Gary Tischler • July 26, 2011

-That recent Washington Post poll which showed Mayor Adrian Fenty trailing by double figures in his race against challenger Vincent Gray?

That wasn’t the only surprise in the poll.

Try the race for the Democratic Party At Large Council seat currently held by 12-year-veteran Phil Mendelson.

For as long as his challenger—relative newcomer Clark Ray—has been running, which is approximately a year, you’d have thought that this was a race between Mendelson and Ray, experience vs youth, twelve years of service vs. an impressive resume.
Guess again.

You’ll never guess who was leading the race according to the Washington Post poll. Guy by the name of Michael Brown. Better yet, call him Michael D. Brown, by which middle initial the current Democratic Shadow Senator can be differentiated from the other Michael Brown, (Michael A Brown) the at large Independent member of the council member who is not running this time around.

Mr. Brown, who didn’t enter the race until late this summer, raised no money and had no Web site, led Mendelson by 38-21 percent among all voters and 41-29 percent among likely voters.

Ray, who had been running hard throughout the campaign, was mired in single figures.

Brown, Michael D, in fact, registered high among African American voters, where he got 49% percent of the
vote. His name on the ballot says simply Michael Brown.

The news almost made hash of the at large campaign. “Well, sure, it’s had a big effect,” Mendelson said. “But we’re moving to correct it on every possible front.”

At a recent candidate forum (which also included Ward 1 and the Chairman’s Race) in Adams Morgan, Brown, Michael D, professed not to be surprised by the events.

“I think people like my story, like my message,” Brown, who is a successful businessman, after having dropped out of high school, which he had called the biggest mistake of his life. A big, affable man who’s lobbied hard for statehood, and jobs for DC workers, as well as the district having a voting power and taxing power over suburban workers in DC, said. “There’s no subterfuge. I’ve used that name all of my life. It’s my name. I don’t really think people are confused.”

A local resident disagreed. “I think what you’re doing is misleading and dishonest,” he said to Brown. “It’s not fair to the other candidates or voters.”

Mendelson, who clearly thought he’d be ahead in this poll, moved quickly to staunch the crisis. “I’ve been representing voters for 12 years now,” he said. “People know they can rely on me. But this, well, I just think this was something that was clearly misleading, clearly a mistake. He was at one forum where Brown was pointed out to a man who had voted for him in a straw poll and the man said he was voting “for the other Brown.” Michael A Brown has sent out recorded calls to voters saying he’s not running

Mendelson has passed out flyers showing pictures of himself, of Michael D. Brown and Michael A. Brown. For one thing, Michael A. Brown, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor, and who is the son of the late U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, is black which Michael D. Brown clearly is not.

“You have to get the information out there,” Mendelson said in an interview. “It’s a problem. No question. But it’s obvious that the poll shows two things: voters haven’t been paying enough attention because the mayor’s race has taken up all the focus of voters, and they obviously confused this Brown for Councilman Brown, who is not running.”

“I thought we were running against Clark Ray,” he said. “But I also think it’s obviously hurt him (Ray) more than it hurt me.”

Mendelson has often opposed Mayor Fenty, especially on school reform. He voted against the mayoral takeover. Surprisingly though, he has some different views about what to do with Chancellor Rhee. “I wouldn’t propose firing her,” he said. “I’d want to keep her here. I’m for reform, but didn’t agree with how she did things.” But I think we ought to stick with continuity. We can’t keep doing this, firing people after a year or two and starting all over again. that’s not good for the kids.”

Ray, who looks boyish with a bald look, is sometimes confused not with any Browns but with the mayor. He said he was “disappointed” in the results. “Look, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t both surprised and disappointed,” he said. “But I can sleep at night, pretty easily.”

Ray has run with energy, intelligence, and great enthusiasm. He brings a big resume to the table—services with the Clinton Administration in the White House and the Department of Agriculture, a former teacher, and a former Head of the Parks and Recreation Department under Fenty, whom he still admires, even though Fenty fired him. “I don’t want to get into that, in terms of feeling, it’s something that’s between him and me,” he said without a trace of bitterness.

Of the polls, he said that there’s still a large bundle of undecideds to account for. “I’m not discouraged,” he said. “I’m going to keep on doing what I’m doing and I’m going to run as hard as I can up to the last moment.

At the forum, the candidates were asked about what their biggest mistake was and how they handled it. Brown, D, said it was dropping out of high school, and then talked mostly about overcoming that mistake. Ray remembered eagerly proposing a project in his role as parks and recreation director that would have eliminated some 20 jobs. “I didn’t know that at the time,” he said. “The lesson is that there are consequences to policy decisions. That’s a hard lesson, but it’s not something you forget.”

The rise of Brown, which in some ways almost undermined the, months of campaigning that had been done by Mendelson and Ray, didn’t faze him.

“I kind of think of it as poetic justice,” he said. “I mean, here’s Phil, who depends hugely on name recognition for twelve years, and here he’s become a victim of it.

The subject never came up during the forum. Well, almost. “I realize that we have a problem over some confusion about names,” Ray said to the forum audience. “Well, I want to make it absolutely clear . . ., it’s Clark Ray. …Not Ray Clark. People make that mistake all of the time. So I wanted to clear that up.”

Gary Tischler •

In the increased intensity of interest surrounding the District’s mayoral race, the casualties have been the attention paid to the other electoral races in the city.

Chief among them is the race for the chairman’s seat left open by Gray’s mayoral bid. When Gray finally announced, the political air was full of rumors about who would run, and a lot of the buzz was about Jack Evans, the Ward 2 Councilman who is also the longest-serving member of the council and a one-time mayoral candidate. The other speculation was Kwame Brown, who is in the midst of his second term as at-large councilman. Other names floated around included Michael Brown, the independent at large council member, and Phil Mendelson, now running to keep his Democratic at-large seat in a confusing race. Evans in fact had flat out said he was going to run if Gray ran for mayor.

Nobody much mentioned Vincent Orange, twice elected to the Ward 5 Council seat which he held until he decided to run for mayor four years ago (and lost decisively in a crowded field).

But when the dust settled there were no Evans, no Mendelson, and no Michael Brown. There was just Kwame Brown and Vincent Orange.

Evans quickly announced, without explanation, that he had decided not to run. Kwame Brown was effectively alone in the race until, after some time, Vincent Orange decided to step into the mix. “I would not have run if Jack had run,” Orange said. “Once I knew he wouldn’t – well, I just decided to enter the race. One of the things the job needs is experience, and I think I’m the guy best qualified.”

But for Orange, it’s been an uphill battle. “I know how the council works; I was on the council for eight years. I know the people, the process, the workings of the committees, the way things work,” he said. “And one of the things we have now is a bit of an imbalance, and that’s got to change. We have a powerful executive, and a council that hasn’t been a true partner. I would push for an equal partnership – in education especially. I’m for reform, but we have to be a part of it.”

The other thing for Orange, who has an up-from-poverty background (that he will detail for you with great intensity and feeling), is that he insists Kwame Brown simply isn’t ready. “He doesn’t have the know-how, the experience. You’ve got to have an experienced leader in that job. You can’t have somebody that everybody backs because he’s a nice guy. Sure, he’s a nice guy. Everybody thinks so. That doesn’t make you qualified to be chairman of the city council. It’s the second most important job in local government.”

There’s that, and the fact that in the summer, after Kwame Brown had piled up a significant package of endorsements – including all of his fellow council members – it was reported that he had amassed a considerable credit card debt while spending money on upwardly mobile items, including a boat he named “Bulletproof”. The resulting media furor gave Orange the opportunity to chastise Brown as not being fit to represent the city on Wall Street. But it has not helped much.

Neither, it appears has a Washington Post endorsement, or a recent endorsement by the City Paper. More importantly, it turned out, was a Washington Post poll which showed that Brown was winning easily, by as much as 20% or more.

Still, Brown isn’t taking anything for granted. And he says he’s learned his lesson from his financial woes, which he’s taken care of. “I made mistakes,” he said. “It happens to people when they get into a certain position – a certain level. You learn from things like that, you really do. Not going to happen again, I can tell you that.”

Orange has scoffed at the council endorsements. “It’s a club,” he said. “When you’re in, that’s what happens. When you’re not, you’re not.”

However, Brown has a different take on the situation. “The council members trust me,” he says. “It’s not about committee assignments or things like that. They think I can do the job, and I intend to prove that.”

Here’s the thing. Brown IS easy to like. And he makes a strong case when he talks about his own native DC background, his rise in the community, in business, and on the council. “The chairman has to be able to work with the mayor,” he said. “I think I’ll be able to work well with the mayor – if Gray wins or if Fenty wins. Chairman Gray and I have already established a strong working relationship on the council, and I’m about the same age as the mayor [Fenty]; I’ve got the same kind of concerns and energy, so I think we can talk together pretty well. We understand each other.”

On the council, Brown comes across as a guy who can bridge the gaps between the wards — his two young sons go to public school in the neighborhood, his wife is a school teacher, and he knows what’s going on in the wards where Fenty is meeting anger and resistance from voters. His appeal, in spite of his financial controversies (there have recently been campaign fund issues) is broad throughout the district.
He’s also been effective — witness his leadership in the School Modernization Act and, equally impressive, in the reform of the District’s domestic violence laws.

Brown currently chairs the Committee on Economic Development.
Still, it’s fair to say that the city has had a history of effective, and often memorable, council chairpersons from Sterling Tucker Dave Clark, to John Wilson, to Cropp and Gray.

Gary Tischler • July 13, 2011

A snaky, hunchbacked Richard opens Shakespeare’s “Richard III” every time with the intonation “Now is the winter of our discontent.”

At least it’s winter in not-so-merry old England. Now is the summer of our discontent, and disconnect. Not to mention it’s really, really hot and dry.

Now the world, we ourselves in this city, and across the country, sit under a cloud, waiting. The summer is full of irresolution, of something’s-going-to-happen-but-not-in-a-good-way, of portents and omens. In ancient Rome right about now, they would have slaughtered a goat and looked at its liver for signs.

All we can do is wait:

To see what happens with the investigations that are now working their way through the heart of the city government while its leadership—mainly Mayor Vincent Gray—remain silent on the outcome. Gray, City and Council Chairman Kwame Brown are both under a cloud awaiting results of various investigations, a process that seems long, tedious and full of the kind of suspense that can hold the city’s policies and politics hostage.

Meanwhile, the dark, dark cloud of the great 2011 Raising-the-Debt-Ceiling crisis, an exercise in political jockeying that would be fascinating except for the fact that the continuing irresolution is frightening to each and every one of us. Although you could hardly tell by the way the administration, the House of Representatives and Senate and all politicians, elected officials and who knows, interns, are going about the business of solving the crisis.

Out there in the great wide world, the stormy Middle Eastern spring which saw authoritarian regimes fall with dramatic and startling suddenness (Tunisia, and goodbye Mubarek’s Egypt) and others tremble at their core (Libya, Syria, Bahrain,Yemen), has turned into a sultry, violence-driven, and irresolute summer of uncertainty and fear. That particular cloud, which also encompasses other nations and spreads out to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel and the other oil states, not to mention Iran, could turn into a flood-carrying cloudburst at any time.

Irresolution—that helpless feeling that something big is going to happen, hinted at by the nervous flapping of bird wings before a tsunami or earthquake—is the temper of our times in this city. It’s the atmosphere of the times and the talk and silence of the town and the bird food of the chattering classes in the media because here we are, living in the midst of history. It’s a dark cloud that hangs over our local city government, over the meeting rooms at the White House and Capitol Hill, over nervous Embassy Row. But it’s already burst over Minneapolis, St. Paul where they’re living the results of government bankruptcy and insolvency, where the government, and all that it oversees, handles and processes, has shut down.

The investigations were sparked what seems like centuries ago by a very minor candidate in the field of the 2010 mayoral race which saw Gray defeat incumbent Adrian Fenty. That would be Sulaimon Brown, who, after getting fired from a job given to him by the administration, charged that Gray aides had paid him to stay in the race and continue his attacks on Fenty. Nothing has been the same since for Gray, who had swept into office with a “one city” dream and a reputation for high integrity – a reputation which has taken some hits.

The story is by now familiar and yet madly resists resolution. The city government and the city council are plagued not only by Gray’s troubles, but by those of Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. and more importantly by chairman Kwame Brown, whose 2008 campaign finances and activities are now being probed by the Feds. A council investigation climaxed in a circus-like testimony by Sulaimon Brown, decked out in dark glasses and insisting that the mayor is a crook, a litany he’s repeated all over the city. A recent Washington Post has shown that only 47 percent of D.C. Democrats have a favorable opinion of Gray, down from 60 percent, and that his unfavorables have jumped by 24 percent. Meanwhile, a grand jury is looking at the Gray campaign’s activities, including the Brown charges. In addition, there’s at least one website calling for Gray’s recall out there.

All of this has resulted a feeling of both foreboding and lethargy in the government. No doubt, there are folks out there planning their 2014 campaigns for mayor. While there is grumbling, gossiping and chatter in the neighborhoods, there is mostly silence at the top. The mayor has studiously avoided talking to the press or made any compelling statement on the whole mess.

The cloud, in short, stays put, stays dark.

The debt ceiling cloud remains also, amid some dire predictions that the country may default on its debt if the ceiling isn’t raised, which it has been for decades, almost routinely. The battle is taking place in negotiations between President Obama, the house leadership and the senate leadership. It’s a political battle in which the GOP, sensing opportunity, wants huge budget cuts in the trillions for next to nothing, not even closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and for corporations.

The GOP stalwarts, especially die-harder Mitch McConnell in the Senate cry “tax hike” and “job killer.” Obama hands out deadlines. The president and House Leader John Boehner came very close to reaching a startling comprehensive agreement which included major cuts AND tax hikes, which freaked out the Tea Party stalwarts in both houses, causing Boehner to give it up. Maybe its time to golf again.

The background, of course, for all concerned, is the 2012 election and a hostile intransigence that hard to figure.

It’s a black cloud, looming, coming soon to an unemployment line (up to 9.2 percent) near you.

In the Middle East, you can see the fear and irresolution. If Syria, which has always thought to be one of the more solid repressive regimes in the region, can tremble—in spite of government forces firing on demonstrators—then anything can happen. It’s an ongoing process – Yemen very nearly fell to opponents, the Egyptian revolution has given way to further demonstrations, the situation in Libya has turned into a bloody and unresolved civil war which has sucked in NATO and the Obama administration.

Gary Tischler • July 7, 2011

Frank Sinatra. Sam Cooke. Elvis. Ray Charles.

Nat King Cole.

As singer, legend, as representer, as song stylist, as musical influence, Nat King Cole, silvery-voiced, haunting and as the title of one of his biggest hit suggests, “Unforgettable” had every bit the hit-making virtuosity that his contemporaries did.

Cole, who passed away from lung cancer at age 46 in 1965, is less well remembered today, although he could be said to have had another top hit when his gifted daughter Natalie Cole resurrected his sound and image with a powerful, moving video “duet” of “Unforgettable”.

At the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, Minnesota’s Penumbra Theatre Company brings its production of “I Wish You Love,” (the title of another of Cole’s numerous ballads and hits), a play which focuses on Cole at the height of his career when he was seen nation-wide in his own television musical show, and, not coincidentally, when the first stirrings of the civil rights movement were making themselves heard.

Lou Bellamy, the founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre, is directing the production, written by Dominic Taylor, and starring Dennis W. Spears as Cole, singing some twenty songs, a kind of musical hit parade.

“It’s not meant to be necessarily a one-man show recreating Cole’s music, although Spears does a wonderful job embodying Cole,” Bellamy said in an interview. “This play is about a moment in time, when the Ku Klux Klan made public statements threatening Cole, when Cole was one of the most popular musical performers in the country, with black and white audiences, but still had to deal with an atmosphere of racism. You have to remember, Cole was basically alone on television, in terms of that kind of musical show, so there was an enormous amount of pressure on him.”

Cole stretched boundaries and overcame barriers at least partly because his music was basically irresistible and omnipresent, much like Ray Charles, in the sense that their performances, songs and music was transcendent of race, as love songs and blues usually are.

“If you were growing up in the 1950s, or were young then, then you listened to Cole’s music,” Bellamy said. “Heck, it was something I could share with my daddy, who loved his songs. But as African Americans, we listened to the music and understood the pressures he faced. Racism wasn’t just a southern thing, it was everywhere.”

“The Nat King Cole Show” which made him famous debuted in 1956 as a 15-minute musical program (similar to other singers of the day like Patti Page), and expanded to half an hour a year later. His friends in the music industry appeared often on the show, making for a quite a roster of top talent—Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, Eartha Kitt and Mel Torme among them.

Yet the show, while popular, lasted just under three years, lacking major advertising, according to Cole himself. Yet his recording star continued to shine brightly with such hits as “Lazy Hazy Days of Summer,” “Unforgettable,” “I Wish You Love” (also made popular by Keely Smith), “When I Fall In Love” (which he sang in an appearance on the Jack Benny show), “Mona Lisa,” “Nature Boy,” “”If I May,” “Smile” and “Pretend.”

Cole worked with some of the top arrangers in the business including Nelson Riddle (also Sinatra’s go-to guy) and while he did not record rock songs per se, he was nevertheless inducted into the Rock and Role Hall of Fame, and had a Grammy Lifetime Achievement, was a member of the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame and the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

His achievements were enduring and ground-breaking and voluminous: consider the fact that in 1991 Mosaic Records released “The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Trio,” which along included 349 songs.

“This play will I think satisfy Nat King Cole’s fans, in musical terms,” Bellamy said. “But I think it also places Nat King Cole, the musician, the performer and the man in the stream of history, a presence when all of our lives began to change.”

Bellamy founded Penumbra Theatre in 1976, as a company which specialized in plays by African American playwrights and with African American themes. August Wilson, the late Pulitzer Prize winning playwright (“Fences” “May Rainey’s Black Bottom” “The Piano Lesson”) was produced often by Bellamy and in fact, had one of his first plays staged there. “I Wish You Love” was produced with the assistance of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays.

Gary Tischler • June 29, 2011

Even at 40, Ethan McSweeny looks too young to have done everything he’s done, to be, well, Ethan McSweeny.
He’s casually dressed, has a thin beard which still can’t prevent him from looking boyish, looks nonchalantly handsome, and is finishing up some salad after winding down a rehearsal for his production of “The Merchant of Venice” at the Washington Shakespeare Company in the Harman Center, which will open officially three days later.
He’s just said good bye to his parents, Dorothy McSweeny – the emeritus chair of the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities – and Bill McSweeny – a retired oil man, Kennedy Center trustee and journalist – along with his 7-year-old nephew, who sat in on the rehearsal. Both are prominent figures in the Washington cultural scene.
McSweeny is no longer quite a boy wonder, or wunderkind, as he was referred to back in his 20’s when he not only took a new play called “Never the Sinner” at Signature Theater to a successful Off Broadway run, but directed an all-star cast of theater pros in “The Best Man” on Broadway, making him the first director under 30 to direct a play on Broadway.
“I’m sure that rankled some people,” McSweeny admits. He doesn’t lack for confidence, and his background, which he has described as privileged, did not hurt, but there’s also no question that he’s earned his considerable accomplishments by way of a major talent, a restless imagination, a tireless gift and love for the work.
This year, he’s been especially busy with back-to-back directions of “A Time to Kill,” a world premiere stage play which just ended its run at Arena Stage, and “The Merchant of Venice.”
“You didn’t have to travel much,” he quips. “There was actually an overlap where we were doing final rehearsals for “Kill” and first preparation for “Merchant.”
He’s right at home here, of course, because although he lives in Brooklyn now, he’s a D.C. hometown boy.
“We lived across the street from the Kennedy Center,” McSweeny says. “When I was little, they [my parents] took me to see the opera ‘Boris Gudonov.’ I didn’t understand what was going on, but I was impressed, enchanted, and I think in a way that was it for me.”
He went to school at St. Albans or as he says, “survived it,” but found his true vocation early, becoming the first alumnus of Columbia’s undergraduate theatre department. He came home in 1993 to train under the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Michael Kahn, becoming his unofficial right-hand-man. He was all of 22. “Michael was a mentor, and I could not think of someone who affected me more,” McSweeny says.
Everywhere he goes – the celebrated Guthrie Theater, Broadway, the Chautauqua Theatre in New York State where he served as co-director (with Vivienne Benesch) – his style, his interests and his ideas are eclectic. You never quite know what you’re likely to get. He can go from “Romeo and Juliet” to Shaw to new, boundary-breaking plays.
While he’s built a huge reputation and accumulated over 60 directing credits, he’s obviously happy to be here where it all began and continues unabated. He did a clean, abundantly joyous and passionate production of “Ion” at the Shakespeare Theatre, a raw version of “The Persians” which echoed like a bell in the midst of the Iraq war, and production of Shaw’s “Major Barbara” that was a hallmark of clarity and singular acting achievements.
And now, “The Merchant of Venice,” a play that draws directors (and actors) like trembling moths to a flame. Many get burned and few do it perfectly. Because there’s no standard, the play is not only confounding, but changes for each audience and generation.
“It’s about money,” I suggest. “Of course it’s about money,” he says. “It’s ALL about money. It’s about what’s valuable to people, everything has a value tag here.”
So naturally, McSweeny set the play in 20th century America – specifically the Lower East Side of New York during the 1920s – teeming with immigrants who are trying to get a slice of the American dream. “To me the period and the setting resonate, the crash lies right ahead in time, but nobody sees it coming,” McSweeny says.
“It’s funny, it’s the first Shakespeare play I’ve done here, after all this time,” he says. And the most difficult.
McSweeney’s wide intellectual range is reflected in his family—his sister Terrell McSweeny is Vice President Joe Biden’s domestic policy adviser, for instance—where politics, culture, business and even sports are never mutually exclusive or trivial matters.
There might even be a critic lurking in the family – his 7-year-old nephew was asked how he liked what he saw in the theater. He gave it some thought.
“It’s not ‘Frog and Toad,’” he finally said.
It’s not. But think what Ethan McSweeny might do with “Frog and Toad.”