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Aisle View: Peering into the Abyss
Frank Langella in The Father.
Photo: Joan Marcus
Frank Langella, at his estimable best, is not to be overlooked. Here he is, once more, in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Florian Zeller's The Father. At his best, yet again, and not to be missed.
Langella is a rarity among American actors of his generation (he was born in 1938, making his Broadway debut in 1966). While he has numerable film and television credits, he has chosen to concentrate his career on the stage. He gave an arrestingly original performance in 1975 in Seascape, playing an Edward Albee lizard (of all things) and winning his first of three Tony Awards thus far. He was subsequently seductively droll in the smash 1977 revival of Dracula; lauded in Strindberg's The Father (unrelated to this new play) and Turgenev's Fortune's Fool; and mesmerizingly commanding as our most reviled president in Frost/Nixon in London (2006), New York (2007) and on screen (2008).
Langella keeps astonishing; and the passing years--he is now 78--only seem to deepen his power to draw us in and make us feel. In The Father, he adds something new to his well-honed arsenal of actorly skills. After lulling us into thinking, over the first hour of this ninety-minute play, that this is just another one of those excellent failing-old-men performances, the ground slips from under him (and us)--at which point the actor, and his audience, feel an altogether new kind of terror.
André (Langella), a retired engineer, has reached the point where he can no longer take care of himself; a man of stubborn determination, he vehemently ignores the uncompromisingly approaching shadow. His sparring partner is daughter Anne (Kathryn Erbe), who--as the play opens--is arranging to move from Paris to London; thus, an attendant has to be hired to look after The Father. (He apparently assaulted the last one with a curtain rod, and we can easily believe it.) The illness progresses in by-now-familiar stages, as the protagonist sinks into dementia and what Wm. Shakespeare used to call "second childhood." But this André won't go without putting up a fight, and in Langella's hands it's quite a fight.
Zeller--a widely popular French playwright and novelist--is not content with standard treatment here. We are accustomed to watching the patient gradually misunderstand, misconstrue and altogether miss what is being said by the other characters. Thus, we-the-audience take said other characters at their word. As The Father progresses, we realize that we are not hearing what is being said to André; we are hearing what he is hearing, seeing what he thinks he is seeing. As the play swiftly races by, we start to realize just how much--or how little--André comprehends, because the playwright has put us in his carpet slippers. Not only is the plot information suspect, along with the staging and even the scenery; the characters themselves are suspect, leaving the audience to question what has been presented on stage--which is, of course, a reflection of André's predicament. As a well-trained audience, we only know what we're told; in this case, the playwright appears to be feeding us the same alternate reality that André is struggling through.
(The Father--which originated in Paris in 2012--has been deftly translated by British playwright Christopher Hampton, author of The Philanthropist and Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and enjoyed a successful West End production last fall. The Manhattan Theatre Club production uses an altogether different cast and creative team. It is worth noting that while the title page of the Playbill is noncommittal, the Zeller-Hampton script labels the play as a tragic farce.)
Frank Langella and Kathryn Erbe in The Father.
Photo: Joan Marcus
Long-time Langella watchers, prepped on the subject of the play, might walk in with an idea of what to expect from the actor. The courtly charm in which he'll cloak his irascibility; the off-center sidestepping he will employ, pretending his character understands when he and we know he does not; the bluster, the overfriendliness, the harsh cruelty, the ploys for sympathy, the breaking down as his world (and his sense) slip away. What makes this performance so remarkable, though, is that Langella reaches a chasm where all those tricks--which André-the-character would likely employ, and Frank the actor would surely employ--are played out.
At this point, we are left with pure, harrowing terror: the mask is thoroughly removed, and the character stands naked as he stares into the abyss. And it is at this point that Langella surpasses himself. His Lear (at the Chichester Festival in 2013 and BAM in 2014) was equally harrowing, yes; but there he was playing an ancient king in a mythical world. Here, he is an average man--a father--of today. Thus, he might as well be you or me, our parent or grandparent. As André begins his final departure from rational understanding, Frank--who regularly carries a grand flourish, onstage and off--is left bare and unsupported, crawling and clinging to the stage of the Friedman. Langella outdoes himself, making this a theatrical feat to experience and to feel.
Kathryn Erbe, from stage, screen and television, acquits herself well as the daughter; so do four others playing multiple roles, with Hannah Cabell standing out (perhaps because she is favored with the most sympathetic writing). MTC regular Doug Hughes (Doubt) does a good job of staging this alternate reality, with an especially nifty assist from set designer Scott Pask. Pask has done wizardly work on items like The Book of Mormon, Something Rotten! and The Pillowman. Here, the scenery plays tricks--sly at first, like a lighting stanchion that moves from one wall panel to another--which keep Langella and the audience off balance. Donald Holder's lighting is effective as well, although the use of extra-bright flashing lights during scene changes might be physically uncomfortable for some patrons. (Do that once or twice to signal the character's disconnect, and that's fine; do it again and again and again and again, and it might become an overused device more annoying than theatrical.)
Hannah Cabell and Frank Langella in The Father.
Photo: Joan Marcus
After all is said and done, though, you have Zeller's provocative new play--already an international crowd-pleaser--and a monumental turn from the star. Hughes provides effective staging, but by this point in time one wonders whether directors have learned to simply step aside and watch Frank go.
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The Manhattan Theatre Club production of Christopher Hampton's translation of Florian Zeller's The Father opened April 14, 2016 and continues through June 12 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
   
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Remembering Evolution Visionary Mae-Wan Ho
MAE-WAN HO
Mae-Wan Ho, the Hong Kong-born evolution scientist and one of neo-Darwinism's most effective critics, has died at age 74, I learned today. Ho was co-founder with her husband, physicist Peter Saunders, of the Institute of Science in Society, the UK organization focused on reclaiming science for the public good. She was also the author or co-author of a dozen books, one of her favorites, The Rainbow and the Worm.
Through the years at ISIS, Ho and Saunders were tireless in challenging dubious science, particularly that of "artificial genetic modification" of our food supply. Ho left her 25-year teaching position at Open Unversity over issues related to the university's stance on GMOs.
Mae-Wan Ho described herself to me in an interview last year as "a happy, optimistic person by nature." As an original thinker, she brushed off neo-Darwinist attacks branding her "neo-Lamarckian, communist, Marxist" in response to her early exposés on the Modern Synthesis, which began with a 1970s paper co-authored with Peter Saunders: "Beyond neo-Darwinism: The Epigenetic Approach to Evolution":
"People like Peter Saunders and I, who've been arguing about this since the 1970s, think things have moved on to such an extent in evolutionary science, and the world beyond neo-Darwinism is so creative and beautiful, that we now don't really care about trying to convince the neo-Darwinists."
Ho thought the Modern Synthesis did need to be completely replaced, however, "so that the universe of learning, of finding out about nature" could "open up properly." She applauded the current work of Oxford University physiologist Denis Noble, principal organizer of the upcoming Royal Society meeting on evolution paradigm shift, for carrying the torch. "He's [Noble's] right and has got the zeal," she said.
Like Lynn Margulis, Ho was one of the few women to be regarded as a "giant" in the field of evolutionary science and was awarded the Prigogine Medal in 2014. She thought sexism in science was still "quite a serious problem," but again she looked on the bright side, commenting to me:
"When I was first moving into physics, for example, the world was divided in two. There were physicists who would talk to me and there were physicists who would not talk to me, who didn't want to take me seriously. Fortunately for me, the ones worth talking to were the ones who talked to me."
In recent years, Mae-Wan Ho had been thinking about water and its mysterious properties and was inspired by the work of quantum physicist Emilio Del Giudice. Several months ago, she completed a new book, Meaning of Life & The Universe, in which she calls for a new "science of water." Mae-Wan Ho believed that "water is the medium of life," that "[q]uantum coherent water underlies the quantum coherence of organisms."
We have lost a wonderful visionary. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
   
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Dennis Hastert Facing 'The Worst Of Both Worlds' Ahead Of Sentencing
CHICAGO -- The legal woes of once-powerful former House Speaker Dennis Hastert have gone from bad to worse.
A judge on Wednesday warned that false statements Hastert made to investigators last year will factor into his sentencing decision for a case that began as a white-collar crime probe and later unveiled claims of sexual abuse from decades ago.
"That's not conduct that's 40 years old, that conduct is ... a year old," U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin said, noting that he considered the particular conduct a "big" aggravating factor.
In a damning 26-page filing from last Friday, prosecutors detailed how Hastert's lies inadvertently led investigators to five separate claims of sexual abuse or misconduct from individuals who where on the high school wrestling team Hastert coached more than 40 years ago.
Among them was Individual A, who claimed Hastert molested him in a motel room during a wrestling trip when he was 14, prosecutors said.
Hastert had initially told federal investigators he withdrew cash in small enough amounts to avoid bank reporting rules (an illegal practice known as structuring) because he was being extorted by Individual A.
But after arranging to record Hastert demanding that Individual A end the extortion, investigators realized Hastert's claim of victimization didn't add up. Investigators found Individual A's response and tone to be "inconsistent" with that of an extortionist and noted he was even calm and understanding when Hastert said he couldn't get more money. In subsequent interviews, investigators learned from Individual A about the history of his relationship with Hastert.
Prosecutors said Individual A asked Hastert for $3.5 million in compensation for the alleged abuse and Hastert agreed, but refused suggestions they formalize the agreement with lawyers.
The judge's decision to flag Hastert's recent lie is "significant," said Patrick Collins, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago who prosecuted former Illinois Gov. George Ryan's corruption trial.
"That’s a pretty big deal — arguably, [Hastert's] calling the victim of his sexual misconduct an extortionist. It’s not exactly a way to curry favor with the government."
Hastert faces sentencing on April 27 over charges he tried to evade banking rules about cash withdrawals and lied about it to federal investigators -- a crime for which the recommended sentence is zero to six months, though it carries a maximum of five years in prison.
Hastert, who is now 74 and in poor health, admitted guilt in October as part of a plea bargain to avoid a highly public trial and even more public airings of the salacious abuse allegations.
"It’s sort of the worst of both worlds for him: He pleads guilty to avoid the details of the misconduct going public, but now because of his denials, they’re going public anyway," said Hugh Mundy, a professor at John Marshall Law School in Chicago and former federal public defender.
Both Collins and Mundy said the tone of the prosecution's sentencing position filing -- and subsequent response by Hastert's defense team, which suggests Hastert's "groin rub" and massage of Individual A doesn't qualify as sexual misconduct -- indicate the two sides disagree on what is appropriate punishment.
From a sentencing perspective, if there was ever a case where the tail is wagging the dog, it’s this one.
Patrick Collins, former assistant U.S. attorney
Hastert's defense team has previously argued that he should be sentenced to just probation as the humiliation over the sexual misconduct allegations is punishment enough.
"Mr. Hastert acknowledges that as a young man he committed transgressions for which he is profoundly sorry," his legal team said in a recent statement. Hastert has not explicitly admitted to the specific sexual misconduct allegations against him.
The lack of acknowledgment, Mundy said, will only make Hastert's sentencing day worse: One of his alleged victims and the sister of a now-deceased alleged victim are slated to testify at his hearing in two weeks.
"[Hastert’s] denials give the government a real avenue to bring in testimony that would otherwise be irrelevant in the sentencing," Mundy said. Mundy said the mitigating factors of Hastert's age and failing health will now be measured against those testimonies.
The statute of limitations for the alleged sexual abuse has long since lapsed, but Collins acknowledged it is undeniably compelling that prosecutors would want to see Hastert punished with more than what amounts to a probationary sentence. "It’s almost like getting Al Capone on tax violations: Is it fair to sentence a man for things that happened 40 years ago that he can’t legally be charged for?" Collins said. “From a sentencing perspective, if there was ever a case where the tail is wagging the dog, it’s this one." -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
   
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I Am Sorry
Last night, I was asked to speak at a rally for Senator Bernie Sanders as a physician and healthcare activist who supports him for president.
I did not clear my prepared words with anyone in the campaign and a portion of my speech has since generated tremendous outrage.
That part of my speech was
Secretary Clinton has said Medicare for all will never happen. Well, I agree with Secretary Clinton that Medicare for all will never happen if we have a president who never aspires for something greater than the status quo. Medicare for all will never happen, if we continue to elect corporate democratic whores who are beholden to Big Pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us.
Above all, I want to apologize to Secretary Clinton for my insensitive use of the word "whores" and to adamantly profess that this was never intended nor directed at her, as some have incorrectly interpreted. I have always had a deep respect for Secretary Clinton, and if people took the time to go through all my prior Facebook posts, tweets, and comments, one would see that I have been extremely careful never to attack her personally and if anything, I have tried to focus more on why I was supporting Senator Sanders.
Regardless of my original intent, there is no excuse for my poor judgment in using this word. The backlash has been swift and harsh, and rightfully so. To all fellow Americans who I have offended, I apologize to each of you too. I would kindly ask you to read the rest of this op-ed so I explain my true intent and context.
I also want to apologize to Senator Sanders. He is decent man and in no way deserves blame for my careless actions.
I have to admit that during this past decade of hyper-polarized politics and disrespectful discourse, I too have become insensitive in my use of harmful rhetoric and have become somewhat numb to its overall consequences. This experience has taken away my numbness and made me reevaluate myself, and my use of certain words. In truth, had this not happened, I probably would never have realized the inappropriateness of this term.
I would be lying to you all if I said that this was the only time I used the phrase "corporate whores," when in fact I have been using this phrase on occasion for many years, but I can honestly say it was always in the context of some members of Congress hence the plural. This experience has made me realize that I simply should no longer use this phrase at all.
As I mentioned, I am a physician who has been fighting for universal healthcare for the past decade. I was so optimistic when I first saw a 2003 video of then State Senator Obama touting his support for a Medicare-for-all plan. So, in the run up to the Affordable Care Act, like now, I was an outspoken and enthusiastic supporter of President Obama's efforts. I debated Ron Paul on Larry King Live and voluntarily travelled throughout the U.S. speaking to medical students, community groups, and anyone else who invited me in support of the President's push for healthcare reform.
As an oncologist for nearly 20 years, I have seen far too many of patients go bankrupt simply because they developed cancer. I have witnessed more of my patients each year being unable to afford rapidly escalating premiums and drug costs, and I have had to fight more and more with my patients' insurers just to get the approval of the care they needed.
I was wishful that the President's plan would address these problems and that we would have Medicare-for-all or at least a public option.
What I soon discovered is that there were over 3,300 registered healthcare lobbyists for the 535 members of Congress and that they spent over $1.2 million a day, and in total more than what was spent on the Bush Kerry election to influence legislation. And despite initially having a supermajority and filibuster proof senate, the president and the pubic got neither.
Then Senator Max Baucus, who was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, reportedly received over $1.5 million in the two years leading to the legislation. Several of his former staffers were prominent healthcare lobbyists and ultimately, it was Baucus who made sure that single payer and the public option were never even debated. In fact, he has been called the poster boy for campaign finance reform.
It was so bad that the well-respected medical journal called The Lancet published a special edition in 2009 in which it said "The health-care reform process exposes how corporate influence renders the US Government incapable of making policy on the basis of evidence and the public interest."
So while the ACA did indeed do some good things, there was no public option, no insurance rate regulation, and no prescription drug price control, and to many independent policy experts, it appears that the ACA was indeed largely written by the private insurance and pharmaceutical industry.
Thus, as I continually advocate for a better healthcare system I ultimately do blame those Democratic members of congress who stonewalled and prevented much more comprehensive legislation. As the Republicans made it clear that they would not cooperate or be supportive, their votes were not even needed until Senator Edward Kennedy's death, to pass real healthcare reform.
It is in this context that I referred to "democratic corporate whores". I have never said that all democratic members are beholden to special interests above their constituents. In fact, the record will show that I consistently support many of them. But, I think the facts will also show that there was excessive financial influence exerted by Big Pharma and the private insurance industry that ultimately stacked the deck in their favor.
This was the basis of my outrage and how I adopted the use of the "democratic corporate whores" terminology.
My explanation does not justify the use of the term, but I hope provides the context and better understanding that this was never directed at Secretary Clinton.
Regardless, I am sorry for the distraction and offense this has caused for so many, and I apologize once again to Secretary Clinton and her supporters. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
   
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First Nighter: Dena Blizzard's "One Funny Mother," Neal Brennan's "3 Mics"
It's been a while since Roseanne Barr flaunted her domestic-goddess self before the public. Therefore, room should exist for Dena Blizzard, as Miss New Jersey of 1995, no less, who's now cracking wise about her post-beauty-pageant home life in One Funny Mother, at New World Stages.
A Philadelphia working mother and wife, she could be labeled a stand-up comic, except she only stands up from time to time on the set Megan Peti designed to pass for Blizzard's living room and kitchen. Instead, she tells most of her jokes while sitting on a couch folding laundry that she pulls from a plastic basket or picks up from the floor. Occasionally, she wanders over to a kitchen table loaded with tchotchkes and extracts from a few of them bottles for swigging. She also puts away a fair amount of wine as she cracks wise.
Looking only slightly haggard from her daily household routines--and sporting a not inexpensive-looking hairdo--she talks about her three kids and husband Jim as representing the married/motherhood life for which no one ever prepared her. She gets around to post-honeymoon sex, the need for sympathetic friends, women's biological concerns (including complaining about over-sized breasts in contrast with over-sized penises) and other related subjects.
Because Blizzard is so direct and extremely natural when going about her 60-minute-plus tirade, she's appealing throughout. During a brief exchange she has with the audience, she's amusingly quick on the laugh-getting ad lib. You can hear friends saying over the years, "You're good enough to be on stage." They were right, and so now she's facing audiences--with Carl Andress, who knows how to advise funny ladies (or the funny ladies Charles Busch plays), consulting with her on how to go about it.
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Neal Brennan calls his show--which I took at first to be nothing more nor less than a stand-up routine--3 Mics. And sure enough he has three of them on the otherwise bare stage at the Lynn Redgrave. And that's his set-up for something that rather quickly establishes his intention as going beyond a typical comic's presentation. With the three mics, he actually ventures into what might be called deconstruction of the comedian's constitution.
When you're looking his way as he begins, he's at at the left mic reading one-liners that presumably he's recently scribbled. When he's delivered a handful, the lights go black. When they come up, he's at the mic on the right. He goes into a stand-up routine for 10 or 15 minutes. When the lights go to black then and come up again, he's at the middle mic, talking about his life-long depressions.
A reedy fellow in glasses and black shirt and trousers, he repeats the mic order three times, spouting extremely deft one-liners, extremely deft stand-up material and then offering thoroughly honest descriptions of his life as a depressive--part of his black moods, as he explains, the result of being raised by a father who admitted never loving him or his nine siblings.
There's no need to quote any of the jokes he tells while covering topics like politics today, dating, you-name-it. What's more pertinent is the overall effect of the unusual outing. As he does his three-way process, he's really sketching in a comic's existence. First, there's the comic putting his routines together by jotting down gags and then working them into his routines. Then--in what he calls his "emotional stuff"--there's who he is when he's off-stage simply being himself.
It's no news that many, if not most, comics are depressed and that their humor is a defense mechanism. And incidentally, it may not be a defense mechanism that ultimately works. For some comedians the material doesn't succeed in pulling them from their severe blues, which can have the effect of only depressing them further.
With 3 Mics, which is directed by Drew Barr, Brennan, whose resumé includes co-creating Chapelle's Show, is not just being the life of the party. He's making a bold gesture. He's confessing that a comic's fun very possibly emanates from a much darker place. If the best comedy is comedy based on truth about the human condition, Brennan is up there with the best. (Closed.) -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
   
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Newsletter Ambiente&Conflitti - Febbraio 2017