Hustling up the Hancock - Feb 24, 2013

Most years, members of my family join me to Hustle up the Hancock.  Yup, it’s the Hancock building, all 94 stories and 1638 stairs, just six blocks south of our Chicago condo.  It’s a mass of 4,000 climbers, well managed by the Respiratory Association of Chicago.  Pros take off first and the winner this year made the climb in 9min 23sec. 

Our family climbers and their results:

John Morris, age 10 – 15:47

Kate Morris, age 13 – 19:00

Ann Boland, age 69 – 47:56

Tracy Boland, Maggie Johnson, Megan Morris – various ages – 1:16:00

From left: Tracy, Deb, Ann, Maggie, Mary K, Bob, John, Megan, Kate

This was Maggie’s first year and she completed the climb with encouragement and coaching from her two older sisters, who accompanied her every step of the way.

Our Sherpas this year were:  Deb Quentel, Tracy’s partner, Mary K Boland, mother and grandmother to most and Bob Morris, father of John and Kate and husband of Megan.  We love our Sherpas who elevator large bags of climber coats and dry clothes to the 94th floor and wait for us to ascend. 

Best part of the climb is our rendezvous at Mike Ditka’s restaurant directly across Michigan Avenue from the Hancock.  The reward of a “Bloody Mike” keeps me going those last 20 stories. 

This photo of Mike Ditka's Restaurant is courtesy of TripAdvisor

©annboland.com 2013

A Good Dose of Chicago Theater

DBH and I are in Chicago for several weeks.  I’m doing the Hancock Hustle with my family on the 24th of Feb.  Coming in early gives me a chance to practice in our 24 story building.  I’ve climbed the equivalent of the Hancock twice this week – the first time a breeze, the second a real test of character.  And in between we did two theater matinees, with the other gray hairs.  Our theater pair was not the sort you would associate with matinee goers:  The Motherf**cker with the Hat (TMWH) and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (BTBZ).

TMWH was staged at Steppenwolf.  Not an ensemble piece, but directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Anna Shapiro, who directed August: Osage County on Broadway and in London.  BTBZ was at Lookingglass, lately one of our favorite Chicago venues and only six blocks from home in the old Water Tower. 

If they were competing plays, BTBZ wins hands down.  Compelling drama about the war in Iraq from the pov of good and evil Iraqis, crazed Marines and dead zoo animals.  My only hesitation about awarding further kudos to the play is that the tiger cursed.  He cursed man, god, zoos, his appetite – using human swear words.  Tigers would not stoop so low.  It demeaned the character. Most people swear because they cannot formulate more appropriate words to express their frustration.  A tiger would be more thoughtful and deliberate.

Caged "tiger" guarded by Marine

TMWH is about low-life, recovering and non-recovering addicts.  Yes, it’s full of foul language, but consider the source.  These characters are frustrated all the time.  And in the morass of addiction and the fragility of recovery, they sling foul language like laser lights – lots of display, but no one hears or reacts to the hurt.  It’s just the way they talk.  Sad.  The play was well acted (remember its Steppenwolf, so it’s scream theater), but not really memorable.  Just sad. 

©annboland.com 2013

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

You don’t go to Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago looking for comedy, romance or musicals.  You go to find intense theater, radiating dysfunctional families, friends and strangers in conflict.  DBH and I call it “scream theater” because there was hardly a Steppenwolf production where the cast did not end up screaming, hitting, shooting and shouting.  And we loved them all.

My history with Steppenwolf goes back to 1982 when I moved solo to downtown Chicago and could walk to the ensemble’s home at Hull House on Broadway.  I saw just about every production, climaxed by Laurie Metcalf’s stellar performance in Balm in Gilead in 1982.  In Balm, written by Lanford Wilson, I imagine that the script is a symphonic score.  Twelve denizens of a shabby café (think Broadway and Lawrence in Chicago) all in dialogue at once – some talking to others, others talking to themselves.  Out of this cacophony, a spotlight moves from table to table, and the lighted characters speak crescendo and the rest of the diners speak decrescendo.  Then the spotlight finds Darlene (Laurie Metcalf) and for the next 15 minutes she speaks to the audience, wins and breaks their hearts.  You can see a few minutes of this in a tribute to Lanford Wilson where Laurie Metcalf reads part of this soliloquy. 

Why is this important to August: Osage County?  Because there is so much theatrical history and baggage behind this play, written by Tracy Letts, a Steppenwolf Ensemble Member since 2002, and first performed at Steppenwolf in 2007.  August: Osage County tears the guts out of 13 characters who figure in a family trauma featuring a meanest of mean mommas manipulating her family following the suicide of the husband/father.  We loved it!  Scream theater at its best.  Steppenwolf comes to Tucson.  And under the stewardship of Winding Road Theater Company, who produce plays by living American playwrights.  It’s our first time at a Winding Road production – and we will be returning.  They stage the plays at Beowulf Alley Theater – so intimate with its 65 seats. 

Toni Press-Coffman as Violet

No theater company could attempt August: Osage County without strong actors.  The scenes are dialogue and tension laden.  One even harks back to Balm in Gilead when the actors grouped into four separate areas on the stage, all engaged in simultaneous conversations for a minute and then one scenario erupts bringing the action into its milieu.  The role of Violet the Mother is vicious, funny, awesome in its intensity.  Toni Press-Cauffman, a WRTC founder, lives the role.  Violet’s daughter, Barbara, requires an equally strong actress and Maria Caprille is up for it in both talent and physical presence.  Evidently the Weinstein brothers are making a film, with Letts writing the screenplay.  Meryl Streep will be Violet and Julia Roberts, Barbara. 

August: Osage County won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 and picked up 5 Tonys for its Broadway production in 2008.  WRTC’s production is the first in Arizona, and a significant coup for such a small ensemble to successfully stage such a big play. 

For a more in-depth review of this production from the Tucson Weekly, click here. 

©annboland.com 2013

Mother Courage and Her Children by Berthold Brecht

In 1990 I was privileged to experience Glenda Jackson as Courage at the National Theatre in London.  I remember it being rough, with Jackson shouting, cannons bombing and flashing and pots, pans and drums creating cacophony.  So much for my Berthold Brecht education.

Flash ahead 30+ years to Tucson and The Rogue Theater which embraces a genre of theater not often found here, e.g. Brecht, Faulkner, Beckett, Pinter, Albee…  The Rogue’s production of Mother Courage brought the 30 Years’ War between Sweden and Germany in the 1600’s alive on a 30 x 30 stage, complete with a manually rotated platform on which Courage’s wagon moved through the scenes.  When Brecht wrote the play, most scenes included lyrics for songs, but they were not scored.  Tim Blevins of The Rogue wrote original scores and voila, you have a war musical – and a cynical comedy as groaning one-liners pierce the dialogue – a bit of 17th century vaudeville. 

I could not begin to compare the two productions, but Cynthia Meier’s Courage was a gruesome testament both to how to survive a war and how to rationalize the death of your children.  More than the horrors of war, Mother Courage is about the horror of the business of war and how it profits the very rich, feeds off the poor and provides employment for the industrious.

©annboland.com 2013