Word of the Week - BUNCOMBE

Posted by Hannah Miller

Welcome to the first Word of the Week. My plan is to pick a playwright, actor or other well known theatre professional every week, someone whose birthday was celebrated during the preceding seven days. I’ll write a short bio of his or her life and accomplishments, select an interesting word from his or her work, define it, and put it out there for whatever it’s worth.

This week’s theatre artist is BEN HECHT (pictured above) and this week’s word is BUNCOMBE.

Ben Hecht was a great American playwright, an Oscar-winning screenwriter (mostly uncredited), and an internationally recognized Jewish activist before, during and after World War II. A character based on Ben Hecht was portrayed by Scott Wichmann in Barksdale’s recent comedy Moonlight and Magnolias. Moonlight is a somewhat fictionalized depiction of the emergency re-writing of the screenplay for Gone With the Wind.

Ben Hecht was born on February 28, 1894 in New York City. He moved at an early age to Racine, Wisconsin. He was a child prodigy violist and circus acrobat. He started his career as a writer in Chicago while still a teenager, working for the Journal and the Daily News. In 1923, he founded his own paper, the Chicago Literary Times, and lost all his money. During his Chicago years, he met and befriended Charles MacArthur who was working for the City News Bureau. In 1926, both men moved to NYC to pursue careers as writers of plays and novels.

In New York, Hecht received a telegram from another friend, Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently moved to Los Angeles. "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." He meant millions of dollars. Lured by this promise of prosperity, Hecht moved to L A and began a lucrative career as a screenwriter.

Dividing his career between Hollywood and New York, Hecht co-authored three Broadway plays with MacArthur: The Front Page (1928), Twentieth Century (1932) and Ladies and Gentlemen (1939). The first two are American classics. Barksdale produced The Front Page at Hanover Tavern in 1974, and both Swift Creek Mill and the Henrico Theatre Company have produced the musical comedy On the Twentieth Century, based on the Hecht/MacArthur play.

In his autobiography, A Child of the Century, Hecht wrote, “The American of 1953 is a cliché-strangled citizen whose like was never before in the Republic. Compared to the pre-movieized American of 1910-1920, he is an enfeebled intellect. For forty years the movies have drummed away on the American character. They have fed it naïveté and BUNCOMBE in doses never before administered to any people. They have slapped into the American mind more human misinformation in one evening than the Dark Ages could muster in a decade."

BUNCOMBE – (bŭng'kəm) noun – empty or insincere talk, claptrap, hogwash, nonsense

The word originated during the debate in the U S Congress regarding the Missouri Compromise, circa 1820. Felix Walker, an old and fading moutaineer representing Buncombe County, N C, rose to speak after the question had been called. With numerous congressmen begging him to sit down and be quiet, he persisted in delivering a lengthy lecture that had nothing to do with whether Missouri should be admitted to the United States as a slave state or a free state. In his ramblings, he said he felt compelled to “make a speech for Buncombe,” despite having nothing to add to the debate. Today, BUNCOMBE is frequently shortened to BUNKUM or BUNK.

Despite earning his fortune from the movies, Hecht had little respect for American filmmaking. He thought most movies were as meaningless as Felix Walker’s Congressional ramblings, nothing but a load of BUNCOMBE.

Hecht died of a heart attack at the age of 70 on April 19, 1964, while working on the script for the first movie version of Casino Royale, a “pointless” satire (according to critics of the day) in which the character of James Bond was played by multiple actors including David Niven and Peter Sellers. It sounds like exactly the kind of movie that inspired Hecht's grumblings.

Nonetheless, Hecht will go down in theatre history as co-author of two classic American comedies, The Front Page and Twentieth Century.

--Hannah Miller

Language - Part III: Our Latest Offense and Censorship Elizabethan Style

Posted by Bruce Miller
The following comments were phoned in to Theatre IV’s general voice mail yesterday (Sunday) by a very distressed older woman. I’m quoting the message in its entirety, word for word. “We’re just wanting to know why in the world Barksdale chose such a play as Doubt. That is obnoxious in every way. And we are grossly disappointed in the selection of that play. And we just wanted to express our sincere regrets.”

Click.

Had the distraught woman left her name and/or phone number, we would have called her back today, respectfully, and offered her tickets to Greater Tuna or some other play to replace the tickets she is apparently holding to our upcoming production of Doubt. But as is so often the case, the message was left anonymously.

As a further wrinkle, we suspect she may not have named the play she intended to condemn. In some ways, it makes more sense if she had just seen Moonlight and Magnolias and was among those who objected so strenuously to the language in that comedy. Doubt doesn’t begin performances for four weeks, and the immediacy in her delivery made it seem like she had just witnessed something horrible. Furthermore, it’s hard for me to understand what would make anyone who had read Doubt or seen it previously say that it was “obnoxious in every way.”

I guess we’ll never know … which is frustrating.

Perhaps we should take some comfort in knowing that theatre artists have been shocking audiences with “offensive language” ever since the first curtain rose on the first performance. In fact, long before theatres even had curtains, conservative playgoers were taking umbrage at some of what they heard on stage. Back in those pre-curtain days, the consequences of offending the powers-that-be were a lot worse than they are today—setting aside for the moment that little matter of “eternal damnation” mentioned in a comment to Language – Part I.

Consider the Puritans. The Puritan movement began to gain strength in England in the 1570s, about the time that Shakespeare was entering grammar school. The Puritans didn’t call themselves Puritans; if they called themselves anything, they called themselves “the Godly.” The name “Puritans” was devised and employed by their opponents, who resented their attempts to “purify” the Church of England in keeping with other Protestant reformation efforts in John Knox’s Scotland, John Calvin’s Geneva, and Martin Luther’s Germany.

Today in the U. S. of A. we tend to think of the Puritans as the guys who landed at Plymouth Rock. We should also remember that it was the Puritan Roundheads under the political and military leadership of a “born again” Oliver Cromwell (pictured to the left), who closed England’s theatres in 1642. (Shakespeare, had he lived, would have been in his 70s.) The Puritans also defeated the royalist Cavaliers during the English Civil War, and beheaded King Charles I in 1649.

Needless to say, throughout Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Puritans were a force to be reckoned with. And they hated the theatre. They found the worldly delights of London to be so abhorrent that, during the Great Migration of 1620-43, approximately 21,000 of them crossed the ocean to establish wilderness homes in the Massachusetts Bay Colony—and in communities surrounding the Chesapeake Bay.

In his new biography, Shakespeare – The World as Stage (my daughter gave it to me for Christmas and it’s a great read), Bill Bryson (pictured to the right) says, “Puritans detested the theatre and tended to blame every natural calamity, including a rare but startling earthquake in 1580, on the playhouses. They considered theatres, with their lascivious puns and unnatural cross-dressing, a natural haunt for prostitutes and shady characters, a breeding ground of infectious diseases, a distraction from worship, and a source of unhealthy sexual excitement. All the female roles were of course played by boys—a convention that would last until the Restoration in the 1660s. In consequence the Puritans believed that the theatres were hotbeds of sodomy—still a capital offense in Shakespeare’s lifetime—and wanton liaisons of all sorts.”

The good news for theatre artists during the English Renaissance was that Queen Elizabeth (pictured to the left) was relatively neutral in the religious culture wars. She returned her country to Protestantism after succeeding her half-sister, Mary, to the throne in 1558. (Queen Mary had earned from the Puritans the moniker “Bloody Mary” because of her Catholic persecution of Protestant reformers.) But despite her Protestant leanings, Elizabeth had a healthy distrust of the Puritan movement because of its anti-monarchist sentiments. Throughout the Shakespeare Era, she resisted the Puritan’s efforts to shut the theatres down while enacting rules and regulations that encouraged the Puritans to feel like their concerns were being addressed.

From all accounts, Queen Elizabeth enjoyed the theatre herself, and her government certainly benefited from the substantial licensing fees that the theatres were charged. The Master of the Revels, Edmund Tylney (Tilney), licensed all play scripts at 7 shillings each. To mollify religious conservatives, he also served as the royal censor, expunging language that could be perceived as anti-God or anti-Queen. In 1592, when the Puritans convinced the Lord Mayor of London to close the theatres, it was Tylney who lobbied on behalf of the crown to keep the theatres open, protecting royal revenues and keeping Puritan power in check.

Despite his liberal use of odds bodkins, ‘zounds and ‘sbloods (blasphemies all), Shakespeare remained relatively free of official condemnation and/or punishment throughout his career. Several of his colleagues fared far less well.

Henley Street Theatre is now presenting The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, frequently referred to in theatre history texts as the “most popular play” to grace London’s stages during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Kyd heads the list of playwrights who are believed to be the author of Hamlet and King Leir, late 16th century plays that preceded Shakespeare’s revered rewrites by a decade or more. Thomas Kyd was also horrifically wrapped up in British censorship.

In the 1580s and 90s, both Thomas Kyd and fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe (Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus) were working under the patronage of a particular nobleman, most likely a fellow named Lord Strange. Kyd and Marlowe became roommates for a time, and both men wrote a quantity of plays that were hugely successful.

In 1593, the Master of the Revels and the Privy Council ordered the arrest of both Kyd and Marlowe on suspicion of creating “divers lewd and mutinous libels.” Tracts, it seems, had been posted all around London disparaging the Protestant refugees who had come to England to escape the Catholic societies in France and the Netherlands. One of these posters was written in blank verse, mentioned themes, characters and scenes from several plays by Christopher Marlowe (pictured above and to the left), and was signed “Tamburlaine.”

Thomas Kyd was the first of the pair of playwrights to be apprehended and sent to Bridewell Prison. Built by Henry VIII, Bridewell was London's first correction facility. The former gatehouse (pictured to the right) is all that remains today.

Under the threat or the actuality of torture—we’ll never know for sure which one—Kyd proclaimed his innocence and implicated Marlowe in the “crime.” When incriminating evidence was found among Kyd’s papers, Kyd asserted that the offending document had found its way into his portfolio by accident during that period when he and Marlowe had been roommates. He accused Marlowe of blasphemy, atheism and homosexuality.

Bill Bryson continues the story: “Marlowe was brought before the Privy Council, questioned, and released on a bond that required him to stay within twelve miles of the royal court wherever it happened to be so that his case could be dealt with quickly when it pleased his accusers to turn to it. He faced, at the very least, having his ears cut off—that was if things went well—so it must have been a deeply uneasy time for him.”

Marlowe’s biographer, David Riggs, reminds us, “There were no acquittals in Tudor state courts.”

Now back to Bryson. “It was against this background that Marlowe went drinking with three men of doubtful character at the house of a widow, Eleanor Bull, in Deptford in East London. There, according to a subsequent coroner’s report, a dispute arose over the bill, and Marlowe—who truly was never far from violence—seized a dagger and tried to stab one Ingram Frizer with it. Frizer, in self-defense, turned the weapon back on Marlowe and stabbed him in the forehead above the right eye—a difficult place to strike a killing blow, one would have thought, but killing him outright. This is the official version, anyway. Some historians believe Marlowe was assassinated at the behest of the crown or its senior agents. Whatever the motivation, he was dead at 29.

Kyd died the next year, aged just 36, never having recovered from his ordeal at Bridewell. Shakespeare would have no serious rivals until the emergence of Ben Jonson in 1598.”

And all I get is letters, voice mails and blog comments—mostly anonymous. I guess I should count myself lucky.

--Bruce Miller

Language - Part II: Copyright ... the Religious Right ... It's Your Right to be Offended ... etc

Posted by Bruce Miller
Warning: To add clarity to this discussion of "offensive language," a few words are used that you may find "offensive." Continue at your own risk. Thanks.

Under U. S. copyright law, it’s illegal for any theatre to rewrite or edit a single word in any play published after 1923 without first receiving written permission from the author or his/her agents. It’s not only a legal issue; it’s an ethical issue. If you’re going to tell people that you’re producing a play written by, say, Tennessee Williams, then the only honest thing to do is present the play as Williams wrote it. Williams no doubt chose his words carefully and with purpose, and it’s unethical to “sanitize” his language and then market the play as the authentic original. That’s why Barksdale, along with every other professional theatre worth its salt, presents plays as they were originally written.

Our 2004 production of The Man Who Came to Dinner starred Jill Bari Steinberg and Joseph Pabst (pictured to the right), and was written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart in 1939. During the run I received several letters from audience members complaining that I’d “added” profanity to the play. Of course I hadn’t. The few mildly profane words that were spoken from our stage all came from the minds and pens of those beloved, iconic American playwrights, Kaufman and Hart (pictured below and to the left). In the popular culture of 1939, their language caused nary a ripple. In today’s cultural climate, heavily influenced by the rise of the religious right, these same words prompted a small parade of conservative audience members to march to the exits in a huff.

When I assured the complainers that I had not added profanity to this cherished American script, they told me I was lying. They had “seen the movie,” they said (and perhaps a couple high school or community productions), and “those words were not spoken." What they may have failed to consider is that the film codes of the ‘40s were more Puritanical than the Broadway codes, and so Kaufman and Hart apparently chose to cut a few words from the movie version while keeping the original stage version in tact. The high school and community producers who had removed the words on their own accord most likely did so illegally.

Yes, I know this happens all the time and I'm making no judgements about high school and community theatres. They face their own challenges and I applaud their work. I also believe that professional theatres are held to a different standard.

As we engage in Part II of this discussion about “offensive language,” I’m using “profanity” as the catch-all word. At its root, “profane” means “worldly,” as in the opposite of “spiritual.” Profane language—profanity—can be sub-divided into four categories:
· blasphemy (taking the name of a diety in vain),
· obscenity ("crude" words for sex acts or private body parts),
· scatology (having a fascination with excrement or urine), and
· cursing (“damn you,” “go to hell” etc. and their abreviations and euphemisms).
There are other offensive words having to do with race, but we’re going to discuss race in a separate blog entry. Slurs and profanity are not really the same thing.

By far the most objections I hear relate to blasphemy and stem from offense to religious principles. (If you like, you can read my thoughts on “offensive language” and Christian faith in Language – Part I: From Potter to Shakespeare to Jesus and Beyond, Jan 12, 2008.)

Sometimes it almost seems ludicrous. We produced The Lark in 2006, written by Jean Anouilh and adapted by Lillian Hellman, and the central character of the play was Joan of Arc (pictured to the left in a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti). This is, of course, the same Joan who was at first persecuted and later sainted by the Catholic Church. A couple audience members were offended when Joan cried out to God in her moments of greatest spiritual despair. “Why did you have to make Joan of Arc use the Lord’s name in vain?” one chastiser wrote. IN VAIN!!?? What on earth led any audience member to think that Joan’s cry to God was in vain?

When we produced The 1940's Radio Hour in 2002, one congregant really let me have it over the telephone for performing “Satanic music.” “That old black magic has me in its spell,” she eerily chanted into the phone. “That old black magic that you weave so well. Those icy fingers up and down my spine…” Finally the images became too much for her to continue.

Sometimes religious concerns cross over into moral situations. When we produced Winnie the Pooh at Theatre IV, a very sweet grandmother called me to ask if we couldn’t rewrite A. A. Milne to make it clearer that Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit were married. “I mean they keep talking about having all those babies, and you never really make it crystal clear that they’re married.” When I reminded her that Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit were, in fact, rabbits, and that rabbits didn’t get married, even in the days of A. A. Milne, she simply said, “Oh, you know what I mean.”

I did know what she meant. But still...

Another animal that never ceases to rile the religious right at Theatre IV is the ass referred to in Peter Pan—come see it this spring; my mailbox is ready and waiting. When Tinkerbell becomes frustrated with Peter’s attentions to Wendy, she calls Wendy “a silly ass.” Of course, Tinkerbell “speaks” only through the tinkling piano (or is it a flute?) that represents her fairy voice. Peter giggles when Tink calls Wendy the name. When Wendy inquires as to what funny thing Tinkerbell just said, Peter translates, and you can often hear the gasps.

I’m frequently told that language is so much more coarse in popular culture now than it used to be—and in many ways that’s true. But what’s also true is that there’s a growing group that becomes offended far more easily than people used to. When Mary Martin (pictured to the left) said “a silly ass” on the national airwaves in 1954's TV version of Peter Pan, no one batted an eye. Everybody accepted the word “ass” as another word for donkey. Today, some people hear “ass” and all they can think of is someone’s buttocks.

So is the problem with the word or the person hearing the word?

Thousands of audience members have loved our current production of Moonlight and Magnolias (pictured to the right, starring Dave Bridgewater, Scott Wichmann and Joe Pabst). And 20 or 40 audience members have been really offended by the language. A group of well-meaning folks from Good Samaritan Ministries called and asked for comps to one of our shows. They do amazing rehabilitation work with indigent men dealing with addiction in Richmond's South Side, and we were eager to help them out. We gave them comp tickets to the show of their choice, and they selected Moonlight.

The woman who set up the group called the box office to double-check the language. “No, the language isn’t bad,” our box office representative assured her. “They say the d-word once…I’m a little embarrassed to say it over the phone…but other than that, the language is fine.”

The woman thought, well, they only say “damn” once, and I think we can handle that, so we’ll accept the 15 free tickets and have a lovely evening out. What she didn’t know—what we didn’t make clear—is that “the d-word” was not “damn” but “dick,” as in Selznick’s graphic line about Hollywood pandering, “We suck the collective dicks" of our audience.

In fact, the actors in Moonlight say “damn”—and the far more controversial “God damn”—several times long before they get to the “collective dicks.” Our box office representative never even noticed that language when he saw the show. It simply rolled by him without calling any attention to itself. I'm not faulting him for this. He is pure of heart and more power to him. I'm just telling the story the way it happened.

When our urban missionaries arrived at the theatre and took their seats, they lasted only about 10 minutes before they couldn’t take it anymore. They stood up en masse and beat a hasty retreat to the lobby. Others in the audience looked at them and hadn’t a clue as to what was the problem. I called them on the following Monday, after hearing about their departure, and learned the whole story.

One of the challenges we face is finding the correct way to communicate with our audience about the language they can expect in any particular production. It is never our intention to surprise or offend. It is also not our intention to bowdlerize the language of the great playwrights to meet the particularly sensibilities of our times.

Coming soon – Language Part III: a history of censorship

--Bruce Miller

Rambling Thoughts on a Running Theme

Posted by Bruce Miller

The playwrights from this year’s Signature Season are a somewhat diverse lot, but there’s a common thread that ties several of them together.

The late Carson McCullers (The Member of the Wedding) wrote with the distinctive voice of a young woman reared in a small Southern town during the 1930s and 40s. Ron Hutchinson (Moonlight and Magnolias) is an Irish-born playwright who came to fame in England and now lives in LA, working predominantly for the film industry.

John Patrick Shanley (Doubt, pictured to the left) is a former Marine who was raised in the Bronx. His writing has earned him an Oscar (Moonstruck), a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize (Doubt). Douglas Carter Beane (The Little Dog Laughed) is a gay playwright who grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and wrote the libretto for the current Broadway musical Xanadu, a re-make of the 1970s cult film. Beane is currently writing the libretto for the upcoming stage musical remake of The Band Wagon, now re-titled Dancing in the Dark.

Our summer musical, the great American classic Guys and Dolls, features music and lyrics by Frank Loesser (pictured to the right) and a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. Frank Loesser, born in 1910 in NYC, also wrote Where’s Charley? (produced by Barksdale in 2003), The Most Happy Fella, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and the songs "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" and "I Don’t Want to Walk Without You" (currently heard in Swingtime Canteen) and "Baby, It’s Cold Outside" (recently heard in our Holiday Cabaret).

Jo Swerling (co-author of the Guys book) was born in Russia in 1897 and, as a child, fled the Czarist regime with his family, arriving in New York’s lower East Side via Ellis Island. Before working on Guys and Dolls in the late 40s, he was called to Hollywood by Frank Capra, where he helped to “polish” the screenplays of both It’s a Wonderful Life (recently produced as a radio drama by Barksdale’s Bifocals Theatre Project) and Gone With the Wind (the re-screenwriting of which is the subject of Moonlight and Magnolias).

Abe Burrows (the other co-writer of the Guys book, pictured to the left) was a renowned radio writer and comedic performer, who went on to serve as “script doctor” for numerous Broadway and radio shows. Interestingly, Abe Burrows is also the father of James Burrows, the legendary television director of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and co-creator of Cheers.

As Moonlight continues its laugh-a-minute run at Barksdale Willow Lawn (I saw it again last night and it was GREAT), it’s interesting to follow the theme of the un-credited “script doctor” and re-write artist. In Moonlight, Ben Hecht, played by Scott Wichmann, is brought in to rewrite the screenplay for Gone With the Wind. Moonlight playwright Ron Hutchinson (pictured below and to the right) earns a very lucrative living doing the same thing today.

Discussing the movie industry, Hutchinson writes, “Now, as back then, in the last weeks, days and hours before shooting, there’s a mad scramble to finally get the script right. That’s where guys like Ben Hecht came in then and where guys like me come in today. In 25 years as a rewrite man, I’ve been parachuted into movie locations in places such as Morocco, Mexico, Australia, South Africa and really bizarre places such as Burbank.”

Carson McCullers (pictured to the left) has always given credit to her principal “script doctor,” fellow Southerner Tennessee Williams. Douglas Carter Beane (pictured below and to the right) is becoming somewhat of a specialist in rewriting the librettos of vintage movie musicals for contemporary Broadway audiences. And his real-life experience in which unnamed “script doctors” transformed the lead character from gay to straight in the Hollywood adaptation of his Off Broadway hit, As Bees in Honey Drown, inspired the comic story he tells in The Little Dog Laughed.

Both Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows were considered among the foremost “script doctors” working to polish other author’s work in both Hollywood and New York in the 40s through the 70s. In Deathtrap, produced by Barksdale at Hanover Tavern earlier this fall, the lead character of Sidney Bruhl offers to serve as a “script doctor” for a young playwright, citing the fact that George S. Kaufman (pictured to the left) served as his “script doctor” when he was polishing his first play. In his memoirs, Abe Burrows credited his success in the theatre to his work under George S. Kaufman, director of Guys and Dolls.

For many years, the expression, “Get me Abe Burrows!” remained Broadway shorthand for “this script is awful and needs an emergency rewrite.” Burrows himself downplayed his “script doctor” role in his memoirs. “I have... performed surgery on a few shows, but not as many as I'm given credit for. I've been involved in 19 theatrical productions, plus their road company offshoots. Only a few of these have been surgical patients. And I don't usually talk about them. I feel that a fellow who doctors a show should have the same ethical approcah that a plastic surgeon has. It wouldn't be very nice if a plastic surgeon were walking down the street with you, and a beautiful girl approached. And you say, "What a beautiful girl." And the plastic surgeon says, "She was a patient of mine. You should have seen her before I fixed her nose."

Of all our playwrights this season, John Patrick Shanley seems to be the only one who has little to no experience rewriting the scripts of others and/or putting up with others who are brought in to rewrite his work. Long may he wave.

--Bruce Miller

Theatre and the Winter Solstice

Posted by Bruce Miller
The Winter Solstice—that about-face moment when days stop becoming shorter and begin becoming longer, that 24-hour period when the sun’s arc across the sky shows just how low it can go before it starts to ascend again, that astrological promise of rebirth—has been celebrated by every culture worldwide since prehistoric times.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice takes place between December 20 and 23, depending on where exactly on the planet you stand. In the Southern Hemisphere, it occurs sometime between those same dates in June.

Stonehenge in England and Brú na Bóinne in Ireland were both erected, at least in part, as
giant clocks to enable local residents to “read” the sun’s rays and know precisely when the winter solstice would arrive. In their ancient cultures, the winter solstice marked the time of the final feasts before the “starvation months” of deep winter began. Most cattle were slaughtered because there would not be enough to feed them during the winter, making this the one time during the year when fresh meat was available. Also, winter solstice marked the end of the fermentation period for the wine and beer that had been brewing since late spring.

The Christian holiday of Christmas was set on Dec 25 not because anyone knows that to be the actual date of Christ’s birth—no one does—but because Dec 25 was the recorded date of the winter solstice throughout Europe under the Julian calendar that held sway during the first several centuries AD. In fact, the Catholic Church banned the celebration of Christmas in December for centuries, believing it to be a pagan practice. It is only in the last several hundred years that Christians have universally embraced the celebration of Christ’s Mass in December, while assimilating numerous pagan rituals (the Christmas tree, yule log, etc.) into its folklore.

In Jewish culture, Tekufah Tevet is the winter solstice recognized by the writers of the Talmud. Ancient Jews believed that water kept in vessels during Tekufah Tevet, or any of the other solstices for that matter, would turn into poison and therefore must be thrown out. Among many Jews today, such dark superstitions have taken a back seat to Hanukkah, the Festival of Light.

In nearly every culture, theatre has always been a part of the festivities surrounding winter solstice. The Roman Saturnalia and Greek Poseidonia were two of the most prominent ancient winter solstice celebrations. It was during these festivals that the Greek satyr plays and the copycat Roman fabula (comoedia) palliata (stories in Greek dress) launched their ascendancies into popular culture. A Greek satyr play is pictured in the detail from an early 5th century wine bowl posted above and to the right.

These comedies highlighted role reversals among servants and masters and males and females, and explored just what might happen if social order were to suddenly turn on its ear. The comic debauchery that frequently ensued was meant to echo what might take place during that time of year when the nights were longest and the cover of darkness was most effective.

These Greek and Roman plays paved the way for the Commedia dell’Arte movement that changed the face of world theatre beginning in Italy in the 15th century. A recent commedia production of Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters at the University of Minnesota is pictured to the left.

Our holiday productions of Scapino! in 2005 and Moonlight and Magnolias (running now through January 20, 2008) are actually perfectly in sync with the cultural history of winter solstice.

And what could be better than a few good laughs to get you through the cold nights of winter?

So as you celebrate your winter solstice holiday, why not do as the Romans did, and go to the theatre just for the fun of it.

--Bruce Miller

The Moonlight Shines Brightly Tonight...

Posted by Billy Christopher Maupin

Richmond.com has a cool new look. I feel like it had been the same since I moved to Richmond four years ago. I, who generally am all about progress and change, find myself missing the layout that I'm used to, but it has lots of cool new features to check out!

Also, there's a rave review of our production of Moonlight and Magnolias! Yay! Joan Tupponce writes:

"Steve Perigard wisely cast this humorous offering..."

"Pabst's superb comic timing"

"Joy Williams...livens up the scene"

"[Bridewater's] portrayals of Prissy who doesn't know anything about birthing babies and the in-labor Melanie are a scream."

"Wichmann's expressions and mannerisms even when he's not the focus of the audience's attention are authentic and amusing."

"Brian Barker's set is stylish..."

"Definitely an entertaining evening punctuated with moments of hilarity"

Ah, heck, you can read the review in it's entirety on Richmond.com. And come see the show!

To reserve your tickets for Barksdale Theatre's production of Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson, call the box office at 282-2620 today!

Celebrating Hanukkah On Stage and Off

Posted by Bruce Miller

Hanukkah begins at sundown tomorrow, Dec 4. To all of our Jewish friends, Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah is one of those holidays that falls on a different day each year. In 2008, Hanukkah will begin at sundown on Dec 21. In 2006, Hanukkah began on Dec 15.

Hanukkah is an eight day celebration that is also known as the Festival of Lights. It always begins on the 25th day of Kislev, the eighth or ninth month on the Jewish calendar, depending on the year. The Jewish calendar is based on both solar and lunar years, and so some years there’s a leap month preceding Kislev, just as in our standard calendar there is a leap day (Feb 29) every four years.

Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday in Jewish tradition. However, Hanukkah is also the Jewish holiday that occurs closest to Christmas. Therefore, in the United States, Hanukkah has gained added attention. This is appropriate perhaps because the Hanukkah story tells how Jewish culture has struggled to survive in a non-Jewish world.

In about 165 BC, the Greco-Syrian emperor Antiochus IV (pictured on the coin to the left) ruled over the Jews in Judea, the territory now known as Israel. He tried to force the Jewish people to accept Greek culture, making it unlawful for them to practice their own religion or study the Torah. Jewish fighters known as the Maccabees tried to protect their people from the Greek enforcers. After three years of fighting, the Maccabees (led by Judah Maccabee, pictured to the right) finally regained control over the temple on Mount Mariah in Jerusalem. While preparing the temple for rededication—the Hebrew word “Hanukkah” means “dedication”—they relit the temple lamp, but found only enough oil to keep it burning for one day. Miraculously, the lamp burned for eight days.

Interspersed with all the comic mayhem, Moonlight and Magnolias tells a more contemporary story about how Jewish culture has struggled to thrive despite its minority status in the United States. And so it’s not too far fetched to say that, while Moonlight and Magnolias may not be a “Christmas play,” it is, at least thematically, somewhat of a “Hanukkah play.”

When you visit the Barksdale Willow Lawn lobby, we hope you’ll make note of the Hanukkah display that shares the lobby stage with Barksdale’s traditional Christmas tree. Staff members solicited suggestions from our friends at the Weinstein Jewish Community Center regarding how best to include recognition of the Jewish faith in our lobby during the holiday season.

The Hanukkah display features an electric menorah (fire regulations prohibit using real candles) and two decorative Hanukkah platters on blue and white cloths. The central "servant candle" of the menorah has been lit since the opening of Moonlight and Magnolias. Beginning Dec 4, we will light one of the eight other candles of the menorah each day, until the eighth day of Hanukkah when all of the candles will be blazing.

We know you’ll enjoy the side-splitting comedy of Moonlight and Magnolias. We hope you’ll also appreciate the Hanukkah display that now graces our lobby, extending welcome to loyal theatergoers of all faiths.

--Bruce Miller

Three Hits (No Strike!) and We're In

Posted by Bruce Miller
Last Thurs, Nov 29, the strike ended and all of Broadway returned to work. The following evening, Fri, Nov 30, Theatre IV opened A Christmas Story at the historic Empire Theatre, the third mainstage opening in 15 days for the Barksdale/Theatre IV team. Today, Sun, Dec 2, the first Christmas Story review came out in the T-D, and, just as with the first two openings of our holiday trifecta, it looks like another winner coming out of the gates!

To paraphrase a song from Swingtime Canteen, “Praise the Lord and pass the approbation!”

Under the headline: “Caution: This Play Could Lead You to Fits of Laughter,” Susan Haubenstock writes, “Theatre IV’s holiday show A Christmas Story may be too funny for children. Well, too funny for them to fully appreciate. The adults who bring them to the Empire Theatre will be laughing out loud.”

Technical glitches aside (see my Opening Night coverage), Susie basically loved the whole thing: “Off Center and Always Hilarious!” “Clever Theatrical Devices!” “Incredibly Funny!” She loved our director and designers: “Director Chase Kniffen hits every laugh.” “The house set designed by Mercedes Schaum looks like it’s laughing.” “Matthew Landwehr’s lighting contributes mightily to the scene transitions.”

She especially loved our cast: “Eric Pastore has the charisma to keep our focus throughout the play’s 2 ½ hours.” “Michael Thibodeau and Eric Evans play his buddies with thorough 1938 credibility. Chandler Hurd is delightful as a coonskin-cap-wearing bully; and Lillie Izo and Lyla Rossi are wonderful as the neighborhood girls.”

“Above all, tiny R. Cooper Timberline is hilarious as Randy, whether whining, hiding, waiting for Santa, or needing to wee-wee.”

“Tony Foley plays the narrator (the adult Ralph) with heart, and Gordon Bass is perfect as the cursing, growling Old Man. Julie Fulcher’s long suffering Mother is great, and costume designer Sarah Grady even provides her with the requisite pink chenille bathrobe. And Jacqueline Jones puts in another of her high-octane performances as Ralphie’s teacher.”

If you and your kids would like a good laugh this Christmas, and who wouldn’t, please call for your Christmas Story tickets ASAP. If you’d like to revisit comic hijinks associated with the screen-writing of Gone with the Wind, please call for tickets to Moonlight and Magnolias at Barksdale Willow Lawn. And if you’d like to tap your feet and sing along to the boogie woogie hits of the 40s in a colorful recreation of a USO Christmas show, head on out to Hanover Tavern for Swingtime Canteen.

Better yet, go see all three! And remember, theatre tickets and gift certificates make GREAT Christmas and Hanukkah presents!!

See you at the theatre.

--Bruce Miller

Photo credits: All photos by Jay Paul. At flagpole (left to right) - Lyla Rossi, Lillie Izo, Eric Pastore, Michael Thibodeau, Eric Evans. In chairs - Eric Pastore, Eric Evans. Bundled up - Michael Thibodeau, Eric Pastore, R. Cooper Timberline, Eric Evans.