dial back the volume?

  Is it conveivable that "the other" can never have even a marginally good idea, is 100% motivated by evil, and should always be treated with contempt?   William Rivers Pitt has a message for those who seem to have nothing better to do with their lives than spew unending racist and political venom.

“There is a corner in every human heart made to be filled with hatred, fear, and violence. It is our common curse, and when we feed that space, it grows larger, stronger, and more vicious. Whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever you believe, that corner exists within you because you are human.

The great challenge of our common humanity, and of every individual human, is to make a void of that space as best we can. In that simple discipline lives freedom, for it is our hatreds that bind us and stagger us to ruin. Hatred of the "Other" is the puppet string upon which we dangle. When you hate someone you have never met for who they are or what they believe, you are doing the work of those whose joy is in your rage.” 

Could we dial back the volume for them so they might grow in peace and love and respect for their fellow human beings?

  Thanks!

Tulips Join the Parade

 

 

 

Hope your spring blooms are as lovely as these.