Southern Bookman

Alan Bennett gives annual new year's chronicle in London Review of Books

The arrival of Alan Bennett's diary in the London Review of Books brightens my new year each January.

Bennett's annual chronicle of the year before is like a letter from an old friend, filled with London literary gossip, accounts of his quiet dilettante's life in Yorkshire, political commentary and vignettes about his growing up in World War II-era Britain.

With the departure of longtime LRB editor Mary Kay Wilmers, the 87-year-old Bennett this year looks back on the publication's early days and his battles with former editor Karl Miller, whom Bennett says tried to remove his jokes. Bennett laments that Miller and other founding editors withheld praise from writers. His score-settling after so many years seems more quaint and plainitive than vindictive, a glimpse into a vanished literary world.

Also of interest to followers of British journalism is Bennett's oblique account of his partner, Rupert Thomas, leaving the editorship of the Conde Nast magazine World of Interiors, which runs features on lavish British country homes. After more than 20 years running the upscale magazine, Thomas was the latest victim of the digital devastation of print publications.

Bennett also gives an amusing critique of Blake Bailey's troubled biography of Philip Roth, grumbling about the book's size rather than engaging with the sexual abuse allegations against Bailey that led to W.W. Norton canceling the book.

The famed British playwright, comic and movie writer notes his delight at the book's mentioning a dinner party he attended with Roth at the home of theater director Jonathan Miller. Bennett expresses unqualified admiration for Roth as a writer.

Each year, Bennett's diary records travails of his aging, and his continued delight at life's simple daily pleasures. His mind, and writing are a sharp as ever.  Best wishes to Mr. Bennett for another year.

 

Memorable moments from 2021

Here are a few of my favorite moments of 2021 that made the year not so dismal.

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival gave a memorable performance of "12th Night" at an outdoors theater in a Nashville office park. My daughter, wife and I enjoyed a picnic dinner before the show as a spirited audience gathered. With ebullient performances and country-flavored music well-matched to Shakespeare's words, the production brought out the contemporary relevance of the ancient comedy. The playwright himself would have loved the enthusiastic college students sitting on blankets spread upon the grass.

Trips to St. Simons Island, San Diego, Torrey Pines and La Jolla revealed the oceans' fragile beauty, besieged by humans.

Washington's 10th Street corridor, New York Avenue district and National Mall gave similar lessons about the nation's history, and the endangered republic.

A trip to Los Angeles brought visits to legendary places I'd long wanted to see, especially Dodger Stadium, USC and the LA Memorial Coliseum, Beverly Hills, downtown LA and other sights.

The Braves' World Series championship was a miraculous gift. Watching a World Series game with my son at Truist Park was unforgettable. My wife and I also saw our Braves win a crucial game at San Diego's Petco Park.

With all of the year's bad news, I'll remember those bright moments.

 

 

Christmas joy turns to despair

Only two weeks ago, a Wynton Marsalis concert at Symphony Hall heralded a return to normal life.

The audience wore masks, and proof of vaccination was required. But the seats were nearly full, and the music festive.

Now, New York City's shutting down. The Rockettes cancelled their Christmas shows at Radio City Music Hall. Broadway is dark.

Here in Atlanta, restaurants are closing because of staff shortages caused by the covid omicron variation. As in New York, lines are long in Atlanta  at covid testing sites. Everyone knows of loved ones and friends who've been infected.

The joyous Christmas expected at Thanksgiving has turned bleak. A desolate winter comes.

Come spring, let our omicrons be bygones.

 

 

Whitman, Lincoln seem present at Washington's historic 10th Street corridor

Walt Whitman Way runs off 10th Street in downtown Washington, D.C., a few blocks toward the National Mall from Ford's Theatre, where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865.

Whitman often walked through the theater's neighborhood, and revered the slain president. Whitman's "Speciman Days" gives one of the best portraits of the rough U.S. capital during the Civil War, and he wrote the impassioned elegies to Lincoln, "Captain, Oh My Captain" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed."

The past, present and future come together in the corridor, filled with museums, historic buildings, monuments, government offices and modern commercial developments.

Whitman visited wounded soldiers who lay in cots crowded into the U.S. Patent Office, now the National Portrait Gallery. He sought to raise the young men's spirits, telling them jokes and stories and bringing them pencils, paper and candy.

At Ford's Theatre, the future is represented by school groups that line up to tour the downstairs museum, with extensive exhibits on Lincoln's presidency and the Civil War.

A gallery gives an in-depth rendering of John Wilkes Booth's chilling plot to kill the president and members of his cabinet. Booth's co-conspirators are represented by ghostly statues.  The single-shot derringer with which Booth killed the president gives stark witness to history.

The presidential booth, decorated with bunting as on the night of the assassination, rises above the stage where plays are still performed.

On that pleasant spring night several days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, Lincoln and his wife, Mary, attended the theater for a performance of  the comedy "Our American Cousin." Booth, a famous actor, gained entrance to the booth and shot Lincoln in the back of the head, leaping to the stage below and breaking his left leg. 

Lincoln was carried to the Peterson House across 10th street, and laid diagonally in a bed because of his height. He died at 7:22 the next morning. The house where the president died remains, but has been closed to the public because of the pandemic.

On nearby H Street, Booth co-conspirator Mary Surratt, executed by hanging, ran a boarding house. The street, leading to Chinatown and the Capital One Arena, pulses with bars, hotels and restaurants.

Lincoln, a Shakespeare admirer, would be happy that plays are still performed at Ford's Theatre. Along with books on the slain president, the site's gift shop honors the theater. I was pleased to find a copy of the Penguin Classics edition of Damon Runyon's "Guys and Dolls and Other Writings."

At the Ford Museum,  young students appeared enthralled by Lincoln's presidency and Civil War leadership. A salute to their teachers for bringing them to a place where history’s real.

 

 

New York City looks ahead with return of Broadway, Village Vanguard

Broadway's back, and so is the Village Vanguard.

New York City this week welcomed the return of its famous theater district and vintage jazz club after an unprecedented 18-month shutdown.

One of my favorite New York City landmarks, the TKTS discount ticket booth in Times Square at Broadway and 47th Street, reopened Tuesday as a line of theater lovers waited. A couple from South Carolina bought the first discounted tickets, according to a New York Times roundup of Broadway's reopening.

Long-running favorites "Wicked," "The Lion King," "Chicago," and "Hamilton" again filled Broadway stages. "Waitress" had been running for a couple of weeks, and Bruce Springsteen gave solo performances of his musical beginning in midsummer.

The theater district will get into full swing this autumn with the return of Jeff Daniels in "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster starring in a revival of "The Music Man."

Meredith Wilson's ballad "Till There Was You" will sound sweeter than ever when "The Music Man" opens at the Winter Garden Theater in December.

The Village Vanguard reopened Tuesday, beginning a six-day engagement by trumpeter Ron Miles, who's performing with pianist Jason Moran, bass player Thomas Morgan, guitarist Bill Frissell and drummer Brian Blake. 

Wall Street Journal jazz writer Larry Blumenfeld reported Thursday that the vintage Greenwich Village club installed a new mahogany bar and Steinway grand piano during the shutdown. In recent months, the club's been streaming concerts.

Pianist Fred Hersch, who attended Miles' show Tuesday, donated the piano to the club. Hersch, who boosted spirits during the first days of the pandemic with Facebook concerts from his home, will appear at the club with his trio in October.

Blumenfeld reported that music is pulsing again at Birdland, the Blue Note and Jazz at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club in New York City. Clubs are also returning in San Francisco. After closing because of Hurricane Ida, Preservation Hall in New Orleans is coming back.

Hamilton writer and star Lin Manuel Miranda appeared on the Richard Rodgers Theater sidewalk to greet the returning audience. He proclaimed "live theater's back" and led a sing-along of "New York, New York."

Broadway had returned after its longest period of darkness.

 

 

"Try to Remember" marks September's arrival

Every year when September arrives, I play "Try to Remember" each day of the month on my piano.

That's one of my rituals to mark the new season. I also read W.H. Auden's "Sept. 1, 1939," and listen to "September Song," especially Jimmy Durante's version on You Tube.

Along with playing "Try to Remember" on piano, I also search YouTube for performances of the song by Jerry Orbach.

Before his 12 seasons as the wise-cracking detective Lenny Briscoe on "Law and Order," Orbach gained fame with his haunting performance of "Try to Remember" in the original off-Broadway production of "The Fantasticks," the longest-running musical ever.

Written by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones - the American lyricist, not the British pop singer - "Try to Remember" is overly nostalgic. Its melancholy lyrics mark the end of the American Songbook era of sophisticated songwriting. While excessively sentimental, the song’s words and melody evoke the new season for me.

Orbach moved on from “The Fantasticks” to star in several Broadway musicals before his long run on “Law and Order.” He also portrayed the warm-hearted father of Jennifer Grey’s Frances “Baby” Houseman in the popular movie “Dirty Dancing.”

After a long battle with prostate cancer that forced him to leave "Law and Order," Orbach died in 2004. Each time I play "Try to Remember," I think of him.

 

Mark Harris gives in-depth portrait of Mike Nichols in major biography

Mike Nichols presided over some of the greatest successes and most spectacular failures in American film and theater history.

Film historian Mark Harris' "Mike Nichols: A Life" exhaustively details Nichols' work on each production from start to finish.

While the testimony of actresses, actors, producers, playwrights and others grows repetitive, Harris makes Nichols' triumphs and disasters compelling.

On the set of each production, he's a dynamic captain either bringing his ship safely home or wrecking it on the rocks.

Nichols, who came to America from Nazi-ruled Germany as a young boy speaking no English, was a Gatsby-like, self-invented personality.

After a reaction to a childhood vaccine, he was unable to grow hair and donned wigs and false eyelashes until the end of his life. His immigrant experience gave him an uncanny insight into American life.

While self-conscious about his odd appearance, Nichols enjoyed unlikely success as a lady-killer. He stole two of his wives from Robert Graves and John Osborne, and squired Gloria Steinem, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Lillian Hellman and Rose Styron. 

Unlike many Hollywodd/theatrical mavens, he wasn't a serial sex abuser. Women collaborators from Meryl Streep to Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Emma Thompson testify to his empathy.

Portman says that Nichols was the only director who didn't make her "feel creepy" as a young actress. He mentored Nora Ephron in her film career.

Harris, a New York magazine writer and author of "Scenes From A Revolution: The Birth of a New Hollywood," gives an engaging account of how the aimless young Nichols moved from New York City to Chicago, where he met the equally adrift Elaine May.

They discovered an instant rapport, creating an improv comedy act that rocketed them to fame in the Camelot years of the Kennedy Administration. The duo ended up with a smash Broadway hit, "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May," before pressures of performing led them to quit at the height of their success.

After an brief separation, Nichols maintained a lifelong partnership with his brilliant, beautiful co-star. May directed several classic films and notorious bombs like "Ishatar" and gained renown as a script doctor and quirky actress. She also worked with Nichols on several projects, and they reprised their act several times.

Nichols after leaving the partnership landed immediate success directing Neil Simon's first hit, "Barefoot in the Park," with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley, one of the few actresses who didn't wish to work with Nichols on new projects. Her husband, George Peppard, kept trying to sabotage the play. Nor did Redford seek to work with Nichols in the movies.

Insisting on the laughs coming naturally from the script rather than from the actors mugging for the audience, Nichols set a new standard for Broadway comedy.

Guiding Simon's "The Odd Couple" cemented Nichols' reputation for directing popular middle-class comedies. In making "The Odd Couple" a success, Nichols withstood the rancor of Walter Matthau and the fragility of the alcoholic Art Carney.

To counter his image as the master of superficial fare, Nichols later in his career took on more challenging plays, from Chekhov to Beckett, Miller and Stoppard. He apparently didn't care much for Shakespeare. 

Although he had no knowledge of the technical side of movie-making, Nichols in his first at bat scored a major hit with the film version of Edward Albee's landmark play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," pushing Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor to scorching performances.

Then, he directed "The Graduate," considered one of Hollywood's most accomplished films. As with Elizabeth Taylor, he persuaded Anne Bancroft to play a much older woman.

Still in her late 30s, suffering from cramps, Bancroft delivered a convincing Mrs. Robinson, seducing the young college graduate Benjamin, played by the then unknown Dustin Hoffman, accused of sexual harassment by co-star Katharine Ross.

In retrospect, "The Graduate" doesn't seem as revolutionary as it did when it burst upon the scene. Considered satirically fatuous and insensitive at the time, the pompous businessman's advice to Benjamin to go into plastics turned out to predict the future.

After the well-publicized failure "Catch 22," Nichols rebounded with the Jack Nicholson/Art Garfunkel/Candice Bergen rendering of Jules Fieffer's "Carnal Knowledge." From then on, Nichols had a steady film career of moderate successes and box office failures. His Broadway career also rocked along. Yet he never reached the heights of his earlier work.

At the top of his fame, Nichols suffered a major collapse brought on by a failing marriage to Annabel-Davis Goff, depression and addiction to cocaine and halcion. Harris, in a searing interlude from the production dissections, examines Nichols' despair and recovery.

Cocaine is a constant presence on Nichols' sets, as was the case with other Hollywood productions of the era. While the work is often brilliant, a sense of waste underscores those years.

Nichols kept going through a range of successes and failures, leading an opulent New York City/Los Angeles lifestyle. Tutored on how to live while rich by Richard Avedon, Nichols enjoyed fine meals, travel to exotic places, and social appearances.  Outside of the theater, his passion was raising Arabian horses. Avedon claims he had a sexual relationship with Nichols, but Harris expresses his skepticism.

Late in life, Nichols found joy and peace in a loving marriage to the TV news star Diane Sawyer. He finished with a smash of successes, most prominently the HBO production of "Angels in America," written by Harris' husband, Tony Kushner. Kushner is among those who give warm memories of Nichols, countering the withering criticism of others.

Nichols epitomized the Hollywood/Broadway legacy of white privilege, continually receiving new projects after failures that would have wrecked the careers of black and women directors.

In the exhaustive litany of actors and actresses who worked with Nichols, only one black is mentioned in the book: Morgan Freeman. He's maligned for lack of preparation in a failed production of Clifford Odets' "The Country Girl," which also starred Frances McDormand, one of the few actresses who didn't find bliss with Nichols.

Harris succeeds in restoring Nichols legacy, which had faded even before his death in 2014 at age 84. "The Graduate" was fresh and vital when it appeared in 1969, but falls short of movies like "The Godfather."

Unlike Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, Nichols didn't contribute as a writer to screenplays, but built upon the scripts of others.  In the theater, he polished the work of Simon, David Rabe, Tom Stoppard, Eric Idle and other playwrights.

And, May is credited as the main creative force in Nichols and May, in which he already played more of a director's role. But his improvisations  displayed verbal inventiveness, and he showed strong acting talent in several roles.

At times giving a fractured portrait of Nichols, Harris at last reveals the depths of the showman's personality. Nichols' power to entertain comes through, in each of the nearly 600 pages.

 

 

 

Farewell, Hal Holbrook, known for uncanny portrayal of Mark Twain

Mark Twain was a central figure in American culture when Hal Holbrook began portraying him in the 1950s.

Holbrook, who won acclaim for a range of TV, movie and theater roles including "Deep Throat" in "All the President's Men," died at age 95 Jan. 23 in his Beverly Hills home, according to media reports.

His portrayal of Twain was a TV and theater sensation, bringing back to life for postwar audiences a 19th century cultural titan.

Twain, the author of "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer," was a superstar lecturer in the late 19th century, delighting audiences with his sardonic barbs exposing human frailties.

His witticisms endured for decades; educated Americans once knew a variety of Twain quotations, some falsely attributed to him.

Beginning in his 20s, much younger than Twain at the height of his fame, the World War II veteran Holbrook revived the writer's act, donning a wig, false moustache and white linen suit.

Holbrook went on to play Twain for more than six decades, winning a Tony award for a Broadway production. As Holbrook's New York Times obituary noted, he needed less makeup to perform the role as he grew older.

The five-time Emmy winner received an Academy Award nomination in 2007 for his performance in "Into the Wild." At the time, he was the oldest actor to receive an Oscar nomination. Along with Twain, he played Lincoln several times.

In one of his best-known roles, Holbrook shone as "Deep Throat," the long unnamed source for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. "Deep Throat" was later identified as FBI official Mark Felt.

In "Magnam Force," Holbrook was the vigilante boss of police inspector Clint Eastwood. Holbrook also appeared in "Wall Street" as the old-school stock broker Lou Mannheim.

Familiar on TV commercials, Holbrook with his resonant voice was one of those American Dads who exemplified an honest and fair-minded but pragmatic American masculinity.

As Twain, Holbrook spawned a mini-genre of one-person theater. I myself have seen portrayals of William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker and Patsy Cline. Surely, someone has played Charles Dickens, and Lincoln.

Along with Twain's witticisms, the appeal was Holbrook's uncanny ability to realistically channel Twain. Twain acolytes after seeing the performance believed that the writer had come back to life. Wide cultural familiarity with Twain's work boosted Holbrook's renown.

But younger generations no longer know Twain's books. He's one of the deadest members of the Dead White Males club.

In recent years, "Huckleberry Finn," considered by Hemingway and others the first great American novel written in the country's vernacular language, has been removed from school reading lists.

As kids turn to video games and social media sites, they no longer read books of any kind, much less classics.

Although the young Huckleberry's friendship with the escaped slave Jim is a testament to their shared humanity, the book has been attacked as racist because of its frequent use of the word "nigger."

Black and liberal intellectuals condemn the account of Huck and Jim's raft journey down the Mississippi River as a totem of white supremacy.

Holbrook's portrayal of Twain was more than a novelty. Critics saw the performance as innovative theater. Holbrook in drawing upon the deep well of Twain's work was the show's playwright and actor.

In an endearing letter to the editor in The New York Times Wednesday, novelist Anne Bernays says that her late husband Justin Kaplan was inspired to write his celebrated biography of Samuel Clemens/Twain by watching Holbrook's performance.

It's doubtful that Holbrook's work would be produced now. Holbrook's death marks the fading of a generation that knew and revered Mark Twain.

 

 

 

 

A Christmas wish for the return of live performances

For my wife's Christmas gift last year, I purchased tickets to Tony Bennett's Valentine's Day concert at Atlanta's Symphony Hall.

Bennett gave a great performance before a festive, sold-out audience. Before the show, we enjoyed a romantic dinner at the Arts Center's packed 1280 Restaurant.

Covid-19 was a small cloud on the horizon. In a few weeks, the virus had grown into a vicious storm, closing down all public events.

For Christmas last year, we also received tickets to see Wynton Marsalis perform with the Atlanta Symphony in March. We also planned to attend the Atlanta Opera's production of "Porgy and Bess" in late February. Both events were canceled as the coronavirus spread. I've imagined the performances taking place in some alternative universe.

In previous years, we've found under the tree tickets to "Hamilton" and "To Kill a Mockingbird." But no such gifts this holiday season, with Broadway dark and its return unknown. No concerts at Atlanta Symphony Hall to give as presents. The 1280 is closed.

With such a damper on Christmas joy, I was cheered at AJC stalwart Bo Emerson's recent report on the return of the Fox Theater's Mighty Mo organ after a renovation.

My Christmas wish is that one day we'll gather again to hear those majestic sounds.

 

Rosebud? "Mank" looks at Herman J. Mankiewicz Jr.-Orson Welles' making of "Citizen Kane"

It's ironic that "Mank" will be presented on Netflix after a brief theatrical run.

David J. Fisher's movie examines the eternal inside-Hollywood debate about whether Herman J. Mankiewicz Jr. wrote "Citizen Kane" alone or collaborated with director/star Orson Welles, who received co-credit for the Academy Award-winning script.

The movie about old Hollywood will receive its largest viewership on the streaming service disrupting the American film industry, especially with Covid-19 devastating theatrical audiences.

Too bad Welles didn't have Netflix: Hollywood after giving the young wunderkind complete freedom to make "Citizen Kane" crushed his directing career.

Lately, Welles has had a posthumous resurgence on Netflix with the showing of his last film, "The Other Side of the Wind." Welles fought Hollywood for years to get the movie made.

Whether anyone will be interested in "Mank" beyond engrained cinephiles is questionable. New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael began the controversy in the 1960s with an essay declaring that the alcoholic Mankiewicz wrote the script alone. After "Citizen Kane," Mankiewicz's career declined.

Often considered the greatest Hollywood movie, "Citizen Kane" was the young Welles' first Hollywood project after a dazzling career in New York theater and radio, where he gained notoriety for panicking citizens with a fake Halloween news report that Martians had invaded New Jersey.

Although the 1941 film received a number of Academy Award nominations, it was strangled in the cradle by William Randolph Hearst, the model for "Kane."

Hearst's newspapers and magazines launched a successful campaign to sabotage the movie. Fearing Hearst's power, distributor RKO Radio Pictures pulled the movie from theaters. Afterwards, Hollywood derailed Welles' directing career. 

Written by Fisher's late father, Jack Fisher, "Monk" represents a new trend of movies about movies, according to a Wall Street Journal article Thursday.

Also in the works are movies on the making of "The Godfather" and "Chinatown," in both of which the late producer Robert Evans figures, the article said.

But scripts for other films about films have been shuttered, the article said. Apparently director Steven Spielberg torpedoed a green-lighted movie about the making of "Jaws."

Also in the deep freeze are projects about "Star Wars," "Gone With the Wind" and "The Streetcar Named Desire."

Hollywood's self-gazing is not new; "Sunset Boulevard" and other films have long examined the film industry.

Only last year, "Judy" showed the abuse the young Judy Garland suffered from MGM's Louis B. Mayer, who shows up in "Mank" along with other Hollywood titans.

Gary Oldman, who won an Academy Award for playing Winston Churchill, portrays Mankiewicz, who wrote the script while recuperating in Palm Springs from a severely broken leg suffered in a car accident.

Mankiewicz was assisted by Welles' close friend and colloborator John Houseman, played by Sam Troutman. Tom Burke is Welles.

Along with the macho battles of Hollywood alpha males, the movie offers the glamour of Amanda Seyfried playing Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Hearst was particularly upset by "Citizen Kane's" portrayal of their relationship.

As the pandemic's autumn wave builds, the movie's unlikely to receive much box office success, echoing "Citizen Kane." But even non-cinephiles will find "Mank" diverting during the brutal winter months.