Author: David Gorsline

Spring wildflowers at Fraser Preserve

Margaret Chatham led a wildflower walk at the Nature Conservancy’s Fraser Preserve for VNPS. Spring Beauty was plenteous, but (as you would expect, given the everlasting winter we had) many bloomers were weeks behind schedule. Margaret showed us one example of Harbinger-of-Spring (Erigenia bulbosa) (very difficult to image properly); Purple Cress (Cardamine douglassii) was in various states of opening into flower; some Trout Lilies (Erythronium americanum) in a sheltered wet spot were in flower. But the Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) and Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) really hadn’t gotten started yet.

Down along the pipeline easement, the Poison Hemlock was nothing but basal leaves, nothing at all like the towering plant I saw just 49 weeks ago.

early later this yearWe found some early flying Spring Azure and Mourning Cloak butterflies. I was happy because we found three single Bloodroot blooms (Sanguinaria canadensis), widely scattered—this has been sort of a nemesis plant for me.

At the park: 67

From our report for the last two weeks of monitoring nest boxes:

We now have 3 nests incubating, one Wood Duck and two Hooded Merganser. We have eggs in at least three more boxes, and evidence that birds have visited other boxes.

We had a full team on the 23rd; this morning, Paul and I checked the upper half of the boxes before we were chased by bad feet and cold rain. If someone were to check the other boxes (#68 through #60 — we can skip #67 as it’s incubating) during the week, that would be great. Otherwise, we’ll just get them next Sunday.

Sunday the 6th will be our April work day, and then we will give the birds a rest until May (probably 4 May).

…

Water gauge for 23 March: 1.44

Birds of interest for 23 March: Pied-billed Grebe, Gadwall, Northern Shoveler, Ring-necked Duck, Ruddy Duck, American Coot, Belted Kingfisher, numerous Tree Swallows

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A carpenter’s workshop, and not one too tidy or sturdy, reveals a broadly played, stirring production of one of Shakespeare’s best-loved romantic comedies. One might call the production “mixed media,” in the the Athenians are played by live actors, while the fairies are larger- or smaller-than-life puppets—or at least actors with some measure of mechanical augmentation. Oberon is realized with no more than an outsized head and arm; Titania sports a peacock’s tail of wooden planks manipulated by the ensemble. The shape-shifting Puck, managed and voiced by three actors, is an assemblage of spare parts: an arm basket, some hard tools, and a garden sprayer.

It turns out that the devices of puppetry and the magic of fairyland work well together. It’s easy to disappear from the sight of men when you want to: just lower your fairy accoutrements to the side. Those planks get a workout: played as a xylophone they can summon a rain-kissed lullaby; held upright, they can become an impenetrable forest; and when lowered again, they can effect an astoundingly instantaneous transition into act III, scene i. And “O Bottom, thou art chang’d!” swoops in with a cheeky steampunk contrivance that is quite indescribable. Some of the effects don’t sit that well in the Ike’s wide expanses: those of us sitting house left had sightlines sometimes obscured by a workshop ladder.

How does Shakespeare fare in all this? Rather well, if the company does feel the need for ad libs to make sure that we get all the jokes. Colin Michael Carmichael is the bossiest, most abusive Peter Quince that I’ve seen. Miltos Yerolemou, when he’s not covering Bottom, does well with the thankless role of blustering Egeus (also known as Exposition Dad). Naomi Cranston gives us an engaging, high-energy Helena. The fight between Helena and Hermia is successful; the mechanicals’ play in act V runs a little long (but that’s the case in almost all productions).

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, Bristol Old Vic in association with Handspring Puppet Company, directed by Tom Morris, Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater, Washington

Penny Plain

A fine showcase for the talents of Ronnie Burkett, the piece presents interlinked stories that center on a rooming house at the end of the world. For the most part told with marionettes, with a brief excursion into hand puppets, the stories’ central figure is Penny Plain, an elderly blind woman who has seen it all and is ready for what comes next. The work is by turns broadly satirical, darkly gothic (echoes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and stereotype-pushing farcical. There are three, maybe four, talking dogs: Hickory Sanchez, a chihuahua with an outsized ego and a sex drive to match, is a particular guilty pleasure.

Burkett’s puppets do things that you don’t expect marionettes to do, like walk with a Zimmer frame, or slouch unladylike in a chair, or engage in the gallows humor of cracking jokes about dog meat. Burkett keeps his two- and three-character scenes snapping with rapid cue pickups, so rapid that sometimes his voice characterizations are a bit blurred. His voice does him better service in monologues, as when we meet a milquetoast of a bank teller who breaks the rules and advises his favorite customer to withdraw all of her money, NOW.

The device of the rooming house, which enables all sorts of eccentrics to drop in (or barge in) wears a bit thin. But on the whole, it’s an enjoyable experience. Don’t bring the kids.

  • Penny Plain, produced by Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, created and produced by Ronnie Burkett, Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, Washington

More shoebox emptying

In 1999, I had a consulting gig that took me to New York frequently. On my last trip up there (which turned out to be the week of Hurricane Floyd [have I told you the story about the clueless D.C. cab driver?]), a music festival had hoovered up all the hotel rooms in Manhattan, so I found myself in a place called the Pan American in Queens. The matchbook cover that I saved touts it as New York City’s Most Convenient Hotel. Uh, no.

namesakeGorsline streetscapeBut it turns out that this patch of Queens, still known as Newtown, must have been the place where great-ancestor Josse had his farm in the very early 1700s. Gorsline Street runs one block, from 51st Avenue to Kneeland Avenue. As you can see, it’s beautifully kept Archie Bunker territory; it could easily stand in for Hauser Street.

Another hurricane story. The night that Isabel came through town in 2003 (downgraded to a tropical storm by then, but you could have fooled me), the Norway maple that shaded the ground between my house and my neighbor’s thrashed and flailed and generally sounded as if it wanted to crawl in my bedroom window for shelter. Finally, a shattering crack rang out, and I think I heard somebody yell, “Holy cow, look at that!”

Isabel maple doorwayIsabel maple splitIn the morning, I saw what had happened. A good third of the tree was lying in my front yard. It crushed a lamppost and generally made for difficult navigation.

Isabel maple cleanupA cleanup crew promptly showed up and reduced the entire thing to a stump and chips. My townhouse cluster never has replaced the tree. The Morrissettian irony is that I had just given up on trying to grow flowers that liked sun under the maple, and had just planted a little shrub that liked shade.

Pedro y AlbertaIn 1998, I drove Alberta to Florida for some birding. On the way back, I stopped at South of the Border so that she could meet Pedro.

A mystery: 6

Girard Street?Why does the fire control panel in the lobby of 5225 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. (where the D.C. Learning Ally studio is located) show “Girard Street” in place of Ingomar Street? “Girard” is a sore thumb in the sequence of the 3-syllable names for streets in this neighborhood (Ingomar is between Harrison and Jenifer).

There is a Girard Street in Washington, but it’s down in Columbia Heights, where it should be.

At the park: 66

Reports from the nest box team for the past two Sundays:

red washWe have evidence of roosting in 7 of the boxes, but at this point we have nests in only 2. Box #3 is incubating, so we can skip checking that one next week. With Steve’s help, we replaced box #6 this afternoon.

Notable birds for 9 March: Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Gadwall, Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, American Coot

We found a dead Barred Owl along Barnyard Run; we conveyed the specimen to park staff.

Notable birds for 16 March: Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Gadwall, Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, Wood Duck, Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Phoebe, Tree Swallow (afternoon)

Water gauge readings: 1.86 (9 March), 1.50 (16 March)

Mother Courage and Her Children

Kathleen Turner is the headliner in this fine presentation of Brecht’s fable with music, but what is going on all around her in the Fichandler that’s just as interesting. Force of nature that she is, she can’t pull this show all by herself, even if her Mother Courage does try to pull that cart by herself. (In this production, that iconic closing image seems to get short shrift.)

David Hare’s crisp translation skates the line between jaded and glib; his “War is like love: it finds a way” crackles. The snappy music, by the multi-talented James Sugg, is outstanding: making no virtuosic demands, it tells the story, plain and simple, relying on accordion, low brass, and “found instruments” like a musical saw, and performed completely by the cast without added musicians.

This is a show that isn’t afraid to let the wires show. While generally cleaving to a design consistent with the play’s seventeenth-century setting, modern safety equipment for dangerous stunts is in full view, vocalists are (modestly) miked, a tuba player who needs a little help has his music on a stand, and the rubber wheels on that cart would not be out of place on a moon rover.

The musical centerpiece of the first act is “Each Night in May,” a violent tango (designed by David Leong) for Meg Gillentine as Yvette; Jack Willis’s salty, torch-bearing Cook stops the show in the second half with “Solomon’s Song (You’re Better Without).”

  • Mother Courage and Her Children, by Bertolt Brecht, translated by David Hare, directed by Molly Smith, composer and music supervision by James Sugg, movement by David Leong, Arena Stage Fichandler Stage, Washington

At the park: 65

Nesting season for Wood Duck and Hooded Merganser has started at Huntley Meadows Park. From my report to the team and staff for Sunday:

As we have come to expect, the birds are out there nesting before us! We have three Hooded Merganser eggs in box #3, and one in box #67. We did fresh chips in the 16 boxes. Box #6 is in need of a repair to its door/hinges….

Water gauge: 1.74 (are we still monitoring that gauge)?

Birds of interest: Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, Scaup sp., Red-headed Woodpecker