Into the Woods is a major motion picture but it's still an oft-performed stage musical. Not long ago, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival mounted an acclaimed but slightly-unconventional production and it's been imported into Beverly Hills for a few weeks at the new Wallis theater complex. I went last night and enjoyed it quite a bit even though Into the Woods is not my favorite Sondheim show. My two main problems with it are that…
I think the first act is much better than the second. It also feels to me quite complete in itself. (Supposedly, people have been known to leave the theater at intermission because they don't realize the play's not over. I don't know if that was the reason but the people seated right in front of us last night did not come back for Act 2.) To me, Act 1 feels like a real good musical and Act 2 feels like the guys who did Act 1 were pressured into producing a sequel.
Much of the show's exposition is in its lyrics and the way Mr. Sondheim writes, it's crammed in with great density and there's a limit to how slow the actors can sing a tune without it sounding wrong musically. Every time I see it, I wish they were subtitled and it's not the actors' fault. It's like listening to Patti LuPone. You practically have to know the songs to hear them.
The O.S.E. production was full of great performances, a few daring athletic feats, a couple of genuine magic tricks, superb costumes (designed by Linda Roethke), some audience participation, fine orchestrations and very clever staging (by Amanda Dehnert). I could list all the actors for fine work but I'll just mention three: Jennie Greenberry as Cinderella, Miriam A. Laube as The Witch and John Vickery as the Narrator. But I thought everyone was really good. This production is scheduled to be there until December 21.
"There" is the new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, which opened a year ago and which houses two theaters. Into the Woods was in the Bram Goldsmith Theater, which I guess means that Mr. Goldsmith (the CEO of City National Bank) gave them a lot of money. Whatever the price was, it was well spent. It's a beautiful, functional theater that seats 500 — a size theater we don't have nearly enough of in Los Angeles. The sound was great and I liked that the seats weren't chosen on the assumption that all theatergoers are anorexic. I may go there even if I don't like what's playing just to sit. Parking was also quite comfy.
Into the Woods when performed in full (as they're doing) is a bit long and last night, it got a few bits longer. About seven minutes from the end — at a peak dramatic moment — it was suddenly necessary to stop. The house lights came up and a voice on the P.A. system commanded the proceedings to halt due to a medical emergency in the audience. The actors stepped off stage while the on-stage orchestra just sat quietly.
The Beverly Hills Fire Department came in to treat an audience member, then take him out on a stretcher. The house lights then were lowered, the actors returned to their positions and restarted, repeating about the last 90 seconds before the interruption and continuing on through to the end. I was impressed with how smoothly and professionally it was done…and with surprisingly little harm to the presentation. Those folks at the Wallis really have their act together. I want to see more shows there.
Diane McBain was once a great sex symbol of film and TV. I remember her from the period when she turned up on every show that Warner Brothers Television produced: Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, Sugarfoot and a series she co-starred in, Surfside 6. She also appeared in a lot of movies…and then at some point, her career started to cool down and something else happened, something that changed her life forever. She'll be talking about it today on Stu's Show, and about her new book, Famous Enough. This is a fascinating lady and it ought to make for a fascinating program.
Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go way longer. Shortly after a show's over, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four shows for the price of three. If you miss today's show, you'll want to make it one of your downloads.
Michael Kinsley writes of why Ronald Reagan should be viewed as a pretty large failure as a president. He's writing about the real guy, not the mythical Prince Charming that many have made of him. I never had a nastier argument than I did one time with a right-wing friend when I tried to convince him Reagan had not made the government smaller to the point where it would almost fit in Grover Norquist's bathtub. (My friend and I are still friends but we no longer mention Ronnie…)
Mr. Kinsley has his own interesting history with Reagan. Read here how he discovered he'd attended a White House briefing with the man that never actually occurred.
Here's my buddy Bill Kirchenbauer on The Tonight Show Starrring Johnny Carson. Once upon a time — before Comedy Central, a glut of talk shows, Showtime, HBO and a dozen other places where young stand-ups could get on TV — Johnny's show was the place to perform. If you made Johnny laugh — as you'll notice Bill doing here — you were flooded with job offers the next day.
The power of The Tonight Show declined a lot during Johnny's last years. There were just too many other routes to stardom. Nowadays, the value of doing the show — or any of the late night shows — is merely to be able to say "As seen on." A top comedians' manager told me a few years ago, it doesn't matter how you do on Dave's show. You do it just so clubs can advertise you as "From Late Show with David Letterman. Being on the show doesn't get you club or pilot offers like it did in Johnny's day. Your manager still has to go out and sell you.
As I recall, Bill got a lot of offers every time he was on with Johnny…especially because Johnny always gave him some sign of approval after his spot. As you'll see happen here…
Joe Scarborough has been arguing that the media should not be reporting the accusations against Bill Cosby because no law enforcement agency has taken up the charges…which, of course, they can't because the Statute of Limitations has run on them. One might note that Mr. Scarborough is doing much to publicize the charges by insisting they should not be publicized.
Says he, "Any woman can come forward right now and say 'Billy Cosby did this to me 40 years ago' and be on the cover of US Weekly. With no vetting. They will print your story, and maybe it happened. If it did, it's tragic. But if it didn't happen, you get your 15 minutes of fame." There are so many things wrong with that viewpoint…
First off, Mr. Scarborough works for a network that presents all sorts of scandalous accusations about people without vetting; which treats the accusation itself as news. All news sources do that these days.
Secondly, the reason most of these women didn't come forward when the alleged incidents occurred was that they had good reason to believe that their stories, taken as individual accusations, would not be believed. Several did report them and found that even the police wouldn't go there. It's like with the Al Capp matter. Many women were raped. Nothing got reported in the press even when the victims did get law enforcement to take some minor actions. It was only after Jack Anderson's newspaper column reported on one assault that other victims came forward, a pattern was established and one District Attorney said, "Hmm…maybe we ought to press charges on this matter instead of ignoring it."
There are probably a few women in this world who would relish "15 minutes of fame" on that basis but for most, it's a terrible ordeal. They get attacked in the press and by lawyers. They get investigated and interrogated about their sex lives. They open themselves up to legal action for defamation…in this case, going up against great wealth and power. It's also just plain embarrassing for some to be viewed as a victim and it's very stressful, reliving an incident they might prefer to forget. Most sane humans do not want even fifteen minutes of that kind of fame.
I'll probably think of others after I post this. Oh, yeah. People on the news like Joe Scarbrough like to suggest you're a liar. The thing is that we live in an Internet World and if MSNBC doesn't report the charges, the online press will…and at some point, a story may get enough traction there that the so-called mainstream media has to pick up on it. They usually dip into it by saying something like, "There are widespread reports on the Internet that…" and treat the volume of the accusations as news. But they will eventually cover a story like this. And if it was a powerful politician instead of a powerful comedian, Scarborough's show wouldn't even wait for widespread reports on the web.
Jack Davis, one of America's greatest cartoonists, says he's putting down his art supplies and retiring from drawing. This is kind of like Mickey Mantle putting down his bat or something.
I mentioned the other day here that starting tomorrow night, GSN would be running old episodes of I've Got a Secret and What's My Line? I should have mentioned, for the benefit of anyone who's season-passing those vintage game shows, that they're also running a couple of installments of To Tell the Truth. Actually, my TiVo (and probably yours if you have one) has What's My Line? mixed up with a fishing show. They all say…
What Is My Line
Pro bass angler Mike DelVisco looks at the only connection between you and your fish, your line. (CC, R)
…but I assume that's not what GSN is actually running. Oh, and I should mention that Christmas Eve, they're giving us a nice present — a 90 minute What's My Line? 25th anniversary retrospective special that aired but once in 1975.
It was a feature on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment, a late night show in what had been Dick Cavett's time slot. Some genius decided they could do better than Cavett's profitable but not Carson-destroying ratings so they came up with the idea of a "wheel." Instead of Cavett being on every week, he'd be on every fourth week. One of the other three weeks gave us the disappointing (very) return of Jack Paar to that time slot and the other two weeks were a mish-mash of low-budget specials, some of them quite odd. Not only did none of these elements do well, none of them — including Cavett's shows — matched the ratings of Cavett's show before the change.
What's My Line? at 25 was mostly just clips of the Mystery Guest segments from the show. I remember enjoying it…a long time ago. You might want to check it out.
Last Sunday morning, I attended the annual Christmas brunch of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. The photo above was taken there of the four guys who make that silly Groo comic book. Left to right, we are Stan Sakai, Tom Luth, Sergio Aragonés and me. It may appear that I was much closer to the camera than the other three guys but actually I am just a giant among men.
The first issue of the new twelve-issue Groo series — one per month for all of 2015 — comes out January 21. It's called Groo: Friends and Foes, and in each installment, Groo will encounter either a past friend (he has a few) or a past foe (he has more of them) and he will probably make their lives less happy or likely to continue. Keep an eye out for this series so you can purchase or avoid as is your wont.
Also present to brunch and talk cartooning at the N.C.S. Brunch were Russ Heath, Dan Piraro, Bill Morrison, June Foray, Stu Shostak and his new bride Jeanine Kasun, Stu's daughter Lisa, Tone Rodriguez, Bobby London, Scott Shaw!, Judith Shaw, Monte Wolverton, David Folkman, Michael Mallory and I shouldn't have started listing names because I'm leaving dozens of folks out. Sorry, dozens of folks. I'll mention you next time.
This piece is called "11 Google Tricks That Will Change the Way You Search." So why does it list twelve tricks? Well, maybe you could Google some sites and figure it out.
Jonathan Chait explains how Dick Cheney defends torture. It pretty much comes down to: "I say it's okay so it's okay and I don't give a shit what any law or court or anyone else says."
So…do we think the former Veep will be taking any overseas trips…say, to a country where he might be arrested for War Crimes? I'd like to hear him explain to them why an action is only torture when done to Americans, not by them.
I'm a real fan of these "a cappella" music videos that many folks are posting to the web. I believe some of them are long-distance collaborations by singers who've never met and may not even be on the same continent.
Here's the James Bond theme as rendered by Julien Neel and Nick McCaig. Julien's the red-headed guy and he seems to be in France. I think the other fellow, Nick, is in Tallahassee, Florida. They sure sound good together…
My pal Marc Wielage sent me this link to an interview with Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) and asks about a mention in it of a lawsuit regarding Spamalot. Here is an article about that lawsuit.
Well, in this coming week, we get the last Colbert Report and the last Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I stopped watching Mr. Ferguson about a year ago because his show had gotten to be a bit too much about him horsing about with the horse and Gay Robot Skeleton and dancing and making faces at the camera. But I miss the show as it was before he got on that track and I'll probably watch all this week and then regret having missed as many as I did. When he was at his best, I thought he was the best interviewer in late night.
As for Colbert, he has "Grimmy" (i.e., Death) listed as his last guest. I wondered the other day if the premise was that they were going to "kill off" the old, right-wing Stephen Colbert so he could be reincarnated as his future talk show persona. But I'm thinking that's too obvious and they must have something else planned. I'll be watching that, too.
Thursday night, Conan O'Brien's show is called Conan to Go and it's a compilation of his best "remote" segments. I stopped watching Conan some time ago for pretty much the same reasons I gave up on Craig Ferguson: Too much host clowning about for cheap laughs from the studio audience, not enough actual talk show. But I've set my TiVo to record Thursday night and also Tuesday when one of his in-studio guests is Dick Van Dyke.
Every year about this time, GSN hauls out old episodes of I've Got a Secret and What's My Line? to air for a week or two. I'm told this has something to do with keeping control of the package because if they don't air them occasionally, they lose their rights and some other network might get them. Whatever the reason, they're running them for I-don't-know-how-long starting Wednesday night. Your guess is as good as mine as to which episodes we'll get or even which of the many versions of those two shows they'll be picking from…but I've set my TiVo.
Wednesday, Turner Classic Movies is running The Kid and City Lights. If you're wondering why people revere Charlie Chaplin…well, here's your chance. If neither film grabs you, there's no point watching anything else he made. Friday, they have on several of the best movies Jack Lemmon was in. There will be more included in that network's big Neil Simon Film Festival in January, hosted on-air by our pal, Ken Levine.
Late this week, the CW Network is running Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. Their website says Friday night and my TiVo says Saturday. Either way, they seem to be running it in a 90 minute time slot, which means that instead of hacking parts out to allow for the increased commercial time we have today, they'll run it in full and then pad out the time with other things, probably Magoo shorts. When the show first aired fifty (!) years ago this month, it was in an hour slot. It was never longer but I keep getting messages from people who swear it was longer when they first saw it. Nope.
By the way: For years, I suggested to stage-type producers that someone mount Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol as a live production…and I'm sure I'm not the only person who ever had that idea. I even once (briefly) tried to sell Jason Alexander on the idea of producing and starring in such a thing. Anyway, someone's finally doing it…for one performance tonight. I hope it's as wonderful as it should be.
Jamelle Bouie asks the question why Republicans are okay with Dick Cheney saying, in effect, "The White House can torture whoever it wants to torture, regardless of what any laws say" but not with the current occupant of that White House doing certain things that are inarguably legal. That's a silly question. Everyone understands that the phrase "Rule of Law" only applies to things your political opponents do.
I attended Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High School in West Los Angeles. Somewhere on this blog, I've doubtlessly used the joke I used all through my time there: That I was the only person on campus who knew who Ralph Waldo Emerson was. The principal thought he made radios.
There were things I liked about being at Emerson…and if I could think of one just now, I'd lead off with it. Mostly, I view my three years there as a waste of time, at least in the classrooms. Outside the classrooms, one could do a certain amount of the kind of growing-up you have to do at that age, learning (somewhat) how to get along with others. But inside the classrooms…well, I can't remember a whole lot that went in one ear and didn't trickle quickly out the other. Oddly enough, I may have gained the most valuable "taught" knowledge (as opposed to the self-taught kind) in a group of classes I absolutely hated at the time.
Students were required then to take half a semester of Wood Shop, half a semester of Electronics, half a semester of Metal Shop and half a semester of Drafting. That's if the students were male. The female ones took classes in Homemaking and Cooking and things like that. This was, of course, back when the best thing a female could aspire to be was a wife and mother. It did not escape me even then that boys could stand to learn some things the girls were studying and vice-versa. I still don't know how to sew a button on a shirt and I seem to have passed the age where that's learnable.
My problems at Emerson were not so much the classes as the teachers. Metal Shop was taught by Mr. Delak who was also a gym teacher and who talked like a prize fighter who'd taken one too many to the head. He talked in halting phrases and rarely employed a word with more syllables than letters. He was okay, I guess. My problem there was that I can't think of too many skills I've ever been less likely to need in my life than riveting.
Less okay was Mr. Platt, who taught Electronics and explained things with a thick Southern accent. He kept talking about "sotta" and I wasn't the only student who took half a semester to figure out he was referring to "solder." I had other problems with him but I had them all on a grander scale with Mr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell, who taught the Drafting class and Wood Shop, was the least okay. Both he and Mr. Platt had this fixed idea of what a guy was supposed to like and be like. He was supposed to revel in the shop classes and there was something wrong with any male who didn't love that stuff. Their attitude was along the lines of "A man builds things with his hands" and you could detect the subtle insinuation that if you didn't run a drill press once a week, you were probably queer. (I typed that sentence before I realized how phallic it sounds…)
Mr. Mitchell took an instant dislike to me and I, therefore, took one to him. He obviously thought I was a smartass…which was probably true but I still think that's not necessarily a bad thing to be when you're 13. If you think you know better than everyone else at that age, there's a good chance you do…and if you don't, well, that's a good time to learn you don't.
I got through Drafting class with Mr. Mitchell and may even have shown a teensy flair for it. It was, after all, drawing of a sort and I had some interest in drawing. Also, I was the best letterer he'd seen in years. Well, why not? I'd learned from the masters, not of Architecture but comic books. At any rate, my lettering impressed him and I didn't broadcast the fact that I had zero interest in a career doing what he was teaching us.
It was when we got to the Wood Shop class that things splintered. Mr. Mitchell treated woodwork as some sort of sacred male ritual. I was not able to hide how silly I thought a lot of it was. What he taught was, to me, a potentially useful skill, not a rite of male passage and a future profession.
And yes, I know woodwork can also be an art and a very fine one…but not at the level Mr. Mitchell taught it. Over the course of our ten weeks, we were to build three items: A key rack, a memo pad holder and one project of our own choosing from a catalog of plans he had. Our grades were based not on how creative we were but on how precisely what we made adhered to the diagrams we were given.
The memo pad holder I made in Wood Shop.
My key rack got a "D," not because it didn't look nice or hold keys but because it didn't look exactly like everyone else's. And he further marked me down as a problem student because I couldn't hide my disinterest in Wood Shop. "We need to work on that attitude of yours," he'd say to me, once while he was holding a circular saw. It felt…threatening. My memo pad holder notched a "C-minus" and the less said about my elective project, the better. By that point, Mr. Mitchell thought I was the worst student he'd seen in years.
He reached that view about four weeks into the ten-week course. One evening, Emerson had this ghastly event called "Parents Go To School Night," designed to promote better teacher-parent communication. One or both of each pupil's parents would show up at Emerson that evening, hear an address from the principal in the auditorium, then go from classroom to classroom in a compressed version of their child's daily schedule. Instead of an hour, they'd spent fifteen minutes in each classroom listening to the teacher discuss the curriculum and then answer questions.
It made sense on paper, I guess, but whoever made up the timetable gave the parents the same barely-sufficient seven minutes we had between periods to get from classroom to classroom. We could do that each day because we knew where we were going and also, it wasn't nighttime on the campus when we were there, plus we were young enough to walk up and down stairs and between buildings that were often far apart.
My father had the fine sense not to go at all. My mother, like all those parents who did attend, got repeatedly lost and was late for most "classes." She missed one entirely because even with a huge map, she and many others couldn't find Bungalow B-22. I had a class in the well-hidden Bungalow B-22 and I thought you should have received an "A" in any course taught in it if you could locate it.
Alas, she was able to make it to the Wood Shop where she listened to ten minutes of Mr. Mitchell bragging how he taught the most important class at the school…the one that made capital-M Men out of small-b boys and gave them a profession that would serve them well in later life.
Finally, Mr. Mitchell took questions and my mother — and this will explain a lot about me to my friends — asked, "What do you do when you have a student who hates the whole idea of woodworking and is only in this class because it's required?"
When she got home, she told me, "The minute I said that, Mark, I knew I'd gotten you into trouble. He scowled, jotted down my last name and said, 'If your son feels that way, ma'am, I think you have the problem, not me.'"
The next day, Mr. Mitchell called me over to his desk. "Evner," he barked — he always called us by our last names and mispronounced mine — I met your mother last night." Only Mr. Mitchell could make the word "mother" sound like an insult. "She said you hate the whole idea of woodworking. What are you doing in my class if you hate it?"
I said, "They make me take it. I don't like doing push-ups either but they make me take gym, too."
Wood.
Once again, he told me "we" needed to work on my attitude. "I teach woodworking but I also teach discipline and learning to follow instructions." He then assigned me the messiest job he had during the clean-up session at the end of class: The paint locker. You had to be real careful not to get smears of flat gloss multi-hued latex all over your jeans. As I did it, I just told myself, "Well, if I do, my mother's the one who's going to have to get it off or buy me new pants. And it'll be her fault."
For the rest of the term, Mr. Mitchell snapped at me, snarled at me and generally acted like a bad actor playing "Sarge" in one of those Marine Corps movies about making life hell for the new recruit. And the less I cared about it — and I really didn't — the nastier he got.
I had a friend named Dave who was a year ahead of me at Emerson and one day, we got to talking about Mr. Mitchell. "Has he put you in charge of the tool inventory yet?" Dave asked. I told him he hadn't. "Well, he will," Dave explained. "And when he does, here's what he'll probably do to you…"
Sure enough, a week later, I was put in charge of the tool inventory. It was getting near the end of class and I think he thought this was his last chance to make me suffer for the sins of my mother.
When you were in charge of tool inventory, you had to check the cabinet at the end of clean-up and make sure it held the right number of hammers and screwdrivers and levels and scratch awls and such. Then you had to report to Mr. Mitchell that every tool was in its proper place. If it wasn't, everyone in the class was in trouble but you especially were. No one could be dismissed to go to their next class if even one tool was missing.
The guy in my position was in charge of finding it…and responsible if it was not located. And like I said, no one could leave even if it meant they'd all be marked tardy or A.W.O.L. for their next class or miss their bus home. Legend had it that Mr. Mitchell had once made an entire class sit there during their lunch hour because of a missing chisel.
As an alternative, he also had a piece of paper that the person in my appointed position could sign. On it, I would admit I was responsible for the lost tool and I would promise to pay the full cost of replacing it. Another legend had it that a couple of students over the years had had to cough up the cost of a hammer or two.
But Dave had warned me of how this game was played. The day I was placed in charge of tool inventory, I never took my eye off the cabinet. I wasn't watching my fellow students so much as I was watching Mr. Mitchell. And sure enough, at a moment when he thought no one would notice, Mr. Mitchell slithered over to the cabinet, took a screwdriver and one of those long metal files with a wooden handle, then put them in his bottom desk drawer. Dave had told me he'd do something like that.
Clean-up that day proceeded apace. When we'd all put our stuff away, all the other students took their seats in the classroom area to await my inspection, my report to Mr. Mitchell and then their dismissal. I marched up to him and in front of the class proclaimed, "All of the tools are present or accounted for, sir." The other students, assuming they were about to be released, gathered up their books and got ready to stand and go.
Hammer.
"Not so fast," Mr. Mitchell told everyone. He marched over to the tool cabinet, peeked in and then returned to his desk where I was waiting. "Evner," he said. "There's a screwdriver and a file missing and you're responsible for them. No one's leaving — do you hear me? No one! — until you either find them or pay for them!"
I opened my notebook and showed him a page on which I'd written, "Mr. Mitchell's lower desk drawer: 1 screwdriver, 1 file." Then I added, "They've been accounted for, sir. You have them."
He yanked open the drawer, pulled them out and turned to the class, accusingly: "Who put these in there?"
I said, "You did, sir. At 11:44."
Mr. Mitchell glared at me. Then he glared at the students, all of whom wanted to laugh and cheer but knew enough not to do that until they were at least a hundred yards from that building. Then he chuckled like he was pleased I'd outfoxed him (he wasn't) and said, "Class dismissed."
I tried to follow them out but he motioned for me to stay. When everyone else had gone, he said to me, "You know, learning to make things and work with tools can be a very valuable skill. Now, get out of here." I got out of there.
And y'know, he was right. In the half-century since I took his class, I have occasionally had to do things I learned how to do in his class. I can't say that for Chemistry or the Anthropology courses I took later at U.C.L.A. or even for Mr. Delak's Metal Shop class at Emerson. But I do occasionally have to do something with a hammer or a saw and I know better how to use them because of Mr. Mitchell. That doesn't make up for the hard time he gave me, quite unnecessarily. It's just something worth noting.
He never apologized to me or admitted he was wrong and I never did either of those things to him. He did give me a "D" in Wood Shop, the only one I ever got in any class. When my mother saw it on my report card, she said, "Son, I'm very proud of you…but why couldn't you have gotten that horrible man to give you an "F"?
