Gary Tischler • October 5, 2015

Scroll down to view more photos of the pope’s visit to Washington, D.C., beneath the story.

History these days is simultaneous, swift and capricious in its making.

But beginning with Tuesday evening, filling up all of Wednesday and running through more than half of Thursday, history was made, to be sure, but time also seemed to stop.  This was the time of Pope Francis in Washington, and his presence managed to blot out most of the rest of the news, while bringing out a serendipitous sun and perfect weather for the duration of his stay.

From the moment his plane landed at Joint Base Andrews after a flight from Cuba for the first leg of his first trip (ever) to the United States,  where he was greeted by President Barack Obama and his family, military and government officials and the first of a host of children, the pope made history, set precedents and captivated this city—which is, still and all, the center of the world. In that time, Francis became the center of the center of the world.

He set out on a mission and what became  a  grueling schedule, especially for a 78-year-old man: Wednesday began  at 9:15 a.m. with an Official State Welcome and Meeting with the president, followed by a short, but massively attended parade between the ellipse and a portion of the National Mall, followed by an 11:30  a.m. Midday Prayer at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle with a gathering of U.S. Catholic Bishops and church leaders.  At 4:15 p.m., after a brief rest at the Nunciato, the Papal Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Massachusetts Avenue, the pope  traveled in his now famous Fiat to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for a Mass of Canonization of Blessed Junipero Serra, the Spanish friar who was principally responsible for the construction of a series of monasteries in California, and the conversion of the indigenous population there.

After the outdoor Mass on part of the grounds of the Catholic University of America, there was a stop at a seminary and a return to the Nunciato.  The following morning, Francis traveled to Capitol Hill for a first-ever address by a pope to a joint session of Congress, followed by an address to the crowd of thousands who had gathered outside at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. This was followed by a visit to St. Patrick’s Church in the City,  where the Catholic Charities organization ministers to a congregation that includes large numbers of homeless people. 

The obviously hectic schedule does not begin to measure the effect of the pope’s presence, the outpouring of adoration, love and affection, an outpouring from the people for the pope, but also the pope for the people he encountered with obvious relish. 

Francis came, spoke at every turn and conquered. He inspired mightily. He hugged and embraced. He spoke in English with increased confidence. He was the Francis whom everyone had heard and heard about. He brought with him his reputation for humility, his keen intelligence, an undeniable warmth and hope from a bottomless basket.

For the duration of his stay, this city became both Catholic and catholic—which seems to define the pope’s style. During the outdoor Mass, in the prayer service, all the church’s great capacity for pomp shone in ways that were not ostentatious but appropriate to the circumstance, which had the rhythms of both an expansive historic and formal event, and a series of intimate encounters within the framework of the presence of thousands.

For the press, media, for law enforcement and for the city’s much maligned and beleaguered transportation system, the presence of the pope presented enormous challenges—the tension inherent in the protection of such a giant figure in the world’s consciousness with attendant security issues, for instance, and the use of resources by television and print organizations in deploying reporters and reporting without bias or over-adoration.  For Metro, the task was especially difficult—just the day before a train broke down in a tunnel. Yet at first glance, the city’s institutions performed admirably.

Catholic observers—those practicing their faith rigorously,  those not so regular or those fallen away or lapsed—were awash in nostalgia: one veteran television reporter mentioned channeling his inner altar boy.  This writer recalled being confirmed in a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary outside a walled medieval city in post-war Germany in Bavaria, the Catholic center in a predominantly Protestant country. 

With Francis presiding over the Mass of  Canonization  for now St. Juniper Serra—also a first on North American soil and issue of some controversy and consequence in the Hispanic and Native American community—or at St. Matthews where red-hat cardinals and bishops came up for words with the pope, the pomp and propensity for stylized ritual is noticeable and moving—or impressive.  A Mass like this one, near twilight outdoors, with thousands in attendance—including Vice President Joe Biden, can be a solemn, beautiful experience.  The pope praised Serra, whose statue now accompanies that of President Ronald Reagan’s in the Statuary Hall in the Capitol.  Francis’s theme—or one of many—on this journey has been about engagement, encounters, about spreading the joy, about involvement with others.

The pope’s speech to the Joint Session of Congress was something of a marvel: equal parts inspiration, a diplomatic, but nonetheless emphatic speech, one that dealt with all the primary issues of the day that divide this country and the world—abortion, gay marriage, family, climate and the environment, the duty of politics. His English becoming clearer with every word, Francis had attendees right at the start, when he said, “I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in the land of the free and the home of the brave.” As the saying goes, the crowd roared, with every member so capable jumping out of their seats.

For a spiritual leader, Pope Francis had a lot to say about politics, and every word he managed to say made the words and speeches of the men and women running for office (some of whom were in the audience) seem small and small-minded. He proposed to define politics for the men and women in congress who have spent too much of their time in the service of getting elected, a process that here and in many other places seems to be suffering a serious bout of uncertainty.  “You are the face of the people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of politics.” (Donald Trump was not present.)

Francis called on the legislators to care for the hopeless, the poor and the people who have lost their way. Such concern comes directly from Jesuit doctrine, for Francis is, above all, not just the pope but a Jesuit, the church’s chief defenders and also its questioners and warriors for the poor. He urged dialogue, engagement, encounter, time and time again. He called for dialoguing with the elderly and become involved with them. He described the world as a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. “Our response ,” he said, “must be one of hope and healing of peace an justice.”

The pope built his speech around the lives of four uniquely original Americans: President Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton—two of whom were assassinated.

Francis stated his full support for life—and condemned the death penalty. He stated his full support for the family, both of which seemed to be his way of touching upon, but without mentioning, abortion or gay marriage.  He urged a world conversation about the environment, the “health of the planet,” about ways to “avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.”  Now is the time, the pope said, for “courageous actions and strategies aimed at implementing a “culture of care.” Notably, many House Republican members failed to applause, while Democrats did.               

Basically, he seemed to say that America must embrace its virtues, political and social, “the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people. It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.”

Francis did not scold and did not chastise.  Like the shepherd of the church that he is, the pope sought to reconcile, engage and gather together.

He did this by example. He suffered a few children to come unto him after his White House greeting during the short parade, called “Encounter Francis on the National Mall,” Sept. 23.

More importantly, perhaps the best place to actually encounter the pope was in front of the Vatican embassy. Every day and night, many people, many children, gathered to see, hear and engage the pope.  And upon his every departure and return, he engaged the people.

He wrapped his arms around the children, spoke, or posed for selfies with love and delight.  What you remember the most was his arrival after the Mass, night having fallen. He exited the small Fiat and appeared exhausted, wobbly, walking very slowly. The noise of the crowd in front of the Vatican Embassy was as loud as ever—a clarion call, if you will.

He turned around slowly and waded into the crowd of outstretched hands and voices, smiling, arms outstretched.
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Gary Tischler • October 1, 2015

Mother of Mercy, could this be the end of The Donald?

After the marathon Republican Presidential Debate on CNN Wednesday—a debate that felt like “War and Peace,” only longer—it seems fair to ask that question after Trump, who had a stranglehold on the GOP imagination and polls leading to the first vote casting next year, appeared to have been not only held in check but undressed a little, suffering what could be some serious damage in his quest for the presidency.

It’s no small matter of poetic justice that the person on stage who inflicted some of that damage was Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, the most wounded and pointed coming after she was prodded to reply to Trump’s tasteless comments about her physical appearance which don’t need to be repeated here. “I think women all over the country understood very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” she said. With that, Mr. Trump was left to resort to half-baked gallantry, which was likely to be understood as lame by women all over the country.

Trump started badly enough by including a contemptuous comment on Kentucky Senator Paul Rand’s standing in the polls in typical spontaneous, thoughtless fashion. It got worse as the evening went along with the moderators acting less as moderators and more as picadors, goading the candidates into arguing with each other by reading them comments they had made about the issues and each other.

Often, Trump disappeared altogether, especially when detailed discussions about foreign policy broke out surprisingly and periodically in ways they had not in the previous GOP debate, although he did emphatically say he was one of the earliest critic of the war in Iraq, which prompted an argument with Jeb Bush. Trump also insisted he could handle Russia’s bellicose and troublesome president Vladimir Putin better than anyone. The possibility exists, of course, that the pair are two-of-a-kind in terms of temperament.

Most media and political experts agreed that not only had Trump not excelled or dominated the proceedings, he was diminished by Fiorina’s performance. Fiorina, who had moved up to the “A” team after distinguishing herself among the “B” candidates in the last debate, made the most of it. She won every clash with Trump, including their fight over their not always stellar business experience. Trump denied that he had ever gone bankrupt, and in any case, it was smart business practice while Fiorina made her firing by Hewlett-Packard seem like a triumph of principle, which meant that for an outsider, she was getting to be quite the politician.

The debate was supposed to showcase the talents of the so-called “outsiders,” Trump, Fiorina and Ben Carson, the soft-spoken, articulate neuro-surgeon, while being a life-line opportunity for better known politicians with floundering campaigns. For Trump, and Carson, too, their outsider standing didn’t help much. If Trump lacked his usual gift for outrageousness and directness, Carson gave a pedestrian performance, the substance of which was instantly forgettable.

Fiorina was on fire—even, forgive us, in her appearance. Trump chose not to sport his usual blazing red tie, and even his hair seemed placid and quiet. Fiorina wore a stunning bright blue outfit that commanded attention, which proved that a woman can still wipe out the fashion competition when it comes to appearance, especially if the competition is made up entirely of men. She was also prepared and eloquent—in a crowd where she was being ignored at times on foreign policy and military matters, she trotted out her detailed plan to strengthen what she said was a weakened U.S. military without once mentioning the possible cost. More than that, while all the other candidates duly noted the longevity of their marriages and praised their spouses, she did something more—she personalized her story, including a bout with cancer and the death of a son to drugs.

As for the rest—if you like Marco Rubio, the Senator from Florida, you could argue that he did not stumble, that he was very emphatic, that he led the charge against Hilary Clinton and what he continually described as the disastrous presidency of Barack Obama which, he argued, drained the country’s economic strength and wounded the world’s respect for America. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie—who often makes himself sound like a key figure in the aftermath of 9/11—continued to do his bully boy act, lacing into Trump and Fiorina for their fight over their business record.

Bush certainly saved himself for another day. He appeared at turns as moderate, reasonable, anti-Clinton and anti-ISIS (who isn’t?). At times, he waved to the center. At others, he courted the base, which is to say he swung to the right. The true blue conservative trio of Walker Cruz and Huckabee stuck to their guns and trotted out their presidential to do lists, which included repealing “Obamacare,” “tearing up” the president’s deal with Iran and eliminating federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

This was perhaps one of the longest debates in memory, perhaps even longer than all of the Lincoln-Doublas debates combined, or at least as long as Benjamin Harrison’s speech in the rain.

It’s too soon to tell the effect of the debate. People have predicted the demise of Trump after every one of his gaffes only to see him rise in the polls. But Fiorina aside, Trump seemed, well, tame. He said he had fun, that the other candidates were all talented and that he was honored to be there with them all. He even said that his Secret Service name would be “Humble.” He resorted perhaps once too often to generalities about turning things around, making things great, defeating our enemies and making the country rich. In the end, everything was always about him, his friend, his likes and his ability.

What the candidates as a whole failed to do at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was to capture his optimism and ebullient spirit about the present and the future. They sounded too often like pessimistic, cynical scolds. With most of the GOP candidates, there was no “Morning in America.”

Fiorina has had some experience in losing a state campaign for governor in California. She may have learned a thing or two, which makes her something more than a political novice. She was entirely accurate talking about the process itself: “All of us will be revealed over time and under pressure.”

As always, stay tuned.

Gary Tischler •

The performance arts world—specifically but not exclusively the world of classical music and opera—has been debating the issue of appealing to younger audiences while trying to hang on to its dwindling traditional core audience for quite some time now.

There’s always a critical clamor for new works and new ways of presenting traditional material, but the Washington National Opera, no slouch in that department this season, opened its 2015-2016 with a decidedly familiar and traditional piece, Bizet’s “Carmen,” which, along with such other popular stalwarts as “Madame Butterfly” and “La Boheme,” are often described as operas for people who hate operas.

But there may be a solution that lies in this grand, crowd-pleasing and emotionally affecting production: the notion that you can have your opera cake and eat it, too. The answer may lie in presenting a familiar work like “Carmen” and do it with an eye toward uniform excellence in such a way that the production elicits the opera’s considerable musical and dramatic virtues. If your production is full of almost uniformly outstanding musical qualities from the star turns to the chorus and orchestra, maybe there’s no need to take a radical approach to make things “revelant,” an approach that has sometimes soured a few productions elsewhere.

This production is remarkably brisk, moving swiftly through a three-hour, one-intermission evening in an engaging way. It’s intense and passionate when it needs to be. It creates a world that seems lived in both musically and emotionally by its characters. It makes you listen and respond.

For the long-standing opera audience, it delivers the expected pleasures and desired results. But here’s another notion: newer audiences, and there were quite a few younger folks in the audience who seemed to appreciate the proceedings, are seeing and listening to something with new eyes and ears, and to many of the them, this is surely a lot fresher material than an Elvis impersonator.

This, then, was a production that was engineered to please operas buffs and newcomers alike. It had a certain freshness to it that went with the rewards of a familiar plot and familiar music. Director E. Loren Meeker didn’t tweak the proceedings too much. It’s a production that has been staged in other places—but added a spicy as well as somewhat stately flamenco sheen to the night, and updated the setting to what could have been Peronist Argentina or Franco’s Spain, what with the notable military presence.

Evan Rogister conducted a score notable for being melodic and, well, operatic, with elan and flair, and it’s the music that tells the tale here. Although there were sequences that featured spoken dialogue the way Bizet had originally done back in its Paris Opera Comique debut in 1875, to considerable critical controversy, some critics even claiming that it had too many Wagnerian qualities.

That’s hardly true—what it has is a kind of French verve (it’s sung in French) on top of a decidedly Spanish look, and feel, and even sound, with some of the music arising from traditional Spanish folk music. It’s an opera that’s beautiful to listen to, almost all the way through. You could shut your eyes and still be moved and carried away by the drama and music.

This “Carmen” also had, on opening night, a fine “Carmen,” which is absolutely necessary, in the French Mezzo-Soprano Clementine Margaine, who’s had considerable acclaim with the role, and makes for a vivid Gypsy femme fatale. That’s probably where the expression came from: her strutting stances, her disdainful attitude and a stone-strong confidence in her allure, and the ultimate effect of it. This Carmen is big trouble for any man with a heart beat, especially in her “Habanera” and when she sings about her considerable charms and the inevitability of the disasters of love, and her passionate need for freedom.

The honorable naïf that is Don Jose, a sergeant in the billeted military unit in a small village never stands a chance, in spite of his engagement to a local village girl Micaela (sung sweetly by Janai Brueger), and his love for his sainted and dying mother. Soon enough, he’s under the sway of Carmen, who loves him passionately in her fickle fashion. Soon enough, he’s in deep with her brigand gypsy pals, and soon enough, she leaves him for the more sophisticated but equally smitten matador. On opening night, American tenor Bryan Hamel as Don Jose was the musical and dramatic essence of anguish, especially in the climatic scene when he struggles to win back a defiant Carmen even as he hears the cheers of the “Toreador Song” coming from the arena.

All of this is flavored in rich atmospherics, and the strong presence of young singers in the formations of villagers, soldiers and bandits, it makes for a rich, colorful evening, the kind of night were you can become immersed in a vividly created world of music and drama on stage.

(Morgaine shares the role of Carmen with another French Mezzo Soprano Geraldine Chauvet, as does Hamel share his Jose with American tenor Michael Brandenburg. “Carmen” will be performed at the Kennedy Center Opera House through October 2.)

Gary Tischler • September 22, 2015

For the true movie stars, the accolades never quite end.

That was surely the case for the incandescent Ingrid Bergman, who was, as the veteran Washington movie critic Arch Campbell noted, “one of the great female stars of all time,” and who was honored yet again with a stamp ceremony at the House of Sweden in Georgetown on Sept. 9.

The U.S. Postal Service, in conjunction with their Swedish counterparts Posten AB, commemorated Bergman in a special ceremony at House of Sweden, with a Hollywood Forever Stamp which features the luminous actress in a classic photograph by Laszlo Willinger from the 1940s, when Bergman achieved celebrity, fame and her first Oscar.

The ceremony included the unveiling of two Swedish stamps. Mostly, it was an occasion of celebration, which included a Hollywood-style dance party where glam-sparkling young attendees joined the party to the music of the Cotton Club, which swayed between contemporary and disco sounds, while couples, many of them who had not been born when Bergman passed away in 1982, danced the night away.

Mostly, it was Ingrid Bergman everywhere you looked—posters from her famous Hollywood movies like “Notorious,” “Gaslight,” and of course “Casablanca” filled the walls, along with posters for lesser known films from her early, youthful career in Sweden.

Guests could also get an idea of the size of Bergman’s career—and her long-lasting impact—from exhibits put together by the Swedish Film Institute. There were also clips from her films, including a tender scene from “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” the 1940s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s novel about the Spanish Civil War, which starred a stoic, brave Gary Cooper and Bergman as the stunning Maria, complete with short blonde hair and eyes so blue they defined the color.

Bergman had a remarkable career, given that she was a young girl from Sweden, who had built a strong career there and came to Hollywood in 1939, after being discovered by David O. Selznick (“Gone With the Wind). She was brought to Hollywood to star in “Intermezo,” a redo of the Swedish original, which had Leslie Howard as her co-star. Selznick, according to his son, had some doubts—she couldn’t speak English, she was tall, she sounded too German and her beauty was unconventional but affecting.

She starred in a number of films small roles in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and “Gaslight,” for which she won an Oscar, as well as “Joan of Arc,” “Notorious”, “Saratoga Trunk” and “Casablanca,” a film that defied its period setting and became a classic, re-discovered by future generations.

Pia Lindstrom, a noted television news professional in New York and San Francisco, in an interview after the ceremonies, said that her mother “was the perfect screen actress. All the acting was in the face, the eyes, she was the personification of screen acting—her face contained all the emotions, she could be charming, flirtatious, serious, passionate. She acted for the camera, not the other actors. That was her audience, the light would hit her eyes, and she lit up the screen.

“I think my mother was most happy, when she was in front of a camera,” Lindstrom said. “I mean, here was a girl who had lost her mother early on, and her father in her teens, and acting was a way to retreat into make believe. And she had a tremendous gift for it.”

Everyone remembers “Casablanca,” where she was Bogart’s girl, the city was full of refugees, Nazis, suave Frenchman, forgers and thieves, and Bogart said “just play it, Sam” and “Here’s looking at you, kid” and she said, “We’ll always have Paris” and we still do.

She led a big and often turbulent life—leaving her husband and family to take up with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini while filming “Stromboli.” The affair caused a scandal in the United States—apparently she was condemned from the Senate floor. She married Rossellini, and divorced him after three children (one of them was Isabella Rossellini), and eventually returned to a forgiving Hollywood. She triumphed again with “Anastasia” and “Murder on the Orient Express,” winning an Oscar each for best actress and best supporting actress. She ended her career in triumph—directed by Ingmar Bergman in “Autumn Sonata” and portraying Golda Meir while battling cancer.

“I think she was forward looking in the sense that she did what she wanted,” Lindstrom said. “She was very strong willed. I don’t know if you call that feminism. I think it was her. After all, she spent most of her life being married, and she spent most of it working.”

She could haunt you for a long time, if you encountered her on film. She dominated her pet project “Joan of Arc”— a not particularly good film—with her portrait of Joan in which she triumphed and suffered passionately, combining a stunning spirituality with a hint of carnality. Not everyone can bring that off.

Now, she has her own stamp, as if she needed another way to remember. But the image seem classic, and when you see one, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to whisper “Here’s looking at you, kid.” [gallery ids="102308,126972,126966" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • September 19, 2015

When the deformed Richard III, stalking the stage in the Shakespeare play that bore his name, intones that this was “the winter of our discontent,” he means that all that discontent otherwise known as the War of the Roses, which plagued England during the 1400s, is over. That conflict ends, just as winter indicates the end of the season and the year.

Alas, this is the summer of our discontent. Although this summer is not quite over, the discontent in our land is likely to continue. The Plantagenets had Richard to discombobulate them further, at least according to Shakespeare’s version of history. These our times not only have Donald Trump usurping, if you will, the Republican electoral primary process to his own music, but we, the people, have experienced trying times of conflict for several months now, with no particular end in sight to the continued stirrings of tragedy and drama.  Those alarums have infected not only our politics but our societal and cultural differences—and our relations with the rest of the world. Even so, locally, the sports teams that usually give us relief from sorrow and controversy do not but, these days, add to it. It is both late and early to say this: There is no joy in Mudville when it comes to the underachieving Nationals and the bombastic Redskins.

Any reasonable observer of our national politics—as opposed to those infected with either dour fanaticism or alarming optimism—has to be at least a little alarmed, a lot amazed, and even appalled at what has happened to that great American pastime and the hunt for American votes in a presidential election year, a process which will have no actual votes cast until Iowa and New Hampshire in the spring. Nevertheless, there has been enough money spent by individuals and the ranks of the stalking super PACs to probably rescue Greece from insolvency.  There are enough candidates for President of the United States, counting both sides, to make up a roster of at least one very bad football team.

Before this process began, in a political galaxy far, far away and long ago, there were such creatures who called themselves members of the conventional wisdom class, whose sole reason for existence was that they were there to predict the path of the primaries, the course of the electoral game, and who would be in the political Superbowl, while egos, if not footballs, were being deflated along the way. These wise men and women—some opting for the name of strategists and commentators—were certain back then that Hillary Clinton need not fret, nor should the Democratic Party, because Hillary had the nomination sewed up, and most likely could prevail over any one of the hundred or so Republican candidates in the field.   The C.W. members were less sure about the G.O.P., with some concern about the “base” of ultra-conservatives called the Tea Party, and—as well as or—the evangelical wing, which might prevent the rise of a moderate like Bush III or Marco Rubio to prevail in the end.

All these things might yet happen—we are hedgers from way back.  But all those laugh-track laughers and nay-sayers who dismissed and ridiculed the nascent candidacy of ultra-mogul Donald Trump—hereafter called the Donald—as yet another publicity stunt have egg on their face, and are trembling.  Trump the Teflon man who once spent a good bit of his money trying to be leader of the birthed party, has now become a serious contender for the Republican nomination and won’t go away. He’s survived McCain gate, Mexican-rapists gate, “blood coming out of her whatever gate,” almost every kind of gate except the pearly one, to amass a major lead in the polls, and expand his ego to a point where it just has to explode, please?  He even managed to find time to announce during his travels that German model and celebrity Heidi Klum was no longer a 10, which may solve the mystery of how Ivana Trump and Marla Maples became ex-Mrs. Trumps.  Apparently, there is an expiration date on 10-status in the Trump world.

Trump has succeeded so far by speaking his mind, or saying whatever is on his mind at the moment.  His solutions for the immigration problem are short-sighted, policies that fit exactly into the size of a slogan on a placard, or as they said in Iowa, where Trump descended from heaven in a helicopter—schtick on a stick.  He has a gift near-genius level for demagoguing nearly any issue that comes up in the course of his travels, especially the immigration issue.   We would say something about the rest of the candidates but, hey, we’re the media. We don’t have to.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is running—away from that pesky e-mail and Benghazi controversy.  She sounds as much of a Luddite as anyone belonging to her generation. The honest mistake does come to mind, because she keeps saying things that could be true but perhaps aren’t.  It won’t go away, not as long as Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) draws breath—and the media still finds the whole thing fascinating.

All of this leaves Bernie Sanders, who is still being mistaken here and there for Barney Frank—drawing big crowds, talking about the one-percenters, and generally acting like a guy who has sniffed the political air and found it inviting. 

Could we be seeing a Trump-Sanders campaign? Not if Vice President Biden is still thinking about running. 

This election campaign season has the air of farce about it, but many people are now seeing it as an unfolding and dangerous tragedy.  Shakespeare would have a field day, no matter how he marketed the story.

The American party system appears under siege and give the appearance of collapsing in this summer.  As Yeats noted long ago in his poem, “The Second Coming,” “Things fall apart, the center will not hold.”  More accurately, the center is not occupied by politicians these days.

Trump’s weirdly quixotic but also oddly triumphant campaign—he filled a football stadium in Alabama, is one of the major unsettling aspects of these past few months. 

Along with them—in Washington, D.C.—is a rise in homicides that has troubled lawmakers, the mayor, the chief of police and all of us.  The number now stands at 102 and with over four months in 2015 to go, stands a good chance of setting a 21st-century record.   It is a disturbing trend—all kinds of shootings, drive-bys, the death of crossfire victims, gangs and domestic beefs which seem unstoppable.  They seem to be a strand of the story of year-long police-involved shootings and killing of African Americans by white policemen, and the resultant demonstration, sometimes violent, that occurred in their wake, most dramatically in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore.

The discontent and fear is everywhere—ISIS in the Middle East with unrelenting horrific acts and a touchstone, the political battles over the Iranian treaty, the constant pop, like some daily music, of mass shootings, not the mention the ongoing crackle of massive, hugely destructive and deadly forest fires in the American West. 

Nevertheless, there are always moments of grace—Dare we call them amazing?—none more amazing the behavior of the survivors of the victims of the South Carolina church shooting, which had as a beneficial effect in which most, but not all, Southern politicians, seeing the light long enough to make Confederate flags disappear from official government sites.

In this summer of our discontent, even with a shocking stock market crash barking at everyone’s heels like a junk bond dog, we turn to small—sometimes very small—things. 

That would be the birth of twin baby pandas at the National Zoo, quite unexpected, quite joyful. The little beings, pink and yelping, are so far healthy, fully tooled to make you smile.  With the pandas, follows Pope Francis, due in Washington, D.C., in a month’s time—he brings, as always, hope spread out like life-saving air itself among the multitudes.

If you went for a walk at the Dupont Circle market, you could get a taste of the hopeful things in daily living accompanied by music—a Billie Holliday tune played at a used book store, a thin man with a hat playing Merle Haggard, “Mama Tried,” a jazz guitarist sitting in the shade offered by a bank building.  Sometimes, that’s soothing and just enough for a summer’s day.

Gary Tischler • September 18, 2015

One man, with almost tender, compassionate and literary style, wrote about the human brain. Another man gave us nightmares.

OLIVER SACKS

Oliver Sacks, who died of cancer at the age of 82, is listed principally as a neurologist, as is Ben Carson, one of many who seeks the Republican nomination for president. He was in truth, quite a bit more than that.  His practice was medicine, but he explored it further through research, through unparralled writing, through books and an empathy that more closely resembled that of a poet.

Sacks explored the pathways and byways of his specialty by writing books about peculiar, often unstudied neurological disorders and thus made millions of people acquainted with them.   He was not merely a popularizer of difficult subjects—he was a story teller of case studies who became so widely read that his books hit the best seller lists, became movies (“Awakenings” with Robin Williams, for one). Scientists and  some his peers sometimes sneered at this, but his readers were rewarded by gaining access to people and themes and subjects that had never occurred to them as objects of exploration.  He was, in some ways, like a travel writer exploring byways, sanctuaries for creatures and people lost to the world.

He called his books “neurological novels” about unusual people with unusual burdens to bear—“The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat,” about a man who could not understand what his eyes saw, for instance, or the aforementioned “Awakenings”.  He wrote about everything and in the best of literary writing, made the extraordinary available to ordinary people and the ordinary extraordinary. He wrote “Seeing Voices” about the uses of language and perceptions of it by the deaf. He wrote about himself, too, including the dying of the light that was his journey to death.  Would that there could be a book from where he might have gone.

WES CRAVEN

Wes Craven, who died at the age of 76 of brain cancer, was one of the early practitioners of what can be called contemporary horror films,  those explicit, scary and films with teens in peril, haunted, chased and often eviscerated by big men with sharp objects.

Craven scared us to begin with with “The House on the Left in 1972 and then with “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” his most famous and acclaimed film. He often worked with Sean S. Cunningham, the creator of the “Friday the 13th Series,” and they worked together on the inevitable film “Freddy vs Jason,” which brought together the bloody protagonists of their two best films.  Hard to remember now who won.

He also directed what was probably his most lucrative film, “Scream,” which seemed almost a sendup of horror films while delivering the shocks.

The New York Horror Film Festival awarded Craven a lifetime achievement award.

Gary Tischler •

Every day, the world gives us pause in its news and cause for concern: images of thousands of refugees fleeing war-blasted countries of which they are citizens, trying to save themselves from destruction and death, hoping for something safer and better, give pause and cause.

We look around us and see an electoral process in this country that seems to be frayed at its center and around the edges, in which traditional candidates, otherwise known as politicians, are attacked and greeted with skepticism and anger and the so-called non-professionals are revered for their anti-government postures and attitudes as much as any experience or wisdom they might have. 

We seek solace in our friends and families, even our pets, and the athletes, movie and rock stars and celebrities whom we reward unreasonably with unreasonable wealth and unreasonable fame.

With these concerns in mind, it seemed as if a blessing to watch 19 individuals and two groups honored in the East Room of the White House—on Sept. 10, the day just before 9/11 was remembered officially once again. They were given the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities by President Barack Obama, who said of the honorees: “They all have one thing in common. They do what they do because of some urgent, inner force.”

The president arrived in an almost jaunty manner, as if the occasion provided a relief from the pressures of his daily duties and an energy boost.  “I love these occasions,” he said. “I love being with writers.”

A number of writers were among those honored,  as well as musicians and performers, actors and actresses, directors, choreographers, filmmakers, visual artists, singers beyond category, educators, historians, philosophers, architects and scholars.  These were the people in our society who amounted to our modern prophets and visionaries,  the thinkers, the imaginers, the seers and creators who enrich our lives with music, poems, designs of buildings, who prod our own imagination with salve and hope, who make us see things that we remember from our own dreams. These are the men and women who urge us on, lift us up, help us understand our lives and aspects of ourselves and others, and the connections that bring us together.

Sometimes, as the president noted about novelist Stephen King, they “even scare us.” King, resplendent in sage-grey hair and a bright tie, has done this for decades even as an accumulation of his novels that frighten and enlighten (“The Stand,” “Carrie,” “The Shining”) also managed to broaden our knowledge of the American experience of daily life in the small towns in which his books are often set.

It was a diverse representation of humanity which marched up to the podium to receive their medals—composer, singer and performer Meredith Monk, who for years has advanced our ideas about just what singing is with her unique vocals and compositions, for instance.  There was the remarkable presence of writer, sometimes novelist, but always natural naturalist and philosopher and poet of the real and natural world Annie Dillard, now white haired but still an impressive, charismatic force which always shined through books like “Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek.”

There was Larry McMurtry, an author whom Georgetowners might remember for his rare book shop in Georgetown just up from 31st and M Streets, not to mention an output of fiction, screenplays, essays and stories. McMurtry was monumental in capturing almost the entirety of the historical and modern experience of the American West, especially the multi-book series headed by “Lonesome Dove,” which also included “Dead Man’s Walk,” “Comanche Moon” and “Streets of Laredo,” all of which chronicled the lives of Texas Rangers Gus McRae and Woodrow Call. McMurtry also wrote the novel from which the Paul Newman starred “Hud” derived and won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for “Brokeback Mountain.”  

Other National Medal of the Arts honorees included visual artist John Baldessari, theater director and choreographer Ping Chong, actress and theater founder Miriam Colon, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, actress Sally Field (“We like you, we really like you,” the president said, rephrasing one of Field’s two Oscar acceptance speeches), visual artist Ann Hamilton, tenor George Shirley, the University Music Society, and author and educator Tobias Wolff. 

National Humanities Medal honorees included historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the Clemente Course in the Humanities, novelist and philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, chef and author Alice Waters, architect Everett L. Fly, writer Jhumpa Lahiri, professor and scholar Fedwa Main-Douglas and historian Vicki Lynn Ruiz.

“We celebrate here today our fellow citizens, from all walks of life, who share their gifts with all of us, who make our lives and world more beautiful and richer, and fuller, and I think most importantly, help us understand each other a little bit better,” Obama said. “They help us connect.”

Gary Tischler • September 17, 2015

Throughout this weekend, it was an American weekend of contrasts,  Saturday and Sunday in sharp relief and outline, both in this city and across the country, the aroma of bacon and pork on a stick mixing with the hurly burly of Trumped-up political showmanship at a classic middle America state fair, the kind that is an August feature of every county in the country that has at least one cow in the field and a chicken in the yard.

This was a weekend of a presidential-wannabe’s rite of political passage as an impossibly awkward  slate of more than a dozen candidates, high and low, Democrats and Republicans,  puzzled partisans and  followers of those beyond category like the leprechaunish Bernie Sanders and the gaudy, wholly self-enamored Donald Trump, descending, like a character out of a Fellini movie unto the farming and fawning earth of Des Moines, Iowa, in a setting that couldn’t have gotten more surreal.

It was a day on which it seemed like the entire West Coast was burning — so much so that with every fragment of video frame you began to think you could smell burnt brush and branches and homes from Oregon to the drought-stricken expanse of California.   In Washington, D.C., something similar was at work: with the news of a killings and shootings almost every day, each loud noise in a neighborhood, or on your travels through the city or on the beltway, made you blink just a little.

It was the kind of sweaty weekend where solace and respite from frantic politics and natural disaster, could be found in different ways: at a birthday gathering, in an exceptional television show and in sad news.

Julian Bond died on Saturday night, Aug. 15, after a brief illness at the age of 75. 

The news, coming out on Sunday morning and expanded upon throughout the day, came not only on the heels of the political antics of the day but stood in sharp relief to them.    

An iconic and hugely respected civil rights leader, Bond was the former head of the N.A.A.C.P. co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while still a college student, a pioneering black member of the Georgia state legislature for 20 years. Bond’s life did not lack for drama or charisma—the writer, poet, commentator, lecturer and teacher of the clashed with establishment figures, the white Southern political and segregationist leadership, even with friends and political rivals.  But Bond carried himself in a way that was just a step from aloofness, seemed graceful and dignified, and when he spoke, his voice was resonant with a gift for reasoned and reasonable rhetoric.

When you consider his life, it was a big life, if not as big as some had predicted.  Many thought Bond had the charm, the grace, the intelligence and the personality and appeal to become the first African American black president, which, as we know, did not happen. But he was a gift to civil rights in all of its entirety and did not lack for courage or principles. 

When Bond was first elected to the House of Representatives of Georgia in 1965, white members of that Southern legislative body refused to allow him to be seated, because  of his strong and open opposition to the Vietnam war at a time when such opposition was no small act of political courage. It took a 1966 unanimous Supreme Court decision that ordered the State of Georgia to seat him.

Bond lost a bitter primary race for Congress against his old friend John Lewis who won and has been there ever since. 

He was a strong proponent of marriage equality, linking the issue of gay rights as a civil right, often amidst criticism from his own supporters. 

He was a teacher and professor and was a member of the faculty of American University, where he was scheduled to teach a course on the civil rights movement this fall.

President Barack Obama called him a “hero” and a “friend.” 

He had the kind of life that was marked for permanent memory, the kind of life that you dared not pass instant judgement on. It demanded contemplation for how much it was conducted in the maelstrom of history and justice.

Bond’s life stood as an oasis of quiet importance when compared to the circus-life atmosphere among the politicians, now running hard as rabbits in an atmosphere of fried-up selfies and stuff on a stick.

There was Hillary floundering, Trump tasting but not finishing, Bernie sweating up a storm, the latest Bush lashing out.  Trump—no matter what he said or did—remained dervish-like on top of the polls to the consternation (and secret pleasure) of the media.  Only Clinton got additional press, none of it good. Missing from the scene was her husband Bill, while other Demos where urging a grieving Joe Biden to run, even bringing up the long-lost name of Al Gore, the alternative history president of the United States, but for the grace of the Supreme Court and Ralph Nader.

The whole thing—the “Meet the Press” encounter where Trump escaped unscathed, noting that “I’ll bet your ratings go up”—to the sight of so many people at the Iowa State Fair, eating so many things that induce all those fatal medical side effects—seemed like a noisy suburban neighborhood pool party in which everybody sooner or later gets thrown into the pool.

Closer to home, gunshots set the tone for a season that has become increasingly hurtful to body, mind and soul, and frustrating to D.C.’s leaders, especially its police force, who at various times cited an influx of synthetic drugs, guns, the release into the community of violent ex-offenders for the reasons in the upsurge of violence and killings this summer. The latest killing—that of an American University graduate named Matthew Castro Shlonksy—shocked the city. He was the latest in a list of homicide victims that, as of Aug. 16, number 93—20 more than last year at this time.

Times like these of polarizing politics, street violence and increasingly destructive natural disasters, you look for diversions in the arts, in sports, or more simply, the small joys offered by life lived daily.  We went to a birthday party for an Adams Morgan neighbor who held his gathered amid friends, family, and neighbor at his place of work.  Stories were told and swapped and advancing age, and new children were noted, and no one argued  about politics or deplored even the sinking fate of the Washington Nationals.  Trump could not trump the food, heavily spiced, the cake, the dancing, the music provided joyfully by La Unica, a self-described Latin Irish Fusion group, which got folks free-flying on the floor, and somehow got salsa to kiss the Blarney Stone, mixing up “Quantanamera” (“Yo Soy Un Hombre Sincero”), which you could find fittingly in “The Buena Vista Social Club,” with  the very Celtic “The Wild Rover” once sung by the Pogues.

Gary Tischler •

Thinking about going to the theater in Baltimore? During a recent visit to Baltimore, we talked with the artistic directors of two companies that, in different ways, exemplify the idea that theaters are a critical part of the community.

A mainstay of the Mount Vernon neighborhood, Center Stage, which has been presenting plays in Baltimore since 1962, is only a few blocks from the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, now launching its second season at its impressively restored and converted digs near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

As they look to their respective 2015-2016 seasons, both Kwame Kwei-Armah, Center Stage’s electric, forward-looking artistic director, and Ian Gallanar, founding artistic director of Chesapeake Shakespeare, continue to expand notions about what a theater company can and should be in contemporary times.

Kwame Kwei-Armah took over the reins at Center Stage — a Baltimore institution — after the 20-year tenure of the highly respected Irene Lewis ended in 2011. Lewis had already begun looking for ways of expanding the company’s audience in ways that better reflected the makeup of the multi-ethnic community. Kwei-Armah, whose parents were born in Grenada and who came from London with a big, eclectic, multi-tasking reputation as playwright, actor and director (he has an OBE for services to drama), ramped up her quest in his own inimitable style.

Gallanar founded the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in 2002 as a group of like-minded artists who wanted to make the Bard’s works more accessible to a broader audience, often in unusual settings — like “the Ruins,” the mostly exposed remains of the former Patapsco Female Institute Historic Park in Ellicott City — as well as through forays to public schools. But settling into a landmark bank building and a modern theater of 260 seats certainly ramped up the stakes.

When you talk to Kwei-Armah in his office, you’re confronted with a pacer; he seems to be thinking about several things at once, even while focusing on one idea. The board of trustees has already extended his contract and audiences have increased during his brief tenure, lured by a more varied programming, new plays — some of them by Kwei-Armah himself, such as the world premiere of “Beneatha’s Place,” about the characters in “A Raisin in the Sun” — and new ways of tackling classic drama.

“People, the people of a community, have to see themselves in what’s going on onstage,” he says. “It’s not just relevance, but truth and authenticity that matters. And there are lots of ways of doing work that is meaningful, difficult, entertaining, certainly.” He likes to stir the pot a little, and it’s apparently working.
The 2015-2016 season includes a two-show residency at Towson University in the spring, due to a major renovation at Center Stage’s Calvert Street home.
“It’s an exciting time for us,” Kwei-Armah said.

The season opens with a world-premiere stage version of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (Sept. 11-Oct. 11), followed by the popular musical “The Secret Garden” (Oct. 30-Nov. 29). Then there’s “X’s and O’s (A Football Love Story)” by KJ Sanchez, co-commissioned by Center Stage and Berkeley Rep. “That’s a play that will resonate here but broadly across the country, because football is such a big part of people’s lives and culture in America,” said Kwei-Armah.

We talked with Gallanar (who has a bit of the Shakespearian thespian look about him) in Chesapeake Shakepeare’s new space. “What we wanted in terms of design was to have a theater that made the Shakespeare experience intimate. We wanted it to be a little like the Globe in the olden days,” he said. The company kicks off its season with the mismatched-lovers-matching-up play “Much Ado About Nothing” (Sept. 18-Oct. 11). Then comes “Titus Andronicus” in Grand-Guignol style, which Gallanar is looking forward to directing. Also on tap: “A Christmas Carol” with a Baltimore twist; “Wild Oats,” an 18th-century comedy by John O’Keeffe; and “Macbeth”.

Where does community intersect with theater? That time for both the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company and Center Stage came in the spring when demonstrations and disturbances of the most visibly destructive kind broke out in West Baltimore.

“We were doing ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the time,” Gallanar said. “We had a matinee at which students from the school which had interacted with the police earlier were at. It was amazing. They were absolutely engrossed. They talked, they yelled and interacted with the action vocally. They saw it as a play about two gangs. It was very real and very theatrical at the same time. “

At Center Stage, “Marley,” an original musical authored and directed by Kwei-Armah about the late reggae legend, was about to open. He and the company decided to go to West Baltimore to perform songs from the show at the entrance to the MTA subway station next to the burned out CVS that had appeared on TV.

“It was just something we decided to do. We are part of the community of Baltimore, and that’s part of Baltimore. The whole thing — the response by the people to what we were doing there — was exactly, I think, what theater should be doing.”
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Gary Tischler •

If you’re a D.C. theater-goer, you’d be forgiven if you’ve gotten the impression that this has been the summer of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul in Washington.

The talented musical hotshots first surfaced at Arena Stage this summer with the world premiere of “Dear Evan Hansen,” a contemporary musical about the complicated life of an angst-driven teen trying to get the girl in the worst and best possible way.  The show—which had, in addition to Pasek and Paul, a top-notch team with book author Steven Levenson , director Michael Greiff (“Next to Normal,” “If/Then” and “Grey Gardens”), and star Ben Platt (“Pitch Perfect,” “Ricki and the Flash”)—was a hit here, with pretty much unanimous critical and audience approval.  As a results, its slated for an Off-Broadway debut  at Second Stage.

Now we get “Dogfight,” an earlier Pasek and Paul effort which got critics going in New York but failed to be a popular hit.  The folks at Keegan Theatre, now permanently settled in its renovated but still intimate Church Street space are staging what is just a challenging a show as “Hansen” with tight verve and imagination, given us another opportunity to take a good look at the work of the dynamic duo that appears to be (mostly successfully) trying to reshape the musical to reflect the times.

“Dogfight” is a different kettle of dramatic tea than the smoother “Hansen”—if it’s not easy to create a musical around the subject of teen suicide and bullying as “Hansen” was, it’s even harder to make a sustainable show which features as its plot-driver the nauseous idea of too-young-soldiers about to be shipped out to Vietnam holding an ugliest date contest.

But you can now see a little more clearly certain ticks and gifts shared by Pasek and Paul in these two shows. They’ve created music which is as close to a reflection of contemporary pop music as may be possible. It’s not necessarily new, but it’s narrative-driven, serving the needs of a difficult plot in both cases.   They also appear to have their finger on the pulse that might bring in that elusive blockbuster audience of millennials—the two composer-authors (both 30), seem to be in sync with their young characters.

“Hansen” was very much a part of these our times—“Dogfight” is set in 1963, the beginning years of blood-letting in Vietnam as a group of young, teenaged marines set out on a last night out in San Francisco (which everyone refers to as “Frisco,” a sure sign you’re not a native to locals).  Three of the leading jarheads call themselves the “bees,” as in Birdlace, Boland and Bernstein.  They’re an exuberant trio, accompanied by high-energy pals looking for girls and sex, about which they appear to know little, the 1960s apparently not yet in full flower-power bloom.

The very thought of the dogfight—apparently some sort of tradition with the trio—can fill an audience with dread. It’s one of those horrible by-products of buddy outings fueled by beer and testosterone which is predictably a painful disaster, especially for the women who are tagged for participation.

Birdlace, the nominal “hero” of the trio,  charismatically played by Franco D’Affuso with lean, strutting and awkward intensity, picks out Rose, a shy, warm young waitress with folk-singing aspirations (these were the days of Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez at brash, youthful zenith) and with no fashion style, a dark-haired, inexperienced  girl whose physical charms remain purposefully hidden.  But, with actress-singer Isabelle Smelkinson (who’s still a student at American University) inhabiting her, she manages to shine like a San Francisco Bay lighthouse. It’s such an appealing and authentic performance of intelligent, if clumsy, innocence that she makes every scene she’s in seem as real as today.

Birdlace and Rose (could be a singing duo) meet cute with an argument over Woody Guthrie until the whole scheme breaks open at a ratty club with a dance contest hosted by Chad Wheeler as a lounge singer straight out of an SNL routine by Bill Murray.

If the proceedings in “Dogfight” move along less smoothly—there’s an ugly, near rape of a prostitute in the first, and the Vietnam war setting seems to have been derived more from movies and plays (think “Streamers, The Musical!”) than the real thing—the show, especially as pulled off by the Keegan group under the youthful co-direction of Christina A. Coakley and Michael Innocenti, has more than a few moments.  

What might have been an unsettling piece of theater somehow finds its sea legs, spurred on by some terrific songs—“Nothing Short of Wonderful,” “It’s a Dogfight,” the aggressively cynical “Hometown Hero’s Ticker-Tape Parade” and brassy plot-driven songs and sweet ballads alike.  

Posek and Paul, you realize, are looking to do right by the American musical by re-imagining its sound and tone, but also by creating characters that, after horrible moral mis-steps are looking to do the right thing.   In the end, “Dogfight” isn’t about a creepy plot ploy, or even Vietnam.  It’s about a boy and a girl finding each other, and finding each other comely and simpatico in the best way, losing each other and trying to find each other again.   That’s not so bad a thing, especially when you have Smelkinson playing Rose. She’s a winner.