There has been one full-length animated film based on Little Nemo in Slumberland and the characters of Winsor McCay. A Japanese-American co-production it was released in Japan (titled simply Nemo) on July 15, 1989.
The Miyazaki film Kiki's Delivery Service opened one week later, and as the McCay-inspired work is entirely tedious and predictable and Miyazaki is a fucking genius, Nemo was a box-office disaster. Perhaps its mediocrity has to do with the fact that Chris Columbus has co-credit as screenwriter and everything he touches is awful.
I had never watched Nemo until after the rehearsal process for our Adventures In Slumberland began last week. However, I knew exactly what it would be, and how it would fail, and in what shape I wanted my guide-script to take in order to avoid those obvious, traditional pitfalls.
I needn't have been worried. This film never concerns itself with homage, it's just a stupid, noisy kiddie flick.
Things that are awful about this movie include:
The first five minutes are a horrifying nightmare rife with nakedly Freudian "rushing train" symbolism.
Though McCay's entire concept is predicated on Nemo's desire to meet the Princess, here he finds the idea repugnant because she's a girl.
Flip is voiced by Mickey Rooney.
I could go on. What is most disappointing is just how pedestrian it is. Slumberland is exotic, perhaps, but nothing dream-like. McCay's stationary comic strip images are packed with explosive subconscious imagination, and nothing in this Nemo movie comes close. Huffalumps and Woozles owes much more to Little Nemo than Nemo does.
Nemo (the motion picture) also inspired a popular video game, Pajama Hero Nemo which is virtually indistinguishable from all other cabinet video games released in 1990 (X-Men, The Simpsons) in which a stationary protagonist while the background moves from right to left (side-scrolling) who just kind of destroys everything that enters their line of vision.
In 1983, only a few short years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the playwright Arthur Miller was invited to direct a production of Salesman in Beijing. He produced a book of his director's diary, which I picked up recently as a gift for a colleague.
Between getting it from eBay and wrapping it for presentation, I read the first chapter and promptly found another copy online for myself.
This was an odd thing to do for one significant reason -- I am tired of reading Arthur Miller talk about the works of Arthur Miller. As an undergrad I took a semester-long seminar with Al Kaufman on Miller, where I first dug deep into the works of this most-praiseworthy of American playwrights and was disappointed not only to discover that all of his plays feel pretty much the same (Crucible as one stand out exception) but that he spent an awful lot of time writing about what his writing means.
Didn't you say it in the play? Then why do you need to keep explaining it in The New Yorker?
However, this book is really about directing, and not about writing. His obstacles appear enormous, the most obvious that he has accepted the role of directing a play through a translator -- he speaks no Mandarin, his actors do not speak English. In addition, Salesman depicts a world which he does not believe his company (actors and designers) will be able to comprehend, that of Capitalist America.
But also too and on top of that the fact that the world of Salesman never existed in the first place. People do not actually talk like people talk in Arthur Miller plays. No one.
To his continuing credit, rehearsal day after rehearsal day, Miller reaches to explain his characters' incomprehensible motivations by asking open-ended questions about basic human nature. When one of his actors questions why a character like Charley is kind to Willy, who to them appears, at first, a consummate loser and somewhat deranged, Miller asks if the actor knows anyone they do not respect, but still likes. Of course they do, everyone does. At that time in China, however, such realistic human nature was not something they would choose to perform on a stage. It was not the stories they chose to tell, and so acting it was a challenge to be overcome, and Miller's script is full of those.
In his personal reflections, Miller learns as much about how his actors contribute to his work as his work contributes to their larger understanding of a world which had been closed to them for four decades.
He does have this grandfatherly racist way of describing the eyes of certain members of his company. As a writer, one who records what he sees, using, you know, words, I might have hoped that a man who fancies himself such a deep appreciator of human character could find some other way to look into the face of his Asian actors without saying that their eyes -----.* They don't actually do that, any more than anyone else's. His ignorance disappoints and knocks you back a bit. "Someone please ask grampa to stop talking."
By the end of the book (which concludes just as you would expect, after all the pitfalls and setbacks, opening night is perfect) I remain less convinced that Salesman is a transcendent work which addresses the universal longings and love of all humanity, and more convinced than ever that it is the medium -- live theater performance -- that can bring all peoples together to reveal our beautiful commonality.
*Update 10/5/2025: And here, in 2013, I had actually written the word. Some one ask grampa to stop talking, indeed.
This time last year I posted about all of the exciting developments on tap for the coming year. Three works in the works -- Double Heart, These Are The Times and Adventures In Slumberland were happening. Even then I was in dread -- good fortune and good works only last so long, for then, what next?
What next, indeed.
Let me begin by stating what now. Slumberland began rehearsals last week. We met the company. We read the script. I am ecstatic! I have to respect the process, and will probably not have much to say in the coming weeks about how it is progressing.
Suffice to say, I had an agenda when I wrote this piece. I know what I wanted it to be. Not just what I did not want it to be, but I wanted it to be a different kind of children’s production, and one which reflects the spirit and style of the comic strip upon which it is based.
Having written said script, I have handed it off to Talespinner Children's Theatre Artistic Director Alison Garrigan, with complete confidence and trust that magic will happen. I do not believe I have ever had as little input into the world premiere of anything I have ever written, and never been so happy to have it so.
The acting company consists of people I have (with one exception) worked with before, most quite recently -- Double Heart, These Are The Times and before that Henry VIII. The designers have made their presentations, or at least announced their intentions, and it is all gonna be one big candy-colored, dreamlike, comic strip, holiday festival!
Meanwhile, the first draft has finally come together for the 2014 Great Lakes Theater outreach touring production, Seven Ages. Nine years ago, when GLT last produced Shakespeare’s As You Like It, seven area playwrights were invited to write a ten-minute play inspired by one of the “seven ages of man” as described by the melancholy Jacques (AYLI II.vii) That play was also titled Seven Ages.
This year seven different area playwrights -- Nina Domingue, Christine Howey, Mike Geither, Anne McEvoy, Michael Oatman, Toni K. Thayer and myself -- were given the prompt to create a brief tale inspired by each of these “seven ages” to be told by one of four characters from AYLI; Jacques, the fool Touchstone, the lady Rosalind (disguised as a man) or her cousin Celia.
The end result is a swift, playful night of storytelling. Each playwright has been wonderfully engaged in not only writing these origial tales, but also helping knit them together into a seamless narrative. After the hectic summer I have just had, I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this draft in my hands, and ready to share with our incredible artists and designers.
Finally, and most unusual, I was contacted by a British touring company, Freerange Theatre. They were searching for productions for their 2013-14 season. Their mission states that they produce classic and also new writing, but what caught my attention was their claim that their company is “fuelled by the belief that theatre can, and should, make a difference.”
This past year they found success producing Lee Hall’s Spoonface Steinberg, a solo performance dealing with issues related to autism and cancer in children. Searching for a new kind of solo work, one which speaks to different troubling medical issues. And thanks to the modern miracle of Google, they reached around the globe and found I Hate This.
Had I ever considered letting another actor perform my most personal solo work? If you had asked me ten years ago (and some did) the answer would have been no. I couldn’t imagine it, that would have seemed … odd. Maybe even wrong. Because it is my story to tell.
But I have told it. Two years ago CPT gave me the opportunity to tell it once more, and I said at that time that I was done with it. I had been working with it for seven years, I had no plans to make it a business, taking it to hospitals and community centers and theaters for years and years. I am in my mid-40s. It is the story of a younger man. And if a different, younger man wants to tell it, then why shouldn’t he?
And much as with Slumberland, I have confidence that this company will produce it in a manner which will make me happy. How could they not? Here is the audition notice:
DAVID - mid 20's - Late 30's. Angry yet funny, vulnerable yet strong, and a great observer. A man living in the aftermath of the stillbirth of his first child.
This requires an actor of great sensitivity, capable of holding a stage on his own. Only 'honest' and natural actors need apply. you must be able to tell a story 'without acting'. That said, your story will be interspersed by portrayals of a range different characters so good physicality is essential.
My work is in good hands. They represent the age and gender, and that is all the story requires. Does it matter what race the man is? Not at all. Does it matter whether he employs an American accent? Now that I think of it, no it does not. The only suggestion I made upon agreeing to enter into this arrangement is that the show is supposed to be only an hour long.
Whatever happens, whoever they cast, wherever they go, I would dearly like to make the journey to see it.
The other night the Cinematheque was showing all three of Richard Linklater’s Before films - Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013).
When it was first released in 1995, I did not see Before Sunrise and probably and would never have thought again about it, if not for the fact that my brother once asked if I had seen it and telling me how much he had enjoyed it.
Before Sunrise (1995)
Indeed, if I had seen that first part, at the time, I do not believe I would have enjoyed it. I had never been any kind of fan of Ethan Hawke. I was amused by Hamlet (2000), I entirely despised Reality Bites (1994). The guy is my age and supposed to be this important Gen X indie character but he always has always struck me as just a much softer Matt Dillon, and a bit self-serious.
When I imagine watching the movie on first release, as a twenty-seven year-old, when his character (Jesse) lays down the “jump ahead ten, twenty years, and you’re married” gambit to lure Julie Delpy (Celine) off a train to walk the streets of Vienna for one night, I would have bristled at its far-too cleverness. The movie asks, "Don’t you wish you had the stones to say things like that to pretty girls?"
Of course, I know plenty of guys who do deliver monologues like that to pretty girls to try to get what they want. Those guys should know these pretty girls always tell me about these hilariously precious attempts over coffee -- and about the sprawling, defensive emails that arrive the morning after, and we laugh. It’s fun.
Actually, yes. I am one of those guys. Or I used to be. One of those guys who would say those things. Sometimes it worked, especially on one night in July, 1994, and if it hadn't, I would not have been sitting next to my wife at the Cinematheque last Sunday night.
She and I had originally planned to see all three, but her work and my need to continue certain important house projects brought us to the sound conclusion that we should see the first on the big screen, and if we liked it, we would check out the other two at some future date.
As the credits rolled for Sunrise I turned to my wife and said, "We're going to stay for the second one, right?"
Before Sunset (2004)
What seemed bizarre, and as I said, contrived about the “jump ahead ten, twenty years” speech in Sunrise is that we know now that there are now three films (to date) which chronicle a single relationship between two people which spans (to date) almost twenty years. Director Linklater could not have known, making this inexpensive, independent romantic slacker film, that any or all of the artists involved would be available or interested in producing a sequel. Name another earnest, romantic, low-budget movie with a sequel.
Nineteen years ago I couldn’t have imagined sitting where I was, either.
We ran into friends at the theater, between the first and second movies, who assured us the third one (Before Midnight) is actually the best of the three, which I found incomprehensible. My expectations for the second were now high, if only because I had just found the first so well-made film, and so moving. I was actually giddy with anticipation to watch Sunset. But how could this second film be ... different?
The fact that a duology (let along a trilogy) had never even been planned, that the director and actors came together to write another movie about the same characters at a different stage in their lives, made it about what is rather than what was. Sunrise, the fluid meandering of one long night, as two twenty-somethings get to know each other, and the places that evening's wandering takes them (palm readings, poetry for spare change) became in Sunset the frantic, desperate chattering of two people in their thirties trying to recapture something they had, uncertain as to whether they could.
It wasn’t until Monday that it struck me that the entirety of Sunset is in real time. From the bookstore to a café to a boat to a car to home, without a break. An inexorable, 80-minute progression to where they wanted to be but could never have gotten to nine years earlier.
One of the traps the second film avoids entirely is any drama about Hawke’s character being married with children. I was wondering when he would bring it up, his wedding ring is certainly conspicuous. But she already knows. She’s read about him, he’s a published author, that’s how she found him. It’s a fact of life, they’ve been apart nine years. What was supposed to happen?
Before Midnight (2013)
But that walk up the staircase, and then settling into her apartment. Making tea, listening to music, slowing down, he knew he wasn't leaving. I was reminded of when my first marriage was falling apart, when I was already seeing the woman I am now married to. We had fooled around, it was frantic, my wife knew about that. She hadn’t said no.
Then we began arranging visits. Because I wanted to know what it was like to be normal with this new person. I told my (then) wife I was planning to get back to New York, to spend time there doing things with our mutual friend.
“You want to try it out,” she said. She knew. She was absolutely right.
We left after Sunset. We had to. A babysitter was watching our kids, my wife had papers to grade, I had grocery shopping to do. It felt like a such a betrayal, stopping here, leaving Celine and Jesse behind, when we knew there was more to the story, the hardest part -- the part where they are our ages. I mean, the ages we are right now.
She and I meandered around the Case campus, trying to find a place to eat. We walked and talked. I was giddy after the first film, after the second I just ached.
But I was relieved. So much frantic longing, which I am glad to say is in my past. I hadn’t waited, I took the leap back then and while it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t nice. But it is impossible to say that it was wrong.
Winners of the FringeNYC 2013 Overall Excellence Awards were
announced by festival Producing Artistic Director Elena K. Holy during a
brief ceremony at The Cutting Room in New York late last night.
Our own Lisa Ortenzi received an Award for Overall Excellence in Directing for her work on Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick)! This
honor reflects well on the production as a whole, but most significantly on Lisa's strengths as a director and the entire Double Heart company is thrilled
and excited at her achievement. Way to go, Lisa!
Awards
were selected by an independent panel of over 40 theater professionals.
My companions at Sleep No More, James and Emily, reported strange, performance-induced dreams the following night. I had no such dreams that night. In fact, it took two days to decompress following that event and to truly sort things out.
I do not normally reflect immediately upon emotionally-effecting events. I can say good-bye to someone I know I will never see again, and be sincere and even wistful, but never cry, not then. That comes later when I am suddenly surprised by a reminder of their being and the full weight of loss and sorrow crash upon me like a fool.
We saw the show on Friday. Our final performance in New York was last Saturday. We packed up and departed on Sunday. James slept for a couple hours in the early afternoon and I drove in silence, and that was when I had the chance to think. I thought about everything, the previous ten days -- the whole summer, really -- and all of it rolled together into one big thing.
This was a theater festival for the record books, if because this time I was not alone. Very little downtime, if I did not choose to act, then someone was choosing an action for me. I did not go from point A to point B without stopping at points C, D & F to meet one or another friend, colleague or family member. So many places, people and things.
And then there was the witch, or nurse, whatever she was. The one who chose me. Because that's part of the attraction, you know? That's what the people hope for, it's not about the one-on-one performance experience. You could get that in one of the open rooms just because no one else happens to be there at the time. When one of them chooses you ... well. That means there's something special about you, right? Even if you are wise enough to know that there isn't. You can't help it.
It was entirely by chance, because I knew these things happened, but it still took me entirely by surprise. It happened like this:
There is this corner room, with a platform elevation, all the walls floor to ceiling painted in black, I passed through it quickly once, but heading through again saw a nurse, a brunette, writing something on the wall. I went and stood next to her. She was writing the same thing over and over again.
The Thane of Cawdor The Thane of Cawdor The Thane of Cawdor
That's when I assumed she must be a weird sister. (Patrick Stewart's recent TV version of Macbeth featured witches in the guise of nurses, too.) The music changed, she stiffened, and walked out of the room. I followed, as did many others, through the branch-maze, but then we encountered another witch, the red-haired one.
They stared at each other, but then she looked at me. Unconsciously, I had put my left hand over my heart. Was that what she noticed, that I was lost in it? That was when she offered her hand.
As I said, I won't describe what happened when she took me by the hand and led me into her little room ... except for this, because this was most troubling.
Near the end of our time together, in that little room, she again took my by the hand, and held me hard. Then she leaned back in her chair, holding me to the length of her entire arm, trembling and shaking me. She sighed piteously, and just I thought she was going to pull me off my seat, she yanked me close and whispered in my ear.
That done, she let me go, and showed me out the door, and as I took the last step turned to see her slowly close the door behind her, and to the last the light of her eyes were bent on me.
This final image has been blazed into my thoughts, as though it were a lost memory of something I had once experienced, some haunted, familiar recollection. It took an entire week before I finally realized where this had happened before.
Oph. He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard,
Then goes he to the length of all his arme,
And with his other hand thus ore his brow,
He falls to such perusall of my face
As a would draw it, long stayd he so,
At last, a little shaking of mine arme,
And thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe,
He raisd a sigh so pittious and profound
As it did seeme to shatter all his bulke,
And end his beeing; that done, he lets me goe,
And with his head ouer his shoulder turn'd
Hee seem'd to find his way without his eyes,
For out adoores he went without theyr helps,
And to the last bended their light on me.
