Culture Watch

England is Drenched in Blood in the Fifteenth-Century Wars of Henry IV

by Bruce Chadwick

Henry IV, Part One Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey Drew University Madison, NJ 

Alcatraz Assailed Again, this Time in Drama about a 1941 Murder

by Bruce Chadwick

Murder in the First 59E59 Theaters 59 E. 59th Street New York, NYIn the summer of 1990, I was on vacation with my family in San Francisco. We took a ride on the fabled cable car, toured Napa Valley, had dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf and did all the other things tourists do in the romantic, alabaster city overlooking the bay.And then we went to Alcatraz.Alcatraz, "The Rock,’ the imposing, foreboding prison that sits on an island in San Francisco Bay, became a tourist attraction a few years after the federal government closed it in 1963. We visited on a late afternoon. It was windy, chilly and a light rain pelted the island. It was grim. We heard the stories of famous inmates, such as Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly and Robert Stroud, the ‘birdman’ of Alcatraz. We were taken down the old cell blocks and, for fun, put inside some of them.I was scared to death.

A Play about a Civil War Prisoner Debuts in a Real Civil War Prison

by Bruce Chadwick

AmeliaFort JayNew York, NYMonuments at Andersonville National Historic Site, 2007 (From Wikipedia)I walked down the cold, damp stone hallway of Fort Jay to the powder magazine, enclosed in thick walls more than 200 years old, shivering from the chill of the room and of history. A theater company was staging a new Civil War play, Amelia, in the fort because it actually served as a prisoner of war camp during the Civil War, home to nearly 1,000 Confederate officers.The plot of Amelia carries a recently married young woman form her farm in Pennsylvania to the dreaded Andersonville prison camp in Georgia (actually it was called Camp Sumter but became infamous worldwide as Andersonville after the nearby village) where, disguised as a male Union soldier, she deliberately gets herself captured and taken inside the walls in order to find her husband, a Union soldier being held there.

The Story of the Child of Holocaust Survivors: Laughter, Tears, and the Ghosts of World War II

by Bruce Chadwick

A Jew Grows in Brooklyn Jacqueline Onassis Theater 120 W. 46th Street New York, NYJake Ehrenreich, the star of the one-man show, A Jew Grows in Brooklyn, rolls along nicely in a 90-minute monologue about his life growing up in the borough of Brooklyn in the late 1950s and 1960s, providing a packed theater with much humor about his family and friends. He sings, he dances, he tells jokes and relives his life in a nicely staged historical show.Then, about a third of the way through the performance, he has to sit down. He sags on to a park bench on stage because he arrived at the part of the show when he has to talk about the Holocaust and what happened to his parents and family. He can’t stand up while discussing that; it's too much.

Show Biz History Jammed into a 1940 Boarding House: Operas, Novels, Poems, and a Stripper, Too

February House New York Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street New York, New YorkGeorge Davis was an eccentric New York writer/editor who had a dream: entice a number of art world stars to live in the same boarding house and mentor them to see what the cultural congestion could produce.

Show Biz History Jammed into a 1940 Boarding House: Operas, Novels, Poems, and a Stripper, Too

by Bruce Chadwick

February House New York Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street New York, New YorkGeorge Davis was an eccentric New York writer/editor who had a dream: entice a number of art world stars to live in the same boarding house and mentor them to see what the cultural congestion could produce.

Drugs, Fires and Murder in New York: Welcome to Life on the Street in 1975

by Bruce Chadwick

The Lombardi Case LiveIn Theater 154 Ludlow Street New York, New YorkThere are eight million stories in the naked city and this is one of them.Christina Nicole Lombardi was the rebellious, good looking daughter of a U.S. senator from Connecticut. She left home, moved to New York City, and tumbled into a tragic street life. She lived in a "squat," or vacant building. She became a heroin addict and to pay for her drugs turned to prostitution. Christina stumbled from trick to trick and hit to hit. Then, in 1975, she was murdered and set on fire.

The American Small Town in the Age of U.S. Empire

by Ryan Poll

Bedford Falls. Dixon. Greenfield Village. Hannibal. Hope. Lake Wobegon. Main Street, U.S.A. Mayberry. Middletown. Peyton Place. Smallville. South Park. Twin Peaks. Wasilla.

Seeing Our Presidents in the Light of Poetry

by Paul J. Ferlazzo

John Adams, our second president, always traveled with a book of English poetry and took comfort and pleasure in reading from it during his many long journeys. When his son John Quincy was a young boy Adams told him, “you will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.” John Quincy Adams became the sixth president of the United States and the author of over three hundred fifty poems.In fact, eighteen presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama wrote poetry, read poetry, and wrote about poetry. That fact may surprise many people. The story of poetry in the lives of our presidents has never been told.

Historical Whodunits, Dramas about Women Prevail in Summer Theater

by Bruce Chadwick

Tod Randolph in EdithWhen the curtains rise at summer theaters from coast to coast in the United States this month, audiences will be bombarded with two very different types of historical plays: murder stories out of the past, and plays about strong women, from 1950s princesses to 1970s nuns to 1917 First Ladies.

Peter Pan, the Boy Who Never Grew Up, Flies Back to Broadway with the Lost Boys in Tow

by Bruce Chadwick

Peter and the Starcatcher Brooks Atkinson Theater 256 W. 47th Street New York, NYPeter Pan is an historical phenomenon with his roots very deep into the real world of merry olde England. Scottish writer J.M. Barrie gave birth to Peter in London in 1902 after Barrie’s fourteen-year-old brother died. Barrie’s parents continued to treasure the memory of the boy at the age he was at death -- he would remain fourteen forever. So would Peter.

"Elementary": Sherlock Holmes Is Back in a Big Way

by Bruce Chadwick

English fictional detective Sherlock Holmes solved his first case in 1887. He became a literary sensation in Great Britain and then, accompanied by his inveterate sidekick, Dr. John Watson, a superstar in the United States. Now, 125 years later, the nineteenth-century detective is not only back, he's bigger than ever. He's returned to theater, film and television, the world’s greatest sleuth once again, trudging through the fog filled streets of London, deerstalker cap comfortable on his head, pipe in the corner of his mouth and his trusty violin tucked under his arm.He's back in different theaters in numerous plays. He's back on the silver screen in two movies starring Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). And he's back on television in another season of the BBC's Sherlock, which just began last weekend in America.

The Long Shadow of History Falls Over Copenhagen and the Race for the Atomic Bomb in World War II

by Bruce Chadwick

CopenhagenLuna Stage555 Valley Rd.West Orange, NJIn December 1941, Werner Heisenberg left Nazi Germany, where he was the head of a team directed to build an atomic bomb, and visited Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, Denmark, to visit his old friend, fellow physics wizard Niels Bohr. The two men were at the top of their game in world physics; both had won the Nobel Prize. Nobody knows what happened at this meeting, but Michael Frayn’s dazzling play Copenhagen, attempts to explain the encounter. The play analyzes a lot of things about the history of the Nazis, World War II, Denmark and nuclear weapons.Copenhagen, a revival of the show that won the Tony Award in 2000, unfortunately starts off interminably slow. Heisenberg arrives and chats with Bohr and his wife, Margarethe. The two scientists take a long walk, come back and then Heisenberg suddenly leaves. There is nothing but talk, talk, talk.

1960s Midwest Drama Burns Slowly on Stage

by Bruce Chadwick

An Early History of FireTheater Row410 W. 42nd StreetNew York, NYAn Early History of Fire is the coming of age story of a college dropout who lives with his dad, hangs out with two neighborhood fools and tries to win the love of a rich college girl who sees him as her hunky summer fling. The play by David Rabe, one of America’s finest playwrights, is set in 1962 and loaded with early sixties references, such as the music of Elvis Presley, the works of writer J.D. Salinger, Soviet space satellites and “the pill.” The college girl preaches that the 1960s will eradicate the dreadful decade of the ‘50s.The problem with the play, though, is that it is a fire that burns slowly and goes out pretty quickly.

Death in the End Zone: NFL Concussion Crisis Play Packs Wallop

by Bruce Chadwick

HeadstrongEnsemble Studio Theater549 W. 52nd StreetNew York, NYA typical football team, circa 1910What happens to the brains of those huge National Football League players when the cheering stops? What happened to them back in the 1940s and 1950s, when they pulled off their much thinner leather helmets? Is it all endless glory, autographs, and pictures with fans, or do all of those thousands of hits to the head bring on concussion lifelong injuries?Newspapers today are full of stories about the concussions that have brought about countless tragedies for NFL players. The Pittsburgh Steelers' Mike Webster suffered from amnesia, dementia, and depression before he died at 50, a death that his family said was brought on by concussions. Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Andre Waters sustained numerous concussions as a player before committing suicide at age 44, due to depression his family said was caused by the head injuries. Former San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle George Visger claims that he has lost most of his memory from concussions he suffered twenty years ago.

Chicago, 1959: This Old House It’s Not

by Bruce Chadwick

Clybourne ParkWalter Kerr Theater219 W. 48th StreetNew York, NYA typical Chicago bungalowIt's a bright summer day in 1959 Chicago, and housewife Bev is humming a happy tune (and arguing with her cantankerous husband Russ) as she packs the belongings of her small, well-kept home in the Clybourne Park neighborhood for the move to the suburbs. But there's a problem the whole neighborhood's talking about about: the people the couple has sold their home to are black.Dear God!Panic ensues. How could Bev and Russ, their outraged neighbors demand, allow blacks to break up our historically white enclave? What will happen to the neighborhood?That's only the first act -- act two takes place fifty long years later. 2009 African Americans homeowners, who have lived in Clybourne Park since 1959, start screaming that white people are trying to move in as part of the nation-wide wave of gentrification, in which young, well-to-do whites buy low-priced homes in inner-city neighborhoods.Dear God! There goes the neighborhood.

Sports History Gets another Look with Magic/Bird Basketball Drama

by Bruce Chadwick

Magic/Bird Longacre Theater 220 W. 48th Street New York, N.Y. There just aren't enough plays about sports history. Sports play a major role in the lives of many, yet there are only a handful of plays or movies about sports each year. You want drama? Go the last two minutes of any football game, the last moments of a basketball game, or the bottom half of the ninth inning in baseball. There's drama behind the scoreboard. Last year, New York played host to a fine sports drama, Lombardi, about legendary Green Bay Packers football coach Vince Lombardi. This season, the same team behind Lombardi has produced Magic/Bird, which opened last week. It is the story of the NBA careers of basketball superstars Magic Johnson -- of the Los Angeles Lakers -- and Boston Celtic Larry Bird. But it's also the story of the 1980s and the rise of the NBA in a country dominated by Major League Baseball and the National Football League. Magic/Bird features two completely opposite personalities: the quiet Larry Bird and the ebullient Magic Johnson (he of the wonderful smile) and their fierce battles for their teams and against each other.

"The Soap Myth" Does Not Cleanse the Nazis or Holocaust

by Bruce Chadwick

The Soap MythSteinberg Center111 W. 46th StreetNew York, N.Y.I try to read, watch, and see as much about the Holocaust as I possibly can, and the most horrific disaster in human history still startles and disgusts me. How could it possibly have happened? What did the world learn from it?Yet another chapter in the story unfolds in The Soap Myth, a gut-wrenching play by Jeff Cohen about the longstanding myth that the Germans used the fat of dead Jews to make bars of soap during World War II. In the play, concentration camp survivor Milton Saltzman, after failing in several attempts to get Holocaust museum officials to accept his contention, based on his first-person account of a casket full of the soap bars at a funeral, corrals a reporter. He tells her the story and she goes to officials at a museum. They tell her that they had met with Saltzman but concluded that there was not enough evidence to support his claim.The play, produced by the National Jewish Theater, is a tough examination of the Holocaust and its survivors. No punches are pulled. It is an emotional drama and an eye-opening history lesson.

Will Ozzie Guillén Go the Same Way as Al Campanis?

by Murray Polner

When the Miami Marlins’ Venezuelan-born manager Ozzie Guillén confessed to Time that he “loved” Fidel Castro, he caused a lot of anger in the streets and cafes of that city’s huge Cuban population. Even the city's mayor has demanded penalties. Poor Ozzie. He and his bosses will now have to beg forgiveness from Cubans still dreaming of going back home and pray they’ll still be able to sell lots of season tickets.It makes me think of Al Campanis, a true baseball old-timer I knew who was drummed out of the game he so loved in 1987 because of his absurd remark on Nightline about black players lacking “the necessities” to be managers or front office people. He’d been a Montreal Royal shortstop in 1946, playing alongside Jackie Robinson at second base. He barnstormed off-season with a racially integrated squad, becoming a Brooklyn Dodger scout who unearthed Roberto Clemente and Sandy Koufax, He reached the apex of his profession as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers,  taking them to four pennants and one World Series title. He even prevented a former black Dodger from killing himself. And then he was suddenly, abruptly, unexpectedly, and permanently blacklisted.

"The Best Man": Does the Convention Always Nominate Him?

by Bruce Chadwick

The Best ManGerald Schoenfeld Theater236 W. 45th StreetNew York, N.Y.I happened to see the old 1964 movie The Best Man on TV last fall and, I have to admit, I was really disappointed. The film is a solid drama, but it was hopelessly out of date. I walked into the Schoenfeld Theater in New York last week very apprehensive to see Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, the revival of the 1960 play on which the film was based. I needn't have been worried.The entire theater was set up like a convention hall. A huge American flag covered the entire stage, buntings smothered the balconies, large state delegation signs hung on the walls and posters for candidates William Russell, John Merwyn and Joe Cantwell were everywhere. Rousing patriotic songs played in the background and tapes carried the faint chatter of convention speakers.The play was even better than the set. The Best Man is the best play ever about political conventions and despite being fifty years old holds up remarkably well. Its mudslinging and scandals still work. It's a soaring drama about politics, campaigns, character and the American dream.