The Parsons Noseletter

Dr. and Mrs. Anton Chekov

One of the most dazzling of Shakespeare’s attributes was his ability to write brilliantly and often in so many different genres. Comedy, tragedy, history – and in many different variations. It’s as if all the Emmys of an evening were won by the same writer. In this, no one can touch him.

We close our 12^th season with a full production of two wonderful comedies, written by another classical master. Many know  Anton Chekov for his more serious work – The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters – written toward the end of the 19^th Century. In them he tells stories of sheltered households living in bubbles, ignoring the grim realities of the outside world. GB Shaw applauded Chekov’s ability to illuminate characters, like those in his own “Heartbreak House”, who sadly refused to acknowledge the coming of World War I. For many, pathos and tragedy underscore Chekov’s work, but I believe many productions miss his inherent comic, Chaplinesque tones. Is Constantin’s little play in The Seagull “dreadful” as his mother Arkadina describes, or – though painfully and comically earnest – a brilliant and prophetic attempt at a new form of theater?

In young Chekov’s “The Boor” and “The Marriage Proposal” we have “vaudeville” sketches in the direct line from the ancient Greeks to today’s stage, film and television. Yes, blindness to our blindness can be tragic – “Oedipus Rex” – but can also be comic – “The Office”. And lovers’ quarrels have been a delightful source of entertainment from “Lysistrata” to “Modern Family”. Human frailty is universal and timeless. We hear in the squabbling of Stepanovna and Lomov our own righteous exchanges. We know that as Popova and Smirnov scream at each other they’re tearing away the self imposed barriers to their own buried passion.

This is, above all else, what the classics give us – the reassurance that we are not alone. We learn, grow, and life goes on. Please join us and get to know these “trivial” masterpieces.

“Chekov Farces” “The Boor” and “The Marriage Proposal”

One hour oh so funny adaptation by Lance Davis

Featuring Barry Gordon, Dorothy Brooks, Marisa Chandler, James Calvert and Lance Davis

Saturday and Sunday Matinees at 2 PM.

April 21,22,28,29,May 5,6

Saturday Soirees at 7 PM. April 21, 29,May 5.

Lineage Performing Arts Center, 89 S. Fair Oaks Avenue, Old Pasadena, CA 91105

Buy tickets at www.parsonsnose.tix.com or call 626-403-7667

Ages 9 +. Seniors and Students especially welcome.

Parson’s Nose Readers’ Theater Series

“Quality” by John Galsworthy

“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift

Saturday Soiree, March 17 @ 7 PM/ Sunday Matinee, March 18 @ 2 PM

Lineage Performing Arts Center, 89 S. Fair Oaks, Pasadena, CA. 91105

Ages 11+ suggested. Seniors especially welcome.

Tickets: http://www.parsonsnose.tix.com

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Theater is dramatic storytelling. We have two great examples in this month’s Readers’ Theater offerings.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was born in Surrey, England to a solicitor father, John, and his wife Blanche. Like Moliere, he gave up a career in law to become a novelist and playwright, and though independently wealthy espoused liberal causes, such as penal reform, censorship and the protection of wildlife. He refused knighthood when it was offered, saying the writing itself was reward enough. In his most popular work, The Forsyte Trilogy, he examines the values of three generations of a wealthy Victorian family. A successful television production by the BBC in 1967 was the precursor to today’s immensely popular “Downton Abbey”.

In “Quality”, a simple depiction of an event in Victorian life, Galsworthy examines the dilemma of 19^th Century “progress”. The Industrial Revolution charges forward, at what price to society? What do we sacrifice for a modern world racing toward material consumption and disposability?

A century before Galsworthy, Jonathan Swift, the greatest satirist in the English speaking world, also addressed social reform. Born in Dublin in 1667, he was a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and later became Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral there. In his “anonymous” pamphlet “A Modest Proposal” the Anglo-English writer (“Gulliver’s Travels”"Tale of the Tub”) not only underscores the deplorable economic conditions in Ireland, but also lampoons the heartless social engineering theories espoused by his contemporary William Petty and others. Swift’s grotesque suggestion that the impoverished and persecuted Irish population might provide an excellent source of nutrition and culinary delight to the upper classes, in return gaining a prosperous solution to their problem of overpopulation, was published in 1729. Again, as in all “classics”, we see relationships echoing other societies, from the Greece of Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” to the America of “South Park”.

Both Galsworthy and Swift use the dramatic power of their pens to challenge us to question the ideas and values around us. Their art is to present a lens through which we view the world and hopefully change it for the better. What better contemplation for the Lenten season of our Christian society? – Lance Davis

"Does it make me look fat?"

Jean Baptiste Poquelin was born and raised in Paris, about five blocks from the Louvre, which was, at the time, one of several Royal Palaces. His father was an upholsterer to the King. His mother died when he was about ten years old, and his grandfather took him often to the carnival-like atmosphere of puppet shows and sideshows along the Seine, where his love of theater began. In his early twenties, young Jean Baptiste rejected his study of law and his father’s dream of following in his footsteps – though he remained a member of his father’s guild – to become an actor, at the time a disreputable occupation. He joined the Bejart Company after falling in love with its leading lady, young Madeline Bejart. A new company, Le Theatre Illustre, was formed, and Jean Baptiste took the name “Moliere” to save his family from dishonor. Their attempts at tragedy failed and to avoid further debt the company left Paris, touring the provinces and developing their own work for the next seventeen years.

Now here’s where we come – “at last”, you might say – to our February presentation.  My interpretations of Moliere favor the spirit of these early works, in which I believe his comic genius came to fruition. He was very much influenced by the touring Italian troupes, the “commedia dell arte” players, and their robust, irreverent and physical style of acting. Language is minimized, absurd plots and characters emphasized. Curmudgeonly old men are stingy, and eager to get a good deal in arranged marriages for their children. Young lovers are self- absorbed, but extremely willful. And oppressed servants are inevitably co-opted into some arcane scheme to thwart the parents and restore True Love to its rightful preeminence. Norman Lear and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, say thank you.

Among Moliere’s provincial works were “The Flying Doctor” (1645) and “The Ridiculous Young Ladies” (1650). Under cover of comedy Moliere pokes fun at the gullibility of the old, the sham of false medicine, and the absurdity of extreme fashion. In “The Flying Doctor” old Gorgibus is ready to sacrifice all at the suggestion of servant Sganarelle’s “Doctor” in order to match his daughter to his wealthy old friend. In “The Ridiculous Young Ladies” two narcissistic girls from the provinces are prepared to do whatever necessary to take Paris by storm. Both themes were ripe for comedy in the provinces of France in 1650, proved so again in its capital in 1658, and are alive and well in Archie Bunker and Kim Kardashian today.

Moliere wrote the comedy of Obsession. In that way he was very much a conservative, believing in balance and order, and after his triumphant return to Paris in 1658 he became the theater darling of a resourceful, young Louis XIV, who knew a rapier when he saw one. He served the King in Paris, at Versailles and Fontainebleau for the next fifteen years, dying after a performance of “The Imaginary Invalid” in Paris on February 17, 1673. Because he was an actor it took the King’s special dispensation to allow his Christian burial, by night, in an unmarked cemetery plot in a Paris churchyard.

“A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens in a one hour, Readers’ Theater adaptation by Lance Davis

Saturday December 17 at 2 PM and 7 PM; Sunday,  December 18 at 2 PM

Lineage Performing Arts Center, 89 S. Fair Oaks, Pasadena, CA 91005

PayWhatYouWill, but reservations necessary. Go to www.parsonsnose.com or call 626-403-7667.

Remember how you hated Dickens when you were in high school because you had to have fifty pages of “Great Expectations” read by Monday and his descriptions just went on and on and on? Well I have a suggestion, and you’ll really thank me. Call your local bookseller (this really is a hardcover worth owning) and order Michael Patrick Hearn’s “An Annotated Christmas Carol”.

When you get it, block out an hour in the evening, make yourself a cocoa with whipped cream, or maybe even a glass of port and piece of Stilton, and begin to read one of the greatest writers the English language has ever known. Guess what? You don’t have to rush. You don’t have a deadline. It won’t be on the test. You are now an educated adult, and you have earned the license to take your time and savor something you won’t get on television…language. Your language.

Immerse yourself in the world of London, 1842. Hear the horses, the shop bells, the chatter. Smell the smoking fires, horse dung and burnt chestnuts. Feel the chill on your nose, and maybe the drip. Feel the emotions, the pain of Belle’s parting, the loneliness of the boy Scrooge, never sent for at Chrismas.

Put yourself in Dickens’ hands, for they are very capable. Maybe on the next night you’ll pass the book back and forth with someone, taking turns reading a paragraph or two. Mark the voices and try the dialects. I’m betting it may even become a new tradition.
Merry Christmas. I hope to see you at our readings, and please, if you can, remember us in your donations.  God bless. – LD

Follow us on Twitter, if you can figure it out. (I know I’m having trouble. In Dickens’ day you would send a note in the post if you were wealthy, or one of your kids if you were not!

ParsonsNoseProd; https://twitter.com/#!/ParsonsNoseProd/

#Pasadena

Written by Dion Boucicault; adapted by Lance Davis

Saturdays November 12, 19 and 26 at 2 PM and 7 PM

Sundays November 13, 20 and 27 at 2 PM

Tickets $20 Adults; $10 Students and Over 60

Tickets: www.parsonsnose.com or 626-403-7667

Lineage Performing Arts Center, 89 South Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105

Running time 1 hour plus intermission

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Some years ago I toured in a summer stock production of “The Streets of New York” with Farley Granger and Orson Bean. (Stories to tell there!)  It was a great favorite on the circuit. Today’s audiences readily enjoyed the interactive “boos” and “yays” of the melodramatic form.

“Streets” was written in 1857 by the great 19th Century Irish actor and playwright Dionysus Boucicault, taken from a French play, “The Poor of Paris” by Edward Nus. Boucicault added a “fire” scene to accommodate the popular demand for spectacle, and also changed the local references to the city it played, in London “The Poor of London,” “The Poor of Liverpool,” “The Poor of Dublin.” The word “Poor” was also changed to “Streets” in several productions.

Boucicault was a true man of the theater. Born in 1820 in Dublin to a relatively well –to –do family, he became an actor, then playwright and producer with a keen sense of the audience’s taste. The stock market crashes of 1837 and 1857 set the scene for the play. As in Dickens, the shocking financial reversals of the wealthy and their newfound appreciation for the core values of the impoverished were favorite themes of the melodramas of the day. Boucicault also had an innate sense of comedy which we see not only in “Streets” but in his hit comedy “London Assurance” – revived on Broadway in 2009 – and his career vehicle for the great 19th Century American star Joseph Jefferson, “Rip Van Winkle,” which Parson’s Nose revived in 2005.

I hope you enjoy my version of the play. I think it’s in the spirit of Boucicault, though admittedly I’ve incorporated Parson’s Nose “panto” touches. It’s been great fun to insert, as he did, local references, to Pasadena and its citizens. I’ve tried to offer it with a kind humor, and trust our audiences to receive with same. Thanks in advance to Mayor Bill Bogaard for allowing the use of his name as the villain banker. I assured him that though Aloysius receives most of the “boos” in the piece his actions can be attributed not only to greed but to a misplaced love of his wicked daughter.

Please join us for an hour, bring your whole family, and relish the interactive cheers and hisses of our theater heritage. This is what theater does best. No screens!

Mayor Bogaard visits Parson's Nose!

The Dromio Twins

Language was the television of everyday life in Elizabethan times. People delighted in hearing new words and phrases, then using them in their own speech. In Love’s Labors Lost and Twelfth Night characters carry notepads to write down new words and phrases they can incorporate. Much like our “whatever…”.

We can understand many of the 400-year-old words just by their usage. “Hast” means “has”. “Doth” means “does”. “Ne’er” means “never”. And some, once we know their meaning, add a whole new understanding. For example “wherefore” doesn’t mean “where”, it means “why”. So when Juliet in Romeo and Juliet leans out on her balcony and says “Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?,” she’s not saying “Where are you?” but “O why do you have to be Romeo Montague whom I can never marry?”

The leading Elizabethan playwrights were poets, and used poetic imagery and technique in their work. (Can you imagine if TV was in poetry form? “Glee” is considered radical enough!) In an example from this month’s reading of “A Comedy of Errors”, Shakespeare doesn’t just say Aegeon’s wife is “pregnant”. He says she is under “the pleasing punishment that women bear.” The image adds the much richer idea that “yes, pregnancy’s brutal, but worth it”.

Of course some of his vocabulary is new to us, but quickly becomes familiar and part of the fun of language. Several words found in many of his works are: Ducats = gold coins; Marks = larger gold coins!; Cozenage = trickery; Mountebank = swindler; Signior = Mister; Coxcomb = dandy; Pate = head; Tartar = Mongolian tribesman.

Come join us for the new season, this Saturday and Sunday! You’ll love it.

IBy Lance Davis

NT. ESPN STUDIOS
Patrick McEnroe’s interview with
Francois Giscard Dupuis, President of
the French Open Organizing Committee.
PATRICK
We’re delighted to have with us Monsieur Francois Giscard
Dupuis, the President of L’Organization Francaise de Tennis.
The man responsible for this remarkable event. Welcome,
Monsieur Dupuis.
FRANCOIS
Merci, Patrick. I am delighted to be with you this evening.
PATRICK
Well, Francois. I think we have to begin with your thoughts
on the remarkable series of events today and how they might
play out in the coming weekend.
FRANCOIS
Well it will certainly be worth watching, I am sure, non?
(chuckle)
PATRICK
It certainly will. After today’s incident at the net.
FRANCOIS
Quite something, non? But that is France.
PATRICK
Absolutely. No love lost between Sharapova and Petrovic.
FRANCOIS
Oh? And why is that?
PATRICK
Well after the exchange between them at the net after the
match.
FRANCOIS
Oh, I thought you meant between Bennet and Fleurant.
PATRICK
Bennet and Fleurant? I’m sorry. Who are they?
FRANCOIS
The boys of the ball, Jaques Bennet and Jean Paul Fleurant.
PATRICK
The ball boys?
FRANCOIS
Mais oui. All of France is waiting to see what will happen in
the final match.
PATRICK
The ball boys?
FRANCOIS
But of course. All of France is in love with these boys. You
have the veteran Jaques Bennet, twelve years old, who had
such an injury today. Many doubt he will be able to return.
PATRICK
An injury today.
FRANCOIS
But of course today. Such exciting. Second set. Petrovic
serving. Bennet by the net in his, how do you say,
“signature” crouching. Staring straight ahead. Waiting for
his moment. Boom – the serve. Boom – he hears it hits the
net. Boom – already he is flashing across the screen; he is
scooping; he is on the other side. The complete turn and he
is ready to pounce again, in that way that has charmed all of
us in France for so many years.
PATRICK
He’s twelve.
FRANCOIS
Months.
PATRICK
So you don’t actually watch…
FRANCOIS
And on the other side we have Jean Paul Fleurant. Completely
different. Very young. Only ten years old but very fit, with
that cocky, devil may care style that has also charmed the
French, especially the young people, very much. And of
course, as these young Xtreme kids do now, preferring the
wrenching return to his own side and not crossing the court.
Of course it is risky, very difficult on the knees, but that
is his game. He is young and as I said very fit and, yes, can
get away with it. He is very exciting to watch. The girls
love him.
PATRICK
But…
FRANCOIS
And of course today we all saw.
PATRICK
Saw what?
FRANCOIS
Well the passing, perhaps, of the torch. The age catches up to
all of us, doesn’t it, Patrick? And we saw that, didn’t we?
There is Sharipova hitting into the net. And Bennet, perhaps
feeling the pressure a little, tries something new. He’s been
working very hard with a new coach, Slobodov the
Czechoslovakian, who was in the stands today, but I don’t
know that he is comfortable, shall we say, with these new
techniques. And we all saw him turn, and he was not
committed, and so he twists, and although he remained for the
match we all knew it was very painful and I must say he never
really was in the match after.
PATRICK
So…will he be there on Sunday?
FRANCOIS
Well this we do not know, eh? The trainers have said he
responded well to the treatment afterward. They did the IRM
and they say there was nothing there. Possibly some surgery
after the season, but they are still predicting he will be
able to go up against Fleurant. Now, whether there is some,
how shall we say, psychological “gamesmanship” going on, who
knows? (laugh)
PATRICK
And is this what the French are watching, really?
FRANCOIS
But of course, Patrick. For us, today, this is the enjoyment
of the Open. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of Slavic Amazons
wailing away at each other. We have seen that too many times
in the past. It is now boring to us.
PATRICK
Well that’s certainly something to think about. And about all
the time we have. We thank you, Monsieur Dupuis and good
night from Roland Garros.
FRANCOIS
It’s “Roland Garros”.
PATRICK
“Roland Garros”. That’s what I said, isn’t it?
FRANCOIS
“Roland Garros…”
FADE OUT