On The Reading of Books

 
We are coming to the end of another pleasurable Christmas weekend at my in-laws. The day did not go as planned, it was to be a finally day of writing. However, nature intervened, we got maybe five inches of snow in a couple of hours and the power went out. So instead we took the kids out to my sister-in-law's boyfriend's place out in Albany, enjoying hayrides, snowball fights, a roaring bonfire, and hot cocoa. It was a worthy exchange. We can always write, we cannot always do these things.

Melancholy accompanies the final evening before a departure. Though the power is back, the lights are on, we are in our pajamas next to a warm fire and a sleeping hound, ready to read until we choose to retire. There is the inevitable sadness that comes with returning to life as usual. New Year's Eve is ahead of us, but still. Christmas is only now coming to an end.

I am currently enjoying the first volume of Simon Callow's biography of Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu. Reading has been very difficult for me this year, as I have begun and then discarded several volumes, which I may or may not return to. Some I surely shall, others leave me doubtful.

Susan Orleans' Rin Tin Tin was a welcome gift last Christmas, which I began at that time with great interest. However, the outreach tour got in the way and it was shelved some one hundred pages in. I see it every day, it is waiting for me. Stay, old boy. I will be right back.

Trying to find something to inspire me in preparation of The Times (or as an excuse to see the movie when it is released) I tried for perhaps the fourth time to read Kerouac's On the Road. After twenty pages I decided once again that Capote was right. And you can look that up.

Finally, I waited until after the election to read Under The Banner of Heaven. I have very much enjoyed other works by Jon Krakauer, but worked mightily not to let Mitt Romney's religion affect my opposition to him as a candidate. I have found Mormonism to be no more nor less ridiculous than any other religion that exists on earth, but concentrating on the history of the most repellent people who practice it is as unfair as concentrating on those most repellent Catholics, Muslims or Jews. However, I was interested and began in interest, until the events of Newtown, CT made my taste for stories of paranoid, murderous Americans vanish, for the duration.

And so we return to biography, in particular one which was loaned to me by my father maybe a decade ago. Just as well, I had his copy of The Last Place On Earth for almost as long but finally read and thoroughly enjoyed that.

Othello (1952)

Orson Welles began to create a film-adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello in 1949. At that point in history, it was still common-place for white actors to “black up” (as they say) to play characters of African origin. Even Anthony Hopkins played the role in blackface for a BBC adaptation as late as 1981. By the late 1940s Welles was already in financial straits, the sheen of his 1941 Citizen Kane glory having been dulled by poor business decisions, unappreciated directorial efforts, and a sizeable amount of bad luck.

For three years, on and off, i.e. when he had cash saved up from acting in other people’s films, Welles would schlep his cast and crew to exotic locations like Morocco, Venice or Rome to pick up a few more shots. It has been speculated that, as he pieced together the film, in textual order, from the late 40s through the early 50s, race-sensitivity must have influenced him as through the film to Moor of Venice’s his complexion goes from shiny chocolate to dusky cocoa.

The film was released in 1952 and received the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (now called the Palme d’Or.) In America, however, it did not impress. It wasn’t even release in the US until 1955, at which time the New York Times opined, "There are flashes of brilliant suggestion in this tumbled, slurred and helter-skelter film. But they add up to nothing substantial; just a little Shakespeare and a lot of Welles."

When the old Heights Porn Art Theatre at Coventry and Euclid Heights Blvd. re-opened to much-fanfare as the Centrum in 1993, the single-screen theater had been divided into three, and each screen was given a name; the Columbi and the Roxanne (after local radio pioneer Chris Columbi and Plain Dealer film critic Roxanne T. Mueller) and the smallest screen, the Kane (yes, after Citizen Kane) which they said at the time was featured a screen that was best for black-and-white films. It was in this house that I saw the 1992 re-release of Welles’ Othello.

Though traveling to these locations was expensive, crumbling ruins of castles and ramparts made for cheap, exciting locations, and a great deal of it uses natural light (the sun is free.) The murder of Roderigo was improvised to take place in a "Turkish bath" because the costumes had been lost. They all wore towels. Orson Welles was a GENIUS.

Sources:
Wikipedia
The New York Times

The Intimate Bar

Emily Pucell as Dare Wright
Photo courtesy of Cassie Neumann

Do Do That Voodoo
Sept. 10, 2011
Pandemonium 11

Toni K. Thayer ... The Living Newspaper
David Hansen ... William F. McDermott
Emily Pucell ... Dare Wright
Joshua D. Brown ... Orson Welles
Geoffrey Hoffman ... Bernard Schrader
Eric Perusek ... your bartender


McDermott chats up Dare at the Intimate Bar in the Alcazar Hotel.
We had two great performances Saturday night, the "Lose Me Lodge" space had, perhaps 30 chairs in it which were filled at 8 PM and we were SRO at 8:55.

At the end of the brief performance, Toni was to hand out copies of McDermott's actual PD review of the "Voodoo" Macbeth, but she did one better and actually calling out the banner. Every audience member took one! And they had Josh's poster for It Can't Happen Here on the reverse.


Orson Welles shares a laugh with his driver ... or is Bernard yawning?
It was a sheer delight working with this team, even for only a few days. Having Josh back in town was a thrill, and he took the opportunity to play Orson Welles with great joy. Mr. Welles was in rare form that night ... it was hard for me to play half in the bag and focus on the other actors' faces, but I looked up at Josh one time when I was going off on some rant and he had this maniacal grin on his face, it was tremendous.


Welles quizzes the theater critic as he phones in his review.
This was my first time working with Geoff, and I hope to again.

I was ostensibly the "director" of this piece, I wrote it, it was short, our time was short, so I just told everyone what I wanted.

But he graciously offered several spot-on suggestions, which in the whirlwind of our time together I was extremely grateful to receive.

He really gave me an excellent note for the delivery of my last line which really put a nail onto the last moment. Well, the penultimate moment. The last moment was his, and that was super, too -- especially to our older crowd, who really got it.

This event also gave me the chance to do some revisions.


YES!!!
Photos courtesy of Margi Herwald Zitelli
After our second performance, it was time for dessert, to check out a few of the other shows ... and to finally get that Magic Hat.

Did I mention CPT received a one million dollar grant from The Kresge Foundation’s Building Reserve Grant program? So it was a good night for everyone.

Do Do That Voodoo

For those of you jonesing for a piece of this new play Centennial! ... the first public performance of one short scene from my unofficial history of Cleveland theater will be presented as part of Cleveland Public Theatre's annual benefit extravaganza -- PANDEMONIUM!
In 2003, then-Artistic Director Randy Rollison had the brilliant idea to kick out all the stops and create a mammoth benefit which would not only entertain and intoxicate (in all sense of the word) as many monied patrons as possible, but also to show off as many square inches of CPT's burgeoning campus as possible. At the same time, he solved the seemingly unending bane of the theaterworld -- mooching artists. Why yes you can have a free ticket! But you have to perform.

And we do. And we love it. Because no one wants to miss this party.

That first year Randy asked me to shepherd some actors together to present Neo-Futurist plays in the scene shop. And so for one night Magdalyn, Josh, Kelly and I were the New Guerrillas presenting Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind (by permission) an attempt to perform ten plays in ten minutes. A dozen audience members were seated in the freight elevator at the Levin lobby, were handed a menu of plays, dropped down to ground level, the doors swung open and the four of us started shouting at them for which play they wanted to see. After ten minutes a buzzer went off, the doors closed and the audience went away. It was such a hit we were asked to reprise it several additional times during the evening. Yes, I kissed Christine Howey on the mouth. Yes, I paid her two dollars.

What we were unaware of, sequestered in the bowels of the theater, was how expansive the rest of the party was. We simply hadn't seen it. After we were released, we went above and found a huge dance party going on in the Gordon Square and out into the then-unpaved parking lot. It was huge! Since then, we the acquisition of the Church and Fellowship Hall spaces, it has gotten even bigger.

In 2005 we were about to open the revival of The Vampyres and I provided a cutting from that play ... which was presented out of doors on a platform stage. It was just one of those cases of bad planning on my part, I was unable to participate in any of the technical preparations and just distanced myself from the entire event. It wasn't the year for it for me, with a two year-old and a new baby at home. When Beth asked if I was interested in providing something this year, I made sure the scene fit the venue.

Two years ago, my wife wrote a piece especially for the event, a tribute to the goddess Kali in the form of a Mary Kay party, a scene I was delighted to have participated in. Last year the theme for the night was Wild Thing and though I was unable to attend, I was very happy to send the actor-teachers from Great Lakes to teach happy, adult partygoers how we coach first graders to perform Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are. Apparently, it was quite a hit.
This year, my scene Do Do That Voodoo takes place in the Intimate Bar at the Alcazar Hotel following a performance of the Federal Theatre's Negro Unit touring production of Macbeth, directed by Orson Welles.

The scene will feature Toni K. Thayer as the Voice of the Living Newspaper, Emily Pucell as Dare Wright, Geoff Hoffman as Bernard Schrader, Joshua D. Brown as Orson Welles, Eric Perusek as the bartender ... and your truly as William F. McDermott.

Saturday, September 10. Pandemonium. Be there.


Evan Palazzo
"You Do Something To Me"

McDermott on the Federal Theatre's "Macbeth" (1936)

Charles Collins as Macduff

COLORED ACTORS TAKE MACBETH TO THE TROPICS
William F. McDermott
The Plain Dealer, September 30, 1936

A tropical and riotously colored carnival ... the gentle Bard of Avon is bedecked with voodoo dances, tom-toms, savage noises, strange writhings and as fine a set of fancy-dress ball uniforms as ever dazzled and audience.

The most extraordinary production of 'Macbeth' that the American theater has ever seen and it is one of the most interesting to pass this was in my time ... a good show and an exciting spectacle ... grotesque, wild, tumultuous.

As Shakespearean production goes it is a stunt, but a successful stunt ... many lines are lost because they who speak them have not enough practice in the delivery of blank verse... the critical moments are sometimes dimmed because the actors are obviously not equal to them ... yet, these colored actors succeed in bringing Shakespeare alive. They give him strange dimensions, they distort his meaning ... but they infuse him with some of their own excitement and lend him their own special nimbleness and pungency.

Colored folk are natural actors. They have histrionic temperament. They play spontaneously and with gusto. Their weakness is a tendency to overact. Shakespeare warned against it; but his plays can stand a whirlwind of passion. They are better overacted than underacted.

Maurice Ellis as Macbeth, Edna Thomas as Lady Macbeth, Canada Lee (Banquo) and Charles Collins (Macduff) are singled out for praise.

The director is never mentioned.

Newsreel footage of the Federal Theatre's "Macbeth"

Romeo and Juliet (1934)

Katherine Cornell & Basil Rathbone

For the record …
Plain Dealer critic William F. McDermott had been single since he and his first wife divorced in 1921. He remarried in 1938.

It was Katharine Cornell who famously staged a performance at McDermott’s apartment in Bratenahl in 1950 when he was ill and couldn’t make it downtown for the production.

William McDermott really, really liked Katharine Cornell’s work.

In 1934 Miss Cornell brought her production of Romeo and Juliet to the Hanna (she was the producer as well as star) where McDermott was bowled over not only by her work, but by that of the entire company, including the “minor roles”.

“I do not remember a single representation that seemed as sponstaneous and vital and enriching as this one at the Hanna last evening.”
- McDermott, The Plain Dealer, Dec. 11, 1934

He really, really liked the production.

I have edited the previous entry several times, but now I have it from the source: Orson Welles was playing Tybalt by the time the show came to Cleveland, which was one of its final dates before making the transfer to Broadway. Mercutio was performed here by Brian Aherne. Welles is praised by McDermott for his “fiery villainousness.”

Hanna Theatre

Built in 1921, the Hanna Theatre was a 1,421-seat proscenium-style Broadway touring house. The Hanna stands out from the other four major theaters (Ohio, State, Palace and Allen) that make up what is now known as Playhouse Square in a few distinct ways. 

Most obviously, the Hanna is located on East 14th Street and not Euclid as the others are. Additionally, the Hanna has a short lobby, like a Broadway house. The grand, palatial houses of Euclid Avenue had large, opulent lobbies. But from the street you could have a sold-out house and no one would know. 

Owner Carl Hanna wanted the audience to spill out onto the street, to generate public excitement for whatever was happening inside. These days, certain audience members do spill out onto the street, to smoke. 

In 1936, you could have seen taken in performances of:

• Tobacco Road ('White Trash' On View Again in Hanna Play - Cleveland Press)
• Katharine Cornell in Saint Joan
• Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! produced by the Group Theatre ("The most important play the Hanna has had this year." - W.Ward Marsh, PD)
• Burgess Meredith in both the world premiere of Maxwell Anderson's High Tor (opened Dec. 30) and earlier that year in Anderson's Winterset opposite Peggy Ashcroft.
• George M. Cohan in Dear Old Darling
• José Ferrer in Boy Meets Girl

And for the record, in late 1934, Orson Welles played the Hanna in a touring production of Romeo & Juliet, starring Katherine Cornell as Juliet and Basil Rathbone as Romeo. During the course of the tour Welles played Mercutio. Once it transferred to Broadway in December 1934, Welles assumed the role of Tybalt. 

The Hanna is now home to Great Lakes Theater. 

UPDATE: Happy 100th Birthday, Hanna Theatre!

Sources: Wikipedia 

From Broadway to Cleveland: A History of the Hanna (John Vacha) 

basilrathbone.net

Orson Welles

"I accept direction from one person...under protest."

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was born in 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin and immediately began directing Shakespeare. The product of what used to be called a "broken home" he was raised by a family friend, spent a great deal of time in private schools, and once ran away from home at age ten with the daughter of his guardian to be found with her days later singing and dancing on a street corner.

His alcoholic father died when he was fifteen, gaining a small inheritance which he used to travel to Europe where he lied about his credentials and began acting professionally. Returning to America he made a living as a radio actor, married an actress, fathered a child, and was chosen by John Houseman to perform for the Federal Theatre Project. Then he had his twentieth birthday.

His sensational FTP production of Macbeth went on tour following its New York run, visiting Cleveland in Fall, 1936. Much was made in the press when he recast the title role. Though Welles had bonded with former lead Jack Carter, the actor's drinking made sending him around the country a non-issue, and Maurice Ellis was given the role. In Indianapolis, Evans was too ill to go on and Welles flew out to assume the role in blackface.

The Cleveland performance must have been in the Carter Theatre (the address in the News was East 9th & Prospect in the "Federal Theatre") just prior to the run of It Can't Happen Here.

The March of Time

Time Inc. Created the newsreel The March of Time in 1935. An early foray at tele-journalism, several of the techniques pioneered by this successful featurette (they were continued through the early fifties) may be considered deceptive, or even unethical. Events were often re-created, performed by actors - or sometimes by the actual participants - on sets or soundstages far from the site of the actual stories, without any explanation that this was being done.

In addition, the stentorian, God-On-High voice of Westbrook Van Voorhis lent a heightened or exaggerated sense of importance to the proceedings. Orson Welles famously lampooned these films in Citizen Kane, providing entertaining exposition through a newsreel called News On The March.

The Cleveland Press drew a direct comparison to these newreels in their March 28, 1936 review of The Living Newspaper:

With simple staging and unique lighting, "The Living Newspaper dramatizes news events - local, national, and international - in an incisive and compact March of Time manner."

This comparison was also made in Variety.


A number of March of Time films will be broadcast this weekend on Turner Classic Movies (see today's New York Times for more details.)

Sources:
Wikipedia
The Cleveland Press
The New York Times

Research

Library research can be well=planned, it can also be a scavenger hunt. Having never been a very good student, not really, not ever, walking into the stacks and fill me with overwhelming dread. I have a laundry list of items to enquire about, but it's really a crap-shoot. And when they come up dry, and I have time ahead of me, and nothing to read, the feeling of failure looms large and just want to get outside, anywhere, away from the air conditioning, the guy typing way too loud on his laptop, and the people who tell me it doesn't matter I am from out of town, I cannot view an archive video without an appointment, even though the viewing room is entirely empty.

What has been thrilling about the Performing Arts Library are the Special Collections, many of which are catalogued on cards. Physical cards, in a card catalogue. Goodness, I was taught how to use one of those when I was in first grade, they are like the literary equivalent of an abacus. And listed therein are references to ... I never know what! Could be a thin manilla folder of loose, undated articles on Langston Hughes, or a single, brief, sticky tape-mounted article from Variety Magazine, or a large folder of crumbling performance posters carefully preserved in thick plastic sheathes.

Sitting, nearly defeated and only around 2.30 in the afternoon (place closed at 5, I had a date at 6) I found two microfilm references that intrigued me. One was the actual prompt script for Welles's Macbeth which was extremely interesting. It is a liberal, almost radical reworking of Shakespeare's text, attributing certain keys lines to different players, and collapsing the entirety of the action - it was almost cinematic to read.

Let me share one example: Macbeth returns home, greets Lady M. and tells her the King is coming. Almost at that moment, Duncan arrives! Malcolm gives the news of the death of Cumberland, Duncan praises Malcolm and names him heir - and then Lady M. says to Macbeth:

The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step
On which you must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in your way it lies.
The entourage departs, leaving the Macbeths, and they finish the original scene (abbreviated) the one where concludes "leave all the rest to me." A lot of story and action in a compacted space.

That, and Hecate comes off like a major badass.

The other was a microfilm not of any theatrical business, but a pamphlet called When Roosevelt Is Dictator - And How! (A Fascist Prophesy) - a response to "Red" (Sinclair) Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here. What on earth was this? In order to find out I needed to get to the Main Library on 42nd Street (you know, the one with the lions) and see if it was even there.

This I did. And for my pains I have a photocopy of this ten page document I intend to read on the plane ride home. A good deal of my research into this period in Cleveland involves understanding a mindset for a time and place I have never been. We have a flattened out depiction of the Depression, created by decades of documentaries, or more often than that Hollywood version (like say, Annie or more recently Kit Kittredge - I have a daughter) that plays out the same story of what things were like, but honestly, those movies make things look not so bad ... because they're movies. They certainly do not get into the details of the arguments from all sides, only two - New Deal good, New Deal bad. FDR good, FDR bad.

It Can't Happen Here was an obvious comment on Mussolini's rise to power, and to a certain extent Hitler's, and how that could happen anywhere. Therefore, it is a pro-FDR book/play, because we all know FDR was Hitler's chief rival and would eventually defeat him. And that it is a highly simplistic way to look at things, and based on events which had not yet happened.

I have read rumblings of those who believed Lewis's work could be an unintended metaphor for FDR's grab for total Executive power ... and now I have a document which is going to lay out one man's entirely thesis for this belief.

And for my purposes, that was worth the trip.

The Negro Theatre Unit presents "Macbeth" (1936)

The Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project featured a “Contemporary” branch and a “Classical” branch. Inarguably the greatest success of the Classical branch was its production of Macbeth, commonly referred to as “Voodoo” Macbeth.

This production, featuring an all-African-American cast, was directed by Orson Welles, and set his national career as a stage director. Citizen Kane still five years away. Welles was already a known star as a voice for radio, having established himself as the original Shadow. When Macbeth debuted on April 14, Welles was 20 years-old.

In 1937 Welles would direct what should be referred to as “Fascist” Julius Caesar, creating a Mussolini-type Caesar in a modern-dress production that starred himself as Brutus. For this work, his thinking went that as long as the task at hand were to create a large-scale Shakespearean drama featuring an all-black cast, it would be more acceptable to a modern audience to see this supernatural, blood-soaked tragedy set in a place like Haiti rather than Scotland. The actual setting is undefined, but the design strongly suggests the Caribbean.

There was controversy during the rehearsal process, and picketing. Many in the African-American community feared this would be a burlesque of some kind. When the production opened, and all could see that it was by all modern measure a legitimate presentation of Shakespeare’s work, and grand and exceptional, such criticism disappeared.

Hecate’s role, often cut from modern productions, was expanded. He was a cast as a large man with a whip, and delivers the final line of the production - The charm’s wound up. (In Shakespeare’s text, from Act I.) Professional African drummers were employed, but only five of the cast of over 100 were professionally experienced actors. However, this was often the case for Federal Theater Project productions.

Following a highly successful run in New York, the play went on tour. Referred to in an advance piece in the Plain Dealer as “bizarre” the show came to Cleveland in Fall, 1936.

Federal Theatre E. 9 & Prospect
NOW! New York’s Triumph now Cleveland’s Sensational Hit!
William Shakespeare’s MACBETH
(Original All-Colored Cast of 150)
Directed by Orson Welles
“Here is something bizarre, breath-takingly colorful and startling”
- Arthur Spaeth, Cleveland News
Eve 8:30 - Sat. Mat. 2:30
$1.00 - 75¢ - 50¢ - 25¢ Plus Tax
WPA Federal Theatre Project
(Oct. 1, 1936 - Cleveland News advertisement)

Review by William McDermott in the Plain Dealer

Source: Wikipedia, Cleveland News, The Plain Dealer

Howard Da Silva

He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Bertha Silverblatt. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage. He changed his surname to the Portuguese Da Silva, despite not having any relationship with Portugal. - Wikipedia

Da Silva was not involved with the Old Globe Theatre, though one of my earlier treatments of the subject puts him there. By 1937 he has moved to New York, joining the company of Orson Welles' infamous production of The Cradle Will Rock as well as the original production of Oklahoma! Like Wanamaker, he was blacklisted during the HUAC era. I know him mostly as Ben Franklin in the film version of 1776, a role he originated on Broadway.