Will Patton: Narrator Extraordinaire

I have no doubt that I will always be a reader of physical books.  (Yes, the ones you inconveniently have to schlep around with actual pages you turn.)  While I admittedly haven't tried very hard, I just can't make the transition to my Kindle.  Among other things, how do you figure out what you want to read without going into a bookstore or library and trolling the shelves?  And why would you deny yourself that pleasure?

Will Patton

Having said that, I have become addicted to my subscription to Audible, with a credit each month for an audio book.  Picking an audio book can seem an even more daunting task than finding a read for your Kindle, since a good book will lose its appeal without a narrator whose style speaks to you.  For me, Will Patton is just such a narrator.

I discovered Patton when I listened to Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep," a satisfyingly creepy sequel to "The Shining."  I just loved his voice, and his pacing was terrific.  And so, just as when you find an author whose work you enjoy, I started looking at audio books for which Patton is the narrator.  I feel like a miner who's struck gold.   Patton has won several narration awards--primarily for mysteries and thrillers--and is perhaps best known as the voice of James Lee Burke's character Dave Robicheaux. I've been meaning to give Burke's books a try and now have the perfect way to do so.

What's prompted this post, though, is that I just finished listening to Charles Frazier's "Nightwoods."  My thoughts keep returning to this story brought to life by Patton's voice.

The book begins with a simple, intriguing sentence.  "Luce's new stranger children were small and beautiful and violent."  And so I was launched into the world of Luce, a woman whose solitary life in the Applachians is irrevocably changed with the arrival of her murdered sister's twin children.

"Nightwoods" is a dark story about a damaged family. The children speak only in the silent language of communication between twins.  Luce's relationship with the children is tentative at best.  Her instincts on how to deal with them are good, though, and each inroad she makes feels like a great victory.

Luce's relationship with the outside world is tentative as well.  She tends to an old lodge outside of town and lives more or less off the grid.  When asked about whether her life is lonely, she acknowledges that it is, but feels passionate about its many rewards.  Among them, "Birds passing over in waves, their calls singing of distance and other landscapes...The sadness and bravery of new doomed sprouts growing from dead blighted chestnut trees. At night, you could walk outside and...not see a light, just shapes of black mountains against the charcoal sky and the brilliant stars overhead."  Frazier's words are often lyrical and bring beauty to a world quite unlike my own.

When the owner of the lodge dies, his grandson enters the picture.  Young Stubblefield spent summers in the area and remembers Luce.  Her beauty has lingered with him for more than a decade, and he's eager to get to know her.  Their friendship becomes an important part of the story.

I don't want to say more as "Nightwoods" is definitely worth reading or, better yet, listening to.  One of the wonderful things about reading is conjuring up images of the story as you go.  Patton's narration made the images richer and the characters a bit more real.  In an interview about his audio work, Patton said, "When I read a book aloud, I get to know the author.  I get to know where he was emotionally."  Patton's respect and enjoyment of Frazier's words are clear, and the result is a wonderful partnership between author and narrator.

In case the name Will Patton (or his picture) seems familiar to you, there is a reason.  In addition to narrating audio books, Patton is an actor on stage and screen.  He's won two Obie awards (one for Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love") and has acted in movies and TV shows as varied as "Desperately Seeking Susan" to "Remember the Titans" to "24" and "Numb3rs." More recently, he appeared in the movie "November Man" and the still running television show "Falling Skies."  With his resume, I'm curious about how he got into the business of reading audio books.  But mine is not to ask, just to enjoy.  

Time to get listening!

Discovering The Kreeger Museum

Pete and Althea

No trip to DC is complete without a visit to at least one of the many museums that the area boasts.  On my most recent get away, my friend Althea shared her discovery of The Kreeger Museum with her husband Peter and me.  It is a real gem.

With Pete on the patio's sculpture garden

The Museum is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year but, like the Barnes Foundation, was open on a very limited basis until a few years ago.  The Museum was previously David and Carmen Kreegers' home and was designed by architect Philip Johnson as a place to showcase their art collection.  Amazingly, most of the art in the building was collected over a period of just 15 years.  Kreeger's thoughts on buying art were, "I never bought art as an investment. I bought it for love and I was lucky. Art that embodies the creative spirit of men transcends the value of money." (In case you're wondering, Mr. Kreeger made his fortune as, among other things, the chairman of Geico.)
 

The Great Hall is chock full of amazing modern art, including works by Picasso and Braques.  Perhaps my personal favorite was Picasso's "Woman Sitting with Hat" (1939) that greeted us when we came into the room. When the Kreegers lived in this space, they used the Great Hall for entertaining and often held concerts there. In addition to his other talents, Mr. Kreeger was an accomplished violinist and would sometimes play chamber music with Isaac Stern or the Toyko String Quartet.

After gaping at the art in the Great Hall, we entered another room and my jaw dropped even further. The room was filled with Monets and works by other Impressionist artists.  One wall is all windows, so you experience the works slightly differently depending upon the light. How perfect!

"Lament" by Emile Brzezinski (red oak - 2013)

The Museum also has space for special exhibits.  When we were there, the show was "Lure of the Forest" by Emilie Brzezinski. (Her husband Zbigniew was National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter.  This is Washington, after all.)  Ms. Brzezinski creates her wooden sculptures using a chainsaw, chisel and axe.  She says of her work, "As I carve the trunk, I retain the essential outline and gesture of the tree, uncovering within its form a symbol of its history.”  The exhibit included a video of an interview that journalist Mika Brzezinski conducted of her mother for "CBS Sunday Morning."  To see the clip, which shows how Ms. Brzezinski goes about creating her art, click here. 

As you might have surmised from the picture of Brzenzinski's "Lament," The Kreeger Museum also has an outdoor sculpture garden. While the sculpture garden on the patio holds more traditional bronzes by artists like Henry Moore and Jean Arp, the works on the lawn are very modern.  I was immediately drawn to these larger than life sculptures by Ledelle Moe entitled "Transition/Displacement." Although her works are made of concrete and steel, Moe is fascinated with the concept of impermanence.  To quote her website, "'[Moe's] melting, monumental forms remind us the sadness, and beauty, of decay."  Admittedly, my initial interest in the sculptures was primarily as a photo opp.  I had a vision of lying on the ground next to them, hovering in a similar state.  Althea nixed the idea quite vehemently.  (Truly, I can't imagine her objection to my rolling around on the grass next to what I'm sure are quite expensive works of art.)  So I satisfied myself--reluctantly--with a close perusal of the works before we went on our way. 

Here's to a happy holiday season and a new year filled with great discoveries! 
 

FSU/Asolo Conservatory Musical Theater Showcase

Having only seen the second year FSU/Asolo Conservatory students perform David Mamet's "The Water Engine," I hadn't quite fallen in love with them yet.  (Note: I hate David Mamet plays.)  Last week-end's musical theater showcase went a long way towards changing that.

David Brunetti

The first and second year students had worked all week with David Brunetti, who is both a teacher and a vocal coach.  It was obvious from the students' enthusiasm that they love working with Brunetti.  And the feeling is clearly mutual.  Brunetti praised the students, saying how brave and deep and beautifully trained they are. He told the students to "live" their songs and not to be afraid to go into the dark and silly places.

The students did just that as, one by one, they took the stage and sang their hearts out.  Considering that musical talent is not among the criteria considered for admission into the program, the students were amazing.  They performed a broad range of music, from tunes from musicals both well- and little-known to songs by popular artists to what I suspect were songs from audition repertoires.

As the showcase progressed, I thought about the choices the students had made and which selections seemed to be the most successful.  Overall, humor won the day -- at least in my book.  Second year student Kim Peterson got the ball rolling with "If You Hadn't, but You Did" from "Two on the Aisle 1951."  She sang about all the ways her lover had two-timed her, from giving her a whiff of  unfamiliar perfume to being seen rowing another woman around in a skiff.  The audience was already with Kim when she pulled out a green plastic toy gun, took aim and sang, "If you weren't, If you hadn't...But you were, And you have.. And so, goodbye." (The student who took the stage after Kim started off by jokingly saying, "Well, s**t," at the prospect of going after her performance.) 

Our favorite stalker

Second year student Josh James sang a song by Kooman + Dimond called "To Excess" about the always-hilarious subject of a stalker.  With perfect timing and style, James had the audience rolling with lyrics like, "Claire, I need you around me, That's why I broke into your place.  That's why you came home and found me with your panties pressed to my face."  When he took the stage, I wondered why he was wearing shorts on a rather chilly day.  There was a method to his madness, as the shorts enabled him to show the audience how he had carved Claire's name into his thigh. What a romantic.  (For the lyrics in their entirety, click here.)

"Adolpho" 

Second year student Jordan Sobel took on "I Am Adopho" from "The Drowsy Chaperone." He had the audience eating out of his hands as he gyrated and encouraged us to shout out his name on cue.  (Dorrit and I happily did so.)  Mark Comer got the audience involved as well with his rendition of "Don't Be the Bunny" from "Urinetown."  (In case you're not familiar with the song--I wasn't--it goes into all the ways bunnies can get into trouble and end up dead.  In one stanza, Comer sang, "Don't be the bunny.  Don't be the stew.  Don't be the dinner.  You have better things to do.")  Both were great selections because you enjoyed them whether or not you'd seen the shows.  

Brunetti surrounded by the students

It was 90 minutes of pure enjoyment.  When Brunetti took the stage at the end, he was near tears with pride at how well the students had done. "Life," Bunetti said, "Can be so tough and lonely, and art and theater and acting and music make it so much more tolerable."  I wholeheartedly concur. 

"Tribes" at Florida Rep's ArtStage Studio Theater

As much as I love going to the theater, it's not unusual for me to leave a show and never give it another thought. And so when scenes from a play keep returning to me more than a week later, I know I saw something special. "Tribes" at Florida Rep's ArtStage Studio Theater was just such a performance.

In a nutshell, the story sounds almost run of the mill. "Tribes" is about a family with three grown children, all of whom live at home. There's the obvious conflict that arises from the situation.  One of the sons meets a woman and the relationship leads him to break away from the family unit.  More conflict ensues. The family eventually reaches a tentative truce (although you know it is not a "happily ever after" story.)

This synopsis does not, however, even begin to scratch the surface of this particular nut.  Billy, you see, is a young deaf man born into a hearing family.  In the opening scene of the play, the family sits around a dinner table engaged in an animated conversation/argument.  Billy is at the head of the table, quietly taking it all in.  Wanting their son to be as "normal" (and as much like them) as possible, the parents decided not to teach him how to sign.  Instead, he learned to read lips and body language--quite well-- but he still is forever on the outside asking, "What's happening?"

As the play progresses, Billy attends a Deaf event where he meets Sylvia, a hearing woman whose parents are deaf.  Sylvia is losing her hearing, which puts her in a painful in-between world.  Unlike a person who's born deaf, she knows what she is losing, and it is heartbreaking to watch the joy of music and the ability to articulate her words slip from her grasp.  As Billy and Sylvia become a couple, he learns to sign, and it opens a whole new world for him.  The scene when he tells his parents that Sylvia is teaching him sign language is as fraught with emotion as a child coming out of the closet.

The play has so many layers that I cannot begin to do it justice here.  The Merriam-Webster definition of "tribe" is "a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities...with a common culture and dialect."  In every person's life, you come to a crossroads where you make choices about who "your" people are.  It's not typically as dramatic a choice, though, as the one that Billy is making.

I learned from the program notes that, "When capitalized, Deaf refers to a culture, as distinct from deaf, which is a pathological term."  And as with any culture, there's a hierarchy.  Sylvia explains to Billy's parents that people who are born deaf are at the top of the ladder, with pluses and minuses for things like not knowing how to sign (a minus) or having deaf parents (a plus).  As someone who is coming to the deaf party later in life, Sylvia does not have the same social status as Billy within the Deaf community.  (Yes, politics exist everywhere.)

The way playwright Nina Raines weaves in the contrasts between Billy and the rest of his family is pure poetry.  Both parents are writers for whom words are everything.  In one particularly emotional scene, Billy tells his family he won't see them any more until they learn how to sign.  He has lived in their world long enough; now, they must try to live in his.  Billy's father refuses, going back to the audio tape he is listening to to learn how to speak Chinese.  The irony is apparently lost on him.

Billy's brother has an undefined mental illness that causes him to hear voices.  Spending time with Billy is one of the few things that soothes him, so the break between Billy and his family exacerbates his illness.  His sister is a wanna be opera singer, again living in a world lost on Billy.

As complex and moving as "Tribes" is on the written page, it could have fallen flat without the right actors.  Florida Rep somehow found a group of actors who seemed born to play these roles.  Britt Michael Gordon as Billy was nothing less than stunning.  I was surprised to learn that he is a performance intern with Florida Rep. Britt spent months being mentored by the deaf community for his performance, and his manner of speaking perfectly captured the language of the deaf people I've known. I was also struck by the emotion behind his signing, with exhalations of breath serving as exclamation points.  I am eager to see him in other Florida Rep productions.

My only regret is that I saw the show on the last day of its run.  Otherwise, I would have gathered all of my theater-going friends and shared this remarkable production with them.  If you have the chance to see "Tribes," run--don't walk--to get tickets.  It's a theater experience you won't soon forget.