Freak Went Flyers

Harper’s Other Dad and I met while on winter vacation. We  were staying at the same guest house in Key West. Since then we have continued to vacation around that same time each year. For years, we planned the trips around the anniversary of that first meeting; January 31st, but recently we’ve pushed it back to Valentine’s Day. The weather is warmer in many destinations and it is a little farther from the holidays. Last year we went to Puerto Vallarta for the first time. We liked it so we’re going back. We vacation with another couple; friends we met more than a decade ago on one of these winter trips. The 2014 trip will be the second week of February.

Puerto Vallarta is an attractive vacation spot for many reasons, not least because it is quite affordable; much more so than Key West. The one exception to this, however, is airfare. Plane tickets from PHX to PVR can be pricey. When I checked online earlier in the week, the cheapest round-trip non-stop flights were $1107 per person. Gulp! I could get a cheaper fare if I wanted to change planes in Denver. That didn’t seem desirable to me, Denver being 900 miles in the opposite direction and all.  Not to worry, Frequent Flyer miles to the rescue. We’ve accumulated a decent-sized cache of miles with an airline whose hub is in Phoenix so I started to shop. If nothing else, I hoped I could get one of the tickets with miles so I’d only have to buy one. That’s when the Freq. program started to get a little freaky.

On the dates we wanted to travel, I could get one round-trip Coach ticket for 55,250 miles but if I wanted two Coach tickets they were 75000 miles EACH. Huh? O.K., so maybe I was buying the last ticket available at a lower price so the next one might be more expensive, but in what other marketplace does adding a second item make the first item more expensive? So I bought one Coach ticket for 55250 miles; plus $88. Frequent Flyer tickets are not actually free. They cost more than $100 but the price was discounted by $35 because I used the airline’s credit card to pay.

After completing the first transaction, I logged back in to buy a second Coach ticket. As expected, this time the price was 75000 miles for a Coach ticket…. or…. wait for it…. 55000 miles for First Class. WTF? Not only was First Class cheaper than Coach (?) but it cost 250 miles less that the, cheaper, Coach seat I’d bought less than 5 minutes before. Now I am kicking myself for not having shopped for First Class tickets in the first place. Maybe I could have gotten two First Class tickets for 55000 miles each rather than two Coach tickets at 75000 each. I didn’t think to ask that question. Silly uninformed consumer; it never occurred to me that First Class would be less than Coach. Oh well, one of us will sit in First Class on the way down while the other clings to the overhead wrist strap among the goats and chickens. We’ll reverse the seat assignments on the way home. It’s all good. It’s vacation.

I did not have enough miles for the second ticket but not to worry; there are options; many options. Miles can be “shared”, “bought” or “gifted”. I’ll forgo the discussion about ‘gift’ being a noun, not a verb, and try to stay on rant topic. Harper’s Other Dad had 11000 miles. He could “share” them with me for $110 or “gift” (cough) them to me for $385. Were the gift option selected, I would get a 50% bonus so I would actually receive 16500 miles. The mileage bonus does not apply to “shared” miles. After paying the $110 dollars to get the shared miles, I was still a few short so I bought enough miles to make up the difference. Then I bought the First Class ticket for 55000; plus $88 dollars.

In the end, we used 110250 Frequent Flyer miles, about 9000 more than we actually had, and spent $531 for one Coach ticket and one First Class ticket to Mexico. I am not unhappy with that price. It is less than I thought we’d pay and less than we are spending to go to Detroit for Christmas. I just wish I could find the logic in the process so I would not have had to spend so much time getting it done. Oh well, come February we will be sipping our $.80 Coronas overlooking the Pacific, or sipping our $.80 Pacificos gazing at the corona  (I’m flexible) and trying to decide how many is ‘too many’ times to eat Chile en Nagada in one week.

Life is good.

Childlike Fascination

That guy over at Spo Reflections was waxing philosophical recently about the evils of cell phones. As is so often the case, I don’t entirely agree. I am absolutely addicted to the “iPrecious”.

It’s not that I can’t stand to be out of touch. Feel free to shut off email, calling and texting service at any time. Actually, please do. Nothing infuriates me more than having someone check out of the conversation by picking up their phone and starting to text or read Facebook. It is even more rude than if they had actually said the words; “Whatever you are saying is not worth my attention so I am going to do something else. It is idle and valueless but, at least, it’s less boring than you are.”

I have an iPhone jones because I have become addicted to instant gratification when it comes to information. Can’t remember who wrote that book? Google search! Can’t remember the lyrics to that song? SoundHound! Did someone ask whether New York was farther from Puerto Vallarta than from Phoenix? MapQuest! Obviously I lived for a long time without this kind of access but my patience for continuing to not know the answer to some question that has entered my consciousness has plummeted in recent years. I know the answer is in my pocket. I can feel it there; teasing me. Just look it up…it would be so easy.

There are probably many downsides to this addiction but one of the most obvious to me is the difficulty I now have finishing a book; even one am enjoying reading.  I will be going along, completely captivated by the world the author has created for me until something diverts my attention. Perhaps it is some tangential reference in the book, such as my recent excursion into the world-wide web to learn about a Canadian murderer mentioned in the book I was reading. Perhaps it is some completely random thought. Is it usually this humid in August? When were the dates for beginning and ending daylight savings time changed? Who was Mitzi Hajos? When my inquiring mind wants to know these things I could either make a mental note to look it up another time (right!) or stop what I am doing and look it up immediately. In the olden days, four years ago, my choice would have been dictated by my proximity to a computer. No more!

I try not to think of myself as someone with the attention span of a gnat. I choose to see myself as someone who approaches life with a childlike fascination, about absolutely everything. I grant the distinction is a subtle one. Certainly the outcome is the same. I am 70% through reading Choke by Chuck Palahniuk; 80%through The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell; about 30%through Shirts and Skins by Jeffrey Luscombe; and maybe 10% into The Life of Ramon Navaro by Andre Soares. I have read one of the three plays in Three Plays by George F. Walker and perhaps the first 50 pages of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon.

This is not an ideal situation, especially once the various plots begin to merge in my mind. On the other hand, I know who Mitzi Hajos was. That’s something.

The Kindess of Strangers

This morning, Dame Harper and I were about two blocks into our walk when I realized I’d left Casa de Harper without a bag. You know… one of those bags. I usually keep one tied to the handle of her leash to avoid such faux pas but that system seems to have failed me this morning.

A variety of options presented themselves.

I could abort the walk and take Harper home to poop in the yard. That seems punitive to both of us, though it could be argued I deserved it for having been ill-prepared.

We could go back home, get a bag and began the walk again. I’m not sure what would have been wrong with that but, for some reason, at 6:30 AM, it seemed like a bad idea.

We could continue our walk and hope for the best. It’s as good a definition of ‘denial’ as I can imagine. I went for it.

Our homeowner’s association has bag dispensers near the paths along the arroyos in our neighborhood. They provide the bags, free of charge, in the hope that people will, you know…. use them. This has only limited success, I might add. I am a good citizen, however, and a responsible pet owner so I use the bags. I knew there was a dispenser eight blocks ahead on our route. The challenge was that Harper’s favorite spot for ‘lady matters’ was several blocks sooner. Sure enough, we arrive at the spot and I see her hind legs creeping slowly toward her front legs so I know the game is afoot.

How often does one see one of those charming little plastic grocery bags; “witch’s knickers” we call them; floating down the road at the whim of a gentle summer breeze? No such luck! That’s the problem with litter, it’s never around when you need it.

We continue down the path; Harper looking quite proud of her achievement while I silently rehearse my explanation that I am just on my way to get a bag and will be right back for clean-up. I want to sound sincere should any nearby homeowner come charging down their driveway in robe & slippers shouting “j’accuse”.

A block ahead, I see a couple crossing the street walking their Golden Retriever. As is typical of me, I have no idea who the people are or where they live but I know the dog’s name is Slater. I assume I must have talked to the people at some point; it being unlikely that Slater had introduced himself.

When Harper and I reached the corner the dogs exchanged sniffs and humans exchanged greetings… or vice versa? – it was early. With only the slightest blush I asked Slater’s mom if she might have a spare poopie bag, trying without success to make “poopie bag” sound like “Grey Poupon”. Bless her heart, she went prospecting in her Birkin and come out with one. She also came out with Kleenex, Tylenol, chapstick, a sun visor, $1.37 in change, and the latest Dan Brown novel; which she is enjoying but not as much as The Da Vinci Code. But I digress.

We shared our farewells and Slater and his family moved on toward wherever their journey was taking them while Harper and I retraced our steps to the scene of the crime. Harper was a little miffed thinking I’d abandoned the route that leads to the park but she perked up once she realized it was just a brief detour.

Am I Becoming a “Friend of Dave”?

I enjoy the performing arts. A series of performances I particularly enjoy are the Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” broadcasts. Saturday matinees of selected operas performed at the Met in New York are simulcast to movie theaters where those of us not lucky enough to be in NYC can watch them on the big screen. It is not the same experience as seeing the operas performed live on-stage in Lincoln Center but it is enjoyable; in some ways more enjoyable than being there.

In previous posts I may have bitched to high heaven about shared my frustrations concerning certain of my fellow audience members. Dubbed by Harper’s Other Dad as the “Friends of Dave”, these are people of a certain age who lack any sense of common courtesy, raise selfishness to an art form, feel the need to complain about anything and everything and who approach, seemingly, all the aspects of their life with a strong sense of entitlement. The Friends of Dave like the ‘Live in HD’ broadcasts too.

Because the earth is round and Arizona exists in a world of its own making, the opera broadcasts start early here; sometimes as early as 9:00 AM, depending on the length of the opera and whether the rest of the country is observing daylight-savings time. That means the ‘Friends of Dave Unhappy Hour’ can start as early as 7:30 AM.

I am fortunate that a theater less than two miles from Casa de Harper shows the broadcasts. Those unfamiliar with this area may not understand the significance of this. Any destination that does not involve driving on an expressway for at least 20 minutes is just short of miraculous in Harper’s Valley. This theater is 1.89 miles away. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the theater holds about 600 people and does not have assigned seating.

On days when the opera starts early, the line begins to form outside the theater about 7:30 AM. There will be a few FODs in line to bemoan the outrage of the movie theater not being staffed to open its doors at 7:30 AM but they are the exception. Most of the 7:30 crowd are quiet and cordial, if a little sleepy. We understand the meaning of “general admission” so we get there early so we can sit with friends, get our favorite seats, or simply attempt to avoid all the drama to come. Around 7:45 the doors open and those of us who arrived early choose our seats the way God intended, by putting our butts in them. Then the fun starts.

As one enters the particular auditorium in the multiplex, one passes a 3’X4′ standing sign that instructs audience members not to save seats as the performance is sold-out. The sign might as well say; “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” for all the good it does.

Between 8:00 and 8:15 the seat-saving FODs start to arrive. We’ve seen them often enough to recognize their faces but absent that, they are still easy to spot because, even though it’s 90*F outside, they arrive carrying sweaters, jackets, canes and umbrellas to place on every seat in the row they want to reserve. At a performance last season, a particularly assertive Scottsdale matron asked if I was saving the seat next to me. I explained that I was not, in part because the sign outside said it was not allowed. “We don’t pay any attention to that”; she said as she started dropping sweaters, books, programs and purses on the 9 seats on my right. I would have found this annoying if it hadn’t been happening at the same moment on my left and in the 3-4 rows behind me. O.K. I still found it annoying.

Others arrive who want to sit in some of the, now ‘saved’ seats. Sweaters are thrown and harsh words exchanged with the attendant wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth at the inhumanity of it all. This continues until about five minutes before the performance begins. That’s when we see the difference between the FOD pros and the FOD amateurs. The last 5 minutes is when the pros arrive. These folks:
a) want specific seats
b) don’t have friends they could force to come early and ‘save’ the seats for them, and
c) have some reason they can’t come earlier themselves. I suspect their thought-bubble reads something like ‘Why should I come early, I should be able to come whenever I want and sit wherever I want because in the universe I see myself at the center of, people must accommodate me’. What the poor unfortunate sitting in the FOD’s seat-of-choice must endure is a long litany of physical ailments, joint replacements and vision & hearing impairments that make it impossible for them to sit, see or hear from any of the 599 other seats in the theater. These same maladies also prevent them from leaving their home more than 15 minutes before the performance; no matter when it starts.

Last season, after we’d purchased our tickets, another theater was added to the locations that offer the HD simulcasts in Harper’s Valley. It is one of those posh theaters that have reclining seats and servers who bring food and drink. It is less convenient. It is 16 miles from Casa de Harper and one must park in a ramp a block or more from the theater. These minor inconveniences are insignificant, however, compared to the single, overriding benefit that calls to me like a shining beacon through the existential darkness; reserved seats! (Choirs of heavenly angels are heard from off-stage.) We’ve seen movies in this theater. It is nice and has many nifty features that make movie-going more pleasant. Frankly, these matter less for the opera broadcasts however.
The theater has a full bar in the lobby. At 9:00 AM? ….not really a selling point.
Servers will bring over-priced appetizers to your seat. At that time of day? Who cares?
Those same servers can bring you a Bloody Mary in the middle of Act II. Well, maybe….

None of that matters compared to the holy grail of reserved seating. Whether I get there at 7:30, 8:55; or skip Act I altogether and show up at 10:15, I have a seat and I don’t need to put some Paradise Valley dowager in a Figure-Four Leg Lock or a Sleeper Hold to keep it. What’s even more amazing, while this theater is a little more expensive for movies, it is exactly the same price as the general admission theater for the operas. (Angelic Choir kicks into Hallelujah Chorus). It will take about 25 minutes to get to the new location. It took less than 5 minutes to get to the old one. But I can now leave at 8:30 for a 9:00 AM show rather than at 7:25. That sounds like an extra hour in my morning to me. I bought all the tickets for the season at the reserved-seating theater.

O.K.; so I’ve reached ‘a certain age’ myself and seem to have less patience than I had back-in-the-day. Does this mean I am becoming a ‘Friend of Dave’? I think not. I take responsibility for my own convenience. I get up earlier. I queue up and wait my turn. I choose to drive farther.

On the other hand, if I am joining the ranks if the FODs, I can live with that. Maybe I’ll do my own one-man show; “I Am My Own Friend”. If I take it on the road though it will only play in venues with reserved seating.

Two Women

In my recent travels I became aware of two interesting women. Each is noteworthy in her own right but the juxtaposition of encountering the two of them in the past month, some two thousand miles apart, and so many years after the events for which they are famous, is intriguing. One was an Irish-born American with a strong connection to Canada. The other was Canadian. Both became well known. In some ways they are mirror images of each other.

Ellen Cashman, more commonly known as “Nellie”, was among a rare breed of pioneer women; possibly unique. Born in Ireland in 1845, in the 80 years that followed, her life came to parallel the history of the gold rush in 19th and early 20th century North America.

Cashman immigrated to the United States at age five with her mother and sister, settling in Boston. She worked as a hotel bell hop and delivered telegrams; both jobs more often held by young men. In 1865 the family moved to San Francisco.

In 1874, during the Klondike Gold Rush, Cashman left home and moved to the Cassiar Mountains of British Columbia where she established a boarding house for miners. A life long Catholic, she asked residents for donations to the Sisters of St. Anne in exchange for accommodations. While traveling to Victoria to deliver $500 in donations to the Sisters, she received word that a snowstorm had stranded 26 miners in the Cassiar Mountains without food and in ill-health. Pulling together a six-man search party, she collected food and medicine to bring to the stranded miners. After 77 days, Cashman and her party located the sick men, who numbered far more than 26; some estimates credit Cashman with saving the lives of as many as 75. The trip to the Cassiar would be important for another reason. It was Cashman’s first glimpse of Alaska. She ran her businesses and mined in the Cassiar Mountains during 1875 and 1876, but left in late 1876 to return to San Francisco where she took care of her aged mother. By the time of her return to the southern territories, her reputation as a miner, businesswoman, and philanthropist was well established.

From 1877 – 1898, Cashman lived in Arizona.  first in Tucson and later in Tombstone. During this period she ran a boarding house, and co-owned a hotel and restaurant in Tombstone called Russ House, now known as “Nellie Cashman’s”, According to a popular legend, a client once complained about  Cashman’s cooking, and fellow diner, Doc Holliday, drew his pistol, asking the customer to repeat what he had said. Embarrassed, the client replied, “Best I ever ate”.  She ran a restaurant, Delmonico’s, in Tucson. She also ran retail businesses providing supplies and equipment to miners. During this period Cashman also raised money to build the Sacred Heart Catholic Church and committed herself to charity work with the Sisters of St. Joseph working as a nurse in a Cochise County hospital.  In 1883 she adopted her 5 nieces and nephews who’d been orphaned by the death of her widowed sister.

Graves of 5 men hanged
for “Bisbee Massacre”

In 1894, five men who’d been convicted to killing innocent bystanders during a robbery; the so-called “Bisbee Massacre”,  were sentenced to be hanged. A local carpenter built a grandstand next to the courthouse and planned to charge for tickets to witness the public hanging. Feeling no death should be a cause for celebration, she and a crew of volunteers tore down the grandstand the night before the hangings. The hangings took place on schedule but without the circus atmosphere. The men were buried in Boothill Cemetery.

In 1886, Cashman left Tombstone, briefly, to travel across Arizona, opening restaurants and boarding houses in Nogales, Jerome, Prescott, Yuma, and Harquahala. She traveled to Baja California to prospect, unsuccessfully, for gold and silver.

In 1898, Cashman left Arizona for the Yukon where she stayed until 1905. Her prospecting ventures took her to Klondike, Fairbanks, and Nolan Creek. On her arrival at Fairbanks, she opened a grocery store. She also undertook fund-raising for the new Episcopalian St. Matthews Hospital. She set out to raise money for the new hospital by staking herself in some of the many poker games in the well-to-do mining camp. She opened a second Delmonico’s restaurant and, later, owned a store in Dawson City.

In 1921, Cashman visited California, where she declared her desire to be appointed U.S. deputy Marshal for the area of Koyukuk. She was unsuccessful.  In 1922-23 , the Associated Press documented her trip, mushing her own dog sled, from Nolan Creek to Anchorage; a 17 day, 350 mile, journey.  She was 78.

Despite one publicly announced engagement, Cashman never married. She died of pneumonia and rheumatism on January 4, 1925 in St. Ann’s Hospital in Victoria, B.C. , the same hospital that she had helped to build fifty-one years earlier. She was interred at Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia.

Nellie Cashman made her own way in the world. She paid her way by establishing businesses, buying and selling mines, and mining. Excess dollars earned from these ventures, supplemented by funds she raised from her fellow miners, were used to establish schools, churches, and hospitals from the Mexican border to Alaska. On March 15, 2006, she was inducted into the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame.

* * * * *

A striking resemblance to Bette Davis

Four years before Nellie Cashman’s death, Evelyn MacLean was born in Beamsville, Ontario, near Niagara Falls; the daughter of Donald and Alexandra MacLean. The following year, the family moved to Hamilton, Ontario where Donald worked for the local streetcar line. It is in Hamilton that Evelyn would meet and marry John Dick. And it was by that name, Evelyn Dick, she would become famous throughout Canada in the late 1940’s for her alleged participation in what would come to be known as “The Torso Murder”.

Evelyn’s childhood was not happy. Her father drank and her mother had a temper. The parents didn’t get along and often spent time apart. Evelyn didn’t associate much with the neighbourhood children. Her parents considered her too fragile to be out playing on the streets.

With parental encouragement, Evelyn worked to become recognized in the finer circles in town. She would host lavish parties at the Royal Connaught Hotel, Hamilton’s finest, and spend money freely on acquaintances. She never gained the social acceptance for which she and her parents hoped.

It was rumored that Donald was embezzling from the streetcar line. The MacLeans lived very well and always had huge sums in the bank.  Donald and Alexandra MacLean would send Evelyn shopping with handfuls of nickels, the streetcar fare at the time.

The attractive Evelyn was the subject of rumors as well. While still in her teens, she had more expensive jewelry and furs than was considered proper and she spent time in the company of older men. In 1942, Evelyn gave birth to a daughter. Evelyn claimed she was married to a man named White who was stationed overseas but military records failed to support this. Evelyn’s daughter, Heather White, was born with mental retardation. In the summer of 1943, Evelyn had a stillborn baby. Then in September of 1944, Peter David White was born. No one is certain who the father was for any of her children and Evelyn’s trial testimony would later indicate the number of possible candidates was large.

In June of 1945, Evelyn. her mother, who’d recently separated from Evelyn’s father, and young Heather moved into an apartment together in downtown Hamilton. It is unclear where nine-month-old Peter was at this time. Shortly thereafter, Evelyn announced she was going to marry John Dick a streetcar conductor.

Saturday, March 16, 1946 a group of five children found what they thought looked like the body of a headless pig laying part way down the side of Hamilton’s escarpment, or what locals call ‘The Mountain’. Their find proved to be more gruesome.  It was the torso of an adult male. The head, arms and legs were missing. A deep wound in the abdomen suggested that someone had tried to cut the torso itself in two. The head and limbs had been sawn from his body. Evidence later surfaced that they had been burned in the furnace of Evelyn Dick’s home. An identification of the remains by doctors and a positive i.d. by his brother-in-law led police to conclude they’d found the remains of John Dick.

When questioned by police, Evelyn responded to the news that the torso belonged to her husband by remarking ” Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about it”. She then told a story about a nattily dressed Italian hit-man who arrived at her door looking for John. He said that he was going to “fix” him for messing around with his wife. Days later, police learned that Evelyn had borrowed a car from a friend. When the car was returned, the seat covers were missing, the front seat was covered with blood and bloody clothing was found in the back. Evelyn had explained that Heather had cut herself. Investigation proved the blood to be the same type as John Dick’s.

At this point, Evelyn told police that a mysterious man had called her, told her that John had made a woman pregnant and that he was getting what was coming to him. The man then asked to meet Evelyn so that he could borrow a car. Evelyn explained that when she met the man he had a large sack with him. He told her it contained ‘part of John’. Evelyn’s story went on to say that she drove this man and his cargo to the dumping site. Mrs. Dick took police on the route that she claimed they followed. When asked if it was alarming to her that her husband’s body was in the vehicle, she said that she wasn’t happy about his demise, but that it was a “pretty mean trick to break up a home”, referring to the woman who Dick had allegedly impregnated. She emphatically denied conspiring to kill her husband.

Spectators line up outside the Courthouse
for the trial of Evelyn Dick

Her first trial was a sensation. Hundreds lined up outside the courthouse in hopes of getting into the gallery. During the trial Evelyn was asked by an attorney regarding her young son:

“Is it not a fact that the father of that child could have been any one of 400 men in this city?”
“No, not that many,” replied Ms. Dick.
“Three hundred, then,” the attorney suggested.
“Well, no.”
“Tell the court, how many men you’ve had sexual intercourse with then,” the lawyer asked.
“Maybe 150,” Evelyn says.
She went on to say the 150 included the trial judge’s son.

In her first trial, after nine days of testimony the jury took less than two hours to return a guilty verdict. Evelyn was sentenced to death. Her conviction was  overturned on appeal and she was acquitted of murdering her husband in a second trial. She was found guilty of manslaughter, however, in the death of her infant son and sentenced to life in Kingston Prison for Women. Evelyn Dick was paroled in 1958 and disappeared. If still alive today, she would be 92.

The Torso murder case is one of the most sensational and talked-about murder cases in Canada’s history. More than half a century after the crime, it spawned a play, a 2002 television film, Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story, which suggests Evelyn protected her parents, who were also viable suspects in the murder of her baby and husband, and that she was sexually abused by her father and exploited by both parents (especially by her mother) to provide them a higher standing and income. The case was also the subject of the 2005 film noir musical, Black Widow. 

The stories of these two women illustrate opposing perspectives on common themes. Nellie Cashman came from a disadvantaged background and grew to become an independent woman. She succeeded in fields usually reserved to men in her time. She took responsibility for herself and made an effort to help others. Evelyn Dick came from an advantaged, if not privileged, background. She sought social status. Evidence suggests there may have been a history of  abuse, There is also some indication she may have been somewhat mentally challenged. These must be considered before judging her. Regardless of their similarities or differences, their challenges or advantages; one left behind a legacy of philanthropy. The other left only a legacy of mystery and scandal.

A Devil Inside

Harper’s Valley’s Nearly Naked Theatre kicked off its 2013-2014 season last night with David Lindsay-Abaire’s 1997 play; A Devil Inside.

There are a few things to keep in mind when seeing this play. First, it has nothing to do with “The Devil Inside” from the horror genre. If you’re looking for an exorcism you’ll need to keep looking. Secondly, if you’re only familiar with David Lindsay-Abaire from his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play; Rabbit Hole, you are in for a surprise. This play is a comedy; a dark one, to be sure, (oh my yes, “dark” doesn’t begin to cover it.) but very definitely a comedy.

The plot is almost impossible to summarize. Gene’s mother celebrates her son’s 21st birthday by revealing that his father, dead for 14 years, did not die of heart failure as Gene had been told all his life. The truth is more interesting if harder to believe. Gene’s 420-pound father had set out from New York City walking to lose weight. When he reached the Poconos he was stabbed in the back and his feet were cut off. Now that Gene is an adult, his mother wants him to leave the family’s Lower East Side laundromat and avenge his father’s death.

David Lindsay-Abaire

Gene is smitten with Caitlin, a fellow student in his Russian Literature class. Caitlin is in love with, and stalking, their professor; Carl, with dreams of becoming the post-modern Anna Karenina. Carl is plotting to murder an appliance repairman; Brad, in part because Brad is boring and in part because Carl is obsessed with Dostoyevsky. Brad is mourning an unrequited love of his youth but also quite taken with the enigmatic Lily; an artist with lots of secrets and a fascination with feet. All their stories are bizarrely interwoven. Hijinks, hilarity and tragedy ensue; often simultaneously.

The acting in this production abandons realism in favor of a style might be described as melodrama; way, WAY over-the-top, melodrama. It is an interesting choice and one that is well suited to the material. I found reviews of other productions of the play that followed the same course. It is a risk but one that mostly paid off last night.

The risk lies in the fact that the performers need to walk a razor-thin line, staying true to the style while not falling over the cliff into what could only be described as ‘bad acting’. It is the difference between an actor honestly playing a character who lives in a hyper-dramatic reality and an actor who plants his/her tongue firmly in their cheek, winks at the audience, and proceeds to mock the character they are playing. One can create an alternative reality and play the role with verisimilitude or one can ‘mug’ for the audience. There was a little of both last night but, happily, more of the former than the latter.

Oddly, the audience were not good partners to the actors in this regard. We attended the opening night performance and the majority of the audience were supporters of the company, as we are, or friends of the cast. In Act I there was a lot of laughter based on audience members’ knowledge of what the actor was doing rather than what was happening in the play. For the rest of us, it was a little like watching the ‘out-takes’ at the end of a movie. There is a point where watching other people laugh at ‘inside’ jokes stops being funny and starts being annoying. When the actor onstage begins to play to that laughter, it is the kiss of death for a performance. There was some/too much of that at the beginning of the play last night but the cast recaptured their focus quickly and, soon, the laughter was lining up pretty well with the language and action on stage.

Full disclosure: this was the 12th play I had seen in the past 14 days. I am an unabashed theater junkie but I think I might have enjoyed this performance more next week, or the week after, than I did last night. I think it is a good start to the new season, exactly the kind of production I hope for from this group, and I look forward to the productions to come.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

The trip to Canada always sounds more exhausting in description than it feels in experience. The trip begins at a frenetic pace when we are still excited about the trip. As the week goes on and there might be risk of becoming overloaded or overwhelmed, the pace becomes more leisurely. I came home fully saturated but not exhausted. Here are some random thoughts and photos.

The Royal George Theatre
NOTL

A bittersweet occasion during our visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake; I always look forward to our ‘same-time-next-year’ dinner with two women we met through their work in the Festival’s membership office. Sadly one of the two is gravely ill and was not able to join us. It’s sad to think that the last time we saw her may be the last time we see her but I wish her well and am grateful for having gotten to know her.

On the other side of the coin, the other of the two is grabbing life with both hands. She’s recovered fully after some surgery last year. Since last year’s visit, she has retired. She’s golfing again. She visited Barbados; her first time in the Caribbean, and she was off to Alaska shortly after our visit. Even more exciting, she has started a new relationship. We look forward to seeing her and meeting him next year.

Window shopping in Toronto. Is that what rabbits do?

I always enjoy the too-short visit to Toronto. This year it was especially enjoyable because I got to spend some time with blogger Buddy Bear. He was passing through T.O. on his way home from a gathering of blogger friends in Washington D.C. He shared stories of the fun in D.C. (only some of it scandalous) and introduced us to a couple of his favorite haunts in Toronto. It’s nice to meet people face-to-face whom you’ve met through blogging.

I struck out in my annual visit to Theatre Books; the universe’s way to telling me I already have too many books I haven’t read.

That didn’t hold true in my visit to Glad Day Bookshop. Part of what seems to be a disappearing breed, Glad Day is an independent, LGBT bookstore. I picked up a couple books including Shirts and Skins; the first novel by Canadian author Jeffrey Luscombe. Even more exciting, Buddy Bear, Harper’s Other Dad and I had the chance to chat with the author. He’s a charming man and I look forward to reading his book.

I enjoyed the unseasonably cool weather in Stratford. The locals and travelers from other places were not happy but after an Arizona summer it was pleasure to put on a sweatshirt and eat breakfast outdoors by the lake with temps in the lower 60’s.

I always look forward to reconnecting with two Michigan friends, in Stratford. We coordinate our annual visits so we can be there at the same time. This year we had the added pleasure of the company of bloggers; Laurent & Will. I thought they’d hit it off with our Michigan friends as well so I made plans for the six of us to have dinner. Small world! Not only had Will seen one of the Michigan boys perform; he is a pianist and an accompanist, but they have a mutual friend. Will & Laurent live in Ottawa, our other friends live in Michigan so, of course, it is perfectly natural that they would have mutual friends…in Argentina. I wish I shared their jet-set lives but I was glad they enjoyed each other. It was a wonderful dinner I won’t soon forget.

Everywhere we went we saw these buttons. I thought; “Well, how rude!”. I was assured, however, they refer to the Canadian politician.
Besides, if there is one thing we know about our Harper girl; she stops at nothing.

How could any dinner table be complete without one of these to hold the wine bottle?
Price of ceramic tchotchke; $30 CDN
Camp factor: Priceless

 I was virtuous and resisted temptation but that is as good a name for a candy bar as I have ever seen.

A great place for breakfast though “Home of the Butter Tart” sounds suggestive.

A poster from an Irish Pub in NOTL. The next porcelain collectable on eBay? Oh, I hope not.

A souvenir of Canada for Harper; treats from The Barkery, from Laurent & Will.

I blogged previously about my lack of fondness for turbulence. The last half hour of the flight home was very choppy. I look across the aisle and see Harper’s Other Dad reading a book called “Ten Poems to Say Goodbye”. I was not reassured.

The creative minds behind Spo Reflections, Larry Muffin At Home, Willy or Won’t He, and Harper’s Valley plot the takeover of the blogosphere over after-theater cocktails.

We tend to drink our souvenirs…no rubbish.

Of course one of the highlights of every trip is coming home.

Stratford Festival -Mary Stuart

We closed our visit to Stratford, and our week in Ontario, with Schiller’s Mary Stuart. I’d never seen the play before though it is very familiar. It was assigned reading in German class during my freshman year in college. It think it was probably only the 4th or 5th play I’d ever read. I also knew the plot from having seen Donizetti’s opera Maria Stuarda. The libretto is adapted from Schiller’s play.

The play tells the story of the relationship between Elizabeth I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots; pretender to Elizabeth’s throne and mother of her successor, in the period leading up to Mary’s death. It makes for great drama. It does not make for great history, however. The critical moment of the play is the face-to-face confrontation between the two queens. In fact, they never met.

The production blends time periods. The costumes evoke the Elizabethan age but the play begins and ends with security men in modern suits with ear pieces ushering ER on and off stage. Similarly the set pieces and decorations evoke the historical period but the stage is surrounded by modern looking razor wire. I’m not sure how much these modern elements add to the experience but I did not find them distracting. The production design included a few more abstract elements. Some were extremely effective, others less so.

Stratford veterans Lucy Peacock and Seana McKenna are perfectly suited and perfectly matched as Mary and Elizabeth, respectively. I’ve seen both many times over the years and have rarely been disappointed. I certainly was not disappointed this time.

Stratford Festival – Waiting For Godot

Samuel Becket’s 1953 masterpiece, Waiting for Godot is always one of the first titles that come to mind whenever someone asks me to name my favorite plays. I’ve read it or listened to audio recording of it many times. This was the fourth time I’ve seen it performed onstage. It never fails to mesmerize me.

The set was brilliant. Staged on the long, narrow thrust of the Tom Patterson Theater, the stage floor was covered with what appears to be black vinyl. It looked wet and reflected some light onto the performance area.

All the action of the play takes place on a narrow white path; imagine a piece of white ribbon lying casually on an ebony surface. It is curved and varies in height. It is a section of road, neither straight nor flat, that does not appear to come from, nor lead to, anywhere. There was a medium-sized rock at about the mid-point and a metal sculpture at one end suggesting a tree.

The plot of the play is heartbreaking simple. Two men, Estragon and Vladimir, are in desperate circumstances and they struggle to hold onto the hope that their circumstances will be improved with the arrival of Godot who, we’re told, has promised to meet them there.

This is the second time I’ve seen Stephen Ouimet, one of my favorite actors at Stratford, in the role of Estragon. He played the same role in Stratford’s 1998 production. This time he plays opposite Tom Rooney, who is rapidly becoming a favorite, as Vladimir. Beckett described this play as a “tragicomedy”. Together, Ouimet & Rooney generated a great deal of laughter; some humorous, some nervous.

Brian Dennehy did well in the role of Pozzo. I’d worried that, due to Mr. Dennehy’s stature as an actor, the balance among the characters might be disrupted. It wasn’t. Mr D. demonstrated his skill in interpreting Beckett a few seasons ago when he appeared in the single-character play; Krapp’s Last Tape.

I’m honestly not sure why I am so drawn to this play but I always find it moving. I’d been looking forward to this performance for almost a year. I was not disappointed.

Shakespeare M4M

In the same way that one cannot visit the Shaw Festival without seeing a Shaw play, it would be sacrilegious to visit the Stratford Shakespeare Festival without seeing something by the Bard. Some years we see more than one but, on this trip, our only Shakespeare is Measure For Measure.

M4M is considered one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays”. The protagonist must confront some dilemma that speaks to a broader social problem. Also, it is difficult to categorize the play itself as either a “comedy” or a “tragedy”. It is a later play, written about 1603, and while it ends with weddings and not murders & suicides the tone of the play is not light-hearted.

I try not to miss M4M when it is on offer at the Festival because the productions are always a little outside-the-box. In the previous production a few years ago the theater was peopled with bawds before the show who interacted with the audience before the performance. This year’s production is slightly less free-wheeling but has a quirkiness that makes it thoroughly enjoyable.

The storyline is complex and there are many characters.  In the central plot-line, the liberal Duke Vincentio enjoys going out among his people in disguise. To allow himself greater freedom to do this, he transfers his power and authority, temporarily, to his trusted subordinate Angelo. Angelo, a stickler for the letter-of-the-law, sentences Claudio to death for lechery. Claudio’s sister, Isabella, a novice in a convent preparing to take her vows as a nun, goes to Angelo to plead for her brother’s life. Angelo says he will spare Claudio’s life if Isabella will sacrifice her virginity to him. Horrified, she refuses. Eventually the incognito Duke contrives a plot to set everything right and all is revealed.

The play is set in Vienna but all the characters have Italian names. In Shakespeare’s time, the English Reformation, Italy, and the implied Catholicism associated with it, added a sinister dimension to the story. In this case, there are nuns and priests, both real and pretended.

This production seems to relish ambiguity. A scene added at the beginning puts a spin on the Duke’s anonymous excursions that colors his subsequent relationship with Isabella. It is an interesting take on his character that I’d not seen before.

Angelo, often portrayed as a two-dimensional villain, has a more nuanced psychology; more Javert than Scarpia. This didn’t actually work for me but it was an interesting interpretation.

In the end, everyone gets married but, with one exception, it is clear these marriages are made nowhere near heaven and ‘happily ever after’ is probably not on the horizon.