People Before Profit blog

"One of Us": Murder mystery in coal mining town

Tue, 31 Mar 2015 16:11:00 +0000

Author Tawni O'Dell was born and raised in the coal region of Western Pennsylvania and sets all of her novels in Lost Creek, a small coal mining town in that area. Her stories are told by working people and are quite captivating and imaginative. Her latest novel, One of Us, could arguably be her best novel. O'Dell's observations about life in the contemporary coal region from a historical perspective are dead-on accurate.

In this book, the story revolves around the 19^th-century hanging of some radical coal miners, members of an organization like the Molly Maguires, a secret Irish group whose goal was to organize workers in the Pennsylvania coal fields. The company owned the fields, the town and the courts and just an inkling of a suspicion of belonging to the 'Mollies' was reason good enough for a long jail term that is if they didn't hang you.

For the most part it's Danny who tells the story, a man who was raised by a coal family and who now works as a forensic psychologist in Philadelphia. His foil is a woman raised by the wealthy and unethical mine owner.

During the course of the story, we are faced with some murders in Lost Creek, which is suffering from economic depression and where the bleak conditions recall something from a Dickens novel. Danny sets out to investigate the murders, and along the way we are told about the struggle of the miners there and the horrific hanging incident.

Eventually, it becomes clear to Danny, who is home to take care of his elderly uncle and his mentally ill mother, that the daughter of the mine owner may be heavily involved in the murders. Like a detective in a Sherlock Holmes mystery, he uses his skills to break through the manipulative and sinister nature of this woman who lives off her father's fortune.

Spoiler alert!

Then the story takes a most unusual turn, when we discover that Danny and the woman are really brother and sister. He concludes, though I'm not sure that I agree with this assessment, that the woman is a born psychopath. In other words, it was nature not nurture that led to the vicious, anti-social acts she committed throughout her life. Meanwhile, we are reminded of the hanging of the coal miners and the reason that they became radicalized from their work in the treacherous coal mines of the area.

Those who read this novel and find it interesting might find some of O'Dell's other novels to be equally absorbing. Check out her first novel, Back Roads, and the later Coal Run. O'Dell confronts the actual dilemmas faced by working people and the disaffected.

One of Us, by Tawni O'Dell

Published by Gallery Books, 2014.

Available in Kindle, Hardcover and Audible editions.

Paperback edition will be released April 7

Movies you might have missed: Missing

Mon, 30 Mar 2015 14:15:00 +0000

The 1982 film Missing, directed by Costa Gravas, dramatizes the case of Charles Harmon, an American freelance journalist and 1954 Harvard graduate, living and working in South America. What made Harmon's story noteworthy was that he disappeared six days after a U.S.-sponsored military coup overthrowing the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile that was pledged to reform.

The reality of the Harmon case is that what likely landed him on the a death list wasn't so much anything he did politically but rather his stumbling upon the U.S. personnel, uniformed and otherwise, that laid the groundwork and threw the switch to start the coup. This type of eyewitness knowledge in the hands of an experienced journalist was not an acceptable risk at the time when the U.S. sought vigorously to deny what is now part of the historical record.

Jack Lemmon plays the father of Charles Harmon and is spot on as a church-going, Rotary Club-type New York native, who assumes that whatever his government does must be for the greater good of the American people.

The Lemmon character arrives in Chile with the opinion that Charles and his wife (played by John Shea and Sissy Spacek) are middle-class radical wannabes who likely stuck their nose in where it didn't belong, and now he, the sober adult, will have to bail the kids out of their jam.

Presented with the grisly evidence of the crimes of the coup plotters and their U.S. masters, he slowly comes to a different conclusion. He cannot ignore the facts of U.S. intervention that unleashed a fascist bloodbath in which anyone with even mildly progressive views, or who is simply in the way, was a target for outright murder.

The film boasts a number of significant performances. Gruff veteran character actor Richard Bradford nearly steals the show in a couple of brief scenes in which he plays an Office of Naval Intelligence operative who has a casual and barely coded conversation with Harmon at a chance meeting over breakfast in Viña del Mar, the city from which the coup was launched.

Richard Clennon is also good in his role as the slippery U.S. consul who spins the confused Lemmon in circles, all the while attempting to maintain the façade of friendship and helpfulness as Lemmon continues his hopeless search.

In the end however, it is Lemmon's Academy Award-nominated performance that remains the standout. It is heartbreaking to watch his simple civics-class patriotism shattered by the cruel reality of an imperialist foreign policy that places the needs of big business over the lives of its own citizens. His journey from skeptical, annoyed parent, to desperate father in search of his only son, is moving in its sincerity.

Missing will forever remind us that when the gears of U.S. imperialism start to turn, innocent civilians, sometimes even our own citizens, are caught beneath the bloody wheels.

Missing

Release date: February 12, 1982 (USA)

Director: Costa-Gavras

Initial DVD release: November 23, 2004

Music composed by: Vangelis

Screenplay: John Nichols, Costa-Gavras, Donald E. Stewart

Rated PG, 122 minutes

Today in history: Irish playwright Sean O'Casey is born

Mon, 30 Mar 2015 13:40:00 +0000

On this date in 1880, Sean O'Casey, destined to become one of the greatest Irish playwrights and memoirists, was born in Dublin.

Born poor in a working-class district of Dublin, with all of Ireland then under British rule, the young John Casey became interested in the Irish nationalist cause, learning the Irish language and Gaelicizing his name. He became involved in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, which represented the unskilled laborers inhabiting the Dublin tenements. He participated in labor actions and was blackballed, unable to find steady work for some time.

After the Easter Rising of 1916, an armed insurrection mounted by Irish republicans, O'Casey was inspired to write. Out of his love of Shakespeare and earlier Irish playwrights, he devoted himself primarily to the theater.

O'Casey's first accepted play, The Shadow of a Gunman, was performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1923, the beginning of a relationship that was to be fruitful for both the theater and the dramatist, but which ended in some bitterness. The play deals with the impact of revolutionary politics on Dublin's slums and their inhabitants.

It was followed by Juno and the Paycock in 1924 and The Plough and the Stars in 1926. The former deals with the effect of the Irish Civil War on the working poor of Dublin and became a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, while the latter is set in 1916 around the Easter Rising. A committed socialist, O'Casey was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Irish working class.

In 1928, the eminent Irish poet W. B. Yeats rejected O'Casey's fourth play, The Silver Tassie, for the Abbey. It was an attack on imperialist wars and the suffering they cause. Riots and disturbances had often accompanied productions of O'Casey's plays, which openly attacked the repressive Catholic Church and the established order. The hostile environment for his work in Ireland led him to leave the country in the 1930s. Thereafter he lived in a quiet corner of southwest England.

In the autumn of 1934, O'Casey went to the United States to visit the New York production of his play Within the Gates, which was directed by actor Melvyn Douglas and starred Lillian Gish.

The Star Turns Red (1940) is a four-act political allegory in which the Star of Bethlehem turns red. The story follows Big Red (who was based on O'Casey's friend, nationalist leader James Larkin), a trade-union leader. The union takes over an unnamed country despite the ruthless efforts of the Saffron Shirts, a fascist organization openly supported by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. It was staged by the left-wing Unity Theatre in London during 1940.

In his later years O'Casey put his creative energy into a six-volume autobiography, written with lyrical and perceptive aplomb.

Critics of the playwright would chide him for his continued support of the Soviet Union, contrasting Soviet policies with his passion for personal liberty, but O'Casey habitually dismissed derogatory information as propaganda.

The imaginative flights of poetry in popular speech that characterized O'Casey's plays inevitably attracted the attention of left-wing composers. Marc Blitzstein wrote his Broadway musical Juno based on Juno and the Paycock, starring Melvyn Douglas as the blustering Captain Boyle. Elie Siegmeister wrote an opera on The Plough and the Stars.

O'Casey died at Torquay, England, in 1964.

"The artist's life," O'Casey advised, "is to be where life is, active life, found in neither ivory tower nor concrete shelter; he must be out listening to everything, looking at everything, and thinking it all out afterward."

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Yale University.

"White Tiger": A movie you might have missed

Fri, 27 Mar 2015 23:00:00 +0000

Every war produces myths and legends, and WWII is no exception. The 2012 film White Tiger examines just such a wartime legend. This is a Russian action film directed by Karen Shakhnazarov. The film was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85^th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. It is based on the novella Tankist, ili "Belyy tigr" (The Tankman, or "the White Tiger") by Russian writer Ilya Boyashov.

The film opens with Soviet infantry advancing without opposition across the remnants of a grim battlefield. As other soldiers work to clear the debris of war, both human and material, they find a sergeant still gripping the controls of his tank, and burned over 90 percent of his body, yet still alive. Three weeks later, when the bandages are removed, he is discovered to have made a miraculous recovery, and that is only the first mystery that confronts and confounds the Red Army officers who come in contact with this peculiar combatant.

The soldier was wounded in an attack by a Nazi armored vehicle known at the front as "the white tiger." At first it would appear to be a fairly typical tiger tank, a fearsome enough weapon of war on its own. But this one seems indestructible, inflicting heavy losses before disappearing almost into thin air and traversing what would appear to be impassable terrain, only to once again appear behind the lines and surprise the Soviet forces.

To solve this mystery, the Soviets question every German prisoner of war they can get their hands on, but they prove to be just as confused, and provide just as conflicting reports, as their own comrades give. The theories include a ghost vehicle, a tank manned by a crew of zombies, or a tank that requires no crew at all.

The command dismisses the more mystical notions and determines that the tank must be a one-of-a-kind manufacture, specially fitted with a high horsepower engine and heavy armor. The Soviets then set out to create a super tank of their own and staff it with an exceptional crew, which will include the aforementioned survivor of a white tiger attack.

Actor Vitaliy Kishchenko is excellent as a strong and determined major of the Soviet counterintelligence corps who has been tasked with the mission to destroy the white tiger, while at the same time keeping an eye on the spooky tankman. Kishchenko fills out the character nicely, carrying a captured German MP-40 submachine gun as his personal weapon throughout the film, and demonstrating the personality of a man with steady nerves and considerable combat experience.

As the story unfolds, the major begins to go against his own sound instincts, finding something compelling about the curious tankman who, when battles are over, communes with the burned-out hulks of once mighty armor and, like a forensic pathologist, determines how and why the destroyed tanks died in battle. Another good character is a captain who provides the counterbalance, stoutly believing that the tankman has simply gone off his head in the heat of battle, and who slightly riles the major with his cynicism.

The heroism of the Soviet people in response to fascist aggression is undeniable and well documented. As to the reality and fate of the fabled "white tiger," for that you will have to see the movie.

White Tiger

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov

Writers: Aleksandr Borodyanskiy and Karen Shakhnazarov (screenplay), Ilya Boyashov (novel),

Actors: Aleksey Vertkov, Vitaliy Kishchenko, Valeriy Grishko

Unrated, 103 minutes, region 1 DVDs are apparently dubbed from Russian into English.

Rep. Connolly won't scab for "Sharknado 3"

Fri, 20 Mar 2015 15:38:00 +0000

ARLINGTON, Va. (PAI)--Would you cross a picket line for a cameo role in a movie?

On March 13, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., refused. Connolly was scheduled for a cameo in Sharknado 3 and he called the prospect "alluring."

Then he discovered the International Association of Stage and Theatrical Employees (IATSE) crew members were on strike against the movie's production company. Connolly canceled. "I cannot be a party to the firing of a film crew seeking unionization, or its replacement with scab labor," he said. Connolly notes he has never crossed a picket line in his political career.

In a thank-you letter, IATSE President Matthew Loeb said the crews picketing the movie shoots in Florida, L.A. and D.C., noticed and appreciated Connolly's decision. "With the many challenges facing working men and women and the labor movement across this country, the kind of dedication and leadership you displayed is something we desperately need to see in Washington," Loeb added.

Photo: Representing IATSE at the AFL-CIO's Next Up: Young Workers Forum Summit in Chicago. IATSE Facebook.

"The Americans": episode explores what-if bomb scenario

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 15:51:00 +0000

This is a review of the latest episode of FX's hit drama The Americans. For the previous episode, click here.

Season 3, episode 8 - "Divestment"

Terrorist bombings are supposed to be scary; it's in their description. In the history of the Soviet Union up through today, there have been very few incidents since revolutionary days.

The United States' cases have almost completely been domestic in nature, such as with the Oklahoma City bombing, which was committed by white Christian separatists.

We're lucky that nothing major has happened since then. It may be because we haven't sent troops to occupy resentful countries in recent decades. Maybe we learned our lesson from Vietnam, that nothing good comes of sticking our noses in places without a compelling moral reason for doing so.

Than again, it could well be because the Soviet Union has played a powerful role in helping to deescalate conflicts in the Middle East, since the US is seen as compromised by its support of Israel.

Whatever the reason for our escaping attacks by foreign terrorists, you can see the "what-if" scenario almost played out in the current episode of The Americans, which is set in the early 1980s.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings thwart the bombing of an American university, yet they're unlikely to receive a medal for their actions. They're Soviet operatives masquerading as travel agents.

The instigator of the foreign plot was a South African spy named Venter, who'd convinced a fellow countryman to prepare a bomb to plant at a public event at a university.

This was a time when activists around the world were pushing for corporations to divest themselves of any financial ties to South Africa, which was a hotbed of government-sanctioned racism as well as the torture of anti-government suspects.

In last week's episode, the Jenningses, aided by black South African nationalist Reuben Ncgogo, captured Venter and his dupe, named Todd. Venter's plan to assassinate Ncgogo (Dwayne Alistair Thomas) went awry due to our favorite spy couple's deft kidnapping of Venter and Todd.

Now they're interrogating the pair in the usual abandoned warehouse. Honestly, given the number of TV shows that rely on this setting, you'd think characters from the various shows would end up tripping over one another. They're bound to run out of warehouses eventually.

Venter has something big up his sleeve, they know. The first tool employed is bribery of Venter, which they probably knew wasn't going to work. They're up against a powerful ideology combined with twisted patriotism, for Venter believes that anything-torture, planting bombs (as it turns out), hiding suspects in secret locations, suppression of voting rights-anything is justified to protect his white-ruled government.

Bribery doesn't work, so Ncgogo and Philip (Matthew Rhys) apply their fists to Venter while Elizabeth tries persuasion on Todd, who claims he didn't do anything. Something feels off to Elizabeth (Keri Russell), but she can't get past the young man's panicky defenses.

Finally, the two captives are placed facing one another in chairs a few yards apart in an abandoned warehouse. It's a cold, bleak day. Young Hans, the white South African spy recruit, is keeping watch from above, while Elizabeth prepares herself to shoot Venter. There's nothing else they can do. Venter won't break-the pair was clearly up to something-and they can't let him loose since he likely will kill other dissident South Africans the way he tried to do with Ncgogo.

Ncgogo, however, who's seen the worst of what his country's rulers have done to his people and to himself, tells Elizabeth to step aside. "You have your own country. You can never understand," he says.

He pulls out a tire and jams it over Venter's bound body. He drenches the man with gasoline and sets him ablaze.

It's a gruesome death, one experienced in later years by a number of people during the lead-up to the dissolution of apartheid in South Africa. The scene is also an anachronism, since the first recorded deaths by "necklacing" didn't happen until a year or two later.

However, for the purposes of the show, it makes for a showier, albeit difficult to take, death scene. Philip and Elizabeth avert their gazes from the horrific sight. We know that South Africa committed barbaric acts just as bad against such heroes of Steven Biko, but still, this is tough to watch.

A terrified Todd spills the truth, that Venter had him build a bomb that was supposed to go off during a board of trustees meeting at an American university. Because of the many protests at the time championing divestment, Venter (acting on his government's behalf) thought that the bombing would destroy the movement and thus buy his country more time.

Todd says that he did build the bomb but it's still in his dorm room. He claims he didn't want to plant it, but it's hard to believe that Venter wouldn't have eventually convinced the dupe to do his bidding.

Later, a handcuffed Todd is in the back of a van waiting, along with Elizabeth, for Philip and Ncgogo to return, which they do, with the evidence in hand. There in a bag lies the evidence of a functioning bomb. Ncgogo advises killing the young man but this time Philip and Elizabeth have their way. They believe Todd won't involve himself in any more terrorist schemes. They set him free and speed off.

Fictional lives saved by fictional foreign agents-and of course since we haven't experienced a major terrorist attack by foreign elements, it may seem a bit abstruse, yet in the early '80s world of the non-American Jennings, they're acutely aware of the political struggles going on in other countries

And of one struggle in particular. Later in the show, Elizabeth asks Philip for the name of his eldest son, who she just learned about in the last episode. Misha is serving as a Russian paratrooper in Afghanistan.

It's a deadly conflict, one in which the US, acting through the CIA, has paid for, trained, supplied and sanctioned terroristic acts against the government in Kabul as well as against those civilians who embraced such modern notions as women's rights and education. Americans at home were for the most blissfully unaware of the tortures and abuses going on with the advice and consent of our government.

I'd like to think that if something like that happened today we'd be much more concerned, what with the Internet available to spread the truth.

The Internet was hardly nationwide back in the early '80s, so Philip follows the war in Afghanistan by listening to BBC radio broadcasts.

Elizabeth knows that Philip is worried about his son so she meets with their spy handler Gabriel. But first he gives her another tape from Elizabeth's mother, who's still alive and still battling cancer.

Elizabeth asks Gabriel for a favor: can he see what can be done to bring Philip's son home from Afghanistan? Gabriel promises to try.

The next oldest-and more available-child of the Jennings household is Paige, who we see visiting her local library to look through microfilm news accounts in search of the fabled Gregory, who her mother described as a civil rights martyr.

The first image she finds of Gregory, he's in a civil rights march, but in the next he's been arrested after a traffic stop for carrying drugs and a pistol.

When she shares this with her mother, Elizabeth explains that Gregory's life was hard and complicated, but that he never stopped fighting.

"Was he a criminal?" Paige asks. Her mother tells the girl that "things aren't that simple, and you know that. You're already fighting against injustice. Who are you fighting against? Countries, governments, people who make laws."

You can't go robbing banks, Paige points out, to which her mother agrees.

Meanwhile, Nina, the disgraced double agent, has won a conditional freedom from prison in Russia in exchange for her having coaxed a confession out of a female spy.

Now she's set up with a job at a scientific research facility that is run by the kindly mentor she'd betrayed back in Washington DC. He promises to be professional toward her, but also makes it clear that he can never forgive her.

She feels ashamed at what she did, but now she must use what her handler calls her ability to get inside people's heads. Use it, to find out whether a particular scientist who'd been repatriated (due to Philip's work) back to the USSR is actually putting forth honest effort.

Nina's fall has been hard, but she's determined to make her way back up

Now we turn to the tale of Martha (Alison Wright), who like her Biblical namesake has worked competently with little to show for it. She realizes that, with the discovery of the spy pen she'd planted in FBI agent-in-charge Gaad's office, and the subsequent ongoing investigation, her husband, Clark, isn't who he says he is.

She's not ready to come clean about the husband who's not an interagency spy after all. In fact, in this episode Martha turns out to be a good liar.

She holds up well during the slimy investigator's questioning, helped by the fact that he's not prepared to see a woman as a credible threat. [He goes on to impugn Agent Aderholt during their subsequent interview. It's impossible not to see the racism in the way he attacks the humble beginnings of Aderholt, who is black.]

Martha survived the office politics but the real drama is at home when Clark/Philip arrives at their apartment. Martha tells him about her interview with Walter Taffet.

Clark/Philip asks who that is. "Well, he's you," she says. She tells him that the pen was found and an investigation is underway. "Who are you, Clark?"

He puts down his wine glass and says that he's her husband, the man you married, who loves you more than you will ever know. "Oh god," Martha cries out. "What have I done?"

Clark/Philip says in desperation, "Martha, we fell in love. We are what's real...when we first met, I didn't want to fall in love with you but I did...I love you and I would do anything for you, to protect you. Is that enough, or do you need more than that. Martha shakes her head. Later, they lie in bed together, but apart.

She's divested herself of an important illusion about her husband and yet she did choose under duress to lie at the office about her role in the bugging case-and by extension, about her spy husband.

How far will Martha go to maintain that lie, and what is Philip prepared to do if it all falls apart?

Tune in next week. Visit the Amerikanskis Facebook to read earlier recaps and make comments.

Photo: AP

Today in women’s history: Queen Latifah’s birthday

Wed, 18 Mar 2015 14:23:00 +0000

Dana Elaine Owens was born on this March 18, 1970, in Newark, N.J. Known professionally as Queen Latifah, she is a leading African American singer-songwriter, actress, television and record producer, comedienne, and talk show host. She found her stage name, Latifah, meaning "delicate" and "very kind," in an Arabic book of names when she was eight.

Starting in the late 1980s, Queen Latifah made an early mark as one of hip-hop's pioneer feminists, rapping about issues of black women. Her songs covered topics including domestic violence, harassment on the streets, and relationship problems. Her first album, All Hail the Queen, appeared in 1989. She was also a member of the hip-hop collective Native Tongues.

In relatively short time, Queen Latifah attracted the attention of the film world. She played the role of Thelma in the 1999 movie The Bone Collector, alongside Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Among her other films are the movie versions of the musicals Chicago and Hairspray.

Her work in music, film, and television has earned her a Golden Globe Award, two Screen Actors Guild awards, two Image awards, a Grammy Award as well as six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy Award nomination, and an Academy Award nomination.

Photo and source: Wikipedia

"The Production of Difference" examines worker division via racism

Wed, 18 Mar 2015 11:19:00 +0000

Within progressive, labor, social and economic justice circles the concept of "divide and conquer" is nothing new. It is widely accepted that workers have historically faced discrimination, people of color and women being the most exploited. In fact, whether free or slave, distinctions and differences have, undoubtedly, always served to divide workers, while bolstering and perpetuating profits.

David R. Roediger and Elizabeth D. Esch in their groundbreaking new book The Production Of Difference: Race And The Management Of Labor In U.S. History shine a much-needed light on the emergence of "race management" during slavery, Western expansion, and early 20th century industrial production.

Early on they write, "Slave labor and race management were central to how workers came to be bossed. The factory, so often seen as the site of management innovation, long coexisted with the plantation as the main site for the management of large groups of workers in America. If anything, the latter ran ahead of the former in generating thought about management." In short, they argue, innovations of "race management" among slave owners predated modern industrial capitalism, and thereby laid the groundwork for industrial managers' ideological justifications for race-based exploitation.

The on-going, open and serious dialogue among slave owners regarding the management of slave labor documented by Roediger and Esch is impressive. Like their modern day counterparts - who publish trade journals, often with insightful glimpses into the business mind - slave owners published numerous journals, magazines and newspapers like, Farmers' Register, Southern Cultivator, American Cotton Planter, and De Bow's Review, among others, that "offered extended disquisitions" on the managing of slaves. These same journals would also praise "the managerial virtues of white masters, and indeed of whites as a race, so that the broad idea of 'whiteness-as-management' received emphasis."

Undoubtedly, slave masters viewed themselves not only as owners of human property, but also as "race managers" embracing the "production of difference" as a means to maintain control and generate profits.

Often racism, sexism and the "production of difference" coalesced in so-called "management" journals. For example, "judgments of value and productivity" placed on lighter-skinned African American women, "who often embodied European standards of beauty and were the products of sexual exploitation by masters, attracted higher prices than darker-skinned 'African' women." Conversely, "among male slaves, a light skin generally decreased value as managerial 'common sense' dictated that mixed-race [male] slaves were less capable of withstanding hot backbreaking labor..."

It is also worth noting that slave births, according to Roediger and Esch, "probably produced more value than was realized through cotton production" from 1810 on. "The 'increase' continually increased," producing what one scholar called the "sexual economy of American slavery," probably "the greatest success story in plantation race management."

Slave masters also often hired out slaves as "a reserve army of labor, providing 'strike insurance' and the threat of replacing [white] workers who refused hot and dangerous work," thereby "undermining the ability of white, often immigrant, workers to effectively make demands for better wages and conditions." Undoubtedly, "whiteness-as-management" reinforced race and class divisions, and continued as a useful tool long after the end of slavery, as industrialists would eventually utilize similar methods to produce, perpetuate and manage different ethnic races looking for work in mining, steel, auto and other industries.

As Roediger and Esch analyze "race management" during Western expansion other insights are presented. For example, they write, "Railroad construction at times followed the example of slavery in seeking to find a single race best suited to the job and most willing to accept its dangers. Later railway construction management recruited a handful of races and nationalities to ensure labor supply and foster competition." Asian Americans were often singled out for the hardest, most dangerous jobs, but were often paid the least, while Slavic, Polish, German and Irish whites, among others, were often pitted against each other and African Americans.

It would be impossible to summarize all of the information presented in The Production Of Difference. In fact, I have barely scratched the surface of everything this relatively short book has to offer. Needless to say, Roediger and Esch's fresh look at an old topic is a thoughtful and detailed analysis of a conscious, systematic effort by slave masters and industrial managers alike to undermine working class solidarity.

The "management of race" and the "production of difference" may very well be terms that redefine our understanding and articulation of "divide and conquer" in the near future. And The Production Of Difference: Race And The Management Of Labor In U.S. History is a must read.

The Production Of Difference: Race And The Management Of Labor In U.S. History

By David R. Roediger and Elizabeth D. Esch

Oxford University Press, 2014, 286 pages

Monkey biz: "Trevor" on stage

Mon, 16 Mar 2015 15:55:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Circle X Theatre Co.'s production of Trevor is a true gem that makes venturing forth to L.A.'s live stages a rewarding endeavor well worth the effort.

Upon learning that Laurie Metcalf was the female lead in Trevor, I immediately decided to see this play, because long before she co-starred as the sister on Roseanne, I saw Metcalf co-star in Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead opposite Danton Stone Off-Broadway.

But when the proverbial curtain rose, I started to dislike Trevor. Wearing a tie, button-up shirt, and long pants, Jimmi Simpson as the title character loped onstage and mused about not getting a Dunkin Donuts gig. Enter Metcalf, who scolds Trevor for being a bad boy, and I cringed in my seat, fearing for the next two hours of Metcalf doing her sitcom shtick ad nauseam in yet another work about a manchild who won't/can't grow up.

But within a couple of minutes I was disabused of this erroneous notion as I realized that Trevor is no "manchild" but rather a "man monkey" who has been raised by, and is living with, humans, as if he is one of us Homo sapiens. Once the proverbial light bulb went off above my skull, playwright Nick Jones' Trevor became a compelling tragicomedy of the first order.

This subject of inter-species cohabitation can be extremely fascinating, especially between humans and creatures who have 98 percent of our genetic makeup. Living near Covina a while back, I sometimes drove past the former home of Moe the Chimp, festooned with signs demanding "Free Moe!" - the chimpanzee who'd grown up among humans and was treated like one, until authorities deemed his behavior to be dangerous and he was confined to an animal sanctuary. Through Trevor's publicist, Jones was asked if the Covina monkey influenced his play, and the response was: "The play was loosely informed by Travis the chimp, although we know about Moe too."

As Travis lived in Connecticut, not Covina, I'd never heard of this actual chimp raised by humans in captivity in Stamford. But what made Travis so interesting as a character is that he had a show biz career and Trevor skillfully mines this nugget for all it's worth. As the New York Times noted in 2009, Travis "was a natural ham, leading to commercials for Coca-Cola and Old Navy, in which he played the role of Gilligan, starring with a klatch of B-list icons, pedaling a bamboo bike attached to a palm frond to fan Morgan Fairchild, with whom he then sipped tropical drinks." Brenda Strong (a Desperate Housewives and Dallas alum) plays a sexually alluring Fairchild.

Jones and Simpson successfully take us into the mind of this fish out of water character. While pursuing the whole inter-species storyline, Trevor also explores the acting life (although some wags among us might crack wise that actors, too, are a different species). There are great insider show biz jokes and insights into the nature of acting and the entertainment industry. So Trevor is a marvelous mixture of monkey business and show biz. (Fun fact of the day: Travis even appeared in a TV pilot with Michael Moore!)

In addition, Jones and Simpson take us into the chimp's libido. Do monkeys have sexual fantasies? The interplay between Trevor and Fairchild suggests so. (Can you say: "Me Trevor, you Jane?") Plus another show biz simian, Oliver (Bob Clendenin of the TV sitcom Cougar Town), who is clad in white tie and tails, has supposedly wed not one but two human females, and has half-human offspring. Chimpanzees may make for cuddly, cute companions when they are youngsters but once they hit puberty, it seems that all bets (and pets) are off.

But the complexities and nuances of Jones' script do not end there, as Trevor is very much about family, too. Metcalf conveys this through her character's ongoing fixation with the monkey, the one being who has never let her down. The dramatist also makes us ponder, how do chimpanzees process death? One African American at the premiere commented that Trevor could even be a metaphor about racism.

The abundant laughs in the first act pay off in Act II, when all hell breaks loose (as, alas, they did in real life). Features and documentaries have also explored this absorbing notion of monkeys being raised by and living as humans, but Trevor is by far the best one I've seen.

The acting, staging and direction (by Stella Powell-Jones) are all top notch. Scenic designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz's set perfectly captures the suburban squalor that looks like, well, a chimp lives there. Special kudos to the uncanny Simpson, who without wearing a hairy monkey suit or some other artifices manages to not only physically transform himself into a chimpanzee with the way he walks and behaves, but also enters into the mind and very thought process of this critter out of sorts. Simpson's transformation sans costuming, prosthetics, wigs, etc., calls to mind Bradley Cooper's Broadway transmogrification in The Elephant Man solely through, you know, acting.

Trevor epitomizes the L.A. theatrical trend of actors with big and little screen credits (Metcalf concurrently has comedies on cable and network TV) stretching their artistic muscles by treading the boards - and perhaps showcasing a production in hope that it might be picked up by Broadway or Hollywood. Angeleno audiences are the beneficiaries of this legit stage vogue per the vagaries of La-La-Land thee-a-tuh. The opening night star-studded audience included Danny DeVito, Rhea Pearlman, Scandal's new veep Artemis Pebdani, etc., at the Atwater Village Theatre, which with four stages and a welcoming courtyard is quite a cultural venue and attraction. Circle X marks the spot for great theater.

Although this edgy show with some touchy subject matter may not be for children and very sensitive viewers, all of the above enhanced the fact that seeing Trevor is, well, more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Trevor runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm; Sundays at 2:00 pm through April 19 at Atwater Village Theatre, Theatre #1, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village, CA 90039. Reservations: www.circlextheatre.org

Photo: Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging for Circle X Theatre Co.

The original working class hero: Figaro, Figaro, "Figaro"!

Mon, 16 Mar 2015 14:45:00 +0000

PASADENA, Calif. - This noisy A Noise Within production of Figaro is playwright Charles Morey's freewheeling adaptation of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais' 1784 play The Marriage of Figaro (which inspired Mozart's 1786 opera of the same name). Like the original, Morey borrows freely and whimsically from the Comédie-Française, Italian commedia dell'arte and French farce.

Figaro's storyline lends itself to high tragedy or low comedy: The no account Count Almaviva's (Andrew Ross Wynn, who projects a Harvey Korman vibe) young saucy servant Suzanne (the red wig-wearing Angela Sauer, who plays this part with all the comic subtlety of an I Love Lucy episode) is about to wed the Count's wisecracking manservant Figaro (Jeremy Guskin). Beaumarchais and Mozart have the Count assert his droit du seigneur - a nobleman's feudal privilege of deflowering/consummating the impending marriages of young women within their dominions on the wedding night.

(For some unfathomable reason Morey's adaptation merely has Almaviva seek proximity to the newlyweds' bedroom at his chateau so he can seek to avail himself of Suzanne's sexual charms. This form of royal rape may be even more repulsive, and exposes the vile, corrupt nature of the decadent upper classes - perhaps Morey dropped the deflowering detail, thinking rape is too touchy a subject for 21st-century sensibilities?)

Some may find Michael Michetti's direction and this often frenetically paced two-act'er to be witty, with dazzling word play, expertly acted and roguishly charming. Others may consider it to be half-witty, broad, loud and over the top.

Angela Balogh Calin's colorful costumes certainly enhance the buffoonish ambiance of this production, which at times resembles a clownfest. As Almaviva, Wynn is not garbed as much as upholstered and embroidered into his rather ridiculous raiment. And as Countess Almaviva, Elyse Mirto is quite fetching while kvetshing and prancing about in her lingerie-type outfit. (Fun fact of the day: Marie Antoinette actually portrayed this character, also known as Rosine or Rosina, in a 1785 production staged at Versailles.)

As the title character, Guskin plays the work's central scheming scoundrel as a trickster with whom - nod, nod, wink, wink - the audience is in on the joke, if not in cahoots. Figaro is indeed at the core of the play, and the joke is on the aristocrats.

While there are a number of "war between the sexes" witticisms (usually at males' expenses) in Figaro about the supposed natures of the genders, what's most at play in this play is the "uppity" servant's critique of the ruling class. For Beaumarchais and Mozart's Figaro is among the Western stage's very first working class heroes.

During the American Revolution, our man Beaumarchais was a gunrunner - for the revolutionary cause, but of course. And it's not for nothing that the French revolutionary leader Georges Jacques Danton opined: "The Marriage of Figaro caused the French Revolution." Of course, this inevitably led to Beaumarchais' run-ins with the court's censors, who were royal pains in the derrière. So the best part of Figaro is its class consciousness and use of humor to ridicule the servants' "betters." (Think of a satirical version of Downton Abbey, with Daisy grabbing a pitchfork to jab her pompous overlords.)

As Morey insightfully notes in the play's program: "underneath the humor is an upending of the social order...and a deep populist anger that resonates distinctly today." The original plays are case studies in art and politics, and how radical theater, as well as other art forms, can impact and influence the real world. Morey cannily sought "to remain faithful to the joyously anarchic spirit of the original while making it...politically relevant to contemporary audiences."

And that he does with this production. Figaro has some choice, politically astute, funny bon mots, catapulting off Guskin's tongue with snarky aplomb. For example, there is a good riff on Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, where our wag Figaro - his tongue dipped in acid - waxes poetic and splenetic about "Government of the cartels," and so on. And there's a good guillotine riposte as Figaro - the former title character of The Barber of Seville - shaves the Count who would violate his wife-to-be with a sharpened razor. Take one guess what song he hums or whistles while Almaviva experiences his close shave?

Morey's adaptation of Beaumarchais' Figaro premiered Off-Broadway in 2012 and is here part of A Noise Within's "REVOLUTIONARY" season, which in turn is part of the city-wide "Figaro Unbound: Culture, Power and Revolution at Play" program. This includes LA Opera's presentation this season of the Figaro trilogy: The Ghosts of Versailles, Rossini's Barber of Seville and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), which opens March 21 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.

Although Figaro's class conscious jibes will ring true with 2015 audiences, this is, of course, a period piece set in 18^th-century France. Considering the current yawning inequality chasm and social divide, perhaps some imaginative playwright will update Figaro and set this proletarian jester in the 21^st century, where the plebian punster can thumb his nose at today's patricians? Maybe as a butler chafing under the strictures of serving, say, the Koch brothers in a modern farce called "Serfing USA" or "Figaro Unwound?" Vive la révolution!

The A Noise Within production of Figaro plays in repertory with the other "revolutionary" plays The Threepenny Opera and Julius Caesar through May 10 at A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107. For exact times, dates and more info: (636) 356-3100, ext. 1; www.anoisewithin.org. For more info on the "Figaro Unbound" program of cultural activities around L.A. see here.

"The Americans": interesting story arc on "Walter Taffet"

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 16:48:00 +0000

This is a review of the latest episode of FX's hit drama The Americans. For the previous episode, click here.

Season 3, episode 7, "Walter Taffet"

Poor Martha. Poor, poor Martha. That's been my default setting ever since her character was introduced. She had been suckered into a sham marriage with "Clark," an interagency investigator who's actually Philip Jennings, wig-wearer extraordinaire.

Martha (well played by Alison Wright) is a proper public servant exasperated by the slipshod approach to secrecy taken by an FBI office where all the men outrank her.

She may be clueless about Clark and overly willing to overlook his frequent absences, but she's not a dunce. She's capable of doing more, and being a funnel of listening-device intel to Clark is but a snippet of what she'd be capable of in a different system.

In this episode, Martha's world begins to fall apart, both on a professional and personal level.

Some time back, she'd planted a listening device in FBI supervisor Gaad's pen, with the rest of the apparatus kept in her purse.

Her potential destruction begins in a story arc that at first take seems to be more about Agent Stan Beeman's nascent rivalry with fellow employee Aderholt (Brandon J. Dirden).

Beeman had earlier described Aderholt to neighbor Philip as a guy who "asks a lot of questions. He bugs me. always trying to get in, get noticed, a black guy. He's good at what he does, I don't know..."

You could take Beeman's comments as pure competitive rivalry, but it's easy to detect the strain of racism in how a fellow agent is described unnecessarily as "a black guy," who is always trying to get noticed, but (Beeman hastens to add) is good at his job.

So when Beeman (Noah Emmerich) is at work, making another media hype call for defector Zinaida, he sees Aderholt in Gaad's office, seemingly talking about him. Beeman's jealousy propels him into the office on the pretext that Gaad (Richard Thomas) needs to sign some papers.

Gaad pops off the cap to his pen, the cap rattles a bit, and Aderholt's interest is piqued. He dislodges the bug, which silences the shocked trio. They're being spied upon, but by whom?

Martha's desk is on the other side of the glass. At a glance, she knows what it means.

They close the shades. Gaad says carefully, "Well, I think that's enough for now," and then sends them out.

As far as Martha knows, her listening device is there to catch security failures for Clark's government watchdog agency, but she knows Agent Gaad will view it as a betrayal and her employment there instantly over.

In a barely concealed panic, she takes her purse into the women's restroom and pries open the transponder. She takes it apart, runs water over it in the sink, wraps it in paper towels then returns it to her purse.

She tries desperately to chill herself out. Get a grip. At some point surely Clark's office will be notified. This can all be explained, perhaps without bringing herself into the picture.

She's back at her desk, watching a sweeper run his long-handled device over desks and equipment. She's trying to act unconcerned as he waves the device over her purse. Not a peep from Martha or the device.

Then comes Walter Taffet from the Office of Professional Responsibility, tasked with ferreting out who planted the leak. He asks Martha to provide him with logs of Agent Gaad's visitors over the past three months.

Wouldn't Taffet know about Clark's mission to identify leaks in the agency? Why hasn't Clark, her elusive white knight, arrived to explain it all to her bosses? But no, there's only Walter Taffet and his sweepers during her interminable day.

It's sinking in. Maybe Clark isn't who he said he is. Maybe his mysterious background, his refusal to be openly married to her, his weird behaviors-maybe it means that he's a foreign agent. That he's been lying all along.

Despite the thrill, the romance, the willingness to overlook flaws in her lover, and the undercover work that satisfies her disrespected abilities, she's going to have to face reality.

Back home, she knocks down a drink, inspects then hides again her gun, and while rummaging through Clark's clothes drawer, sees again the Kama Sutra manual that had brought her such pleasure.

She's been such a fool, but not any longer. When Clark comes home, she demands to see his apartment. Luckily, the KGB had set up an apartment for just that purpose, so she sees a dumpy little place, her photo prominently place, her husband properly worried about her mood, but knowing that he has an actual place of his own does nothing to assuage her fears.

That's where Martha's arc ends for this episode; however, we are aware of Chekhov's dictum that a gun seen in the first act must go off in the final act. Martha has a gun and it may well go off, whether by or against her.

The U.S. once had various principalities of security agencies, the FBI, CIA, NSA and various military units who were all rivals for funding and zealous to protect their sources and fiefdoms.

All that changed under President Jeb Bush's administration, when security lapses led to the massive French-Israeli spy scandal legendary for its length and scope-and for allegations that sources within both those countries funneled intel to the Soviet Union.

Blame the usual high level of paranoia within the U.S. government over the Soviets' continuing relevance in world affairs. Blame sweetheart arrangements with French and Israeli intelligence agencies that went overboard.

Whatever the reason, these days, Martha's nest of FBI noobs is but one spike of an all-encompassing security state. She wouldn't recognize the current state of affairs and would scarcely know where to point her gun.

Returning to the 1980s world of The Americans, let's leave aside Martha's torment and look in on her faux husband, Philip, who's at home listening to a BBC radio program about the continuing war in Afghanistan. The announcer quotes a Soviet spokesman saying the revolution there cannot be turned back.

We have the luxury of knowing that today, under Soviet protection, the northern tier of Afghanistan, including Kabul, is certainly in better shape than the rest. Free education for both sexes, women's political rights and a profitable, but regulated drug production industry.

Our fictional Philip can't see the real future ahead of him. He has learned from spy handler Gabriel that his son, born of a youthful romance with the now-dead Irina, is serving in that deadly conflict.

Disturbed, he goes upstairs to check on his teenage daughter, Paige, who is reading a book about the civil rights movement.

She eagerly talks about going with Elizabeth to the primarily black Kenilworth neighborhood, where she learned about her parents' involvement in the movement, and about Gregory, an activist who died nobly for the cause. Henry pokes his head in the door, since he's heard the last part.

Philip feels like he's drowning in too much family angst. His eldest child is in terrible danger overseas, while his teen daughter is clearly being groomed by his wife for domestic service that could well turn dangerous at some point.

He tells his daughter that he still believes in civil rights but that he became older and realized that some things (implying his family) are more important.

In the couple's bedroom, he tells Elizabeth about Paige's revelation, "Is this how it's going to work, that I'll come home one day and Paige is going to say she knows who we are?"

Elizabeth responds that she honestly doesn't know. But on to the current mission. Gabriel's told them about a South African national named Reuben Ncgogo (that spelling is in the listings but is closed-captioned as Ngogo) who's being sent from Moscow. He's with the African National Congress and ranked third on the racist South African government's hit list.

We previously learned that young proto-agent Hans, a dissident white South African, correctly identified a fellow student as a stooge for deadly South African agent Venter.

That's the play, then. Ngogo's the bait to draw out and capture Venter.

Elizabeth meets with Hans on a wintry day to set him up as a lookout for the meeting. She's been tutoring Hans on spy craft. She could end up doing the same for her daughter.

Hans is elated that he pegged the suspicious student, whose ilk he described as selfish, entitled "miniature copies of their parents."

Next comes her visit with Ncgogo (Dwayne Alistair Thomas) in a whitened, grim industrial landscape. They share family details. He's concerned about his sons' lack of understanding of the situation they're in. One son is too concerned with wanting to own a scooter when they live in a dangerous, oppressive environment.

"You have two kids," he says. "Do they have any idea what a badass woman their mama is?"

Good point. Elizabeth is justifiably proud of her capable, patriotic service to her country. Why wouldn't she want her children to know of it someday?

Speaking of service. We next see Elizabeth and Philip in a set of chic wigs, duded out for a fancy meal with Elizabeth's asset/friend, Lisa.

The theme is fancy, with lux food courtesy of a generous boyfriend. The eventual play at a later moment has to be: wouldn't you, Lisa, like to have presents and cash from a nice guy for just giving out some info from your security clearance job? That's a conversation that's bound to happen soon, but not yet.

We visit Stan's comfortable but emotionally blighted house where his son has arrived for a visit. During uncomfortable visit number #30 at the doorstep, Sandra and Stan exchange stiff unpleasantries. No, Sandra isn't flying with Stan after all to a fellow agent's memorial service. She talked it over with her boyfriend and decided against it, and oh, by the way, I don't think I should "technically" be your wife anymore. Expect a divorce soon.

Later, Stan opens up a can of soup for his son, Matthew, to eat. Matthew works up the nerve to ask about his father's service undercover. What was it like, he asks.

"Hard, strange. I got pretty screwed up. I had to pretend to be friends with people I didn't like."

Stan was with a bad man who killed people. He anticipates his son's unspoken question and says he didn't kill anyone. Given his ease in shooting an unarmed (and innocent) Soviet embassy man in the back of the head, one wonders about that statement.

A confession of another kind happens in bed between Philip and Elizabeth. She admits that she should have told him about her talk with Paige.

He then reveals that a. he fathered a son back in his teens with Irina, and b. Gabriel told him his son is serving in Afghanistan. The couple hugs. Despite their differences, they rely so strongly on one another.

Now comes the final sequence, scored to the anger-filled classic, "The Chain," by Fleetwood Mac.

Philip's wig this time makes him look like a member of the Ramones while Elizabeth is rocking a chic Euro bob.

He's inside a café where Ncgogo is chatting to the South African stoolie. Philip is eying the street while Hans sits in a car outside alert for signs of the police. Elizabeth is the driver in this scenario, in a van waiting for her cue.

Phil sees Venter, the would-be assassin, driving by and quietly taps the walkie-talkie to cue Elizabeth.

Elizabeth sees a nearby van with a woman ostensibly moving a box inside. She knows the play and strikes up a conversation with the woman, who, in a South African accent, tries to brush her off. Elizabeth delivers a forehead bullet rat-tat to the woman and wheels her van into action.

While Ncgogo unobtrusively guides the stoolie outside, Philip intercepts Venter in a tangle that lands Venter on a windshield before the quartet of Philip, Ncgogo and their quarries hustle into the back of Elizabeth's van.

The van speeds off while Hans watches, as breathless as we are.

Now, Philip and Elizabeth have a South African agent in their control. Remember that South Africa and the U.S., besides being military and trade partners, also shared intel on various foreign agencies, including the Soviet Union.

Venter, stopped from committing another hit, is quite a catch. What will they do with him?

And, what's going to happen with Martha? Tune in next week.

For links to other reviews, visit Facebook at the Amerikanskis.

Today in women’s history: Musical theater diva Julia Migenes is born

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 14:44:00 +0000

Julia Migenes, the American mezzo-soprano working primarily in musical theater repertoire, was born on this date, March 13, 1949, on the Lower East Side of New York to a family of Greek and Irish-Puerto Rican descent. (She is sometimes credited as Julia Migenes-Johnson.) Despite a difficult and violent childhood, she discovered her calling playing the child role in Puccini's Madame Butterfly, where she first experienced the power and emotion of music linked to a stage setting. She graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York City.

Migenes was chosen by Leonard Bernstein to be a soloist in his Young People's Concerts, and went on to create the role of Tevye's daughter Hodel in the original 1964 Broadway production of the long-running musical Fiddler on the Roof. She has also interpreted Maria in West Side Story.

Understanding that her real gift was singing, she became a cover for roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. While substituting for the title role of Alban Berg's Lulu, renowned for its technical difficulty, she was cheered and acclaimed by the public, launching her opera career.

Word of this new star crossed the Atlantic, where Maurice Béjart was desperately searching for his Salome to be staged in Geneva. Julia Migenes embodied the ideal combination for this role: a world-class opera singer and a graceful dancer.

While on stage in Geneva as Salome, the Italian film director Francesco Rosi was casting for his forthcoming 1984 film of Carmen, whose lead role required not only an opera singer and dancer but also an actress sensual enough to personify the burning passion of Bizet's character on film. Migenes immortalized her performance in a motion picture that has since become a reference point in the filmed opera genre. The soundtrack not only brought her a Grammy Award but even more worldwide notoriety that granted her access to the greatest theaters in the world.

Julia Migenes has recorded more than 20 albums, among them "Vienna" conducted by Lalo Schifrin, a Gold record six months after its release, Man of la Mancha, with Plácido Domingo, Samuel Ramey, and Mandy Patinkin, operetta, opera, American pop music and jazz.

In 1998, Migenes wrote Diva on the Verge, a one-woman-show mingling monologue and opera often mocking its rigid world, revealing her daring wit and sense of humor. In 1999, she performed this show in French in Paris and throughout France and French-speaking countries. She also prepared a Spanish version of this show for a tour in Spain and Latin America. She continues to present the English version throughout the U.S.

In 2001 she created Passions Latines, a choreographed recital in which she interprets a repertoire of Latin music, both classical and traditional, from Granados and Villa Lobos, to flamenco, tango and the great contemporary salsa songs. She presented this show at the Paris Olympia in 2002, followed by several international summer festivals. Her program dedicated to sacred songs premiered at the Fès Festival of Sacred Music in Morocco in 2003. In 2006 she premiered her show Alter Ego at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and toured it throughout Europe until the end of 2007.

She was also part of the cast along with soprano Barbara Hendricks of a new opera Angels in America by Peter Eötvös, based on the Tony Kushner play, which was created at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in November 2004.

Julia Migenes released the CD "Hollywood Divas," dedicated to the greatest actresses of cinema, summoning up the careers of such legendary stars as Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich and Carmen Miranda.

We celebrate the extraordinary and remarkably wide-ranging career of a great musical talent born on the Lower East Side.

From combined sources.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

Seventy years since the end of WWII: "A Generation"

Thu, 12 Mar 2015 14:03:00 +0000

When Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1939, its capitalist government couldn't hold out for much more than a month. It packed up its tattered administration and fled to London. Left behind were the Polish people. It was these people, led by Communist activists and supplied by Soviet air drops, as well as through whatever weapons and material they could scrounge, who carried on the fight.

This struggle is portrayed well in the 1955 film A Generation, the product of screenwriter Bohdan Czeszko, whose script reflects his patriotism and class consciousness. It was directed by the famed Andrzej Wajda.

The film opens with three youths whiling away their hours with such boyish masculine pursuits as playing mumblety-peg in a railyard. When a Nazi supply train passes they are seized with the patriotic notion to leap aboard and toss down coal for the locals to scoop up. One of them is promptly shot dead by a soldier guarding the train. In this way the boys are thrust into the harsh reality that war is no kids' game, but they are going to have to play it just the same.

The first thing they need to do is find someone who knows more about the discipline of resistance than they do. One of the young men, Stach, makes his way to a woodworking shop and hires on as an apprentice. It is there that he will meet a veteran Communist named Sekula.

Sekula has that sturdy build and friendly countenance that puts one at ease. He is full of confidence but completely lacking in arrogance. It's a personality well known to working people and found in workplaces everywhere in the world. It is not long before he gives Stach some on the job lessons in surplus value on how the owners exploit the workers. Stach is soon asking how a worker can fight back, and Sekula can help him with that question too.

Attending school at night, Stach has a chance encounter with a young activist, her eyes blazing with fury as she bursts into the building where the classes are taking place. She exhorts the students to not simply wait for liberation, but actively engage in armed struggle against the Nazi occupiers. Stach is quickly motivated to find both the girl and the armed wing of the Polish Workers Party which will carry out the struggle against the Germans and their collaborators. He soon enters the world of clandestine meetings, dimly lit back rooms, false names and passwords.

Entering the unfamiliar world of combat, the young men and women must come to terms with their own self-doubt, inexperience, and courage. When the first member of the group carries out the assassination of a Nazi officer, it is well portrayed in a scene showing the gunman carrying out the action with a combination of rage, thrill, and then disgust at the sight of the bullet-ridden corpse.

The Second World War was a historic defeat for the forces of imperialist reaction, and A Generation nicely illustrates the role played by the Polish working class in this victory.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

"The Americans": new episode tackles religion

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 15:44:00 +0000

This is a review of the latest episode of FX's hit drama The Americans. For the previous episode, click here.

Season 3, episode 6 - "Born Again"

God splashes into the storyline of "Born Again" in a big way, dragging along several major characters in His wake. Even Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) finds salvation through prayer, although not in the way your average Christian envisions it.

His daughter, Paige, is into Jesus big time. We sympathize with her desire to find a deeper purpose to her life and since Pastor Tim is a socially conscious leader, Paige (Holly Taylor) has taken part in protests against South Africa's vicious apartheid regime.

Now comes her baptism which begins with a guitar-led version of "Shall We Gather at the River." This isn't a Jerry Falwell mega-church ode to capitalism. Pastor Tim espouses a faith in which his flock works for the betterment of the living and the uplifting of those oppressed. You wouldn't find these people at anti-abortion protests-not in the early 80s, at any rate. They're protesting Reagan's bomb-first mentality and his warm embrace of South Africa.

But now, politics aside. Paige is dressed in white and ready for her total immersion in purifying waters. Down and up she goes, drenched in what she believes are cleansing waters.

Her parents, Philip and Elizabeth, smile grimly in the congregation. This is hard for them. Their upbringing and gut instincts argue against religion in general and God in particular. It's a myth to them, and since the church they're familiar with-Russian Orthodox-stayed hand in glove with the Czars and cared nothing for ordinary people, our super spies have reason to be suspicious of Paige's new-found faith.

Still, they're there for Paige, even if their clapping is somewhat forced.

Youth continues to be a subject for the show, as we see Paige in the throes of Christianity and now we visit with collegiate spy Hans, who's still being shown the ropes by Elizabeth. He thinks he's found a turncoat in a student anti-apartheid group. Elizabeth advises caution.

Philip, for his part, is trying to find a way to tell Paige to be strong, stand up for herself and always be true to her beliefs, but since he can't specify exactly why-beware of Mom wanting to turn you into a spy!-Paige thinks he's talking about church in a negative way. Philip finishes lamely, "I just want you to be happy, that's all." As father-daughter talks go, pretty much a bust.

The episode continues with the subject of faith in the next scene when FBI agent and neighbor Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) brings his fellow est-participant, Tori, to the Jennings home for a meal. Est was a trendy spill-your-guts, spend your bucks in public quasi-spiritual practice that, as Tori explained to young Henry, isn't a religion. No, it's about personal and emotional growth. "It's about taking what you get and being cool about it."

Henry over-asks and Tori over-shares, leading Paige to defend her church's way of helping people, which is far more engaged with people's real lives than with merely the territory between their ears.

Henry digests what Tori says and renders a diagnosis: "That's weird." Thanks for your single scene, Henry. Try not to grow another six inches before we see you again.

Later, Beeman and Tori are at home trying to get their groove on but Beeman's distracted by photos of his ex-wife. Except that, he explains to Tori, Sandra is still his one and only, which seems rather stalkerish. Tori reacts with a version of the est gospel of "feel it, don't push away your emotions, just go with it," and soon, as Stephen Stills sang, if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

While Beeman has moved on for the moment, his ex-lover, the beautifully glum Nina (Annet Mahendru), is still in a Moscow prison. If she wants to shorten her sentence, she'll have to weasel information out of fellow cellmate Evi, a Belgian who was left in the lurch by an enemy spy.

Time to play the woe-is-me card. Evi tries to console a woeful Nina by saying, "So you made a mistake. You have to be strong." Nina's not having it. She left her husband who in turn has abandoned her. "How can you love someone who leaves you?"

The seed-planting works as Evi eventually tells Nina critical details of how she helped her lover in the spy game. Nina's taken off for a delicious meal-with a bottle of red wine-but soon after she returns, Evi is dragged away by guards. She immediately realizes that Nina has betrayed her. Nina says nothing but her slumped posture speaks volumes. She did what she had to do; she hates it. No amount of vino is going to make her think better of herself.

The same could be said for Philip, except that the substance in this case is primo Afghani weed. He's at the perpetually unchaperoned Kimmy's house about to carry out a bugging operation premised on the idea that the girl will be baked, mind blown, eyes closed and headphones on to the strains of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon."

Philip is playing a stoner lobbyist named Jim, who's into Kimmy but hasn't yet taken her to bed. He's running out of reasons not to-he can't tell the girl that she reminds him uncomfortably of his own teenage daughter-but thankfully she decides to take a solitary bath, which kicks off an up-tempo dose of spy theater.

A female operative races through the back door and works on installing the bugs needed to monitor Kimmy's father, who's running a CIA-Afghani ring. The stakes are high, and so is Philip, which may be why when Kimmy comes out of the shower wearing nothing but a towel, he's having to improvise, do a little verbal soft shoe to cover while the female operative is finishing up and slipping out the back door.

Although Philip manages to squirm out of the situation, he soon learns from his handler, Gabriel (Frank Langella), that the Centre expects him to visit the Breland house not monthly but on a weekly basis. Slow seduction not in the cards.

Kimmy is notably less enthusiastic during his next visit. If he doesn't up the emotional involvement, she's going to slip away and there goes the vital bug placement. Gabriel's words to him are still ringing in his ears. Soldiers are dying in Afghanistan. Philip's work could save lives.

What to do, what to do, he wonders. It comes to him. All those church services finally pay off. Earlier in the episode, the Jennings' handler, Gabriel (Frank Langella) had told Philip that his one-time lover, Irina, has been captured in Brazil. Irina was a rogue Soviet spy who told Philip that she'd given birth to his son. Gabriel is unable to confirm Irina's story but does describe the young man, who is now twenty and a loyal Soviet paratrooper.

Now, stuck in a compromising moment, Philip/Jim finds his inspiration. He builds on his earlier lie about going to church by saying the reason for it was deeply personal.

"When I was seventeen, I got a girl pregnant," he tells Kimmy. He hasn't been a part of his son's life, and now he wants to be a better man. Kimmy hugs him. The moment could go either way if he's not careful.

"I'm so messed up," he says. "Kimmy, would you pray with me right now?" On bended knees next to her bed, that's exactly what they do. He thanks God for bringing Kimmy into his life. Kimmy is inspired by his act and jumps right in by asking God to watch over his son and says that he'll be an amazing father.

Fake prayer, but real emotions. Philip has once again completed his mission without seducing Kimmy. How long he'll be able to walk this tightrope is unknown.

At home, Elizabeth can't lose herself in a book. She's thinking about Philip's mission and Paige's future, and knows there's only one thing that will help-not Nina's wine, not Philip's joint, but a stick of nicotine dynamite.

Paige, who catches her in the garage, says casually that she and Henry already know that Elizabeth is a secret smoker, and that she's not going to give her mother a lecture on the dangers of tobacco.

Elizabeth admits that she's so impressed by how her daughter has "grown up all of a sudden." Paige half-jokingly politicks for an extended curfew. Elizabeth tells her daughter that she will always support her but the spiritual life isn't really her thing.

Paige tries to explain the spiritual presence she feels when she's praying, an effort that goes all for naught, for while Elizabeth may have an encouraging smile on her face, she's not buying it.

Finally, with Paige safely to bed, Philip comes home to learn that young Hans, the spy-in-training, actually was on to something about that possible agent at the college students' anti-apartheid meeting. Not just possible-a probable spy, and working for the South Africans in tandem with the Reagan Administration to undermine the battle against that uber-segregationist white regime.

Only a few years later, South Africa finally lost the public support of the United States, while the Soviet Union, by showing how to peacefully handle profound changes in Germany, made it impossible for the minority white government to continue on with its torture and detention regime.

Nelson Mandela, an unrepentant socialist, finally seized his moment on the world stage. But in the early 80s, that wasn't such an obvious outcome. Back then, the stakes seemed deadly and intractable. War, revolution, chaos, with some of the fighters operating in quiet Washington streets.

As for Philip and Elizabeth, the low-intensity battle they have fought with each other over Paige has reached a cease-fire zone. Philip has brought home a joint. They open a window and lean out, comfortable in each other's presence as they share hits. Elizabeth tells him that Paige wants her to start praying.

"She's living in a fantasy world," she says, but Philip gets a laugh out of her when he reveals that he told Kimmy he couldn't sleep with her "because I have to serve Jesus instead."

He's off the hook for now, but if the operation drags on and she grows older, then maybe he'll have to sleep with the girl. Their weed-induced giggles subside. Damn reality.

Elizabeth has had her own sobering moment earlier with Gabriel. She needs to get a move on with recruiting Paige, or else, it is implied, the Centre will do it for her.

It's an overcast day in a run-down majority-ethnic neighborhood. Elizabeth has taken her daughter for a ride. She's about to have the most honest conversation she's ever had with her daughter, and yet it still eludes the heart of the matter-that she and Philip are spies.

Elizabeth leads with her heart, talking to Paige about Gregory, a man very important to her who helped her understand things she'd only read about in books. She can't tell her daughter that Gregory was a brilliant, thoughtful person who died in a hail of bullets to protect Elizabeth, who was his sometime lover.

Some details you just don't share with your kids. But the emotion, the sincere desire to change an unjust society? That's the part ringing true for Elizabeth. She can sell it to her daughter because she still believes that her work can make a difference in people's lives both in the US and in her homeland.

"We didn't only sing songs and march. We fought in other ways," Elizabeth says.

"You were never arrested," Paige guesses.

"Never caught." Elizabeth admits. "It wasn't always legal but it was right; it was for the greater good."

She then folds Philip into the narrative, saying that they continue to care about just causes, and that their lives aren't only focused on the travel agency.

"I love what you're doing with the church, but doing good is a lot harder than going to rallies and signing petitions...I think there's something special about you."

"You're saying I can accomplish more," Paige says. "That's why we're here."

Elizabeth delivers what she hopes is the clincher. "I brought you here so you'll know I'm a lot more like you than you think."

Thanks to his daughter's immersion in the church, Philip has found his come-to-Jesus moment, one that'll keep Kimmy clothed and the Breland's buggable house at his disposal.

Elizabeth must accustom Paige to their way of life by using the language Paige has already learned from her church about resistance to racism and other forms of man-made evil.

Elizabeth killed a man in the last episode because she needed her asset in place at a plant assembling Stealth bomber parts. The greater good for her is assuring her country's safety against a powerful enemy. She has to be hard, she has to be strong, even ruthless, but she remembers those days with Gregory when her mission and her heart were on the same page. When she was young and in love.

At some point must come another conversation with Paige, one that Elizabeth surely dreads. It is one thing to be an American dissenting from her government's policies, quite another to be a Russian citizen living undercover in the only land her daughter has ever known.

Elizabeth's faith long ago found a resting place in the tenets of Soviet-style socialism. To reach her daughter's heart, she must speak a new language, one that blends her world view with the Jesus-speak her daughter understands.

She knows that Paige is ready, even if Philip doesn't believe it yet. If they don't make their pitch now, Paige is effectively lost to them as a permanent convert to the American church of Jesus-infused capitalism.

Yet Elizabeth's face is hardly that of a Soviet warrior as the episode ends. She's a mother worried about her daughter and trying to do the right thing.

A tale of two parents and two daughters, one of whom belongs to another family. Will Kimmy finally trip Philip/Jim into bed, prayers be damned, and will Paige become Elizabeth's newest pupil in the spy trade?

Tune in next week to see what happens. To post comments, please visit the Facebook Amerikanskis page.

Photo: FX Network official site

Today in women’s history: "A Raisin in the Sun" opens in 1959

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 10:43:00 +0000

The Lorraine Hansberry drama A Raisin in the Sun opened at New York City's Ethel Barrymore Theater on March 11, 1959.

The title comes from Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred")."What happens to a dream deferred?" Hughes asked. "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" The story is about a family's experiences in the Washington Park subdivision of Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood, and is based on Hansberry's own family history.

The author reflects on the litigation her parents pursued in her book To Be Young, Gifted, and Black:

"Twenty-five years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago's 'restrictive covenants' in one of this nation's ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile 'white neighborhood' in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house.... My memories of this 'correct' way of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. And I also remember my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our household all night with a loaded German Luger (pistol), doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court." Hansberry was referring to the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.

With a cast in which all but one minor character is African-American, A Raisin in the Sun was considered to be a risky investment, and it took over a year for producer Philip Rose to raise enough money to launch the play.

After touring out of town to positive reviews, the play landed on Broadway. After its run at the Barrymore it transferred to the Belasco Theatre in October and closed on June 25, 1960, after 530 performances. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the cast featured Sidney Poitier (Walter Lee Younger), Ruby Dee (Ruth Younger), Ivan Dixon (Joseph Asagai), Lonne Elder III (Bobo), John Fiedler (Karl Lindner), Louis Gossett (George Murchison), Claudia McNeil (Lena Younger) and Diana Sands (Beneatha Younger). Ossie Davis later played Walter Lee Younger.

Waiting for the curtain to rise on opening night, Hansberry and producer Rose did not expect the play to be a success, for it had already received mixed reviews from a preview audience the night before. Though it received popular and critical acclaim, reviewers argued about whether the play was "universal" or particular to African-American experiences. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the Best Play of 1959. The 29-year-old author became the youngest American playwright and only the fifth woman to receive this award.

Raisin subsequently went on national tour, becoming a frequently performed staple of the 20th-century American stage. It has also been filmed, turned into a musical, translated into 35 languages, and performed all over the world.

A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first play with a black director on Broadway.

Hansberry noted that it introduced details of black life under racial segregation to the overwhelmingly white Broadway audiences, while director Richards observed that it was the first play to which large numbers of black people were drawn. Frank Rich, longtime theater critic for the New York Times, stated that A Raisin in the Sun "changed American theater forever."

In 1960 Hansberry's play was nominated for four Tony Awards: Best Play, Best Actor in a Play (Sidney Poitier), Best Actress in a Play (Claudia McNeil), and Best Direction of a Play (Lloyd Richards).

Young, gifted and pan-Africanist

After she moved to New York in the early 1950s, Hansberry joined the staff of the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where she worked with intellectuals such as its publisher Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois, whose office was in the same building. She did clerical work for the publication in addition to writing news articles and editorials.

One of her first reports covered the "Sojourners for Truth and Justice" convened in Washington, D.C., by Mary Church Terrell. She traveled to Georgia to cover the case of Willie McGee, and was inspired to write the poem "Lynchsong" about his case. She worked not only on the U.S. civil rights movement, but also on global struggles against colonialism and imperialism. Hansberry wrote in support of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya, criticizing the mainstream press for its biased coverage. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggle for liberation and its impact on the world.

Hansberry often clarified these global struggles by explaining them in terms of female participants. She was particularly interested in the situation of Egypt, "the traditional Islamic 'cradle of civilization,' where women had led one of the most important fights anywhere for the equality of their sex." Scholars and biographers have identified Hansberry as a lesbian, and sexual freedom is an important topic in several of her works.

In 1952, she attended a peace conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, in place of Paul Robeson, who had been denied travel rights by the State Department.

She died of pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965, at the all too early age of 34. Her work inspired Nina Simone's song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black."

Hansberry's funeral was held in Harlem on January 15, 1965. Paul Robeson and SNCC organizer James Forman gave eulogies. James Baldwin and Martin Luther King, Jr. sent messages to be read. She is buried at Asbury United Methodist Church Cemetery in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.

The Hansberry family house, the red-brick three-flat at 6140 S. Rhodes in Washington Park that they bought in 1937, was given landmark status by the Chicago City Council's Committee on Historical Landmarks Preservation in 2010.

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

Rossini's super cuts: The Barber of Seville in review

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 15:35:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES -- Daily existence is full of a cornucopia of soul-sapping vexations marring our felicity. They run the gamut, dammit - from eternal, infernal traffic jams to pesky bill collectors to life-threatening plagues to wars to global warming, ad nauseam. But LA Opera's production of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville is one of those things that can make you feel glad to be alive, rendering those ceaseless slings and arrows of our outrageous misfortunes bearable and even making living a worthwhile undertaking.

Debuting in Rome in 1816, Barber has become one of the most performed, best loved operas ever. There are several reasons why, but Rossini's music certainly has pride of place. The score is bubbly, buoyant, vibrant, frothy. I've never seen James Conlon so animated, as from the get-go, with the Overture, he vividly conducted the orchestra with verve and flair, almost illustrating the music while moving as one with the dazzling score. Conlon's baton seemed like more of a magic wand, conjuring Rossini's intoxicating, enchanting score out of the strings, woodwinds, fortepiano, brass and percussion instruments, et al, like a symphonic sorcerer. This lucky critic had a perfect view of Conlon as the conductor held forth. I enjoyed moving my opera glasses back and forth between the action onstage and in the orchestra pit, with Conlon parrying and thrusting like a musical Errol Flynn. Call it: "Zen and the art of conducting." Bravo to our swashbuckling maestro!

Another reason for Barber's perennial popularity is its plot - this comedy is, after all, an ebullient romance. As the maid Berta (mezzo-soprano Lucy Schaufer) sings: "What on earth is all this love which makes everyone go mad?" (Or, as Freddie Mercury put it 163 years later: that "Crazy little thing called love.") Of course, there is Count Almaviva's (tenor René Barbera) light-hearted, lusty pursuit of Rosina (mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong), which provides the comical backbone for this opera that adapts the first of the trilogy of 18^th century plays by French playwright Pierre Augustin Beaumarchais about the title character.

However, in this libretto by Cesare Sterbini, there is no greater love than the one the eponymous haircutter, Figaro (Moscow-born baritone Rodion Pogossov), has for himself. This supremely self-confident beautician apparently has a higher quotient of self-esteem than The Donald does. In his rapidly sung "Largo al factotum" aria, basking in the beauty of (who else?) himself, the highly self-regarding, self-ballyhooing barber sings the name of his true love - "Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!" - dontchaknow? Pogossov is a hoot (and a holler) in the title role: Not even Kryptonite could stop this Muscovite.

Another outstanding thing about this LA Opera and Emilio Sagi production is that it slyly uses a cinematic technique rarely seen onscreen in movies such as 1939's The Wizard of Oz. Spanish scenic designer Llorenc Corbella, Argentine costume designer Renata Schussheim, Spanish lighting designer Eduardo Bravo and American director Trevore Ross have quite cleverly collaborated to visualize the emergence of love onstage.

There are other shrewd stage effects - there is a likewise sharp-witted visualization of the "slander" concocted by Rosina's thwarted would-be lover Doctor Bartolo (Italian baritone Alessandro Corbelli, who alternates in the role on March 22 with bass-baritone Philip Cokorinos), and Don Basilio, portrayed with great comic panache by the crowd-pleasing Icelandic bass Kristinn Sigmundsson. His hulking presence and humorous depiction added to the show's general merriment, even as Basilio and his partner in crime, Bartolo, conspired to make Almaviva sing à la Simon and Garfunkel: "I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the bible," as he tries to keep Rosina satisfied.

Kudos to the entire cast and crew, including chorus director Grant Gershon and Spanish choreographer Nuria Castejón. And I'd be remiss if I did not also single out Tamara Sanikidze's angelic tickling of the pianoforte's ivories, which had a harpsichord-like vibe that enhanced the 18^th-century ambiance.

LA Opera is presenting Rossini's The Barber of Seville as part of this season's "Figaro Unbound: Culture, Power and Revolution at Play" series, which included The Ghosts of Versailles and the upcoming The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, opening March 21 (can't wait!). A Noise Within's play Figaro, which is also part of the "Figaro Unbound" programming, debuted March 7 and will be the subject of a forthcoming review.

The best reason to see this opera is because, like our man Figaro, you love yourself and want to give yourself a well-deserved treat!

The Barber of Seville is being performed on March 11, 14 and 19 at 7:30 pm and March 22 at 2:00 pm at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. For more info: (213) 972-8001; www.laopera.com.

NYU exhibit highlights Communist role in American music

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 15:11:00 +0000

NEW YORK - An exhibit at New York University (NYU) highlights the role of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the broader left in the renaissance of folk music and American popular music in general during the 1930s and beyond.

"Left Protest Music in the Tamiment Library & Wagner Labor Archives," in the lobby of NYU's Bobst Library, includes songbooks, sheet music, posters, and photographs drawn from the archives of the Tamiment Library at NYU. Librarian Kate Donovan assembled the exhibit in great part from photos, papers, posters, and other artifacts permanently donated by the CPUSA and People's World as an archive of primary sources for future historians and researchers.

An explanatory text beside one display is headlined, "People's Songs: Folk Music and the Left." It continues, "As the left and the Communist Party turned their attention to music for working people, they also began rediscovering traditional American folk music."

The text cites the role of father-son team John and Alan Lomax in crisscrossing the nation to record on primitive machines folk songs as sung by Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) and other undiscovered singers and musicians.

Among the photos are portraits of Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, the Weavers and the Almanac Singers. A songbook by Malvina Reynolds is displayed. And there are copies of the folk song magazine "Sing Out."

The text continues, "In part due to the social and economic crisis wrought by the Great Depression, the Communist Party emerged as a leading political voice on labor and social justice in the 1930s and 1940s.

"By the late 1930s, the Party had a wide following in many segments of American life, notably among labor unions, intellectuals, and artists." The Party exerted a strong influence on culture and "used music as a means of expressing their revolutionary politics," the text adds. The goal for many "was to create 'proletarian art' that would support labor and worker's struggles."

Songs during the "Popular Front" era were "intended to foster social change with lyrics that promoted unions, decried the exploitation of working class people and advocated egalitarianism."

One case, "No Pasarán: Songs of the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939," is devoted to the folk songs and music sung in support of the 2,800 or more Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers from the U.S. who fought and died in Spain fighting Franco fascism.

"Left music did not confine itself to rallies and picketlines but extended into all parts of American life including the theater," explains the text on an adjoining display case. "Anti-racism was a prevalent theme of the Left theater of the period."

One musical of the period, Sing for Your Supper, produced by the WPA Federal Theatre Project (FTP) in 1939, included the 11-minute "Ballad for Americans," with music by Earl Robinson and lyrics by John Latouche. Republicans in Congress killed the FTP, but as later performed by Paul Robeson on radio and on a best-selling 78 rpm recording, the cantata became a nationwide hit. Donovan writes that the "Ballad" "promoted a new vision of American muliculturalism with the lines, 'Are you an American? I'm just an Irish, Negro, Jewish, Italian, French and English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Scotch, Hungarian, Litvak, Swedish, Finnish, Canadian, Greek and Turk and Czech and double-Czech American." (Labor choruses have altered that line often, adding nationalities like "Mexican," "Native American Indian," and religions - "Muslim," for example.)

"Ballad for Americans" became so popular that it was featured at the 1940 national conventions of both the CPUSA and the Republican Party. In Ballad of an American: The Autobiography of Earl Robinson, co-written with Eric A. Gordon, the composer tells of the interview with him and John Latouche that the New Yorker magazine conducted about this curious turn of events. "We wrote the 'Ballad for Americans' for everybody, not only Republicans," said Latouche. "Especially not only Republicans," added Robinson, who was a CPUSA member in those years.

"The House I Live In," by Robinson and Lewis Allan (pen name of Abel Meeropol), was another runaway Popular Front hit song, performed by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and many other singers. Meeropol, with his wife Anne, later adopted the two sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their execution in 1953.

Another display makes clear that the Cold War anti-Communists were determined to crush this cultural re-awakening. HUAC witchhunt hearings led to the blacklisting of many performers like Pete Seeger. Photos of the Klan-like goon squad that attacked concert-goers in Peekskill, N.Y., are featured. These hooligans viciously attacked with rocks and clubs a peaceful crowd assembled to hear Paul Robeson sing.

The attack failed to crush the cultural awakening. The display "Songs for Peace" highlights songs sung by Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon to protest the war in Vietnam: "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Give Peace a Chance": Millions sang those songs marching to end the Vietnam War.

Another display is devoted to the role of music in the civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement. A poster publicizes a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater in Harlem to raise money to pay for buses to take protesters to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Curator Donovan quotes a line from a widely known song demanding equality for women: "We're breaking out of our cage of ruffles and rage/ It's time to spell our own names; we're people not dames."

The exhibit is on view for probably a couple more months, but there is no set closing date at this time. The library is located at 70 Washington Square South, New York 10012.

Photo: Pete Seeger | AP

"Fugue": Tell Tchaikovsky the news - sexual atonality

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 12:57:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Do you have a guilty pleasure, Dear Reader? Your galavanting reviewer confesses to one that whiles away the hours during long haul flights: Reading books that stick their big noses into the private lives of geniuses. While soaring through the stratosphere over the Pacific Islands or aboard trans-Atlantic flights, tell-all biographies of Pablo Picasso, John Lennon, and Marlon Brando have been eagerly consumed. These prying eyes can't get enough of those salacious details! It may be poor manners but there's nothing like reading the personal letters and diary entires of others to pass the time away (as our three amigos, N, S, & A well know!).

So it was with great interest that I attended the world premiere of the cleverly titled Fugue. In it, playwright Tommy Smith delves into the sex lives of not one, not two, but three - count 'em - musical geniuses! It's a veritable tabloid-apalooza of invasions of privacy which Smith lays bare (but not bare enough, as you'll soon see!), exposing the purported behind-closed-doors peccadilloes of a trio of composers and their consorts and cohorts.

The musicians are: The brilliant Piotr Tchaikovsky (Christopher Shaw), who gave the world such supreme pleasure, with wonderful works such as "Swan Lake," "The Nutcracker Suite," etc., in the 19th century. But bestowing such splendor upon his fellow humans wasn't quite enough for patriarchal Czarist society, which stipulated that the gay composer also live up to its strict heterosexual code of behavior. To say the least, complications ensue when Tchaikovsky weds Antonina (Alana Dietze), and his long suffering bride/beard decides to, shall we say, shave. (Astute cinephiles may recall a sort of comical reenactment of Tchaikovsky's mock marriage in Ken Russell's 1969 Women in Love, based on D. H. Lawrence's novel - and, by the way, one of the best cinematic adaptations of literature in screen history.)

Our next troubled talent is Arnold Schoenberg (Troy Blendell), the 20th-century Austrian innovator of atonal music and the twelve-tone technique. Arnie's wife Mathilde (the aptly named Amanda Lovejoy Street) takes up with the younger painter Richard Gerstl (Jesse Fair), who cuckolds his friend and sometime benefactor, the far more successful Schoenberg. (Hey, what are friends for?) Further complications ensue, as the ménage à trois careens down a sexual skid row.

Our final tortured composer is somebody this writer had never heard of, the genuinely creepy Carlo Gesualdo (Karl Herlinger), a 16th-century Italian musician who, according to press notes, was of noble rank and wrote intense chromatic music. Gesualdo gives new meaning to the term "Renaissance Man," as he was also something of a genius when it came to hanky-spanky sex. The musical sadomasochist's practices would make Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey blush 50 shades of red. Jeanne Syquia plays his partner-in-slime Donna Maria, and Justin Huen has a double role, as Fabrizio and the priest Gesualdo "confesses" to in this confessional play.

Smith's script is interesting and Chris Fields' direction skillful, with a cinematic touch. Fugue sort of uses a split screen technique and we sometimes have three sets of actors performing onstage at the same time, albeit in different times and places. This method of presentation is not only filmic, but also, musically, fugue-like. Michael Mullen's period costumes are a good fit. The actors all acquit themselves well - but, alas, I have one quibble.

One imagines that the dramatist, director, company, et al, fancy themselves as being "daring" for presenting sex acts performed on the boards - albeit underneath blankets. Well, here's a newsflash, and as Chuck Berry would say, "Tell Tchaikovsky the news": Nudity has been legal onstage and onscreen since the 1960s in the United States. I would refer you to the Living Theatre, Hair, etc., as well as to Alan Bates and Oliver Reed's wrestling romp au natural onscreen in the aforementioned Women in Love. Unlike Julian Beck and the Living Theatre company, performers today don't have to worry about being busted for indecent exposure and the like.

Depicting undercover sex acts onstage and onscreen veiled by beach blanket bingos is not only a sexual copout, but an attempt to have your cake and eat it too: The production wants to titillate the audience with bawdiness without delivering the goods, while collaborating with America's still puritanical norms and constraints. For another example, just consider that Showtime airs Masters of Sex, an entire fact-based series about those pioneering sex researchers Masters and Johnson, wherein not since 2013 has a single strand of pubic hair made its debut on this "shocking" series - although it is perfectly legal nowadays to do so on cable television. What sheer cowardice!

Artists went to jail, to court, etc., to win the right for free expression. To now have the legal right but for today's talents not to make use of this hard-fought-for First Amendment protection is pretty spineless. If stage and screen productions are unwilling to depict people having sex the way they usually do in real life - you know, partially or completely unclothed - then they should keep sex acts relegated to offstage/offscreen inferred action. Quit trying to have it both ways - or go fugue yourselves.

Other than that, Fugue is a thought-provoking, well-acted two-act play. However, it will likely not be the cup of tea for ticket buyers who are offended, upset, etc., by violence onstage and/or simulated (even if hidden) sex acts. The Atwater Theatre Village complex seems to have become quite the cultural hub, which enhances the theatergoing experience and vibe. In any case, the next time this ranter and raver jet sets off to parts unknown he may read a copy of Fugue's script to make the hours slip more swiftly by while munching a bag of airline peanuts.

The Echo Theater Company's production of Fugue runs through March 22 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm; Sundays at 7:00 pm at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village (Los Angeles), CA 90039. Reservations: (310) 307-3753; www.echotheatercompany.com.

"Shadows of Liberty": Corporations rule information sources, says documentary

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 13:26:00 +0000

DALLAS - KNON radio presented the documentary film Shadows of Liberty and a lively panel discussion at the historic Texas Theater on Mar. 2. The distributor, Debra Wood, explained that it was the 79th showing of the U.S. tour. While widely honored and shown abroad, the movie has not had regular theater showings in its home country. The reason becomes obvious as the story unfolds.

Jean-Phillipe Tremblay's documentary holds a harsh light to the shenanigans of American "news" sources in a serious of short narratives from journalists, media experts, and even former CIA operatives. Major news events that are well within the memory of the audience were covered up to a point, then blanketed over. Journalists who insisted on sticking to the truth had their careers cut short, but testify in this documentary. The effect is completely convincing.

One of the best examples given is the way that virtually all mainstream (one of the panelists called it "lamestream") media kowtowed to the Bush Administration during the barrage of falsehoods that led up to the invasion of Iraq. Even today, presidential candidate Jeb Bush says "widely believed" when he refers to the obvious falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction. Those lies were "widely believed" because the major news sources did not question them, then or now!

All the panelists, drawn from KNON, labor, and local activist groups, agreed that the movie was tremendously effective. One of them, however, complained that the film seemed to say that the problem began recently with deregulation under President Reagan, when American history, certainly going back to newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and the beginnings of the Spanish-American War, is rife with examples of media manipulation by moneyed interests.

Other panelists, especially those with connections to African American struggles, brought their own local examples of media misbehavior. The historical role of the Dallas Morning News and its regional empire in strikebreaking, red-baiting, and violence against workers is well established here. The newspaper still brags that one of their editors created the misleading anti-union phrase "Right to Work."

One of the panelists hailed the recent FCC decision to preserve net neutrality in the face of pressure from big media companies and their political cohorts. Another cautioned the audience against taking such a negative view that they give up on attempting to get "earned media" for progressive events. "They are what they are," he said, "but that doesn't mean we can't work with what we have."

The same panelist encouraged people to try to find original documents rather than believing what they see on TV. "We've learned more from autopsy reports on police shootings than from TV news!" Audience members praised KNON radio and its longtime pro-working-class weekly talk show "Workers Beat," but they wished that their city had more such programming.

The movie trailer is available on YouTube here. The complete 89-minute version is here.

The stakes are high in third season of "The Americans"

Wed, 04 Mar 2015 12:28:00 +0000

Imagine an alternate reality in which FX's hit drama The Americans is being reviewed by a Soviet admirer in a modern world where the Berlin Wall came down but the Soviet Union has survived to the present time.

Join us, comrades, fellow travelers, enemy agents and retro '80s fans for a weekly review of this capitalistic media portrayal of patriotic undercover agents Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings. Will they achieve their vital missions, have sex with interesting people and try on new wigs?

As if there was any doubt.

Season 3, episode 5 - "Salang Pass"

One of my readers wonders how our present-day Soviet Union would have changed if certain events had played out differently. What if Lenin died in the 1930s rather than 1924, for instance. How would that have affected history?

It's hard to tell when looking that far back, but we have an event a little closer to our time, that of the 1987 destruction of the Wall that separated the two Germanies.

When Germans rallied to bring down the Wall that separated their two countries, who could have predicted that Premier Tereshkova would play such a major role in this pivotal event. She ordered Russian bombers at the ready to support East German tanks and troops, then out came the bulldozers-headed from the East side of the wall.

This bold move transformed the debate. In a matter of days, the entire Berlin Wall had come down, efficiently dismantled by East Germans.

East Germany's recently installed head of state Manfred Gerlach then declared full rights of passage for all East German citizens into the West.

The U.S. claimed that Tereshkova had orchestrated the protests as well as the Wall's demolition in order to send thousands of KGB and Stasi agents unhindered into Europe, but regardless of the games played, it led to a new phase in history.

The year 1987 could have played out much differently, if not for the plane crash two years earlier that killed twenty members of the ruling Soviet politburo. Tereshkova emerged as the new premier, aided by the brilliant Samarin.

One of her first acts was to drastically scale down Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan, and with the aid of newly installed Kabul leader Abdul Fattah, they created a defacto partition of the country that has endured to this day.

It does make one wonder, given the name of The Americans' current episode, "Salang Pass," if maybe its creators are thinking about how our timeline has played out. Salang Pass was where thousands of Soviet and Afghani soldiers died a fiery death, trapped by an apparent bomb planted by the mujaheddin. Because of Premier Tereshkova's decision to wind down the war, the need for CIA-Afghani intel diminished.

But all that's ahead of us in the early 80s world of The Americans. The episode opens at a foster care facility with nary an Afghani warlord or CIA agent in sight.

Instead, we're treated to a rare scene involving Martha, an FBI secretary in a secret marriage to Clark aka Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys).

She's jonesing for a child. Clark/Philip, who's pretending to be in internal affairs, is very much on the fence about adding a child to an untenable situation. He's reluctant to completely slam the door shut on Martha's dream, given that she's still innocently funneling information to him.

Call it asset maintenance. Agents do a lot of that, in hopes that their patient work will result in intelligence coups for the home office.

Elizabeth (Keri Russell), who's playing an AA member named Michelle, has been helping one of her assets, Lisa, out of a terrible home environment.

Because women's shelters were still a relative novelty in the '80s, Lisa feels stuck, no matter what she does. Elizabeth/Michelle is like a fairy godsister, because she offers Lisa the use of her "mother's" old house fifty miles away as a place to stay, reconnect with her children and be away from her awful husband. It also happens to be only fifteen miles from another Northrop facility.

Lisa has a security clearance. Lisa could get transferred to Northrop, once a spot opens up. Elizabeth knows all this, and thus she's that much closer to moving her asset to where potential intel can be had about the Stealth bomber, which represents a major threat to the Soviet Union.

Later, we see Elizabeth walking a dog in neighborhood where a man is working underneath a car that bears a Northrop parking sticker. Something tells me that the home mechanic is in for serious trouble.

The show hasn't forgotten about Pakistani spy Yusaf, whom Elizabeth and Philip helped out of a murderous jam a couple of episodes ago.

Philip meets with Yusaf in an empty warehouse where he tells Yusaf to make peace with a particular group of CIA-funded Afghani mujaheddin. Yusaf says it isn't that easy. He reminds Philip that "ten of your soldiers were flayed alive."

And besides, fundamentalists are growing in strength in Pakistan. Yusaf, who isn't religious, barely passed a holier-than-thou exam. Philip advises him to pass the test next time. Yusaf is a valuable asset but one who could either pay off big or have to be erased.

As for another potential asset, Philip is continuing to build his friendship with FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) by attending those silly est sessions (self-esteem babble, and high-priced ridicule by the leader).

Beeman has joined the Jennings clan for dinner, during which Henry, out of the blue, (but really because of his crush) asks about Mrs. Beeman, the estranged wife. Beeman parries that well, but now Paige sees a way to bring up a potentially uncomfortable topic with the unwitting Beeman being the ballast that keeps the conversation light and in Paige's favor. Clever girl. She needs a baptismal dress. Philip and Elizabeth shoot "I hate this" eyes at each other, but Philip volunteers to drive her to the store.

He ends up buying an expensive dress for Paige, which is part of his trying to build a stronger bond separate from Elizabeth, who'd just as soon groom Paige for spy duty.

But now comes Philip's moral quagmire, which he's entering reluctantly. It's a straight-forward problem: the Soviets desperately need intel about the CIA's involvement with the murderous mujaheddin. The head of the CIA group, Breland, has a teenage daughter named Kimberly.

One short step to the object: seduce the teen, gain access to Breland's home in order to dig around.

During what looks to be an outdoor kegger, Kimberly is doing her damndest to play the coquette with Philip, who's playing Jim, a lobbyist and pot enthusiast. Desperate to get somewhere with the diffident Philip/Jim, she holds out the ultimate carrot: a parent-free night at the Breland house.

But first, Philip needs to visit his KGB handler, the urbane Gabriel (Frank Langella), who has the potent Afghani buds Philip needs for his cover story.

Gabriel expresses concern over all the pressures on Philip: the faux marriage with Martha, the quite real family he has (including possible future spy Paige), and now underage Kimberly, whom Philip is reluctant to seduce.

Gabriel is sympathetic, but says, "It's the operation that's crucial. You have a conscience. There's nothing wrong with that. But a conscience can be dangerous."

Next we have a nice relaxing jog with handsome Soviet embassy man Oleg who encounters Beeman. On the plus side, it's daylight and neither of them are pointing weapons. On the negative side, they are hurling unspoken accusations as to who loves the now-imprisoned Nina more.

Beeman has a spring in his step these days because he's decided that apparent Soviet defector Zinaida is actually a spy. He proposes that Oleg get the goods on Zinaida, so that Beeman can arrest Zinaida for a trading of prisoners-Zinaida for Nina.

Oleg, wary of entrapment, does try to indirectly wheedle information from a fellow officer, but it's all for naught. When he meets Beeman again, the two have it out and basically they agree it's halfsies on the love-for-Nina competition. No gunplay, however, so perhaps this relationship has a chance?

Back at the Jennings house, Philip is talking to Elizabeth, who's industriously cleaning a bathtub in pure babushka mode. Philip and Elizabeth spar a bit over the dress and how Philip looks to be bribing his daughter.

Elizabeth takes the spat too far when she says, "Your girl Kimberly doesn't know her father's in the CIA and look how she wound up." Elizabeth means that Kimberly is lost and easy prey to men like, for instance, the louche that Philip is playing. Paige needs the grounding and sense of purpose a life in spying for her country would give her.

"Don't call her my girl," Philip says and leaves in a huff. It was a low blow, after all. She knows that Philip hates the mission with Kimberly.

As for Elizabeth, we see the payoff of her earlier recon of the Northrop home car mechanic. One evening, she calmly walks over and topples the jack holding up the car. The result? One less employee at Northrop and a new opening for her asset, Lisa. It's a brutal move, when she could have waited for an opening to arise for Lisa.

Yet Elizabeth sees the news and gets the straight line from Gabriel: Russian soldiers and their Afghani allies are getting flayed alive, burned in a tunnel, and executed in front of mujaheddin video cameras.

From Elizabeth's viewpoint, if she can save a Soviet life by taking an American one, she'll accept the deadly math.

Now, in her guise as Michelle, she sits with Lisa in the nice house she's graciously loaned to a woman who's in her dream job at Northop working on fuselage assembly.

Time to celebrate with canapés. My, what a nice Coach purse you have, exclaims Lisa. Michelle admits that she's been seeing a man who's very easy on the eye and works as some kind of consultant. She just tells him some stuff about her work at General Dynamics, and the money rolls in.

"Be careful," Lisa says, but she's clearly intrigued by the vaguely described sugar daddy. It's asset maintenance by Elizabeth, but in the meantime, Lisa's in a better place and happy, to boot.

Now we come to Philip's not so excellent adventure with adolescent Kimberly. The parents are out, so lobbyist Jim is there to play. She immediately takes him upstairs to her room, during which he's scoping out the place.

They get high, they make popcorn and eat ice cream, and along the way they talk. Kimberly thinks her father works in the Agriculture Department. She barely sees him. "If he had another family, I'd think, that explains it."

Thoroughly smoked out, Kimberly falls asleep on the sofa. Philip sneaks upstairs to take photos of Breland's jacket and the inside/outside of his briefcase. Obviously, a switcheroo will eventually be planned to plant bugs.

Done with the spying part of the evening, he carries Kimberly up to her room and lays her on the bed. She awakes enough to lay a kiss on him. He's still not fully reciprocating. Noise outside alerts Kimberly that her parents are home, so Philip escapes through the back door. A close escape but he's accomplished his mission.

Back home in the parental bedroom, a still buzzed Philip gets ready for bed with Elizabeth.

They talk about the sexual intimacies they had to learn in spy school.

"Must be different for a man," Elizabeth says, inaccurately.

"I don't know," Philip says.

He flashes back to the various strangers he had sex with during his training. A thirtyish woman, an elderly woman, and a middle-aged man.

Philip says pensively, "You have to find it in your mind somehow. They kept telling us to make it real for ourselves."

"Is that what you do with Martha?" Elizabeth asks. "I guess," he responds.

He says he feels badly for Kimberly and admits that he hasn't slept with her yet. He asks his wife's opinion about what he's supposed to do with the girl.

"Honestly, I don't know," she says, with the words repeated back to her.

"Do you have to [pretend to] make it real with me?" Elizabeth asks.

"Sometimes," he says, "but not now."

They kiss in a embrace that's more of a mutual needful collapse into one another rather than a shallow romp.

This was a quiet episode in which we learn about the deadly craft of spying as it plays out in these damaged souls' lives. Targets, assets, friends, lovers, and rivals.

Those roles are becoming more entangled for the characters. The stakes, to judge from the previews for next week, are about to ramp up exponentially.

Find previous reviews of episodes of The Americans at this Facebook page.