Chicago International Puppet Fest - 2022 - "Chimpanzee" Created and Directed by Nick Lehane

Welcome to the Chicago International Puppet Fest. Since all of you can’t be here in frigid Chicago, I’m going to try to describe the joy of puppetry through the shows we attended.

Immediately when I read about Chimpanzee, I knew the story. A family, whose father is a behavioral scientist, takes a baby chimp into their home and raises it as their own child. Of course, the end is a tragic failure. But it was mixed with happiness, love, and coming of age for the boy-child in the family.*

Chimpanzee opens with a void, black stage, over lit by a single white fluorescent tube. There is one character, the chimp. There are two environments—the test lab that is over lit by the florescent bulb and the home that is lit below with warm incandescent light. It’s clear that the chimp is confined in the lab. He appears to dream of the home, long for the home, and remember being free. That’s the one-hour story.

There are three puppeteers— Rowan Magee, Andy Manjuck, and Enna Wiseman. The chimp has 12 articulations. There is no script—only a deft soundtrack of noises that propels the action. Stunning. Heart-breaking.

This short YouTube video says it all.

* It’s likely I read the book, Half Brother a novel by Kenneth Oppel about such experiments in the 70s.

photos by Richard Termine

Why Is this Book a Best Seller? “The Alchemist” by Paul Coelho – Book Review

Thumbnail review:  For 17-year old’s – possibly a good family discussion book.

The Alchemist is one of the 25 best-selling books in the world.  So, I had to read it.  But I didn’t cotton to it. 

Digging through various Google searches to discover the power and attraction of this simple book, I found glowing descriptions about its enchanting magical realism, powerful emotions, deep characters, and inspiring wisdom.  Coelho, from Brazil, wrote the book early in his career – and initially, it did not sell.  Only after his second, and more popular book, Brida, was successful did his publisher reach back and reprint The Alchemist – and it began to sell.  (The not unusual case of a new book pulling the backlist along with it.)  In 1994 Harper Collins published the first English edition. 

This blurb from Madonna (Yes, THAT Madonna) summarizes the arc of the plot: “a beautiful book about magic, dreams and the treasures we seek elsewhere and then find at our doorstep.”  That praise just about summarizes The Alchemist and also perhaps explains its enduring appeal.

This is a quest book – for spiritual treasure and material treasure.  Santiago, the hero who sets out from Spain on a journey through the deserts of Africa to Egypt, is led by the eponymous alchemist, allegedly 200 years old, to discover the most wondrous treasure known to man. In the manner of Indiana Jones, they encounter snakes, windstorms, nomadic tribes, and shamans.  The plot is salted with feel-good pep talks, a bit of romance, a lot of self-discoveries, and a comfortable resolution. 

This book has sold over 200 million copies – and that does not count all the pirated versions.  I hope Mr. Coelho’s success enables his publishers to take risks on better written, more substantial books.  But heck, why mess with success?

Harper 1988, 175 pages

"The Elixir of Love" by Gaetano Donizetti - Review - Joy in the Dress Circle

My friend Betsy and I took advantage of the Chicago Lyric Opera’s special promotion to lure fans back to the theater—three performances, good-enough seats at a great price. Our first opera was Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece The Elixir of Love. Perhaps my favorite opera; from start to finish the music is joyous, with lots of opportunities for performers to display their vocal talents and humorous acting chops.

Adina and Dulcamara with the elixir

Bel canto (beautiful singing) reached its apotheosis in early 19th century Italy in the operas of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. But it began in the 18th-century works of Handel and then Mozart. For these two composers, it was used to vary to the repetition of lyrics that often make their operas lugubrious. And, though they wrote in Italian, these are German composers. The Italians seized the art form and ran with it. More technical information and a short video on bel canto opera are at the end of this post.

Free spirited Adina

Adina and Nemorino in love forever

Like most operas, the plot is little more than an excuse to write beautiful music. The fake “elixir” is Bordeaux wine; the heroine Adina, herself a successful businesswoman who owns the local hotel and cafe, accepts the marriage proposal of a handsome visiting army captain Belcore. Nemorino, a waiter at the cafe pines with love for Adina and joins the army so he can use the enlistment bonus to purchase the love potion sold by charlatan, Dulcamara. Three major male roles: baritone Belcore, sung by Joshua Hopkins, base-baritone Dulcamara, sung by Kyle Ketelsen, and tenor Nemorino, sung by Charles Castronovo. Add one amazing soprano; Adina, sung by Ailyn Pérez. These four, with conductor Enrique Mazzola and the Lyric Opera Chorus, wove magical music. It was a delightful afternoon.

For more information on how the conductor of the Lyric, Enrique Mazzola, and the singers work together in a bel canto performance, here’s Chris Jones’s review from the Chicago Tribune.

Short video preview of the Washington National Opera production of The Elixir of Love.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, Italian bel canto operas are characterized by:

• prosodic singing - the musical phrase matches the grammatic phrase

• matching register and tonal quality of the voice to the emotional content of the words

• a highly articulated manner of phrasing based on the insertion of grammatical and rhetorical pauses

• a delivery varied by several types of legato and staccato (this is one of my favorite aspects of The Elixer of Love. Throughout, there are sequences where the vocal lead is singing melodically and the second voice is simultaneously staccato, as though whispering into the ear. Think Eminem and Rhianna.

• a liberal application of more than one type of portamento (increasing or decreasing the pitch from one syllable to the next without releasing - and using speed and vibrato)

• messa di voce as the principal source of expression (increasing the volume of the note without changing it in any other way)

• frequent alteration of tempo through rhythmic rubato - the quickening and slowing of the tempo, usually at the discretion of the singer or the conductor

• the introduction of a wide variety of graces and divisions into both arias and recitatives (This is where the performers add their interpretations to the scored music. Sometimes the composer writes the first note of the phrase and the endnote. The conductor and the singer agree on path between.)

• gesture as a powerful tool for enhancing the effect of the vocal delivery

• vibrato primarily reserved for heightening the expression of certain words and for gracing longer notes.

American Mariachi Co-produced by Goodman Theatre and The Dallas Theater Center - Theatre Review - Viva Mariachi!

Ed and I spent 19 years in Tucson and managed to escape most mariachi performances.  You know, the tinny, chicken-scratch music performed by men in sombreros and black suits with copious sliver buttons – the Mexican version of cockney pearlies.  Last week, I paid to hear that same music in Chicago.

American Mariachi at the Goodman Theater—part of Destinos: 4th Chicago Internation Latino Theater Festival—is a wisp of a play: the plot is predictable, the music is predictable, and the performances caricatures.  That does not make it all bad.  It was good to sit in a theater, albeit 1/3 full.  It was good to hear the familiar music – though the plot development requires some awful playing.  It was good to see performers and theater staff making a living doing a “thing” we love.

My most important takeaway from American Mariachi is the ethnographic/historical understory of the plot.  The play is billed as taking a stand against stereotypes; mariachi is all about men.  When women wanted to perform, all hell broke loose because mariachi is passed from father to son—the songs, the instruments, the costumes.  Sons learn by listening to fathers, uncles, and brothers—there were no charts.  That may still be the way it is in some families today.  But, thanks to the Tucson International Mariachi Conference and a similar conference in San Antonio, mariachi has become a quintessential Mexican-American tradition.  Student groups are promoted heavily in junior and high schools throughout the southwest and in predominantly Mexican-American schools everywhere.  Women wear the traditional costume, but with a long black skirt, resplendent with silver buttons down the sides.   

U.S. public schools have traditionally taught “white” culture.  E.g., George Washington and the Founding Fathers are heroes of independence.  Perhaps no mention of their stands pro or anti-slavery.  Civics teaches how the government is organized, but may not study the history of voting rights.  Immigration means we are a nation of immigrants, not the rights of Native Americans or the status of immigrants of color. 

I hope that much of this has changed, but you likely can’t count on classroom teaching to provide cultural context for all students.  Enter such curricula as MAS (Mexican-American Studies) and Mariachi after curricular groups. These programs build self-esteem and provide supportive environments for Mexican-American students.  Viva Mariachi!

A Timely Read about the Weather -"Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History" by Eric Larson - Book Review

Thumbnail review:  An easy and interesting read, published in 2000

Never been disappointed by an Erik Larson book, though some are more involving than others.  So, when I encountered Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, it was a must-read. 

In light of the increasing severity of hurricanes boiling over the heated Gulf of Mexico, the history of the storm that destroyed Galveston TX in 1900 is captivating.  6,000 – 12,000 people died – the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.  No one really knows what happened to people as the city was blown apart and most of the dead swept out to the Gulf.  Built directly on the Gulf of Mexico Galveston was the central shipping terminal for goods entering and leaving Texas.  Following the storm, the port was never rebuilt and Houston, shielded by rivers and bays because the main terminus for Texas shipping.

Isaac’s Storm is the story of the development of the U.S. Weather Bureau.  It did not really exist in 1900 – at least as we know it today.  It was an office of the Department of Agriculture that recorded temperatures and events after they occurred.  Reporting was spotty and mostly used to influence the prices on the Chicago commodities exchanges.  Appointments were political, there being few trained scientists.   Isaac Cline had meteorological training from the U.S. Signal Corps but had to learn about the Gulf, the southwest, and hurricanes on the job. 

The long-held belief at the time was that severe hurricanes could not make it past Cuba into the western reaches of the Gulf of Mexico.  Cline strongly supported this position.  Hurricanes hit Cuba and/or the Dominican Republic, veered north, passing over Louisiana and Mississippi and back east.  This is the path of Hurricane Ina that devastated Louisiana and then the Northeast in August 2021.   When Galveston residents in 1900 learned of a large storm approaching, they thought no more of it. Tragically, Cline lost his wife and home.  Miraculously, his three daughters survived. He went on to a long career as head of the regional U.S. Weather Service in New Orleans.

Publisher: ‎ Penguin Random House; 1st edition (July 11, 2000) 323 pages

A Walk with Betsy: REFLECTIONS: An Edgewater Art Experience

REFLECTIONS: An Edgewater Art Experience is an opportunity to be part of a famous Chicago neighborhood. Our Fall weather is perfect for a leisurely stroll with friend Betsy and her very large Giant Schnauzer, Chase, along North Broadway between Hollywood and Rosemont, moving among new and permanent art locations. Best to go around the lunch hour so you can visit one of the many Edgewater restaurants offering safe COVID19 dining inside or outside – then stop at Lickity-Split Frozen Custard for dessert. They offer a simple “Kid’s Cup” to “Concretes” made with your choice of their vast array of sweeties. It takes about an hour and a half to visit most of the locations. Add your dining time to that. There is lots of parking available on Broadway and the side streets.

REFLECTIONS Presents New Works by Local Artists REFLECTIONS’ promotional material places emphasis on the 20 new art installations painted on glass or behind windows. Most are edgy (after all, it’s Edgewater), “showcasing powerful messages of unity, social justice, and hope…” They are window-size, not large murals, so the messages are succinct. But messages are there: Briana Taylor, Support Black History Education, Black Lives Matter—all tropes of social justice 2020. Photograph the QR codes found near each art installation and link to information about the art, artist, and participation location.

The Heart of REFLECTIONS Is the We All Live Here Mural For this previewer, the large permanent murals and street art found along Broadway were the key attractions. On the side of Moody’s Pub (5910 N Broadway), hundreds of Edgewater natives are gathered into the mural We All Live Here! Edgewater Chamber of Commerce was awarded a grant from LISC Chicago and Groupon to create a public art piece in partnership with Rich Alapack, founder of we all live here. Edgewater citizens were encouraged to send selfies to the artist who crafted them into this engaging wall art.

Permanent Street Art Thrives in Edgewater Directly across the parking lot, a giant jellyfish squirts across the wall of Patio Beef. It’s a joint project of Patio Beef and the Shedd Aquarium. Across Broadway, Whole Foods is graced with permanent murals completed by 30 9–12-grade students in the After School Matters, 48th Ward program. The mural incorporates fresh produce, insects, and plants into a honeycomb pattern. Around the corner, as befits the Chicago Mosaic School, it’s front walls are bejeweled with mosaic flowers, especially coneflowers, a fall favorite. Look at bit east and feast your eyes on four paintings from the Everything Will Be OK Project. Local businesses, theatres, and building owners collaborated with artists on the messages they wished to share with the community.

If You Have Time, Wander the Edgewater Residential Neighborhood

On both sides of Broadway is the tight-knit neighborhood of single-family homes and apartment buildings (now mostly condos) that are the backbone of Edgewater. Homes, mostly large with four levels including basement and attic, date back to the turn of the 20th century and are now lovingly updated while keeping their charm. Look for Little Free Libraries, fairy gardens next to the sidewalk for children to play in, and traditional Halloween decorations.

When: Now through October 31 for the storefront window art. The other art is permanent. Where: Edgewater Neighborhood – North Broadway between Hollywood and Rosemont Tickets: Free For more information, please visit: Edgewater.org

EXQUISITE AGONY Script Review – Straight from the Heart

Click here for a link to my review of Exquisite Agony published on PictureThisPost.com

OVID.tv Presents "FAITH LOVE DESIRE: WORLD RELIGION AND SEXUALITY" Review – Women Be Warned

Click here to enjoy my review on PictureThisPost.com of the documentary “Faith Love Desire: World Religion and Sexuality.”

Since we can’t be out reviewing theater, we are reviewing television. This is an interesting documentary illustrating how women are so feared and repressed by religion.

"FAIRVIEW" Script Review – What’s Fair Is Fair, or Not

Click here to enjoy my review from PictureThisPost.com of the script for the Pulitzer Prize winning play Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury

Cabinet of Curiosity Presents THE FAREWELL FABLES: SATELLITES, SONGS AND CEREAL Review – The Gods Are Disappointed with Us

Please enjoy my review from PictureThisPost.com. The photos tell the stories.