Category Archives: Theatre

August 10, 2012

Thought of the Day 8.10.12 Norma Shearer

By ritalovestowrite

“An adventure may be worn as a muddy spot or it may be worn as a proud insignia. It is the woman wearing it who makes it the one thing or the other.”

Norma Shearer

Edith Norma Shearer was born on this day in Montreal Canada in 1902. Today is the 110th anniversary of her birth.

Shearer showed early promise as a pianist. Indeed, her mother, who was a bit of a stage mother, wanted her to become a world class concert pianist.  But when Norma was treated to a Vaudeville show for her 9th birthday all that changed. She wanted to become an actress. In 1918 when her father’s business failed and her parents separated her mother sold the piano and bought tickets to New York City. A Montreal theatre owner had given Norma a letter of introduction to Florenz Ziegfeld of Ziegfeld Follies fame. The Follies audition didn’t pan out, but Norma got work as an extra on several films.

She took up modeling (for the much needed money it offered)

 “I could smile at a cake of laundry soap as if it were dinner at the Ritz. I posed with a strand of imitation pearls. I posed in dust-cap and house dress with a famous mop, for dental paste and for soft drink, holding my mouth in a whistling pose until it all but froze that way.” [ From Norma Shearer: A Life]

Springfield Tires hired her as their go to model and dubbed her “Miss Lotta Miles.

It took her a year of bit parts, walk ons and modeling gigs, but in 1921 she got a break and was cast in The Stealers. In 1923 she caught the eye of Hollywood talent scout Hal Roach and signed a six month contract with Louis B. Mayer for $250 a week. She met Irving Thalberg, the vice-president of the studio and did a screen test. After a rocky start on the West Coast, Shearer hit her stride and was cast in six movies in  eight months. By 1924 she was a big enough star that she landed the role of Consuelo (the love interest) in He Who Gets Slapped MGM‘s first big budged attraction.

She renewed her contract with MGM (making considerably more money) and began dating Irving Thalberg who was then the chief of production. While she was filming The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg the couple became engaged. They were married on September 29, 1927. She refused to take off her wedding ring, even if a role demanded it (she covered it with flesh-colored tape instead.) The two stayed together until Thalberg, who had a serious heart condition, died in 1936. Having a husband who was chief of production didn’t hurt her career. She could pick and choose the juiciest roles (something other starlets, like Joan Crawford, openly resented. — Crawford rather snarkily referred to Shearer at “Miss Lotta Miles.”)

Her first talkie was The Trial of Mary Dungan. She won an Oscar a year later for The Divorcee. And she earned the moniker the First Lady of MGM. Other notable movies include: The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo and Juliet, Marie Antoinette and The Women.

Soon after she retired in 1942 she married her second husband, Martin Arrouge, a ski instructor eleven years her junior. They withdrew from the glitz and glam of Hollywood and Shearer refused interviews and roles (like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard — a gig that won Gloria Swanson an Oscar) Shearer once quipped: “Never let them see you in public after you’ve turned 35. You’re finished if you do!”

 

[All photos courtesy of the Norma Shearer Annex.  Except Miss Lotta Miles which is from Hollywood-Legends.webs.com ]

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[Please Note that ritaLOVEStoWRITE is stepping away from the keyboard for a few days to get some fresh air. Be back soon.]

1 Comment   |  tags: | posted in Film, Norma Shearer, postaday, Theatre, Thought of the Day, Uncategorized

July 25, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.25.12

By ritalovestowrite

“The big artist keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools.” –Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins Self Portrait 1894. national Academy of Design, New York.
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was born on this day in Philadelphia, PA in 1844.

Today is the 168th anniversary of his birth. He went to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts  and attended classes on anatomy at Jefferson Medical College. He spent a few years abroad studying in Paris and Spain then returned home to Philadelphia. He worked in watercolor, oil and photography to capture realistic landscapes and the human figure. He taught at the Pennsylvania Academy stressing the importance of realism. He  ran into trouble with Victorian sensibilities with his emphasis on using nude subjects and was forced to retire from that institution.

John Biglin in a Single Scull, ca 1873 by Thomas Eakins a Watercolor on paper

Early paintings reflected things he liked to do like rowing on the Schuykill river. He also painted portraits of women and children (usually of family or friends) at home in intimate, shadowed settings.

The Thinker: Portrait of Louis N. Kenton, 1900 by Thomas Eakins, Oil on Canvas.
Kenton was Eakin’s brother-in-law. The painting is 82 x 42″ and is in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

During his lifetime his was not well received in the art world. His portraits — he painted several hundred of them — were rarely done on commission and  were often painted to scale, inside  and in isolation. He was also very interested in science and medicine (especially anatomy) as is reflected in two of his most famous works The Gross Clinic and The Agnew Clinic. 

The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins, 1875. Oil on Canvas 96 x 78″. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas Eakins' "The Agnew Clinic," a...

Thomas Eakins’ “The Agnew Clinic,” a companion piece to “The Gross Clinic.” (Photo credit: zpeckler)

1 Comment   |  tags: | posted in Art, postaday, Theatre, Thomas Eakens, Today's Birthday

July 25, 2012

Romeo and Juliet and Benvolio and Mercutio

By ritalovestowrite

 

Apologies, gentle reader, for it taking so long to post a review of something I saw on Sunday! (I’ve been busy doing actual freelance graphic design and writing work, so I’m sure you’ll understand.)

If you haven’t already seen Romeo and Juliet at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company this Summer you’d better hurry. This nice little production of  the classic Shakespeare tale is something you don’t want to miss. Remaining performances are on Friday, July 27th at 8:00 and Sunday, July 29 at 6:00 at the Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City Maryland. The CSC is running R&J in rep with Pride and Prejudice (another excellent production) which concludes its run tonight, Thursday and Saturday. Here’s my review of R&J:

Benvolio as interpreted by artist Hannah Tompkins

I particularly liked the first half.  They had a LOT of fun here and it was nice to see actors who were so hemmed in and corseted by their roles in Pride and Prejudice let loose on the stage and really enjoy themselves. Julian Elijah Martinez (Romeo / Wickham) and Rachael Jacobs (Juliet / Lydia) played much more likable characters here, and it was lovely to see the nuances in the shift of the lovers characters. Jacobs’ bubbly Juliet is all innocence while her Lydia was appropriately bratty. But the actors who played Benvolio / Darcy, Adam Sheaffer, and Mercurio / Lizzy, Blythe Coon, were even more fun to watch. He was SO RESERVED and stately in P&P and is so fun loving in R&J (and then so angst ridden when needed) he stole the show for me. (… Yeah, maybe because I am predisposed to like him because he was also Darcy, I admit it.) And she took all the energy and vitality she had as Elizabeth Bennett and just cut loose  with bawdy humor and physicality for Mercurio. They both were damn fine swordsmen too. I was really impressed.
The staging was really nice too, they did a lot out and about the audience, really addressing the crowd — sometimes eating the food from the picnic tables in the back, or performing small scenes in the pockets of the audience. There was this beautiful moment  when Jamie Jager, (Paris/ Bingley) goes semi “Off stage” as Paris to watch (in character) as Romeo enters the vault. As an audience member we have all been following Paris– he’s just given a heart breaking speech (love him too, btw) and we — especially those of us who can hear him breathing — can’t take our eyes off him. But Jamie — knowing that our attention needs to be with Romeo, who is entering stage left — put his fingers to his eyes and gestured for us to look across the stage. Everyone’s head turned to where it needed to be. It could have been 1595 and we could have been the groundlings. He had just gotten us to happily suspend our disbelief and manipulated us to continue with the story. I loved it.
So kudos to director Jenny Leopold for getting the most out of her fine actors and the minimal set.
The second half of the play (YES, I know there are really 5 acts) is much, much more serious. The body count went up, poison came out. And  they had to get down to business. You know how it ends. I knew how it ends. Actually KNOWING how it ends was kind of  a bummer. Like a lot of Shakespeare (and Austen) there’s a double edged sword in coming to a performance knowing the material ahead of time. You have the inside joke of knowing the inside jokes, but you don’t have the zing of surprise or the intake of breath when some one is unexpectedly run through with a rapier. I, personally, did not weep openly at the end of R& J, but I did hear sniffling around me.
Jaded? Perhaps. But mostly I was thinking that the second half didn’t have enough BENVOLIO!

 

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July 23, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.23.12

By ritalovestowrite

English: Daniel at the premiere of December Bo...

 

Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born today  in West London, England in 1989. He is 23 years old.

When Radcliffe was 10 he made his professional acting debut in David Copperfield for the BBC. The following year he auditioned for the role of  Harry Potter. He won the role and starred in the  8 block buster movies of the series.

He has been busy on stage  both on the West End (The Play What I Wrote) and on Broadway  (Equus. How to succeed in Business Without Really Trying.)

His other film roles include The Tailor of Panama, My Boy Jack, and The Woman in Black.

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July 19, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.19.12

By ritalovestowrite

‘Tis the Shakespeare insult mug from our cupboard. Because sometimes inspiration IS as close as your morning cup of coffee.

Well, today I’m thinking that you, my clever, well read, blog followers must be in wont of a few additional Shakespearian insults to heap upon mankind. The response to yesterday’s list was pretty amazing (thank you!) And whilst I was compiling that list I kept finding quotes from/to/about this Falstaff guy…So, dear reader, I give you…

The Henry IV collection

You starvelling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish–O for breath to utter what is like thee!-you tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck! (Henry IV, Part 1) [ wow that’s all one curse! You might want to break it down and use a bit of moderation, lest some one thing you a bow-case.]

Peace, ye fat guts! (Henry IV, Part 1)

Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along. (Henry IV, Part 1)

Thou art as fat as butter (Henry IV, Part 1)

Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch! (Henry IV, Part 1)

You are as a candle, the better burnt out. (Henry IV, Part 1)

That trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?  (Henry IV, Part 1)

You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe! (Henry V, Part 2)

Matthew MacFadyen as Prince Hal and Michael Gambon as Falstaff in a scene from the National Theatre’s presentation of Henry IV in 2005. (Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore)

My secret Shakespearian wish… If you had a million dollars and could endow a classical theatre company what would your wish be?

My wish?  I’d  endow my two favorite Shakespearian troupes — the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory and the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company — for a Summer of Hal. Since they generally put on two shows a piece …they could do Henry  IV Parts 1 and 2 and go once more into the breach Henry V in rep. [For the fourth show I’d love to see another Jane Austen adaptation, maybe Persuasion?] …Oh, We few we happy few who could witness such a summer as that!  (Now if only I had a million dollars!)

[Discuss]

 

2 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in postaday, Shakespeare, Theatre, Thought of the Day, Writing

July 18, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.18.12

By ritalovestowrite

Today I’m thinking about Shakespeare. Why? because I got to see Baltimore Shakespeare Factory’s Love’s Labour’s Lost last Friday and I’m going to see Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet this Sunday. Two very different plays and two very different approaches. How lucky am I to live in a city that offers two ways to experience the Bard?

So instead of the regular birthday tribute (Shakespeare’s birthday is April 23rd for any one who is keeping track) I give you… Shakespearian insults. Because you never know when you might need a really tell some one that they are “a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward.” (Measure for Measure).

An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting Romeo and Juliet’s famous balcony scene.

Here are a few from Romeo and Juliet:

… He’s a man of wax
You kiss by the book
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not, the ape is dead
She speaks yet she says nothing
He is not the flower of courtesy
You rat catcher
A dog, a cat, a mouse, a rat to scratch a man to death
A plague on both your houses
Thou detestable maw
Thou womb of death

A scene from Love’s Labour’s Lost as put on by the Acting Co. of New York in 1974. Here the boys try to fool the girls into thinking they are a bunch of visiting Russians.

Here are a few from LLL:

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,
Figures pedantical; these summer flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:
I do forswear them.

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

From other Plays:

A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality. (Alls Well That Ends Well.)

Thine face is not worth sunburning. (Henry V)

There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune. (Henry V)

Thou art as loathsome as a toad. (Troilus and Cressida)

Thou art like a toad; ugly and venemous. (As You Like It)

I must tell you friendly in your ear, sell when you can, you are not for all markets.” (As You Like It.)

Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward. (Measure for Measure)

You secret, black and midnight hags (Macbeth)

Thou subtle, perjur’d, false, disloyal man! (The Two Gentleman of Verona)

“Thou art a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way” (King Lear)

“Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.” (King Lear)

“I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands.” (Timon of Athens)

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5 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Baltimore, Maryland, postaday, Shakespeare, Theatre, Thought of the Day

July 16, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.16.12

By ritalovestowrite

“When two people love each other, they don’t look at each other, they look in the same direction”

–Ginger Rogers

Virginia Katherine McMathwas born in Independence, Missouri on this day in 1911. She would have been 101  years old today.

Her parents divorced when she was a baby and little Virginia, Ginger, stayed with her mother, Lela. When she remarried, Ginger took the name Lela’s second husband John Rogers. Ginger was introduced to the theater when Lela became a theater critic and took the girl to the shows that she reviewed. Legend has it that Ginger would hang out backstage picking up the songs and dances from the performers as her mother sat in the audience and took notes. One night while she was backstage at a traveling vaudeville show the act needed a stand-in, Rogers was tapped for the duty and had her first gig.

She was still in high school when she won  The Texas State Charleston Championship. The prize — a tour of theaters in Texas cities — was expanded to include  a wider tour of the Western US.. Ginger’s easy banter with the master of ceremonies was such an audience hit that it became as much of a draw as the dance routine.  At 17 she married vaudeville artist Jack “Pepper” Culpepper and the two formed the act known as “Ginger and Pepper.” The marriage was short lived, but Ginger’s career continued. She made it to New York where she had her Broadway debut in Top Speed in 1929.  Shortly thereafter the Gershwin Brothers picked Ginger to star in Girl Crazy along with Ethel Merman. The musical made a star of both actresses  and introduced Ginger to Fred Astaire who was hired as a dance coach. Ginger’s amazing renditions of  Embraceable You and But Not For Me in the musical helped the tunes become part of the American Song Book.

At 19 she switched to movies. Her breakthrough role was in Warner Brother’s 42nd Street. In 1933 she made her first film with Fred Astaire, Flying Down to Rio. The duo made nine musicals together, the most famous probably being Top Hat.

Dancing was only one arrow in her quiver, she was also an acclaimed singer and actor and her career went on long after she stopped making musicals with Fred. She won an Academy Award for Kitty Foyle in 1940.

She went back to the Great White Way when roles for mature women in film became scarce. Ginger took over for Carol Channing as Dolly in Hello! Dolly in 1965 and performed to packed houses for an 18-month run. She then took Mame to London’s West End for 14-months (and a Royal command performance.)

Ginger Rogers - 1920s

Ginger Rogers – 1920s (Photo credit: danceonair1986)

1 Comment   |  tags: , | posted in Broadway, Film, Music, Musical Theatre, postaday, Theatre, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday

July 14, 2012

Labour’s of Love’s

By ritalovestowrite
English: Title page of the first quarto of Lov...

English: Title page of the first quarto of Love’s Labours Lost (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Love’s Labour’s Lost opened at the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory Friday night at the Great Hall Theatre at St. Mary’s Outreach Center on 3900 Roland Ave. The company moves to their outdoor space at the Meadow at Evergreen Museum and Library at 4545 N. Charles Street (between Loyola and Notre Dame) this weekend and runs thus August 5th.

The small company did a great job with this wordy show. The pacing was crisp, the comedy was spot on and the acting was tight. LLL is essentially a Shakespearian sit-com/rom-com and all the lovers on stage were delightfully witty. But this production really shines when the comedic characters strut onto the boards.  Chris Ryder’s Costard, Brian Hanson’s Boyet, Jess Behar’s Sir Nathaniel, Kerry Brady’s Holofernes, Kathryn Zoerb’s Moth and especially Ann Turiano’s Don Armado steal the show. The intimacy of the Factory and the way in which they involved the audience makes the comedy all the more engaging.

Contemporary songs add to the fun. The cast and director had a Q&A with audience members after the show to discuss how they brought the Bard’s play to life.

The cast, having partially changed out of their costumes sit at the edge of the stage for a Q&A.

 

The theatre at St. Mary’s Outreach Center has a thrust stage complete with balcony. The Baltimore Shakespeare Factory actors perform with out mics and with the audience lights up.

Later this season the group will present the Taming of the Shrew . For info or tickets call or email the Factory at info@theshakespearefactory.com or call 410-596-5036.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Baltimore, Shakespeare, Theatre

July 9, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.9.12

By ritalovestowrite

“If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”

—Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks was born in Concord, California, in 1956. He is 56 years old.

Hanks is an actor, director and producer. He started his acting career in the sitcom Bosom Buddies in the early 1980s. His first movie hit was SPLASH. Next came BIG in which he  seemed to both lampoon and perfect his man/child image with sweetness and charm. He left both qualities home when he played the gruff manager of an all-woman baseball team in A League of Their Own in 1992 and we learned that “there is NO crying in baseball.” He took on the role of leading rom.com. man in Sleepless in Seattle in 1993.

Hanks has since proved that he can easily handle both tough, serious roles as well as comedies with layered performances in Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, That Thing You Do, Saving Private Ryan, You’ve Got Mail, Cast Away,  The Road to Perdition, The Terminal, Charlie Wilson’s War,  The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

He has lent his voice to several animated characters, most notably Woody from the Toy Story franchise.

He expanded on two of his most popular films (Apollo 13 and Saving Private Ryan) by co-producing and directing  HBO miniseries with similar content. From Earth to the Moon followed the Apollo missions from Sputnik to Apollo 17.  Band of Brothers retold the story of “Easy” Company’s WWII European campaign. He later Executive Produced The Pacific which followed three Marines in the fight against Japan in that War.

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks (Photo credit: Alan Light)

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