Rome & Canterbury: The Elusive Search for Unity

My first reaction to the idea of unity between Roman Catholicism and my beloved Episcopal tradition was, why? We don’t want to give up our women clergy and be subjected to the Pope’s authority, to name two stumbling blocks, and they aren’t exactly seeing it our way. To me it just seemed better to let us each do it our own way. I grew up in the Roman tradition, but my identity now is strongly Episcopalian; I like being Catholic but not Roman, loving the same tradition and sacraments, but in a way I find much more open and inclusive.

Mary Reath, author of Rome & Canterbury: The Elusive Search for Unity, makes a strong case for the importance of unity, as well as its possibility. Reath has served on vestries at two New York Episcopal parishes, Trinity Church and St. Luke in the Fields, and is a governor of the Anglican Centre in Rome. While working on this book, she was a visiting scholar at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA.

Reath’s mother was Roman Catholic and she, herself, attended Catholic grammar school. Her interest in the idea of unity began during a course she took at the Anglican Centre in 1998. “I was fascinated and, more accurately, stunned to learn that the divisions in Christianity were seen not as a given, but just the opposite rather,” she writes. “The church’s redeeming message of love and hope for all is compromised, when it is itself divided. Furthermore, that there were and are determined high level talks working to rebuild relations and to bring the churches back together.”

She returned home “craving to understand more about what it was that really separated these two prominent and influential worldwide churches.” She found a great deal of scholarly material, but not much written for lay people, “and certainly nothing that covers this search for unity from the historical, doctrinal, and practical angles.”

She has written that book, and her work has led her to believe the efforts toward unity will bear fruit. She quotes Cardinal Walter Kasper who said that when Germans awoke on Nov. 9, 1989, after dreaming that their children might someday walk through the Brandenburg Gate, they had no way of knowing “that they themselves would do it that afternoon.”

My spiritual director, an Episcopal priest, used to pray everyday for the unity of the two traditions, even though she is a cradle Episcopalian. After reading this book I, who have lived in both worlds, also understand the value in finding unity. I’m just a bit more skeptical than Reath about it happening anytime soon. But then, as Cardinal Kasper pointed out, walls can come down when we least expect them to.

Reath says secular leaders are facing similar issues in considering bonds and boundaries between countries, and that this is part of the reason for the identity crisis between the two traditions. “We place enormous emphasis on personal choice and on private conscience; it’s hard for us to see the need for the universal, for the group. But when you get right down to it, individual freedom is meaningless in isolation. It only comes into play when we are in relationship and participate in the give and take of establishing the common good for all.”

With this book, she has made an important contribution toward this goal.

Cry-Baby: The Musical

This latest John Waters-inspired Broadway musical is like candy, it’s enjoyable while you’re experiencing it and it leaves you with the equivalent of a sugar high for a couple of hours, but its pleasure doesn’t really stay with you. It is, though, a really good time while you’re there.

Of course, being the fact that this is a John Waters work, the humor is on a high school level, but a lot more fun high school than the girls’ prep school I went to in Baltimore County. Rob Ashford’s choreography also reminded me of high school; many of the moves are right out of gym class. That was OK because the dancers are good -- and so high energy.

This musical is based upon the Universal Pictures film by the same name written and directed by John Waters, which I had never heard of. This version has songs by David Javerbaum, the Emmy-winning executive producer and former head writer of “The Daily Show,” and Adam Schlesinger, Oscar-nominated for the song “That Thing You Do” from the film of the same name.  Cry-Baby’s book is by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, who received the Tony Award for best book for their work on that other Waters-inspired musical, Hairspray.  Cry-Baby is directed by Mark Brokaw. John Waters serves as creative consultant.
 
Cry-Baby is set in 1954 in a lively and fun Baltimore that bears no resemblance to the one I grew up in,  other than it features the opposing worlds of blue bloods and “trash.” Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker belongs to the latter. (He got his name because he cried when his parents were executed for supposedly being communist spies, but let’s not get into that part of the “plot.”) Cry-Baby falls for Allison, a good girl from the Maidenhead Country Club who is instantly drawn to this bad boy who is so different from the boys in her circle. She wants to escape her world of bobby soxers and a barbershop quartet that sings songs like “Thanks for the Nifty Country” on the Fourth of July and “Squeaky Clean,” which they are proud to be.

There’s absolutely no suspense, of course, in wondering if she will end up with him. You saw Grease! right? (How many times have we all seen Grease!?)

James Snyder, making his Broadway debut, is winning as Cry-Baby; Elizabeth Stanley as Allison is fine in her acting, but she’s got one of those annoying Broadway shouting voices that is becomes tiresome. Harriet Harris, who was so fabulous in her Tony-winning role in Thoroughly Modern Millie, is a hoot as Allison’s grandmother, Mrs. Vernon-Williams.  All of the members of the ensemble are solid.

I think it’s funny that Baltimore is using this latest Waters musical as promotion for the city. An ad will run in Playbill that says: “You’ve seen the musical, now visit the set.” A Baltimore.org site will direct tourists to John Waters hangouts; I used to see him from time to time in bars, restaurants and a movie theatre downtown when I lived there. My old hometown gets a lot of bad publicity for its high crime rate. I guess connecting to John Waters seems like a step up.

Take Me Along

Whenever I sit down to write a review of an Irish Rep production I think of the movie “L.A. Story.” Steve Martin played a TV weatherman who couldn’t get time off for a fling with a new girlfriend, so he prerecorded his forecasts and left town. He figured the weather in southern California was always the same, so with a change of sports jackets he recorded a few different spots, smiling and announcing how beautiful the next day would be. The humor, besides the idea of prerecorded weather, was that a huge storm hit the area and no one had taken in their lawn furniture, which flew through the air and caused much damage, causing him to lose his job.

The first half of that applies to reviewing an Irish Rep play. I know the acting will be excellent, the direction also will be, as well as the sets and anything else connected to the show. All I have to do is provide the appropriate names. In the case of the winning current production, Take Me Along, those would be the following: cast -- Ashley Robinson, Nick Wyman, Donna Bullock, Beth Glover, Don Stephenson and Emily Skeggs in the primary roles, backed by a skilled supporting cast; direction -- Charlotte Moore, who is also the theatre’s artistic director, and sets -- James Morgan, who was sitting in front of me, which was nice because I could tell him personally how much I liked the colorful, almost cartoon-like mural of a small town that is the dominant element of the set.

This production also needs a shout-out to the musicians, under the direction of Mark Hartman -- Steve Gilewski (bass), Nicholas Di Fabbio (banjo, guitar) and Jeremy Clayton (woodwinds) who play the songs of Bob Merrill's 1959 musical version of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!.


Take Me Along is a refreshing change from all the current shows about highly dysfunctional families, portraying an idealized slice of life in a small Connecticut town on the Fourth of July in 1920. The mother and father love each other and show it, and the two romances end happily. A director’s note said this is the family O'Neill always wished for but never had.

I had never heard of this musical, but I probably should have because its creator was no slouch. Bob Merrill was an American pop songwriter ("How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?"), theatrical composer and lyricist, and screenwriter. He made his Broadway debut in 1957 with New Girl in Town, a musical adaptation of O'Neill's Anna Christie. His other credits as composer-lyricist include Carnival!, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Henry, Sweet Henry and Hannah…1939. His most famous musical is Funny Girl, for which he wrote lyrics ("People," included) to composer Jule Styne's score. Merrill was nominated for a Tony Award eight times. (Following years of ill health, he committed suicide in 1998.)

Take Me Along includes such charming tunes as "Staying Young" and the sweet duet "But Yours."

As predictably fine as Irish Rep productions are, I won’t “prerecord” my reviews because I wouldn’t want to miss a show. The only suggestion I have is to eliminate the intermission, which was so long people all around me were commenting. My friend Mary said she wondered if she’d still remember the story when we finally returned to it. I’m sure it had to do with trying to accommodate audience members waiting for the limited restroom facilities, but if people can sit through a two-hour movie without a break they ought to be able to sit through a delightful two-hour musical without one. Please think about it, Charlotte.

Take Me Along has been extended through May 4 at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Chelsea. For more information visit www.irishrep.org.

Nancy LaMott DVD

I don’t usually like music DVDs because to me they’re like watching a play or musical on TV; they feel too distant. I had just the opposite reaction, though, to I’ll Be Here With You, a collection of live performances of my favorite cabaret singer, Nancy LaMott. It spans two decades, starting in 1978 and going until her death, at 43, of uterine cancer in 1995.

I am so grateful to David Friedman for compiling and producing this chance to be with Nancy again. She had sung many of his wonderful songs through the years, works I love so much like “Listen to My Heart,” “We Can Be Kind” and “I’ll Be Here With You.” He promised her she would not be forgotten and that he would get her music out there to a large audience. Her beautiful voice has been blessing my life all these years through four recordings she made and one of unheard performances assembled and brought out by her friends after her death. Now with this DVD of 24 live performances, I can appreciate her extraordinary voice as well as her lovely spirit and playful personality.

I knew a great deal about Nancy’s fascinating, and often painful, life, but the DVD made me feel I knew her personally, and I enjoyed watching her grow and change. It was delightful to see her in the early days as a San Francisco club singer, looking a bit like the young Princess Di with her short bowl haircut and chubby face, and then to see her transform into a bubbly New York cabaret star and finally a slimmed-down, poised, mature singer. At every stage, what is so appreciated is that rich, sensitive voice, captured now forever thanks to footage from appearances at the Algonquin's Oak Room and on "Live! With Regis & Kathie Lee." Songs include "The Waters of March," "The Best Is Yet to Come" and "Moon River." The latter was performed on the "Charles Grodin Show" just nine days before Nancy's death. The DVD also includes a photo montage and a "Broadway Beat" interview conducted with LaMott in 1994.

A TV movie about Nancy’s life is being made, and it was certainly a life that will make a compelling movie. Raised in Midland, Michigan, Nancy began singing as a teenager in her father’s band. Around this time she also developed Crohn's disease, a bowel disorder for which she would endure many surgeries over the years, causing her much financial hardship, and leaving her in pain a great deal of the time. I heard an interview with her brother after her death and he said she was often in so much pain she could barely made it to the stage, but she did, and always walked out with a big smile. He said she often sang her best when she was in the most pain.

Despite the illness, she knew she had to get out of Midland to pursue her dream, so at the age of 19 she and her brother, Brett, who was her drummer, headed out to San Francisco where she became one of the most sought-after cabaret singers in the area. Then, when she felt she was ready to try the big time of New York, she went thanks to a friend who bought her a plane ticket because he believed in her talent so strongly; she was too broke from her medical bills to fund the move. She arrived in NYC with $1,000, borrowed two lawn chairs for furniture and began looking for work as a singer while working as an office clerk during the day.

The success she had found in San Francisco reoccurred in New York. According to nancylamott.com, from which much of this biographical information comes, “Nancy quickly became known in the small circle of the cabaret world as one of the great singers of her time, but her momentum toward success was always interrupted by illness, surgery and the resulting lack of funds. People were captivated not only by Nancy’s talent, but by her simple goodness and beauty of spirit, and she made many good friends, including David Zippel, Mark Sendroff, Bill McGrath and Bob Baker, who were there for her triumphs and helped her through the bad times.”

Up until now, she was a well-kept secret of the cabaret world, but in 1989 she met composer/conductor David Friedman who thought she should be making records and offered to produce them himself. Through her records, Nancy’s popularity spread to a wider circle and she began breaking attendance records at some the most prestigious clubs in New York, including the Chestnut Room at Tavern on the Green and the world famous Oak Room at the Algonquin.

With all this good fortune, Nancy still had to deal with her medical problems and surgeries. Finally, her disease became too serious, and she was forced to have an ileostomy, a life-changing operation. For the first time she felt well and could eat whatever she wanted. With her newfound energy and health, her career really took off.

She began touring extensively and was discovered by WQEW disc jockey Jonathan Schwartz, which led to her being played on 1,000 radio stations all over the country. Kathie Lee Gifford became a huge fan and played an enormous part in promoting Nancy nationally and also in personally supporting her toward the end of her life. During this time Nancy sang twice at the Clinton White House.

It was in March of 1995 that she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She chose to do hormone therapy as opposed to surgery so she could complete the greatest album of her career, Listen To My Heart, with a full orchestra led by the legendary Peter Matz.

Just after her diagnosis, Nancy was in San Francisco doing an AIDS benefit when she was introduced to actor Pete Zapp. They quickly fell in love and began a bicoastal romance.

In July, Nancy was told that the hormone therapy had not worked and that she needed to have a hysterectomy. She postponed it one month so she could play the Algonquin one more time. As soon as that engagement was over, Nancy had the surgery and was told the cancer had spread slightly and she would need chemotherapy. During this period, she kept performing, doing a sold-out week at Tavern on the Green, and even fulfilling concert dates around the country. Then she would have a chemo treatment and spend a week recovering at Kathie and Frank Gifford’s Connecticut estate.

The chemo and the disease began to take their toll, and just a few days after her last performance, on "Charles Grodin," Nancy was taken to the hospital and her friends and family were told that she had just a couple days to live.

Peter Zapp and her family and friends rushed to her side. On Dec. 13, President and Mrs. Clinton phoned her in the hospital to wish her well. David Friedman promised her that the whole world would hear her sing. And that night, in the last hour of her life, Father Stephen Harris performed a bedside wedding ceremony for Nancy and Peter.

Nancy LaMott had it all, if only for 45 minutes. She died with friends and family around her, married for the first time in her life, and knowing she was on her way to far wider recognition.

A public memorial service was held for her on Feb. 11, 1996, at St. Paul the Apostle Church in New York City, with 1,500 people in attendance, including Margaret Whiting, Tony Bennett, Peter Matz, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

I hope you will order this blessing of a DVD, and please do what I’ve been doing all these years when I listen to that ever-so-special voice, say a prayer for Nancy.

I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda

What a beautiful and touching play. I was completely involved in this story of Juliette, a young survivor of the Rwandan genocide, and her attempts to find healing through writing. Susan Heyward isn’t just an actor playing a role, she is Juliette. I believed she was every step of the way.

The play is part of a multimedia arts event presented by Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, St. Peter’s Church and Through the Eyes of Children: The Rwanda Project. A beautiful, life-affirming photo exhibit complements the show and can be seen, like the play, through May 4. The theatre and gallery are at St. Peter’s Church, 54th Street just east of Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

My only disappointment, and it was a deep one, was that fewer than 50 people were in attendance. Perhaps the subject scared them away, and that’s unfortunately because this is not a depressing play. Although the personal account Juliette eventually reveals to her writing teacher, played well by Joe Menino, is horrifying, the healing she finds through the telling and through their deepening relationship is affirmative -- resurrectional. I strongly recommend this play.

I also encourage you to stop in one day to see the photos, taken by orphaned survivors of the genocide. The pictures are of everyday life in post-genocide Rwanda, and they are a shining glimpse of resilience and hope. Photos of the young artists, aged eight to 18, are on display as well, and I could only marvel at their big, proud smiles, these young people who had lost their families and seen such staggering violence. My faith in God is badly shaken when I read about atrocious like those in Rwanda and Darfur, but looking at those smiling faces I can once again believe there is a God who cares. That remarkable capacity to live again and find joy could only come from God.

Juliette is the fictional demonstration of this, but she is based on a real person. British playwright Sonja Linden was inspired by a young refugee she worked with through the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. This woman, like Juliette, had been plagued by headaches and nightmares. What started as a testimony to the horrors her family suffered became her vehicle for healing. She told Linden, after two and a half years of writing her story and confronting her emotion and pain, that she felt “clean” and that the headaches and nightmares stopped. This, also, is Juliette’s experience.

Linden says when she hears criticism about the long title of her play she sees it as “symptomatic of the West’s indifference to a genocide taking place in a tiny country, off the map, in faraway darkest Africa. Similarly my long title is a deliberate challenge to our short attention span where Rwanda is concerned.”

In 2004 she wrote about another motivation for writing this play: “As the daughter of refugees from Nazi Germany, I have felt all the more compelled to draw attention to this appalling late chapter in 20th century history, a chapter that has such strong parallels with the Final Solution. Tragically, as I write this, a new genocide threatens in Western Sudan, transgressing once more the idealism of the post-Holocaust slogan of ‘Never Again.’”

To learn more about the Rwanda Project, visit www.rwandaproject.org. For tickets to the play, visit www.PhoenixTheatreEnsemble.org.

The art of mime

I met Carlos Martinez two weeks ago at a CITA (Christians in Theatre Arts) gathering in midtown. He and his wife, Jenny Findeis, were visiting New York for the first time. After they returned home to Germany, Jenny sent me “Hand Made,” Carlos’ latest DVD of mime stories. What a blessing it is to reconnect to this wondrous form of theatrical expression. I love this DVD.

It’s easy to see why Carlos was selected by the audience to win the prize of honour for the best show at the XXI Almada Theatre Festival in Portugal. He has such love for his characters -- he becomes them as he brings everyday experiences to life in shimmering detail. Mime “allows you to see what you do not see,” he explains, and it’s true. A trip to the barber, waiting for a bus, these ordinary things are lost to our consciousness through their very routineness. But not when Carols portrays them, with a twist. For more than 25 years he has been refining his art so that he can communicate easily around the world. “Hand Made” has subtitle selections so that Carlos’ setup commentaries in Spanish can be understood in English, French and German. But the DVD can also be played without the commentaries because none is needed. His calls his characters his “loyal travel companions and imaginative translators” who take over on stage and “speak” for him.

In his bio, Carlos says he was fascinated by the "woodcarving expressiveness of mime and its plain reduction to the essential.” Without words, props or ornamentation, he wants the audience to experience on a sensory level “the entire story of their minds.”

Carlos’ previous DVDs, also based on his touring shows, are “My Bible,” in which he brings to life stories from the Bible from a surprising perspective, and “Human Rights,” for which the Declaration of Human Rights becomes truly human. He also conducts seminars and workshops. You can see trailers on Carlos’ web site, www.carlosmartinez.es, or on www.youtube.com/carlosmartinezactor. All three DVDs can normally be ordered through www.filmbaby.com (for USA) and www.kleinkunst-shop.de (for Germany and other European countries).

I first fell in love with mime at my beloved CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore. I started volunteer ushering there when I was in high school as a way to see all their shows for free.  Sophie Wibaux and Bert Houle, who as I recall were husband and wife, choreographed “Julius Caesar” in the 1972-73 season and included their mine. It was spellbinding to watch them perform their wordless dialogue of Shakespearean drama. As I remember, they were part of CENTERSTAGE’s resident company and were incorporated into shows over several years. That would certainly be in keeping with CENTERSTAGE’s creative approach to theatre. Wibaux and Houle have written that ''mime is the art of touch, not intellectual or physical, but emotional touch.''

I extended an open invitation to Carlos to perform at Broadway Blessing if he is ever in New York on the second Monday of September. Until then I will enjoy “Hand Made.”

Xanadu CD

The goodies have begun to arrive! A package from “The Xanadu Family” was waiting at my door when I came home Monday. Inside was a huge glossy souvenir book of the show and the cast recording. The book I’ll donate to the Performing Arts Library, but the music is fun. I put it right on and was dancing around my apartment.

This is an especially good time to be a theatre critic because we’re coming into voting season and producers shower us with reminders of their shows. This practice will pick up even more after our nominations are announced April 28 at the Friars Club. I love checking my mailbox at this time of year, or seeing what is in front of my door. I learned years ago not to go right out and buy a cast recording after seeing a show I love. I wait to see if a copy arrives with the spring flow.

It’s always fun to be courted!