A sad Earth Day Park in Washington, D.C.

The entrance to Earth Day Park on Independence Avenue, Washington, D.C. with a hard-to-read sign that may have been installed when dinosaurs roamed/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

The entrance to Earth Day Park, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

This unsightly rock, uncovered during excavation for the nearby expressway and surrounded by weeds, serves what purpose at Earth Day Park? Restrains weeds?/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Looking towards the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum, on the right, across Independence Avenue/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Bring a hacksaw to reach this bench at Earth Day Park/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A sad little bluebell matches its surroundings amidst the weeds at Earth Day Park/Photo by Patricia Leslie

If you look closely, more bluebells peek through the weeds at Earth Day Park/Photo by Patricia Leslie

What's this?  Little flowers waving in the wind in Forgotten Park/Photo by Patricia Leslie


On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, it's a sad little Earth Day Park which lies on Independence Avenue squeezed between an on-ramp to an expressway and a dull federal building which, ironically, happens to house transportation concerns, the Federal Aviation Administration.

Alone, unkempt, isolated, and uncared for are the adjectives which immediately spring to mind when visiting the park, not only during coronavirus, but all the time.  

It's abandoned. 

Who takes care of it?

The little park, dedicated by U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary on the 25th anniversary of Earth Day in 1995, is so unimportant it even lacks a page in Wikipedia, only the second time I've found a subject missing from its pages.*  

Think of that, not even important enough to warrant a Wikipedia page!  Now, this is a sad, little park. 

The link above says the park was built by the Department of Energy, an absent landlord for sure, which, in a March, 2010 quarterly report (page 101) still called the park its own.

One cannot blame coronavirus and the closure of the federal government for the forgotten park's appearance since it always looks like this, overgrown and ignored. 

Why not blame the Department of Energy under the Trump administration which despises everything environmental?

I say now is the time for the U.S. National Park Service to take over Earth Day Park and restore it to its original lustre and grandeur for obviously, the U.S. Department of Energy doesn't give a damn. 

*The first was "posy holders," and no, "nosegays" do not count.

patricialesli@gmail.com.








 

Book review: Vladimir Nabokov's interviews and more

For any Vladimir Nabokov fan, this is "must read."

Brian Boyd, assisted by Anastasia Tolstoy, has chronologically assembled Mr. Nabokov's "Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor" which span 56 years and include the last interviews conducted the year Nabokov died (1899-1977).

His LTEs presented here are ones he wrote when annoyed by a reviewer's mistakes.

About two-thirds of the book are the interviews which fascinated me more than the essays which, I must confess, most of them I skipped (and the references to and mentions of lepidopterology since a lepidopterist like Mr. Nabokov, I am not.) (Mr. Boyd has written a separate book entitled Nabokov's Butterflies.)

Demands for interviews with Nabokov "exploded" after the publication of Lolita (1955) which Nabokov said in numerous interviews was based on total fiction and originated with a chimpanzee. (Source? "Wet market"? I had to ask.) (Editor Boyd claims to have omitted duplicate questions posed by interviewers but this question appears over and over, along with "How do you spend your day, Mr. Nabokov?" All answers, intriguing, and duplications, not annoying.)

It took months for Hollywood to convince Mr. Nabokov to write the screenplay for Lolita. He was immensely pleased with the end product. (West End Cinema screened it last year. Please request West End to show it again. The ticket agent told me the movie was moved to a larger theatre since more ticket sales were sold than expected.)
 
For his interviews, reporters had to submit questions in advance and Nabokov prepared answers in writing.

He claimed he was a terrible speaker and wrote on notecards while in the bath tub or standing at a lectern.

The only difference between a short story and a novel, he said, is the novel is longer and took him about a year to compose 200 pages; two weeks to write a ten-page short story (p. 409).

Nabokov has been described as the best American prose writer, and Lolita proves it.

In a 1974 interview he expressed that "climatic changes" could be more harmful to "butterfly life" than pollution (p. 429).

His favorite Russian writers were Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, he said in a 1974 interview: "I will not discuss my contemporaries since my rule is never to speak of living writers in public" nor "living readers" of which there are some "real geniuses" and "quite a few asses." (P. 438).

In another 1974 interview, he said the writers he most admired were Edmund White, John Updike, J.D. Salinger, and "some of Truman Capote's stuff." (P. 447)
His family fled the Nazis, arriving in the U.S. in 1940. Nabokov grew to love America, especially the West (Los Angeles) and while speaking fondly of it, had many harsh words always to say about his native Russia, often expressing no desire to ever return to the land seized by the Bolsheviks and run by the Soviets at the time.

In the U.S. Nabokov wrote and taught at various colleges (one of his students was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.) until the late 1950s when he and his wife, Vera, whom he married in 1925, returned to Europe. They took up residency in a hotel in Switzerland, planning to return to America at some point, he said in a 1972 interview (p. 415), but "I detest planes" and boats take "a long time." 

They never made it back.

Several times the St. Petersburg native declared himself "an American writer" (p. 416), althought his first books were written in Russian.  In a 1972 interview, he noted that his books were banned in Russia (until 1986), "but copies sneak in there all the time." He and his son, Dmitri (1934 - 2012), translated Lolita into Russian.

He cared not for Sigmund Freud ("has caused much harm, and his disciples have made much money," [p. 456], calling Freud "a comic author," [p. 468]), nor did Nabokov think highly of works by F. Scott Fitzgerald ("I don't remember anything of Fitzgerald's writings," [p. 476]).

The importance of his wife, Vera, to his writing success cannot be overstated. She may have been his "everything" but she was not a ghost writer, the couple said more than once. (She shows up often in the interviews, coaxing him to do this or that; correcting him.) Stacy Schiff's biography about her won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize.

Think, Write, Speak is one of those books I am sad to have already finished. You want it to go on. And on....

The house where Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899 and lived with his family until 1917 when they fled Russia and the Bolsheviks. Open for tourists unless, of course, it's the height of the tourist season when it is closed four days for maintenance. Located near St. Isaac's Cathedral/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 The house where Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A plaque at the house where Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 
patricialesli@gmail.com

Wrong, WAPO: The Grand Ole Opry still plays at the Ryman

In an obituary today on country music singer-songwriter Jan Howard (may she rest in peace), the Washington Post's print version says in the credit line under Ms. Howard's picture that she performed "during the Grand Ole Opry's last show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on March 18, 1974."

Not only was March 18, 1974 not the last show for that time period at the Ryman (the last show was March 15, 1974), but the Grand Ole Opry still performs several times a year at the Ryman Auditorium.

Methinks the Washington Post needs a fact checker.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Love in the time of corona

Wedding joy amidst the cherry blossoms on Constitution Avenue/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Now this is bliss, amidst the cherry blossoms near the Washington Monument. The white figure in the distance is the bride seen in the photo above/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Could this be love in the cherry blossoms?/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Between the rows of flags at a famous address in Washington, D.C., the Washington Monument stands center/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Guards making rounds on Sunday afternoon at the White House and leaves blowing in the wind at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were almost the only things moving outside the gates/Photo by Patricia Leslie

On the 15th St. NW side of the White House on Sunday afternoon/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At the Department of Justice building, patriot Nathan Hale (1755-1776) stands erect, continuing to serve his country. He was a spy for the Continental Army, captured by the British and executed. "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," or a variation of these words were supposedly his last and are carved at the base of the statue./Photo by Patricia Leslie

At the Federal Trade Commission building on Constitution Avenue, Gov. Andrew Cuomo  arrives to rein in the rampaging disease /Photo by Patricia Leslie

Parking was easy to find along Constitution Avenue Sunday afternoon, and the sidewalks were almost empty. We went for exercise and biking which is allowable under present rules/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Degas at the Opera will open again, won't it? Before it closes again, this time, scheduled to exit July 5, 2020 at the National Gallery of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Multi-colored red tulips brighten a sad afternoon at the U.S. Botanic Garden. We may not be able to go inside the Botanic Garden building, but we can surely enjoy the scenery outside/Photo by Patricia Leslie

More beauty at the U.S. Botanic Garden/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The U.S. Botanic Garden/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A host of golden baby daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Is there a fragrance any better than hyacinths'?/Photo by Patricia Leslie

One of the loveliest park scenes in all of D.C. when the Bartholdi Fountain is working. Prithee, Architect of the U.S. Capitol, wherefore are thou, water? Shut off for coronavirus?  We cannot enjoy the park's beauty?/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Have the Russians landed in D.C. to join their friend in the White House? What looks like Catherine the Great's gift to her Grandfather-in-Law, Peter the Great (which welcomes visitors at the River Neva in St. Petersburg) is actually General Jose de San Martin (1778-1850) "Liberador" and "Leader of the Argentine Independence," a statue which is found in Triangle Park at Virginia Ave., NW and 20th St., NW. It's a copy of one in Buenos Aires, sculpted by Augustin-Alexandre Dumont who completed the original in 1862.  Argentina gave this duplicate in 1925, and it was rededicated in 1976, according to the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 More about General Jose de San Martin at his statue/Photo by Patricia Leslie

General Jose de San Martin (1778-1850) "Liberador" and "Leader of the Argentine Independence" found in Triangle Park at Virginia Ave., NW and 20th St., NW/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Peter the Great Statue, the Bronze Horseman, a gift to Peter from Catherine the Great dedicated in 1782, St Petersburg, Russia. Note the similarities to Gen. Juan de San Martin's statue, the outstretched right hand, the rearing horse (which strikes a serpent under Peter). The "Thunder Stone" which holds Peter is the largest ever moved by humans (1768)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Peter the Great Statue, the Bronze Horseman, St Petersburg, Russia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

Peter the Great Statue, the Bronze Horseman, St Petersburg, Russia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Tiptoe through the daffodils and smell their fragrance at the U.S. Botanic Garden/Photo by Patricia Leslie


PatriciaLesli@gmail.com

Free online classes and 'Amateurs' online at the Olney

Michael Russotto, left, and Evan Casey in The Amateurs at Olney Theatre Center
/Photo, Teresa Castracane Photography

The Amateurs were anything but at the Olney Theatre Center before coronavirus shut them down early.

But, the show will go on! Via streaming online beginning March 28 at noon through April 5 at Vimeo-On-Demand ($20 for a 24-hour rental with a free trailer).

This is just part of the Olney's digital public offerings to keep theatre alive in this turbulent era. Beginning Monday, March 30 the Olney will host free online classes daily for all ages via Zoom which staff members, National Players, and apprentices will teach.

Story times, playwriting, acting, movement and monologue coaching, play reading, and more will be offered over eight hours of daily classes, arranged by age. It's a fun schedule and welcome diversion for weary parents and children. Check the listings here. No pre-registration is required.

But, back to what brought us here in the first place, The Amateurs: Noah's wife is mad because she doesn't have a name.

The Amateurs was a production for the sophisticated theatregoer, a play within a play or maybe, within another play, too. It's not a "happy ending" play, but an existentialist provocation haunted by the Black Death ravaging the world in the 14th century, somewhat like coronavirus ensnares the world today, and AIDS did.

Searching for the meaning in this medieval setting with several themes left me confused beginning with the Seven Deadly Sins (can you name them?)* presented in ghoulish costumes.

The characters seem lost, without clear direction, much like we are. Jumping from then to now, the playwright, Jordan Harrison, presents an explanation before the play returns to the original setting. The issues are the same: Disaster, ever present.

The wife of Noah (as in Ark) lacks a first name and refuses to board her husband's boat. Actors unroll animal likenesses from a long scroll, and the big, versatile prop, a wagon cart, effectively serves as the ark, a setting for lovers, a birthing place, a speaker's platform, and more, as the actors roll it back and forth from one side of the stage to another, like a slow-motion tennis ball on a court with the audience on two sides facing one another, moving heads to follow the action.

It wasn't all negative; some comedic moments lightened the fare.

Michael Russotto was the screechy God, a conceited and narcissistic image aided in his mission to deliver a production, which the remaining cast members did. They were John Keabler, Noah; Emily Townley, Noah's wife; Evan Casey, Gregory; James Konicek, the physic; and Rachel Zampelli, Rona.

Lighting by Colin K. Bills never missed a moment, whether it was an actor delivering a solo speech or words for a moonlight.sonata.

Sound by Karin Graybash and folk music between scenes flavored the show.

*Pei Lee's Old World costumes captured the times beginning with gluttony (including drunkenness); lust, sloth (acedia?), wrath (anger), greed (avarice), envy, and pride (vanity, vainglory) all dressed head to toe in black, all on stage together.

More members of the creative team were Jason King Jones, director; Misha Kachman, scenic designer; Ben Walsh, production stage manager; and Josiane M. Jones, production director.

Leave it to Olney's talented staff of Jason Loewith, artistic director, and Debbie Ellinghaus, managing director, to keenly forecast the future and choose Amateurs for this season which keeps going.

About 90 minutes without intermission.

Coming April 4 at 11 a.m. is announcement of next season's selections at the Olney and also on April 4 at 5 p.m. is a panel discussion: "What's Next for D.C. Theatres," both presentations to be live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube.

Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832

Next up: Read all about it here.

For more information: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485

patricialesli@gmail.com

Coronavirus ends 'Moonlight and Magnolias' in Alexandria

Michael J. Fisher was Victor Fleming in Moonlight and Magnolias at the Little Theatre of Alexandria/Photo by Brian Knapp


It's a shame that COVID-19 shut down Moonlight and Magnolias early at Little Theatre of Alexandria. It was a fun show, a "great escape," a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to put together a movie script fast. It can be done!

I want to be bold and suggest a new title for this play, namely, Moonlight and Madness, because that's what they did to each other, a trio of Hollywood masterminds who drive each other insane while trying to write a new script for Gone With the Wind, and who hasn't seen that? (Excuse me, Millennials.)

The title is a bit misleading, after all, "magnolias" suggesting the South, since the show is not all Southern.  It's about "something Southern," namely, the movie that, according to Wikipedia, remains the highest grossing film of all time (after inflation) and which presents a jaundiced view of the South which Northerners relish and nurture to this day.  

That the playwright, Ron Hutchinson, is an Irish screenwriter himself, says a lot. 

Producer David O. Selznick  (1902-1965) confined a top screenwriter, Ben Hecht (who had never read GWTW), and a director, Victor Fleming (whom Selznick jerked from The Wizard of Oz) to work non-stop for five days on a replacement script for the awful one Selznick had.

Dashing Clark Gable, the woman slayer, and Vivian Leigh were to be the stars of the film. (Ordered Selznick: "Show her cleavage, cleavage, cleavage!" and they did.)

The year was 1939, before the start of World War II, when many wished the looming conflict was all a bad dream.  Was there an escape from it all?  (Like the LTA show was a "great escape" from coronavirus!)

Producer Selznick (acted here by lookalike Griffin Voltmann) believed there was, and he was right, although many skeptics thought the movie would flop like magnolia trees which fall to the ground.  (Oh, please.)  (The movie became the pinnacle of Selznick's success which he was never able to duplicate.)

Producer Selznick didn't give a damn about anything else Hecht and Fleming had to do. The show must go on!  And Director Juli Tarabek Blacker made it do just that. 

Michael J. Fisher made a hoot of Victor with wild antics, aided by a flustered Ben, effectively captured by J.T. Spivey, both roles bolstering the centerfold, Mr. Voltmann.

The threesome fight, they argue, they dance and scream and wear each other out, but they finish!  (Translated:  Don't give up the script.)

The action all takes place in Selznick's office which set decorators Stacey Becker and Ken Brown must have modeled after the actual to explain the jarring blue couch, the centerpiece and major detractor from the show. 

J.T. Spivy, left, was Ben Hecht, and Griffin Voltmann was David O. Selznick in Moonlight and Magnolias at the Little Theatre of Alexandria. At the desk in the background is Hillary Leersnyder, Miss Poppenghull/Photo by Brian Knapp


As time passes, the set fills with papers, bananas, peanuts (to help keep them going) and general disarray to match the progressive dishevelment of the characters, their talk and writing interrupted every so often by the prissy Miss Poppenghul (that's the best name the playwright could come up with) who pops in and out from her side office to tidy up the place, serve snacks, deliver messages, and play phone duty, general "step and fetch it" like any good servant would do.  What else was a ghul to do in 1939?   (In her first role out of college, Hillary Leersnyder was splendid!)

We know how this shows ends but it was a funny time to watch these characters puff and grind and sling it out.

Moonlight has ended at LTA but all is not lost for the season. After all, April has another play, Blue Stockings, which may open the 25th. Check the website.

Other members of the LTA Moonlight creative team were Rachel Alberts and Russell M. Wyland, producers; Alexander Bulova, assistant director; Sherry Clarke and Margaret Evans-Joyce, stage managers; Stefan Sittig, combat choreographer; Kathy Ohlhaber, set painter; Helen Bard-Sobola and Bobbie Herbst, properties; JK Lighting Design; Alan Wray, sound; Ceci Albert and Mary Wallace, costumes; and Hilary Adams, hair and makeup.

Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind/Wikipedia/studio portrait

Note:  It was just a few years ago that Olivia de Havilland (b. 1916) visited St. John's Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square in Washington, looking as beautiful and easily recognizable as she was in GWTW a few years ago.

Where: Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street, Alexandria, VA 22314

Tickets: Start at $21. Go here. 
 
Public transportation: Check the Metro website.

Parking: On the streets and in many garages nearby with free theatre parking at the Capital One Bank at Wilkes and Washington streets (when the bank is closed).

For more information: Box Office: 703-683-0496
Business Office: 703-683-5778; Fax: 703-683-1378
asklta@thelittletheatre.com

patricialesli@gmail.com