Modern and Contemporary Italian Poetry: a bilingual anthology, MLA, New York, 2009.

An anthology of 38 Italian poets in English Translation, with Italian Text. Edited and translated by Ned Condini.

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An Evening of Short Plays Review 7/25 – Brian Green

An Evening of Short Plays
Reviewed by B.C. Greene
Presented by The Lost Playwrights of Western North Carolina

A warm and pleasant shelter from the rain and Asheville street party’s. Seven individual plays set out for our enjoyment. All of them set up to make us laugh, with Dock’s Deli serving excellent sandwiches and summer time ice cream to order.

The evening begins with music from talented Stephen Smartt and Brian Pieare. There two guitars strum out modern blues as Stephen performs sonic tai chi in tune with his instrument.

The opening skit was Blink Blink by Shirley King. Gordon Pendarvis played Tom a fire fly of the traditional sense. Richard Brown played Sam a fire fly who wished to light the night with poetry and art. Paula Orr a first on this particular stage played Gloria who found she could accept a bug of a different wattage.

Elevator Operator by Janis Butler Holm was the second skit. This play was preformed buy the Thompson family. Teenager #1 (Andy Thompson) plays a prank on Businessperson #1 (Mark Thompson). The skit ends with Teenager #2 (Zac Thompson) beginning the same prank on Businessperson #2 (Sandi Thompson)

How I won the Lottery by David Meth is presented next. This clever play is greatly enhanced buy the talents of Gordon Pendarvis as Baggy the sails clerk during a impromptu heist. Richard Brown plays Bobby Bob the not quite dedicated ex-con stick up man. Lu-Ellen Bobby Bob’s current Beau is played buy Carolyn Elgin. Luckily I had finished my tasty pizza sandwich from Dock’s Deli before holding my gut as I laughed.

The intermission was kicked off buy Jose on the Harmonica and leopard puppet. Wet from his athletic bike ride in the rain, Jose confidently displayed his innovative talent as we all took a short break.

A Study in Art by Robert E. Jamison launched the second Act. Now Richard Brown, Gordon Pendarvis and Paula Orr had a chance to really shine as Sam, George, and A Gorgeous Girl. The play was a comment on all the different venues we men might try to find a date, and how it’s our true interests that surpass the locations we might pick.

How Blue is My Crocodile by Janis Arthur M. Jolly had a tremendous arch to the short play. Teenager #1 and Teenager #2 played buy Andy and Zac Thompson muscled us threw the first half of the skit. It was full of odd dialog that slowly began to make sense, this was just what we needed to understand where the playwright was taking us. At times the chatter of the characters was humorous, until we saw where we where going. Two children playing while awaiting a father’s fate in the war in the Middle East.

Pirate Bitches of the Caribbean by Clyde James Aragon played with our gender stereotypes. Captain Jill (Rosmary O’Brien) lead her crew on a search for plunder on the high seas. The crew was Marina (Paula Orr), Victoria (Rose Stone), and Danielle (Dot Drew).

An Honest Arrangement by David Wiener told the story of Willie (Gordon Pendarvis), and Nara (The lovely Paula Orr). The story of a modern day e-mail order bride and her soon to be husband. There was much wit and honesty, well worth seeing especially with this cast.

The evening closed out with the guitar duo, Stephen Smartt and Brian Pieare.
as we left out into the rain washed night. Sam Stone the M/C had put together a show that would keep us coming back as more enlightened people.

Sam Stone Impromptu News and Review

Hi folks,

Last night’s performance went off a half-hour faster than I had expected but, given the torrential rain, it was probably good to let folks run home between the raindrops. For those who stayed to listen to the two young men with guitars (can’t recall names but one’s a grandson of Dot Drew) the evening was as full and as entertaining as anyone could wish.

We had a total of 40 in attendance including patrons, playwrights and
actors, which has become our average over the past few months. I feel, as there were a half-dozen or more new faces, we might have had a full house except for the (probably) inch of rain that fell during the 45 minutes before we began.

Liz Malzone, our Stage Manager and Lighting Techie was home preparing for knee surgery. Thank you, Ludy Wilkie, for stepping in and helping out.

Gordon Pendarvis and Richard Brown of Rutherford County, along with Paula Orr of H’vle were our “Featured Performers” of the evening. Gordon has shown considerable leadership in the casting and directing of some of our plays, which takes much of the burden off me.

I was running late, sending the program to the printer after noon on the day of our performance and, in my haste to include specific info about theatre works our members are involved in, I accidentally included a statement that Tom Bennett was involved in a Shelby Community Theatre production of “The Secret Garden.” That statement was incorrect… Shelby Community Theatre is producing “The Taffetas,” a musical that will
be running through next weekend…. Break a leg!

Dannette, “Dante” Calderin brought a two-page monologue to the meeting, which I asked permission to present at our next performance… she agreed.

Next month, our performance will be Saturday, August 22 at 7:00pm. Our meeting will be held at 4:00pm that afternoon… actors are always welcome to come and read scripts.

Theatre Under the Stars… author Michael Moon of Chicago stopped in enroute home from Winston-Salem last Sunday and met with cast and crew members. He’s considering the change of the play’s name from “A Whippoorwill Call” to “Crossroads” which is a name more appropriate to the play itself. We’re still shooting for the 5th weekend of August.

Wishing all well and success.
Sam

June Preformance Review

An Evening of Short Plays -
Reviewed by Brian Greene
Presented by The Lost Playwrights of Western North Carolina

Cavalier, Creative, Cozy it was honestly billed an fairly priced. Each of the seven separate short plays deserves its own review, because the audience is presented with such a smorgasbord of entertainment. Most will make you laugh or at least snicker into you hand. I recommend not having some of Dock’s Delis most excellent food in that hand at the time.

The set of skits opened with Santa v/s the Tooth Fairy, by Matt Hanf. Santa (Clyde Keller) is a busy working man of a holiday. Mrs. Claus (Deborah Keller, please note the last names they are a delightful husband wife team) is a desperate house wife type. Gordon Pendarvis plays the Tooth Fairy who is not the holiday we have come to expect. The skits true delight was the remarkable twists on our old belief’s.

Sound Byte #9 a short story written and presented by Jeffry Slack who gives us a moment of observation and creativity. Jeffry Slack gives us a character with a interesting habit and unusual motivations well thought out.

The next skit Matchmakers Extraordinaire was slotted for the second act but by chance well explained showed up in the first. Al Edick’s writing gave us tension until the climax of hummer in the end. An Old Man (Al Edick himself) looking for love is willing to try a dating service. Holly Hamrick appears as the Business Executive, and endures all the tension with the audience until… Ill not spoil it. Good Job, Al Edick.

Writer’s Block came at us next by Tom Bennett. Tom’s wife Marlene and Tom himself used us to perform a cleaver skit. Audience participation is fun but leaves it hard on the reviewer. A little more structure was needed in the end.

Starting Act Two was D. Elaine “Dante” Calderin’s skit Central Casting. Set in a spirit world. The Dispatcher (Mara Jennings) opens with a tongue twisting explanation of the setting. Mara as The Dispatcher issues her orders to four spirits destined for actors on stage back on our old earth. The spirits are played by Clyde Keller, Holly Hamrick, Deborah Keller, and Gordon Pendarvis. Holly Hamrick is the one spirit with the job nobody would want, and leads the skit with hear attempts to win free of her penance.

What’s the Meta? By Andrew Biss gave us a look into a scripts own mind. Part 1 was delivered by a cunning Gordon Pendarvis. Rosemary O’Brien became Part 2, and in short order the Parts both managed to grow and change before our eye. Well done.

The last was truly the best. Getting Better by D.J. (Deborah) Keller wet the eyes of the audience with revelations of age and family love. Alice originally to be played by Deborah Keller was changed last minute so that Rosemary O’Brien could be that part. Alice’s dream to go home is made clear as she speaks to a picture of her late husband. Bobbie, the daughter (Mara Jennings) appears to be in the wrong for not bringing her mother home. Once she enters the seen all opinions change and the tears start. My heart was a softer one after…

How to Shrink Wrap a Myth Buster ™

How to Shrink-wrap a heretic or a TV Star

 

The MythBusters were working on the movie myth that full body paint could kill you – as in the case of the supposed death of the gold colored James Bond girl (and no -  she’s not dead not unless the MythBusters has a very good necromancer on staff)– and they came upon a snag. Jamie’s blood pressure started to sky rocket and they were mystified as to why.

I was mystified by their confusion, especially since I knew the answer! And largely because I am a horror writer! (Although being a med student helped.)

Now don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan and I think these guys rock, their show is one of only three I watch on TV (and then only on my vacations since our family does not own a functioning TV); and I am also aware that Adam and Jamie almost always get a definitive answer…but man, this one bugged me because it just seemed so obvious to me.

Their error was in using liquid latex to create their gold body suit…and liquid latex is a full body rubber band. They were compressing him, and death by compression, or pressing is nothing new.

Most of the first incidences of compression in the West involved large stones, a tradition that is most recently noted in popularly in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible where he fictionalizes the accounts of the Salem Witch trials which included the death by pressing of one Giles Cory, but there is a more gruesome method – widely practiced during the Spanish Inquisition, but also used by various Native American Indian cultures and some Arabic and even Tibetan ones as well involved leather. Untreated leather to be precise – what is usually called rawhide, these days.

          There is a reason that modern leathers are oiled, treated with various conditioners, and in extreme cases, like in Wellington boots or the Australian full thigh boots, darted – that is joined with some spacing material – with spandex, lycra or gore-tex.

          There is also a reason why leathers are dry-cleaned to keep these oils and conditioners in place.

          Untreated leather shrinks and it also hardens as it does. Many early cultures were aware of this and used rawhide leathers as a sort of shrink wrap.

1.           One example of this is the Tibetan practice of wrapping tea blocks in leather and then thoroughly soaking the resulting blocks in river water.          

          These blocks are then left lying in bundles near a very hot fire. As they dry the leather bundles shrink and compress the loose leaves together and press out air and water.

          The leather also hardens as it dries and creates very hard, stiff square packet that is then quite easy to transport. If you have ever given your dog a rawhide chew toy then you know exactly what I am talking about.

          This is great stuff for tea, rice, or other things that had to be transported in as compact and protected a way as possible. And the faster it dried the harder and tighter the packet became.

          The Arabs used this as a method of protecting silks, papyrus, salt, and so forth as well.

          It is believed that the first step “up” from using this method for package storage to using it for punishment evolved in hot desert climates in a milder form.

          The victim was staked out spread eagle in the desert sun, which is bad enough, but the thongs used to stake him or her out were made of rawhide, soaked in water or urine – and that was worse.

          As it dried the stuff shrank and grew shorter with the result that it exerted pressure on the victims’ limbs and cut into their wrists and ankles first and then slowly drew and quartered them.

          The full treatment of wrapping the person in leather was a bit slower to come and seems to have developed in various stages all around the world.

          Sometimes just the victims’ arm or leg was wrapped, sometimes their chest to allow a slow suffocation, and then finally the full monty.

          It seems that my Castilian Spanish ancestors were the first to shrink wrap people and they started by doing the Cathars – a “rogue” branch of the Roman Catholic Church during one of many Spanish Inquisitions.

          While not as entertaining as burning or as temporary as water boarding, pressing a witch was a great way to get your confession out of your heretic and a truly fantastic way of dealing with the body afterward. The leather wrap helped to protect you from the diseases, effluvia, and smell of a dead witch and thus allowed you to speed up production, as you did not have to call a time out to bury them between bodies – and sadly, as I am sure you know, the truly evil do tend to love their efficiencies. (After all, the trains are all on time.)

          Now the weird bit. Modern fetishists soon figured out that latex acts in the same fashion. It shrinks and compresses as it dries, thus allowing both the sadist and the masochist their little kicks, something a topless dancer friend of mine once mentioned to me as a downside of her profession.

          I actually did some research on this after seeing the show, because it gave me an idea for a story, saintaspie.deviantart.com, because you would not believe the amount of research a writer has to do – and how many nitpickers send nasty letters if you skimp!

          I both talked to several fetishists and bought a can of the stuff for myself.

          Believe it or not, there is a compression danger warning on my can that clearly states that you should never cover more than one third of your body with the stuff at any time.

          And the fetishists I spoke too said this is religion in their world. That is why it is usually pored on or spattered rather than painted on, and why bare patches are always monitored for redness (Hence the thing about leaving a patch of skin, MythBuster guys!) so that blood pressure can be visually monitored before health is truly endangered.

          And of course I heard rumors about snuff films and latex murders, but given the warning and Jamie’s experience on the show with the stuff, I’d say deaths are definitively possible.

          I have also hence discovered that the Bond girl was NOT latexed. They used gold body paint.

          And there you have it. Anyone know how I can contact the awesome MythBusters crew and tell them? I don’t want any credit or recognition, I just hate unsolved puzzles, and am willing to bet they do too.

          Oh and as a final aside, many modern horror writers have used pressing or compression deaths in their stories. One of my favorites, for technical accuracy and sheer grotesque detail, is Stephen King’s “The Raft” found in his Skeleton Crew collection.

Check it out.

 

And remember, the tale – not he who tells it!

Stan Logan Interview

Adventure House and the Adventure House Players

Stan Logan, playwright, director, and actor recently shared his adventures with the new Adventure House Players with the Lost Playwrights Society of Western, North Carolina. Adventure House is a Clubhouse and Mental Health Facility for the both the recovering and the functionally mentally ill of Shelby, Cleveland County, NC and it has recently begun offering a very successful course in “Drama Therapy”.

At the head of the program, Mr. Stan Logan, who was kind enough to offer me the interview below. After the interview please read the information on Adventure House itself and what a wonderful service it provides to the greater Shelby area.

So let’s start at the top, what’s your name?

A: Stan Logan And how you got involved in drama to begin with, Stan? A: I got involved in drama as a young child being cast in the youngest role in the Sound of Music in the community theatre in Sumter, South Carolina. I went there only to support a friend at the time. I got cast, she didn’t. After two weeks rehearsal, I dropped out because I was scared to death and I didn’t return to the stage until after college. Always wanted to act, but didn’t get the courage to return to theatre school until I was accepted at the University of California / Santa Barbara in their acting program. It was there that I stumbled into directing and found that that was my area of expertise, not acting, and the rest is history.

And what do you gain from the dramatic process?

A: I have a creative outlet that has to be expressed or I would go crazy. I also write music and lyrics for songs. I draw and paint, but its mainly directing with a little acting that drives that creative energy.

That’s all very cool. What was your favorite role?

A: My favorite role is Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof because it was so not me. That was a great part to play because it caused me to stretch as an actor. And you favorite performance? A: My favorite performance was probably one night playing Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird when everything went right and I truly lost myself in the character and didn’t think about lines, or acting, or blocking, or anything. The performance was practically over and I thought , what just happened. It was almost an out of body experience. Those rarely happen. Most acting ends up being mechanical. That’s just the reality of the business. So you cherish those moments when it happens.

And if you could share one really good anecdote with us, what would it be?

A: My favorite anecdote is the performance I watched of Jesus Christ Superstar in California, which was a professional company with amateurs involved and which some friends of mine were in the show. The short version of the story is an amateur actor happen to pick one of two spears that happen to be real ( why they had real spears with the fake spears is beyond me ) and struck the actor playing Jesus while he was hanging on the cross. Well, of course, that actor cried out in pain, using modern language, had to be taken down, ambulance had to be called, and he had to be taken to the hospital. Of course the show was stopped for some time. But you know the show must go on. So the understudy took over his part. But he was a different size and weight than the original actor playing Jesus. Why does that make a difference. In the last scene, as Jesus says his goodbyes to his disciples, the tech people had the actor rigged so he could be flown up into the heavens. Unfortunately, the weight system was set for the other actor. So on the first attempt of flight, Jesus flew halfway up, then came back down, because there was not enough weight on the pully system. So the actor states he has more to say to his disciples, while all the tech people off stage are trying to guess how much more weight to put on. They think they have the problem solved and relayed that to the actor. He says goodbye again and he flies up to the heavens. This time he gets 3/4s of the way up but comes back down. Needless to say more advice was given by Jesus, and more weight was added. Meanwhile I realize what is happening and I am laughing my head off. Finally it is time to fly again. But this time they have put too much weight on the system and Jesus flies to fast into the heavens and hits his head on the batton and his knocked out and is just hanging from the rafters practically. Ambulance is called and now we have two actors dressed as Jesus in the emergency room of the local hospital. The doctors are perplexed. Both actors made a full recovery. It was the wildest night of theatre I’ve ever experienced.

Man, that’s incredible! And then how did you got involved with Adventure House Players?

A: I was directing the show GRACE AND GLORIE and one of the actresses who is a great friend of mine was on the board of Adventure House. She asked me if I would be interested in the job of Artistic Director for the theatre troupe, that the position had just become open. They would have to of course advertise but she would really like me to apply if it would be something I might consider. The rest is history. Sweet, and so what does this involvement mean to you? A: The involvement is personal to me. I grew up in a family that was affected by mental illness. My father, who was a great man, husband, and a father, was a career military man, a very honorable man, but he suffered from depression the last seven years of his life and committed suicide by the time I was 19. I did not understand why he could not just snap out of it. I didn’t understand depression and to be completely honest neither did the mental health community or the public. He felt he was a failure as a man, father, and a husband. Of course I was a teenager and if he said the world was round, I would say the world was flat. To say we butted heads was an understatement. I remember one day thinking I need to get to know him, then thought I got plenty of time, I want to go party with my friends. A week later he was dead. To say I have felt guilt over these years is putting it mildly but I have forgiven myself but this involvement in Adventure House helps me to give something back. Even though I don’t have a degree in psychology, I feel I have actual experience of dealing with someone who suffered with a mental condition on a 24 hour basis ( and I realize it’s still a limited amount of exposure, because I’m not in their head ), but I have empathy. You can’t teach that in a class.

What projects are you all doing now?

A: The Adventure House Players will perform their play, THE INTERVIEW, at the Life Enrichment Center for the first time out in the public. We have been rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing!!! I think we are ready. We hope to be taking it to many civic organizations and socials to reach out to the community about not only the stigma of mental illness, but about jobs for our community of members. In fact that is the goal of that play, to try to find transitional employment opportunities for our members. They need jobs and we hope this works. Also I am in the play, TWELVE ANGRY MEN, which opened last night at Cleveland Community College. I have a small role, which is fine with me, but it is a great ensemble cast. The Players came to see the last dress rehearsal and they seemed to enjoy it. I WAS NERVOUS having them in the audience. It’s one thing telling them how to act, but another having them see you do it. But everything turned out alright. It was good for them to see that even small roles matter in a play. I really took the part because I was able to talk about the program in my bio and hopefully that will get more interest from the community about the Players.

Okay, anything else you’d care to share?

A: I have watched over this last year and a half, the members of the Adventure House Players go from being a scared group of people not knowing who I was and not knowing whether they could accept the challenge that they COULD be like any other acting troupe, like memorizing lines, becoming characters, not just themselves reading lines, attending the required rehearsal schedule whether they felt like or not, that they were part of an ensemble and had a responsibility to others, etc. We’ve had our two steps forward and one step back moments, but for the most part, it has been a success. For instance, one member has had a struggle memorizing lines for this play we are working on. But he has had the drive and motivation and last rehearsal HE GOT IT and in fact on the third time around he only missed one line and when I told him to go over that line, he said, ” Oh, you mean the line on the bottom of page 12.” That blew me away. It was almost like he had a photographic memory . Hell, I can’t even remember what page my lines are on when I’m trying to memorize lines as an actor. I had to check the page and of course he was correct. I WAS SO PROUD OF HIM!!!!!! That made all the work worth it. That’s why I took the job. They make me proud. His family will see him for the first time in a few weeks playing the part of a CEO of a company, dressed in a pinstripe suit. He can’t wait.

 ************************************************************

 Adventure House of Shelby, Cleveland County, NC, was founded, in March of 1986, around the ideal of the Clubhouse Model Rehabilitation Program, in turn modeled upon Fountain House, a well known clubhouse in New York City. Within a few months, our attendance jumped to 22 members per day. We changed our name to Adventure House and established a very strong work-ordered day. We then began looking for a larger house to accommodate our growing membership. With the assistance of a coalition of four local banks, we purchased our current Clubhouse in October 1987. In February 1988, Adventure House began the first Employment Program for persons with Mental Illness in Cleveland County. Our Transitional Employment Program enabled many of our members to work real jobs for real pay with local employers. The Clubhouse often provides transportation supports to these jobs, as there is no public transportation in this rural community. In May 1989, Adventure House opened the first Supported Housing Program in North Carolina that utilized individual apartments. Since that time, our Clubhouse based Supported Housing Program has expanded to 33 apartments, all occupied by Adventure House Members. In 1991, Adventure House achieved another first. We were the first Clubhouse operated by a Mental Health Center, to become Free Standing. Since then, we have assisted a number of Clubhouses around the country to become independent of their auspice agency. Through the fund raising efforts of our Board of Directors, the original Clubhouse has been expanded twice. We are currently serving over 100 active members, with an average daily attendance of 70. This makes us one of the largest Clubhouses per population in the world.If you have any questions about the application process, you may e-mail Richard Carson or call 704 482-3370 Monday thru Friday 8:00 am to 4:30 pm EST. http://www.adventurehouse.org.

About Ned Condini – author/translator – see Lady Lefelt below…

Ned Condini, writer, translator, and literary critic, was the recipient of the PEN/Poggioli Award for his versions of poet Mario Luzi (New York, 1986) and of the Bordighera Prize for his rendering of Jane Tassi’s ANDSONGSONGSONGLESSNESS (Boca Raton, Florida, 2002).  In 1972 Gribaudi, Turin, Italy published his experimental novel, The Descent. Later he was literary reviewer for the daily Stampa Sera (Turin) and foreign correspondent for L’Avvenire (Milan). Short stories and poems of his have appeared in TRANSLATION, New York, THE MISSISSIPPI REVIEW, PRAIRIE SCHOONER (Nebraska), THE PARTISAN REVIEW,

MID-AMERICAN REVIEW (Bowling Green, Ohio), NEGATIVE CAPABILITY (Mobile, Alabama), ITALIAN AMERICANA (Rhode Island), YIP REVIEW (Yale, Connecticut), CHELSEA and THE VILLAGE VOICE (New York), andAbsinthe. In November 2002 Condini placed first in the Winning Writers War Poetry Contest. In September 2004 Chelsea Editions published his selection of Giorgio Caproni’s poetic works, THE EARTH’S WALL. In January 2006 he was awarded first prize in the short fiction contest, Writers of North Carolina, Asheville. In February  2008 Chelsea Editions  published AWAKENINGS, his translation of Carlo Betocchi’s poetic works. His third novel, THE CAULDRON, has just come out at PublishAmerica, together with his anthology of Modern and Contemporary Italian Poetry, MLA, New York, 2009. With his wife Marilyn and two female calicos, Condini lives in Western North Carolina, a few miles away from Carl Sandburg’s home, Connemara.

 

 

 

LADY LEFELT’S GARANTOR

                                           LADY LEFELT’S GARANTOR

                                               a short duet by Ned Condini

 

 

Voice 1 – If I told you what kind of dream I had last night, you wouldn’t believe it.

 

Voice 2 – All right. Try me.

 

Voice 1 – Be warned, because it’s obstreperous, absurd. It’s like one of Mike  Finn’s stories, like Davy Crockett sailing up to heaven astride a thunderbolt… And yet…

 

Voice 2 – Yes?

 

Voice 1 – My dream is as true as the existence of angels. As passion-red as great wine. As rich-flowing as blood.

 

Voice 2 – How did you meet the lady in question?

 

Voice 1 – I was at a party in Santa Severa’s Castle in Rome, with my brother, my uncle, my nephews, and I was being feted by everybody because of my poetry recital of Montale’s The Storm, when all of a sudden a woman parts the crowd like Moses the Red Sea, strides towards me and takes me in her arms. I recognize her: It is Miriam Lefelt, the famous writer from December House, New York, and there she is, hugging me and taking me by the hand, as if in that whole crowd I were the only person worthy of her attentions.

 

Voice 2 – So what did you do?

 

Voice 1 – I hugged her myself, a twenty-two-year old student getting ready for his dissertation–a young poet and critic full of hopes…

 

Voice 2 – And she?

 

Voice 1 – A fifty-six-year-old beautiful woman with grizzly flowing hair, high cheek-bones, deep cool gray eyes. And she was wearing a turtleneck sweater.

 

Voice 2 – In Santa Severa, a beach resort.

 

Voice 1 – Yes.

 

Voice 2 – But I know you are a Catholic. So: A Jew was attracted to you?

 

Voice 1 – Miriam Lefelt is a woman, and then a Jew.

 

Voice 2 – All right, she is. What did she say to you to make you think she was more woman than Jew?

 

Voice 1 – She said: You reciprocated my hug. How generous can you be? I slept with so many men I don’t even remember. And yet you were kind and sweet to me, in the presence of all those people, as if you couldn’t care less, as if your reputation were not at stake.

 

Voice 2 – Your reputation?

 

Voice 1 – Yes. That of a marvelous teacher, a scholar prodigy, a handsome man who wasn’t dating any girl, but simply trying to write a mind-staggering essay on Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.

 

Voice 2 – Didn’t she have a son?

 

Voice 1 – Yes. A rather bromidic prick.

 

Voice 2 – Why do you say that?

 

Voice 1 – Why? Because he played the victim each time he opened his mouth or took pen in hand. It was always the Holocaust, the persecuted Israelis, the infamous world poking fun at them, whereas they, the downtrodden new Nazis, were always wailing by the Wall and slaughtering Palestinian dogs.

 

Voice 2 – But didn’t Miriam document the horrors perpetrated in Serbia, Somalia, the Sudan, like the real world-embracing, right-and-justice defending Jewess she was?

 

Voice 1 – I don’t know what you’re talking about. She raved about lust, love, Italian volcanoes. She burned for men of all ages and sizes. She was, pardonnez-mois, a penis-eater, a marrow sucker.

 

Voice 2 – And you knew it.

 

Voice 1 – More or less. I couldn’t stand her sweaters, her smarmy poses. She changed political views every three years. She was, at least to me, the perennial retro avant garde.

 

Voice 2 – So when she came towards you, what did you do?

 

Voice 1 – I hugged her in silence. But I didn’t kiss her.

 

Voice 2 – And then?

 

Voice 1 – Then I saw her again at a party in Rome, at Sant’Angelo Castle, run at that time by my colonel uncle, Zio Sandro: Uncle Alex, as we all called him.

 

Voice 2 – What happened then?

 

Voice 1 – There was a big, magnificent crowd, with gorgeous couples all standing and drinking, and there she was, recline on a sofa, with an expression of utter despair imprinted on her face. She was terribly attractive,

distressingly divine.

 

Voice 2 – What did you do?

 

Voice 1 – I went up to her, knelt by the sofa, put my face into her impalpable hair, and kissed her gently once or twice, in the embarrassed silence of all present.

 

Voice 2 – And then what?

 

Voice 1 – Then nothing. I stood up, slowly backed away, disappeared outdoors. The next day she called me. She had rented a luxurious apartment in Turin, where I was great Melchiori’s English Assistant professor, and we became lovers. A week later I wrote the best essay of my life on John Donne’s Death’s Duel. I used to work at the university until five then I would stroll down to the Ten O’ Clock Theatre Café, where Miriam would be waiting for me, and there have an aperitif while student friends of mine, acquaintances, relatives walked by and stared at this incongruous, wonderful duo–a twenty-two- year old student ready to vie with Shakespeare and a

fifty-six- year-old woman determined to give up her splendid career as a writer to have me as her only, true love.

 

Voice 2 – But then she died of cancer.

 

Voice 1 – She did. It was then I started drafting the best plays. You know–Down with Generals, The Exhumation of John Berryman, In the shade of the Koran… I could never fall in love again with a young girl. To me the understanding of a mature woman was like paradise compared to purgatory’s pitiful morsels. I devoted myself only to writing and to God.

 

Voice 2 – Why God?

 

Voice 1 – I wanted Him to accept her good soul because of the works I created in her name.

 

Voice 2 – Tit for tat?

 

Voice 1 – Exactly. I wanted nothing for myself, only her love to shine higher than any star. I wanted my works to be a stool for her golden feet. I wanted her hair to stream through the firmament like Berenice’s in Catullus’ poem. I wanted…

 

Voice 2 – Yes?

 

Voice 1 – To be forgiven for all the silly, unfair, biased things I said about her son and make instead–of her calvary through cancer–the cross by which she reached to Him who forgives all.

 

Voice 2 – You know? Your contradictions make my mind reel and yet…

 

Voice 1 – Yet?

 

Voice 2 – If the ‘horrible’ Jews decided to erect a memorial…

 

Voice 1 – In honor of Miriam, would I put…

 

Voice 2 – Your little stone on the pile?

 

Voice 1 – Of course I would.

 

Voice 2 – Mazel tov, my dear friend.

A Deli-cious Performance

            Okay, so the Lost Playwrights did their monthly thing again at Dock’s Deli in Hendersonville, NC.

            First of all, let me say that for a complete non-profit, donation at the door group I must say that I was duly pleased to discover that this group serves up entertainment as juicy, well cut, and well seasoned as one might expected from a full blown TicketMaster ™ Carnegie (theater? Deli? – both in NY, NY) show.

            This time the intrepid Lost Playwrights and their affiliate members served up a rather daring and slightly racy assortment of plays, some more deserving of condoms than condiments, that while being perhaps a bit adult were never crass, obscene or unpalatable.

            The first selection, a tasty little offering from one of the LP’s more reluctant chef’s, founder Ludy Wilkie, was a spiffy and appetizing item entitled Bailout, featuring long time reader, Gordon Pendarvis as a harried congressman who has two rather unusual side items on his daily docket.

            The first, a lady (of the night) from Nevada, comes seeking a bailout for her highly venerable (let’s just say it is the oldest known) profession. This highly intelligent Madam, read skillfully by Debbie Keller, proceeds to explain why she deserves a bailout.

And then we have constituent number two. A real gentleman, given to wearing mourning in the morning and in fact the whole day through. After all, whilst he also runs a parlor of sorts – you might say his clientele is rather dead.

Here we have the not so humble undertaker, read in a sonorous baritone by Clyde Keller, and frankly he is not in a growth industry.

How many more could use a hand up? Apparently far to many – and a final bailout is in order as congressman X bails on the whole nine yards.

We end this little comedy full of delightful puns and glorious twists on a high note. How high? I could not say. Depends on where our congressman’s office is…and how does it all come out?

The next entree, A Nice Restaurant in the Foothills is served up to us by long time writer, Jane Sperry – and does not (surprise) include her most famous character, Zelda Divine. Rather it serves as the entrée for a three part mini-meal within a meal and introduces us to two new characters – aspiring playwright, Barkley Moss, played with verve by repeat reader, Leslie Jones and Katty Juke, love interest, as read by relative newcomer, Valerie Newkirk. It’s a nice tidy little introduction in which we learn the flavors of these two as they get acquainted.

After that, a surprise reading of a one page bit entitled The Best Internet Joke Ever – a quick comedic morsel that elicited a lot of laughs. This piece was read for us by Ellen Palmer, a newcomer in my experiences, and a charming new taste to add to the LP stew. Welcome, Ellen.

This was followed up by our second serving of the three part Jane Sperry dish, entitled, Another Nice Restaurant in the Foothills, wherein the further adventures of Barkley and Katty are offered up for consideration and digestion.

We were then treated to a smooth and creamy ice cream overtoned ( and memorized!) monologue by in house comedian Tom Bennett, entitled The Green River County Fair.

Here we have a tale of a rural boy’s adventures and misadventures with the fairer sex as told us by one of his better friends. This is a fast paced little number, filled with detail and regional spices which takes place somewhere hereabouts in the Appalachains and also at Myrtle Beach, NC where we rednecks go to develop red bodies and splash in the ocean. Filled with pickled eggs, antiquarian swimsuits, Speedos, girls, and potatoes, this is definitely a taste of Southern humor that is really too good to miss.

Intermission then served up a soupcon of harmonica blues played by a young man, not included upon the program, more the pity, who was introduced only as Jose. Oh well, well played, Jose.

And thus we come, to Act Two.

Time for a cup of coffee…liberally spiked with brandy…and a little something served up Italian style.

The opener for this course was presented to us by published author, Ned Condini, and was entitled The Naughty Prostitute with A Heart of Gold.  

Now, Ned is actually better known for his heavier fare and he writes poetry and short plays with a more Mediterranean and even desert feel with flair, so I was pleased to see that he was capable of serving up something a little lighter.

The mulligan provided? The first man (Gordon Pendarvis) meets another man (Tom Bennett) in the foyer of a brothel. Man, the first, strongly suspects MAN, the second, of being well, not normal. There are no stated allegations but homosexuality, incompetence, impotence, and general weirdnesses are all hinted at. Result, Man bets MAN that he cannot spend a normal evening with a lady on the board.

The lady, Thin Venus (Valerie Newkirk), is not at all unwarned. Indeed as events conspire we discover that Man has paid her to tell him the full and complete truth about MAN’s prowess. Worse, it transpires that she has a sense of honor – which is to say, she will not accept MAN’s offer of a higher bride. So what is MAN to do? Well, try to talk his way through it – with quite amusing results. And Man? Well as Madame (Debbie Keller) can attest – perhaps he is not quite normal either. He spends his time just trying to chose.

            Next up, we have our third serving of Jane Sperry’s soup of love, and things have considerable heated up; what started out as consommé is now a steaming cauldron of highly stirred ingredients. Catty’s Apartment brings things nicely to a boil for Barkley and Katty, and all ends in high good taste.

            And finally, we get to our evening’s just desserts. Feeding Time at the Human House by David Weiner finds us in a baboon enclosure and Bernie Baboon (Gordon Pendarvis) has just slung some…well, it was not hash. It’s Fran Baboon’s (Debbie Keller) birthday and she is feeling blue, so for a little while things get rather existential in the baboon enclosure…but along the way we are treated to a dolphin sandwich of conspiracy, comments on the habits of humans, and speculations as to why we don’t like our butts to swell, whereas Fran wishes hers would do so with more alacrity. A fair amount of fewmets are flung, both literal and metaphorical, but in the end all ends well, or should I say swell?

            So special notes?

            Gordon Pendarvis and Debbie Keller – very well done indeed. Mucho props on the reading and the acting. Valerie Newkirk, also well – if perhaps a little stiffly done. Clyde Keller, nice voice, man.

            To be duly noted, Sam Stone, Master of Ceremonies, and Elizabeth Malzone, Stage Manager and Lighting Technician.

            Complaints?

            Just a very few. A few people need to speak up or loosen up. The whole idea here is to make the audience believe you are someone else and someone REAL. Don’t be afraid to overact – everyone does at first; and as to nerves – well, I do not advocate imagining one’s audience naked, eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww. But I do advocate remembering that they, like you are only human – none of them have goat parts on the bottom where the human bits leave off and none of them are going to strike out with lightning. A bread roll is the worst case scenario.

            Oh and a complaint directed at audiences – and I see this at operas, too – too many people forget that these genres were the TV of their heydays. Shakespeare wrote slapstick and his actors interacted with the audience. Rossini wrote smut and Mozart wrote beer hall bawdys. So loosen up, people. Have fun. Enjoy. Actors need feedback. Applaud; laugh, boo, hell – throw rolls.

(c) D. Elaine Calderin 2009

James A. Rock Publishing

Used with permission

Thank You To Dock’s Deli

A special thanks to the kind individuals at Doc’d Deli for providing us with a venue and a stage. Not to mention keeping the kitchen open to all us starving artists. Go see them – Dock’s Del, 225 Grove Street, Hendersonville, NC.