Native Women artists at the Renwick and the Frist

This is a photograph of the outside poster of the exhibition by Native Women artists.at the Renwick Gallery.in Washington, D.C.

Marie Watt, Seneca Nation of Indians, Blanket Stories: Three Sisters, Four Pelts, Sky Woman, Cousin Rose, and All My Relations, 2007, Seattle Art Museum, General Acquisition Fund, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum,
To the left is Hummingbird Copper Dress, 1989 by Dorothy Grant (Haida) with Robert Davidson (Haida/Tlingit) at the Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Marie Watt, Seneca Nation of Indians, Blanket Stories: Three Sisters, Four Pelts, Sky Woman, Cousin Rose, and All My Relations, 2007, Seattle Art Museum, General Acquisition Fund, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum and, to the right, Dorothy Grant (Haida) with Robert Davidson (Haida/Tlingit), Hummingbird Copper Dress, 1989, wool, Denver Art Museum Collection: Native Arts acquisition fund, 2010 at the Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Marie Watt, Seneca Nation of Indians, Blanket Stories: Three Sisters, Four Pelts, Sky Woman, Cousin Rose, and All My Relations, 2007, Seattle Art Museum, General Acquisition Fund,in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, at the Frist Art Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie  

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Navajo artist, Second phase chief blanket, c. 1880, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of Elissa and Paul Cahn, These blankets are valued today about as much as they were by the Navajo nation in the late 19th centuryl. They were often worn by chiefs and their wives/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock), Adaptation II, 2012, shoes designed by Christian Louboutin, leather, glass beads, porcupine quills, sterling silver cones, brass sequins, chicken feathers, cloth, deer rawhide, and buckskin, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Virginia Doneghy

Label copy at the Renwick (this photo taken at the Frist) said Jamie Okuma began making "extravagant attire in which to attend powwows" leading to her " successful career creating wearable art." Her heels are her "way of reimaging Native couture." She planned a career in the fashion industry but her success as a beadworker took her in a different direction/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Apsáalooke (Crow) artist, Dress, ca. 1930, cotton, bead, bone, skin, wool, and colorant, Denver Art Museum Collection: The L. D. and Ruth Bax Collection,

From the label copy: "Elk-tooth dresses like this one are important symbols of prestige for Apsáalooke women. Because they can have as many as 500 elk teeth meticulously sewn into the bodice, and because the maker only uses the two canine teeth of the bull elk, a dress like this reflects not only a woman’s sewing skills, but, as importantly, her male family members’ hunting prowess. Today, few elk-tooth dresses are made entirely from real teeth—there are acceptable commercial substitutions—but the dress endures as an object of significance and cultural pride."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Detail of Jolene Richard, Tuscarora, b. 1956 ...the sky is darkening ..., 2018, courtesy of the artist with special thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Tuscarora women made beadwork of passenger pigeons  which were hunted to extinction by1902, according to the label copy. Beadwork by Tuscarora women helped them survive when they were forced to leave their homes in North Carolina in the early 18th century/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Jolene Richard, Tuscarora, b. 1956 ...the sky is darkening ..., 2018, courtesy of the artist with special thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Apsaalooke (Crow), Infant Boy's Coat, c. 1890, buckskin, cloth, glass beads, sinew, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, pictured at the Renwick with Hide Cradleboard, c. 1890 by a Kiowa artist, attributed to Tahdo Ahtone, 1879-1961, Denver Museum of Nature and Science. By riding in the cradleboard upright, the child could absorb more of her language and culture/Photo by Patricia Leslie

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Apsaalooke (Crow), Infant Boy's Coat, c. 1890, buckskin, cloth, glass beads, sinew, Denver Museum of Nature and Science. At the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Hide Cradleboard, c. 1890 by a Kiowa artist, attributed to Tahdo Ahtone, 1879-1961, Denver Museum of Nature and Science.at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa/Comanche) and Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock), Adornment: Iconic Perceptions, 2014, antique glass, 24-karat electroplated beads, buckskin, 18-karat yellow gold, sterling silver, wampum shell, freshwater pearls, rose and brilliant-cut diamonds and diamond beads, diamond briolettes, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of funds from The Duncan and Nivin MacMillan Foundation/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The artists pay tribute to Pocahontas, drawing inspiration from 17th century engravings by Simon van de Passe and Thomas Sully’s classic 1852 painting,

 

Anita Fields, Osage, b. 1951, with her coat entitled It's In Our DNA, It's Who We Are, 2018, Minneapolis Institute of Art. At the Renwick Gallery, Feb. 20, 2020.  Printed inside the coat is the Treaty of 1808 when the Osage Indians ceded almost 2.5 million acres including the state of Arkansas and almost all of Missouri to the U.S. government for cash/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Anita Fields, Osage, b. 1951, It's In Our DNA, It's Who We Are, 2018, Minneapolis Institute of Art, at the Frist Art Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Joan Hill (Muskogee Creek and Cherokee), Women’s Voices at the Council, 1990, acrylic on canvas, Gift of the artist on behalf of the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women, 1990, Oklahoma State Art Collection, courtesy of the Oklahoma Arts Council.

From the label copy: "Women’s Voices at the Council, part of a series that Joan Hill began in 1971 during the Vietnam War (1965–75), depicts multiple generations of Native women and the power they hold to decide between war and peace. Hill focuses attention on essential elements of women’s regalia including turtle shell leggings, and she presents Muskogee/Cherokee cultural aesthetics, symbols, and meanings. She juxtaposes the white background, a Cherokee symbol of peace, with a red disk, possibly symbolizing a threat of war."

This was my second favorite of the show. The contrasts, the colors, the mixture of generations, their positions, the silhouettes, and the solemnity of the time. While the women discuss, the men (to the left) prepare to battle. Leave it to the women to bring peace!
 
Four of the artists at the Renwick Gallery, Feb. 20, 2020. In the white shirt is Anita Fields and to her left is Kelly Church/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Kelly Church (Ottawa/Pottawatomi) with her Sustaining Traditions—Digital Memories, 2018, at the Renwick, Feb. 20, 2020. Black ash, sweetgrass, Rit dye, copper, vial EAB, and flash drive with black ash teachings/Photo by Patricia Leslie


According to the label copy: "The green in this basket represents the emerald ash borer. This beautiful insect has destroyed ash trees, essential to making ash baskets, throughout the Upper Midwest. Placed within this basket, which is shaped like a Fabergé egg is a flash drive containing what Kelly Church describes as 'all the teachings of the past, all of the things happening today, and all of the things we need to do in the future to sustain this tradition [basket weaving].'”

 The Frist Art Museum, Dec. 23, 2019/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Marguerite Vincent Lawinonkie Wendat (Huron), Moccasins, 1838/1847-1854, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, Gift of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Lou-ann Neel, b. 1963, Childhood, 2013. According to the label, these are miniature photographs of the artist and 3,000 other children who were removed from their Native homes and sent to residential schools where they were forced to assimilate into Euro-American culture. All together, the images comprise the artist's nephew, Daniel (below) in regalia for his naming ceremony.  Ms. Neel's work was exhibited at the Frist only.

Lou-ann Neel, b. 1963, Childhood, 2013. The artist's nephew, Daniel.  (See description above.)

Lou-ann Neel, b. 1963, Childhood, 2013, Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dana Claxton, b. 1959, Buffalo Bone China, 1997, video and mixed media, collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. In the 1860s the U.S. government began killing 30 million buffalo to drive Natives onto reservations.  It took 30 years to kill almost 30 million buffalo, leaving only 493. Europeans used their bones to make fine china. The video features the artist smashing buffalo bone china, paying tribute to the power of the buffalo and the endurance of the Natives.  In the center are pieces of the broken white china. At the Frist only/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 See description above/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Jennie Ross Cobb, Cherokee, 1881-1959, Cherokee Female Seminary Graduating Class, 1902, courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Ms. Cobb was the first known Native American woman photographer in the U.S. Her pictures contrast with the stereotypes most other photographers made of Native American women, according to the label copy.  Although the location of the seminary was not given, I believe it is the "centerpiece of Northeastern State University, located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma," as identified by Wikipedia. The white dots in the photo of the photo are reflections of overhanging lights at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Slavey (Dene), Dog blanket, c. 1878-1900, McCord Stewart Museum. Used for warmth and "announcement" by sled drivers of teams' arrival to deliver mail, news, and supplies. Indigenous artists.today are reviving these colorful, jingle-jangle blankets/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Anishinaabe, Jingle dress and headband, c. 1900, Cass County Historical Society, Cass County Museum. Used as "healing dresses" today and yesteryear/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Osage artists, ribbon blanket (left), c. 1950 and child's ribbon-work blanket, c. 1915 which belong to Anita Fields (the blanket on the left) and Julia Karen Lookout, both of the Osage Nation. See the backs below.  At the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The backs of the children's blankets (seen above) with Anita Fields's It's In Our DNA, It's Who We Are, 2018, at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Zoe Urness, Tlingit, b. 1984, December 5, 2016, No Spiritual Surrender, 2016, courtesy of the artist. Near a campsite at Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas. Thousands from around the world gathered  to protest the Dakota Pipeline designed to carry oil but a threat to lives, damaging water supplies. Although the temperature that day "had hit forty below," the artist says on the label, "I had the camera under my armpit to keep the batteries warm.  I watched this gathering of veterans of military service, from all over the nation, approaching." She moved quickly to take "a one-arm shot." 

Rather than a photograph, this looks like a still from a horror movie. The reds, the blacks, the greys and whites combine with nature.to deliver a powerful message. My Number One Favorite in the show. It is a knockout, summoning up all the power of the protestors who march towards the viewer and summon: "Join us! We shall overcome!" At the Frist.

I was lucky enough to be able to see this intriguing and wide-ranging exhibition, the first major museum exhibition devoted to art by Native Women in two cities, in Nashville at the Frist Art Museum at Christmas, and in Washington at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery in February before coronavirus closed the show early.

Most of the pieces shown here were displayed at both museums, but the larger galleries at the Frist (it included 115 pieces; the Renwick, 82) permitted more displays of textiles, baskets, beadwork, pottery, painting, sculpture, video, apparel, and installation art with a broader visual experience for some.

Works by artists from the U.S. and Canada, from ancient times to present day, were chosen by a curatorial team led by Jill Ahlberg Yohe from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (the organizing institution) and Teri Greeves, a Kowa artist and scholar.

They worked closely with an Exhibition Advisory Board of 20 Native women skilled in mixed media who provided guidance for the show, titled Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists. It was "a radical shift in curatorial methodology," remarked Ms. Ahlberg at the Washington opening.


It is divided by three themes:  legacy, relationships, and power which together present "the unique heritage and culture of various Indian tribes and communities."

Visitors from toddlers on up were fascinated by the extraordinary presentation and differences of what their heritage means to these Native Women. 

Smithsonian American Art Museum Director Stephanie Stebich at the opening of Hearts Of Our People at the Renwick Gallery, Feb. 20, 2020/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At the February opening in Washington, Smithsonian American Art Museum Director Stephanie Stebich remarked that the timing of the exhibition in Washington to fall in the centennial celebration when American women got the right to vote was not just a coincidence. 

To compare the ways the two museums assembled and displayed the art was fascinating; highly recommended whenever the chance comes along to compare the same exhibition in two different locations.

My impression that many (most?) living artists require their works to be specifically displayed, according to certain measurements and placements in galleries, was changed by this show since placements, heights, and juxtapositions varied from one place to another.

It is a shame, a shame (it bears repeating) that coronavirus will prevent many from seeing this magnificent, inspiring show. The Renwick will just have to bring it back.

Audio tours with several of the artists are found at the Renwick website. 

Most of the labels were multi-lingual with translations in the native language of the artist.
 
Grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities made the presentation possible.  



A catalog of the exhibition is available for $39.95. 
What: Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists 

When:  Native Women Artists is set to close at the Renwick May 17, 2020 and likely cannot be extended since it moves to the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa for viewing June 28 – September 20, 2020, The Renwick is closed by coronavirus until July 2, 2020, according to the website. It is usually open from 10 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. every day.

Where: The Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006, at the White House 17th Street block, adjacent to Blair House.

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Farragut North or Farragut West

For more information: (202) 633-7970 (recorded) or (202) 633-2850

patricialesli@gmail.com

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