Author: David Gorsline

Contemporary American Theater Festival 2023: 2

The four-sided Marinoff is the de rigueur venue for one-on-one prison conversations (see 2017’s We Will Not Be Silent), not to mention rumbly room tone (David Remedios’ sound design), and hence Chisa Hutchinson’s Redeemed finds its place there. In this instance, Trevor (Doug Harris), a white man imprisoned for beating an Asian man to death, is up for parole; he also has a book proposal for agent Claire (Elizabeth Sun), who (it just so happens) is the sister of the man Trevor killed.

While Sun’s Claire makes some nonobvious points (very forcefully) about the power relationships between whites and Asians, it’s also the case that most would find it impossible to find common ground with someone so angry. The open-ended conclusion of the play is legitimate, so far as it goes, but the narrative’s final twists are a cop-out. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if Trevor were completely sincere?

Jeffrey Lieber’ s Fever Dreams (of Animals on the Verge of Extinction) inaugurates the friendly confines of the Shepherdstown Opera House as a CATF venue. The set, a cabin in the woods, fits well in the snug space (a small problem with masking for those of extreme house left). A three-hander with shades of Harold Pinter, the story is driven by withheld information and flirts with the possibility of alternate timelines. There’s a neat (and quite loud) cliffhanger to end the first act. The tidbits of biological research offered by Adele don’t resonate as much as the song that Miller remembers hearing when the three first met: Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield.”

  • Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, W. Va.
  • Redeemed, by Chisa Hutchinson, directed by marcus d. harvey
  • Fever Dreams (of Animals on the Verge of Extinction), by Jeffrey Lieber, directed by Susan V. Booth

Contemporary American Theater Festival 2023: 1

Orlandersmith’s monologue for Bronxite Virgil, a DJ who makes an unusual career change in mid life, is clearly a work in progress. At times working from a script, Virgil/Orlandersmith directly addresses the audience with a story of loss and life purpose found. Certain passages, like Virgil’s commutes on the subway, lack specificity, while others, such as Virgil’s apprenticeship, are quite graphic. A pronunciation issue briefly took me out of the story.

At the other end of the production values spectrum, Lynn Rosen brings The Overview Effect to the Frank Center’s well-outfitted stage. A maximalist fantasia on space exploration and modern entrepreneurship, with elements of a double sabotage mystery, the play isn’t coy about the models for its two spacefaring megalomaniacal antagonists: the program book interview identifies them as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The feud between overwhelms the work’s throughline, the emotional journey of engineer-turned-private eye Dylan.

  • Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, W. Va.
  • Spiritus/ Virgil’s Dance, written and performed by Dael Orlandersmith, directed by Neel Keeler
  • The Overview Effect, by Lynn Rosen, directed by Courtney Sale

Glossary:

Some links: 94

A milestone: 8

Seventeen years of A Honey of an Anklet, including 142 posts from Huntley Meadows Park:

  • 2006: We drove out to the Eastern Shore yesterday to say goodbye to Marlie…
  • 2007: Katherine Ellison looks at today’s carbon offset market.
  • 2008: Henry Phillips received a patent for his screwdriver and screws on this day in 1936…
  • 2009: The last play in August Wilson’s cycle of Pittsburgh plays, Radio Golf, is set in 1997…
  • 2010: Just a quick snap to mark my completion of the Fairfax Cross County Trail.
  • 2011: Five years of A Honey of an Anklet…
  • 2012: Hey, Leta, you’re on the TV!
  • 2013: Sand Box John keeps us up to date…
  • 2014: My 2014-2015 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps (Duck Stamps) arrived in the mail today.
  • 2015: Dave Taft offers a splendid 24-hours sampler of the wildlife to be found within New York City, be it animal, vegetable, or fungal; native or alien invasive.
  • 2016: 10 years, 2100+ posts.
  • 2017: O Gray Catbird, who have been tapping at your reflection in my window glass, maybe if I post your picture on the internet you’ll be embarrassed and cut it out.
  • 2018: My final report for the ducks and mergs team this season…
  • 2019: From my final weekly report from Huntley Meadows Park…
  • 2020: 51 murals promoting our 51st state.
  • 2021: After my annual scuffling with the Google chart API, I can post the summary graph of nesting activity for 2021.
  • 2022: As usual, that’s me in the back, the last one to get on whatever we’re looking at.

Clifton Institute dragonfly/damselfly count 2023

A couple highlights (and a lowlight) from Sunday’s count.

At Silver Lake Regional Park, a new damsel for me, Blue-ringed Dancer (Argia sedula). At Leopold’s Preserve, nice images of Calico Pennants (Celithemis elisa), both male and female.

We got good looks (no pix) of a Comet Darner zipping across one of the ponds at Leopold’s.

And along Broad Run behind the houses adjacent to Leopold’s, my first encounter with Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) in life.

Since I knew the track at Silver Lake, I changed to my more comfortable shoes so that I could keep up with Larry until nearly 16:00.

ID corner: 2

This month we on the FCPA EDRR team are on the lookout for non-native invasive Java Water Dropwort (Oenanthe javanica). Based on information from Pennsylvania agencies, B and I thought that we had relocated some extensive populations in a creek floodplain in Herndon, and we documented as such (for example, 166611987). However, other Invader Detectives have identified our plants as Water-hemlock (Cicuta maculata), and I am tending to agree.

I reviewed the descriptions of the two plants in Flora of Virginia. Since they’re in different genera, there’s no straightforward dichotomous key for the pair.

One clue that we had the native C. maculata is that the plants were coming into flower on 10 June. The Flora has May to August for Water-hemlock and July to August for Java Water Dropwort—but that’s hardly definitive for a plant that’s just getting established in the Commonwealth and with voucher specimens for only Fairfax and Arlington Counties. There are some described differences between the two plants with regard to the inflorescence and fruit, but how do you catch the invasive before it flowers?

So we have to go back to descriptions of the stem and leaves. Here’s C. maculata:

Perennial 6-18 dm stout, erect, caulescent, branched, glabrous. Leaves 10-30 × 8-26 cm, 2 or 3 × pinnately compound, ovate in general outline; leaflets 2-12 × 0.6-3 cm, lanceolate, acute to acuminate; petioles 0.4-3 dm [4-30 cm], sheathing.

Comments: Stems often mottled below with purple. [emphasis added]

And here’s O. javanica:

Perennial with fibrous roots. Stems 3-12 dm, decumbent [reclining on the ground but with an erect or ascending tip], rooting at lower nodes. Leaves alternate, sometimes basal with petioles 5-10 cm, blades 3-20 cm long, ovate to triangular, 1 or 2 × pinnately compound, reduced upward, ultimately becoming sessile on expanded sheaths; leaflets 10-50 × 5-20 mm wide, ovate or rhombic-ovate, rounded, narrowed or tapered at base, serrate.

In other words, they’re both pretty typical members of the Carrot Family. Overall, the Water-hemlock is taller, with larger leaves, but there’s a lot of overlap.

Two things that we overlooked in our survey of the Herndon site:

  • O. javanica stems are decumbent, whereas the plants in our observations are erect.
  • “Brittle stems of java waterdropwort are jointed and hollow and can easily break off and take root.” I don’t believe that we checked our specimens for this character.

Since O. javanica is reported to be edible (it has common names like Water Celery and Vietnamese Parsley), it’s a good thing that we didn’t give our plants a taste!

BANO banding at Clifton Institute

out of the boxin the handClifton Institute technician Caylen Wolfer has her banding kit out again, this time for Barn Owl (Tyto alba) nestlings, just about ready to fledge. A few of us got to ride along.

There are five nestlings (a/k/a fluffballs) in this nest box, which replaced (as far as the owls were concerned) a barn that was pulled down in order to make room for a greenhouse.

Baicich and Harrison write that the owlets are flying after about 60 days in the nest.

I could spot one bird in the box before Caylen got her mitts on it, so this sighting is ABA countable. Yay!

Some links: 93

Sweet Run State Park

Virginia’s newest State Park is Sweet Run SP, not far from Harpers Ferry and nestled in the Blue Ridge synclinorum. The site of the former Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship, the amenities have not yet been updated to state park standards. Without a GPS, you’d likely not find the gravel driveway leading off Virginia 671.

to be upgradedI had a couple hours before visiting Charlie in the afternoon, so I walked the Farmstead Loop Trail. The pleasant news is that, in this park, the trails are shorter than they look on the map. Walking counterclockwise around the loop, there’s only one stretch of climbing. The blazes are sufficient for you to find your way around in this woods.

I pulled a reasonably good recording of Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina ).

I’ve a mind to return for a longer visit.

Incendiary

A disco shootout with a mom and her big-ass purse. Whatever happens, Tanya (Mom with the arsenal) (Nehassaiu deGannes) remembers to stay hydrated. Scenes with her matching pair of lawyers, Markus and Marcus (Breon Arzell and Brandon J. Pierce), are inspired.

  • Incendiary, by Dave Harris, directed by Monty Cole, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington

Acidic seepage swamp in Fairfax County

look but don't touchNelson DeBarros led a walk to a small acidic seepage swamp tucked into a Franconia neighborhood. The park is variously named Springfield Forest Park or Franconia Forest Park, depending on whose map you use. Here, Nelson points out a Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), while all of us keep our distance.

rather drydoing wellThe wetland was rather dry today, but it was supporting a vigorous community of acid-loving heaths, like Black Highbush Blueberry (Vaccinium fuscatum), as well as some drifts of Netted Chain Fern (Lorinseria areolata)—which I learned as Woodwardia.

For the most part, I left the sedges and rushes to Grass Buncher Margaret C, but I did pick up the tidbit that the green above the inflorescence on Juncus effusus is actually a bract, not an extension of the culm.

A bitsy Krigia virginica had escaped the mower in a patch near the play equipment. Black Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) was coming into fruit—with a big swath of unidentified galls on its leaves.

Southside Virginia getaway

Continuing to chase badges in the Virginia State Parks Trail Quest program, I booked a motel room in Clarksville and laid out an itinerary to visit three parks (starting with Occoneechee, across the bridge over the Kerr Reservoir) and two Natural Area Preserves. On my way home, I added a stop at Lake Anna State Park, bringing my parks-visited count to 13.

Even accounting for the fact that I was visiting midweek, traffic at the parks was much reduced from the early COVID-19 months.

At the visitor center for Staunton River State Park, there’s a winding path mowed through a meadow that’s better visited in the morning when your eyes and legs are fresh. “Winding” is too weak: “labyrinth” is more like it.

Turkey Run Trail in Lake Anna turned up numerous Blue-fronted Dancers (Argia apicalis), while the railroad trail at Staunton River Battlefield Park yielded a Blue-Tipped Dancer (A. tibialis).

on the road againThe centerpiece of the road trip was Difficult Creek Natural Area Preserve, in Halifax County. Dr. Hardtacks, parked outside the gate, is all ready to help with the visit.

serried 1serried 2The preserve is in the process of being converted from pine farm to the open savannah that was typical in pre-contact days. When the trees are lined up like dominoes, you know you’re looking at a farm.

restored savannahHere’s a view of the restored habitat. I found several plants to puzzle out, including Lobelia spicata, an evening primrose (a nemesis species for me), a skullcap (Scutellaria sp.), and Pasture Rose (Rosa carolina).

But the best observation of the stop was hearing, and then later flushing, Northern Bobwhite (Colinus viginianus). I don’t think I’ve seen bobwhite since the days that I birded with Susan.

The pickins at Chub Sandhill NAP, in Sussex County, were pretty slim, although I did find a species of Venus’s Looking Glass (Triodanis perfoliata) on the roadside. However, the best bit of the visit was stumbling across a restoration area of Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris). I’ve seen this tree in slide shows, but nothing can prepare you for what you see in the field: its spray of needles is magnificent.

I’m always on the lookout for tiger beetles. The only ones I find around here are Six-spotteds (Cicindela sexguttata). Looking at one of my zoomed-in crops, I noticed that it’s quite common to see an extra pair of spots, in the middle of each elytron rather than along the edge. We should have called them eight-spotted tiger beetles.

Some links: 92

  • Ted Williams puts in a good word for—euyurrgh—sea lampreys.

    In their native habitat, marine lampreys are “keystone species” supporting vast aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems….

    Environmental consultant Stephen Gephard, formerly Connecticut’s anadromous-fish chief, calls lampreys “environmental engineers” as important to native ecosystems as beavers.

  • Rhitu Chatterjee reports on a low tech-low cost (less than two bucks) intervention that can dramatically reduce maternal deaths due to postpartum hemorrhage.
  • May Truong’s photos, Sarah Lyall’s words: Striker, the Samoyed who never won Westminster’s best in show. But he still pauses to strike a pose.
  • This is why I leave little notes: T. Rex reckons with the afterlife.
  • One more bit of the hot type era is gone: the New York Times is dispensing with datelines. Hanaa’ Tameez has the writeup.

The School for Lies

David Ives has still got it! His 105 minute reduction of Molière’s Misanthrope (from 2017) is like clarified butter, crackling with wordplay in rhyme. Bonobo is word you usually find in crossword puzzles, not scripts, but it’s in there. I also scribbled down zipless tango. Delicious!

The physical stuff is there, too. Roses to rubbery Dylan Arredondo as Philinte and Jacob Yeh as the preposterous prig Oronte.

The pace was perhaps a skosh too fast for this Sunday matinee audience to follow, but everyone found something to enjoy.

  • The School for Lies, by David Ives, inspired by Molière’s The Misanthrope, directed by Allison Arkell Stockman, Constellation Theatre Company, Washington