theater, natural history and conservation, the utterly mundane, and Etruscan 8-tracks
The Humans is a routine family comedy/drama, built around the familiar tropes of a Thanksgiving dinner and a new, sketchy apartment in New York. An early telephone call, made by Aimee (Therese Plaehn), to provide some key exposition, is both well crafted and well executed.
Constellation Theatre Company’s production of this quirky mid-century piece demonstrates that it’s still relevant, and that’s to the credit of the performances (like Tonya Beckman’s shape-shifting Sabina) as well as the writing. Consider the passage in the second act where Sabina’s actor breaks character (in a maneuver that prefigures Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days) and refuses to play a scene as “written,”
Because there are some lines in that scene that would hurt some people’s feelings and I don’t think the theatre is a place where people’s feelings ought to be hurt.
(Mr. President, your tickets will be available at will call.)
The production has tweaked a few of the lines (Sabina’s “understudy” been sent to Peet’s for a latte), but Beckman’s natural delivery of Wilder’s scripted lines makes them sound like 21st-century improvisations.
The despair in Beckman’s reading of “Oh, the world’s an awful place, and you know it is. I used to think something could be done about it; but I know better now.” is monumental.
Steven Carpenter’s hale and hearty George Antrobus has a radio-friendly baritone; Lolita Marie gives us an earthy Maggie Antrobus; and Ben Lauer’s honking mammoth is adorable.
The ambitious set design entailed a rather complicated changeover into Act 2 on this Saturday matinee.
By chance, I figured out what this peculiar-looking project, spotted just north of the High Line last August, will be: The Shed.
I’ve been trying to keep up with the extensive reporting by the Times on the shabby state of New York’s subway system, and how it got that way. Here’s a nugget from Brian M. Rosenthal et al.’s kickoff (it’s from November—did I say that I was trying to keep up?):
A bill passed by the Legislature in 1989 included a provision that lets state officials impose a fee on bonds issued by public authorities. The fee was largely intended to compensate the state for helping understaffed authorities navigate the borrowing process. It was to be a small charge, no more than 0.2 percent of the value of bond issuances….
The charge has quietly grown into a revenue stream for the state. And a lot of the money has been sapped from one authority in particular: the M.T.A.
The authority — a sophisticated operation that contracts with multiple bond experts — has had to pay $328 million in bond issuance fees over the past 15 years.
In some years, it has been charged fees totaling nearly 1 percent of its bond issuances, far more than foreseen under the original law….
But records show that other agencies have had tens of millions of dollars in bond issuance fees waived, including the Dormitory Authority, which is often used as a vehicle for pork projects pushed by the governor or lawmakers. The M.T.A. has not benefited as often from waivers.
The Dormitory Authority? What’s that? DASNY likes to style itself as New York State’s real estate developer. Its Wikipedia article needs some work.
Stephanie Mason and Cathy Stragar led a walk to two locations along the Prince George’s side of Jug Bay. Snow flurries as I arrived at the park; up in the woods, out of the wind, temperatures were tolerable. We focused on plants and animals that manage to make a living, a little photosynthesis, under cold winter conditions. We enjoyed lightly scratching the bark of thin-barked trees like American Beech and Carpinus caroliniana to see the green evidence of chlorophyll just underneath. We stopped for drifts of evergreen lycopodium nearly covering the forest floor, not shaded out now that the leaves are down. The fuzzy underside of the dead but moist leaf of a Mockernut Hickory is quite pleasantly velour-y.
We drive to Selby’s Landing, and then walked down to the bridge over Mattaponi Creek. A new birder in our group got a look at a small museum of Cedar Waxwings, feeding on Winterberry.
Rinker Buck was a pleasant surprise (and a book exchange pickup). Stephen Batchelor appeared on the freebie shelves at work. And I finished two monster-good works: Caro’s The Power Broker and Haskell’s The Forest Unseen.
Enh, I need to get out more.
And several trips to my home park, Huntley Meadows Park.
2016’s list. 2015’s list. 2014’s list. 2013’s list. 2012’s list. 2011’s list. 2010’s list. 2009’s list. 2008’s list.
A renewed acquaintance with Olney Theatre Center, following their expansion and rebuilds.
Bonus out-of-town venue:
Bonus out-of-town library:
2016’s list. 2015’s list. 2014’s list. 2013’s list. 2012’s list. 2011’s list.
Overnight stays in 2017:
Scanty posting for much of the year. Nevertheless, my annual slice through the first-of-the-month posts:
The year in review:
(And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here to see Dave in the big, pink, fluffy skirt with matching hair thing.)
If you’re looking for a last-minute contribution to make—maybe to round up your tax-deductible total for the year—I have… some suggestions.
These are the groups and projects to which I gave coin (generally tax-deductible), property, and/or effort in 2017.
The matrix of judging assignments for 2018 WATCH has been released. I’ll be visiting a member company that’s new to me. And doing a lot of driving.
Plus two ever-popular TBDs.
Long-overlooked research explains the nature of Rudolph’s glow, and its fitness for his habitat.
The records for 25 December 1949 indicate a worldwide fog of unprecedented extent. Claus’ adoption of Rudolph and cultivation of a pure-breeding strain facilitated his navigational tasks during the smogs that beset developed countries in the 1950s and 1960s.