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Whitney Houston and drug addiction
“On Whitney Houston and drug addiction,” by Maria Thompson Corley, overlooked one additional factor. Star performers, like Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, can get almost everything they crave, but often they find it impossible to get sleep.
In my broadcasting days, when I would interview performers after shows, I discovered that specific brands of certain beverages were piled high for them in their dressing rooms, as per their contracts. Certainly they were spoiled. But I felt some sympathy for them.
Imagine finishing a show, leaving a venue of people who cheered you and going back to a hotel room. Coming off the high of fan adulation, it’s not easy to transition to restful slumber. That’s when many of them become hooked on dangerous substances.
Therefore, while these addictions are not limited to showbiz stars, they do run a greater risk. And they’re more accustomed to having their needs instantly accommodated.
I do quarrel with the conclusion that “We need less judging and more praying.” What’s needed more is firmness from the friends and physicians who enable the addictions.
Steve Cohen
King of Prussia, Pa.
February 21, 2012
Maria Corley replies: I meant less sniping and more praying from the “fans” and media commentators— the ones who spend so much energy building celebrities up, only to viciously tear them down when they prove to be human. I’m afraid there will always be enablers willing to make money or bask in a celebrity’s reflected glory by providing drugs to a star.
There’s a very real possibility that Whitney was self-medicating due to a sexuality crisis, as well.
This poor woman never seemed like she had a chance. Drugs destroyed her so thoroughly, and so quickly. We’re all poorer because she’s gone.
Gabriel Coeli
Portland, Ore.
February 26, 2012
Struggling artists reconsidered
Victoria Skelly’s points about stereotyping artists--rather than looking closely at their work--are well taken (“Van Gogh, Tanner and the myth of the tormented artist”).
Henry Ossawa Tanner found a more congenial society in France, but so did Hemingway and Fitzgerald in the 1920s, and the American Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell later on. Van Gogh is much easier to appreciate if you don’t strain to put “tormented genius” in front of every canvas. Albert Barnes certainly had a point about looking for line, color and volume instead of biographical quirks.
Of course, painters of any value do work from personal (and political) experience; you’re hardly giving an adequate account of The Third of May or Guernica to pull out a slide rule or a color chart.
As Victoria points out, Van Gogh was a child of privilege who abandoned a budding career to paint poverty and “simplicity.” The same was true of Gauguin, the stockbroker who gave up his trade to observe Breton peasants and South Sea islanders. What they had in common— and what brought them to paint side by side, albeit briefly— was their rejection of bourgeois society, and their search for a “re-enchanted” world.
It would obviously be absurd to search for a political statement in each of their works. It would also be obtuse to ignore their political context.
Art is a separate realm, but it’s also a part of the quotidian world we all share. We’ll be less inclined to fabulate nonsense about artists, or to reduce them to simplistic formulas, if we bear this in mind.
Robert Zaller
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
February 22, 2012
What a fresh eye Victoria Skelly brings to two of my longtime loves. The Nicola Tesla “connection” is particularly suggestive. And somehow I missed Vincent’s coming from a first Dutch family. Goes to show you that fresh perceptions beat too settled old habits every time.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
February 22, 2012
Victoria Skelly replies: Alas, I cannot take credit for connecting Tesla with Tanner’s work. I learned of this historical connection first from the current exhibition at Pennsylvania Academy.
If I may for a moment ignore my own advice to avoid over-interpretation of a painter’s work, especially the historical sort, perhaps Tanner chose to portray the Angel Gabriel in Annunciation as white hot light or Christ’s goodness in Nicodemus Coming to Christ as a glowing light in Jesus’s chest because, as a cleric’s son, he had a special familiarity with the Book of John in the Bible ("The light shineth in the darkness").
One could also surmise that, having spent time in Philadelphia, the Quaker City, that Tanner may have heard local Friends speak of “the Light” as the God within a person. Perhaps Tanner picked this up and made the concept visual in his paintings.
Götterdämmerung at the Met
Re Steve Cohen’s review of Götterdämmerung at the Met
A good review of the singer’s performance but a very cool reaction to Robert Lepage’s sets. So I rate this review a low 2 on a scale of 10. Cohen seems to have it in for Wagner, a reaction that many of a certain faith have!
Frank James Bricker
Cheboygan, Mich.
February 23, 2012
Editor’s comment: Hmm. You apparently missed Steve Cohen’s six-part series in praise of Wagner’s Ring, which BSR posted in 2009. To absolve yourself of guilt, read the entire series, starting here, and donate $25 to the Anti-Defamation League.
Abduction From the Seraglio
Re Steve Cohen’s review of the Opera Company’s Abduction From the Seraglio—
I was put off by this review, as well as by several others. So I was pleasantly surprised to see a charming production. The stage design and sets were enchanting. And except for Konstanze, who looked like a lampshade, the costumes were just right for the period.
While the sopranos may have struggled with the high Cs, they were competent enough. Peter Dolder was terrific as Bassa with his deep and gorgeous baritone voice. Krystian Adam stood out for his comic and personable portrayal of Pedrillo. The ensemble singing did credit to Mozart’s music.
All in all, Abduction provides a lighthearted and entertaining evening. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.
Jane Biberman
Washington Square/ Philadelphia
February 25, 2012
Steve Cohen replies: I never want to discourage people from attending any cultural event. But what’s a critic to do when he sees a performance that in his judgment hasn’t reached its potential?
If you enjoyed this Seraglio, you could love it even more some day with a different cast.
Why read critics?
Tom Purdom’s review of the Chamber Orchestra’s clarinet works and tympani playing was bursting with ideas. I am continually amazed at how much more critics hear than I do. Maybe that’s why I love to read critics: they get so much and put it into words I can understand.
William L. Clovis
Center City/ Philadelphia
February 25, 2012
Second heart attack
Bob Levin’s “Second heart attack: a survivor’s tale” is actually a tale of two survivors.
When your lover has a heart attack, so do you.
When your lover is in pain, so are you.
When your lover spends months fighting for his life, so do you.
When your lover is depressed and scared, so are you.
When people ask how your lover is, you respond, “We are doing OK at the moment,” or not.
When you have a lover, you are not alone. At least thank God for that.
Carol Alice
Vancouver, Wash.
February 13, 2012
Bob Levin, you have a touching story, and it is a story of many people these days: that the health system can do a lot more for you now than a few years ago because of technology. I hope you have good health insurance and it is great you are doing well.
However, in ten more years, while technology may be even more amazing, many fewer people will have access to what you have now. A major Philadelphia health insurer has increased my premiums 10% for a second year in a row and has increased deductibles, while delivering less.
This is the insurance trend. Will most people be able to get medical care, or will they have to choose between getting care and being poor for the rest of their lives?
Connie Briggs
Willow Grove, Pa.
February 15, 2012
Bob Levin replies: Anything I can do to encourage national health coverage is fine with me. In all my years with Blue Cross, I may have met my deductible once. Last year my medical bills must have run a couple hundred thousand dollars, and my story isn’t done yet. So far, it seems Medicare and AARP have paid everything, except for a portion of an echo-cardiogram and one lab test, with my out of pocket costs amount to about $200. I’m so grateful I’m barely making a fuss.
The Great Divorce
Re Jackie Atkins’s review of The Great Divorce—
In 20 years of work as an actor, this is only the second time I have responded to a critic.
Boy, is this review incoherent. Sometimes Ms. Atkins seems to be arguing that I get C.S. Lewis wrong; sometimes she seems to be arguing that Lewis gets Christianity wrong; and sometimes she seems to be arguing that Christianity gets everything wrong. Which is it? Or is it all three?
Ms. Atkins also wildly mischaracterizes this play. It is inaccurate, obtuse and absurd to represent that the grounds for damnation in this story is lack of etiquette. Lewis makes it very clear that the citizens of hell are persons who socially and psychologically isolate themselves, and who refuse to take responsibility for any damage they do to others.
Speaking of responsibility, it is irresponsible and, I would argue, unethical to publish criticism when the critic in question lacks rudimentary skills of composition and literary perception. Your vague, unfair and misguided representation of the play is likely to affect sales-- we are trying to make a living here, and your irresponsible reporting has an effect, however small, on our bottom line.
Anthony Lawton
Roxborough/ Philadelphia
February 12, 2012
Editor’s comment: Jackie Atkins’s reaction was just one of three unsolicited reviews of The Great Divorce that we’ve posted so far. It’s all part of what I hope will be a continuing dialogue. In any case, it ill behooves an actor or playwright to blame members of his audience— whether they’re critics or customers— for failing to grasp his intended message.
I teach a course on C.S. Lewis at Immaculata University, and The Great Divorce is one of the books we discuss in detail. Jackie Atkins, in her silly review of Anthony Lawton’s staged version, posits that the play has heaven welcoming “even murderers as long as they display good manners at the pearly gates,” then asks, “Is this really what C.S. Lewis had in mind?”
No, Jackie, it isn’t, nor is it what Anthony has in mind either.
Of what, rather, might The Great Divorce make one mindful? The answer, I suggest, is that wanting God is heavenly and that God really does want us, but we must also want God— wanting other than God is hellish. The characters presented in The Great Divorce discover where their wants will take them.
Anthony Lawton’s presentation of Lewis’s book (which I saw some years ago) adheres very well to this idea. The audience is challenged to consider what they really want— whether disordered desire will deter them from developing lasting relationships with others, the ultimate Other being God.
I read with interest your own review of Lawton’s performance in a 2006 production of The Great Divorce. That review reflects my own reaction as well.
The question of an actor responding to a review, as Anthony Lawton did to Jackie Davis, is always of interest to me. The editorial note that accompanied that response provoked me to wonder how actors or others in a production are rightly to respond to reviews. To me, Broad Street Review is just the place for such discussion and I am very grateful that you continue to publish BSR to provide the theater community this forum.
Craig Tavani
Phoenixville, Pa.
February 16, 2012
Failing a minyan
Re “Failing to make a minyan,” by Brett Harrison—
Why am I reminded of the master rejectionist: “Rodney (“I don’t get no respect”) Dangerfield?
“I come from a stupid family. During the civil war my great uncle fought for the West.”
“When I was born I was so ugly the doctor slapped my mother.”
“On Halloween, the parents sent their kids out looking like me.”
“When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering me up.”
“What a kid I got. I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife.”
Joseph Glantz
Levittown, Pa.
February 17, 2012
Adventures in poetry
Re “My wild adventures in poetry”—
When I was briefly in Professor Patrick D. Hazard’s stable of ‘”girlette poets” aeons ago, he had me read poems at Whitman’s grave and at the National Council of Teachers of English conference.
Thank you, Patrick, for all you have done for poetry as well as poets.
Now, if you could just get over all that “I, I, I, I” stuff in your writing! It’s never too late.
Maralyn Lois Polak
Center City/ Philadelphia
February 17, 2012
Charlotte’s Web at the Arden
Re Dan Rottenberg’s review of Charlotte’s Web at the Arden—
Delightful article, fresh perspective. I enjoyed it very much!
Carol Rocamora
New York
February 16, 2012
Orchestra disappointment
I attended the Saturday night version of the Philadelphia Orchestra concert featuring Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg playing the Shostakovich Violin Concerto. It is uncanny how similar my reactions to the entire concert were to Robert Zaller’s on Thursday.
The Shostakovich First Violin Concerto is one of those pieces I can never get enough of. Over the years, I have heard several poetic and brilliant performances of it. I had, somehow, managed never to hear Salerno-Sonnenberg in concert, and so I had looked forward to this concert with great anticipation.
What a disappointment!
Like Zaller, I found that Salerno-Sonnenberg never got any intensity from her instrument. I, too, suspected it might be a miking problem, but in Scheherazade, concertmaster David Kim’s sound was as full as hers was thin. Moreover, from similar seats in the parquet level, Arabella Steinbacher’s sound in the Beethoven Violin Concerto two weeks earlier had sounded just fine to me.
I have no problems with a virtuoso acting like a virtuoso if doing so serves the music; as I’ve said several times before, I find that Lang Lang’s carryings-on amplify the spirit of the composers he channels. But everything about Salerno-Sonnenberg’s presence— her odd gesticulations, her sly smiles to David Kim at a few junctures during the piece, and her unfortunate choice of flamboyant red velvet pants with a black top— seemed to make her performance, which was in fact rather tepid, more about her than about the music she was playing.
(By contrast, Steinbacher had been able to make herself practically disappear into the lyricism of the Beethoven Concerto.)
I also agree with Zaller that Nicola Luisotti’s antics were distracting and silly and, I feel certain, did nothing to make the members of the Orchestra play better. And, like Zaller, I found that Scheherazade, every familiar note of it, was a pleasure from beginning to end, an illustration of why it’s nice to hear old chestnuts from time to time.
Dan Coren
Queen Village/ Philadelphia
February 8, 2012
Clybourne Park
On occasion, I have been part of what our editor likes to dub “dueling critics.” It’s fun to spar with colleagues and to exchange contrasting opinions. Something more ambiguous is involved in Alaina Mabaso’s review of Clybourne Park.
I suspect that home ownership might be a key to why some people appreciate this drama and some don’t. Those of us who have purchased properties and later put them on the market relate strongly. We were concerned about changing neighborhoods as we hoped to recoup our costs.
Perhaps the play can’t connect with younger attendees because they haven’t invested their years and their savings thusly. I’d love to hear the reactions to Clybourne Park of theatergoers in their teens and 20s.
Steve Cohen
King of Prussia, Pa.
February 11, 2012
Alaina Mabaso replies: I am a theatergoer in my 20s, and while it’s true I’ve never purchased a house, I do appreciate the importance of the home-ownership theme in Clybourne Park, and how deeply investment in our property affects us and others. I never purchased a piano either, but I love Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, whose lesser echoes in Clybourne Park are obvious— no surprise, given Hansberry’s influence on both playwrights.
If age is indeed a factor in why some people appreciate this play and some don’t, maybe it’s not because older folks have more experience in buying property, but because younger folks are more aware of how the play rounds up dialogue that already abounds in pop culture.
Case against Mother Nature
In “The case against Mother Nature” (Editor’s Notebook), Dan Rottenberg remarks: “Most religions have been clueless about improving life on Earth.”
Clueless, that is, leaving to one side most hospitals, universities, schools at every level (yes, even public), and charities that feed, house, clothe and train, funded to the billions by people who are told by their religions that they ought to? Surely that’s what you were leaving to one side?
A rollicking good article, however!
Kile Smith
Fox Chase/ Philadelphia
February 8, 2012
The triple play of Tom Purdom to Connie Briggs to Dan Rottenberg is the most illuminating take on our ambiguous “productivity” I have yet encountered— in a life dominated for at least 50 years by anxiety about our race’s threatened future.
Dan’s natural history of the provenience of coal is itself a stunning précis. And his shrewd analogy about 19th-Century doctors prefiguring 20th century preachers is pure Christopher Hitchens! Thanks for turning off my worrywart machine.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
February 12, 2012
Valentine to the body
Re Maralyn Lois Polak’s “Belated Valentine to my body”—
Dear Maralyn, sorry to hear of your body’s demise. Will it lie in state?
Jackie Atkins
Cape May, N.J.
February 9, 2012
Maralyn Polak speaks for all of us of a certain age and older--and some young ones, too— who have suffered the loss of loved ones through the years. And now, our own bodies threaten to let us down. But as long as we can do our life’s work— albeit somewhat slower— vive la body!
Which of course would be nothing without the mind and the soul, all very wonderful. Each of us. All of us. Amazingly wonderful!
Rosemary Cappello
Center City/ Philadelphia
February 13, 2012
Henry Tanner at Pennsylvania Academy
Re Anne R. Fabbri’s review of the Henry O. Tanner exhibition at Pennsylvania Academy—
With this wonderful review, you have taken me on a journey of Henry O. Tanner’s personal and artistic life. Well done.
Pasquale Cuppari
Roselle Park, N.J.
February 6, 2012
Tanner’s civil rights roots
V. Chapman Smith’s story on Henry Ossawa Tanner is a good reminder of history’s pull, a force we often do not see.
Another African American arts luminary that can trace his roots and influences to the civil rights movement in the 19th Century is the poet Langston Hughes, whose ancestors included civil rights
leaders John Mercer and Charles Langston.
Murray Dubin
West Philadelphia
January 30, 2012
Editor’s note: The writer is the co-author of Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America, published in 2010 by Temple University Press.
‘After Tanner’ at Pennsylvania Academy
Re Anne Fabbri’s review of “After Tanner” at Pennsylvania Academy—
As always, Anne makes an important point: Why indeed should artists be put into groups because of race or gender or other?
Phyllis Gellmin Laver
Spring Garden/ Philadelphia
February 23, 2012
Dolce Suono’s Lucy Shelton
Re Tom Purdom’s review of Dolce Suono’s Mahler/Schoenberg concert—
I dated Lucy Shelton several times in the ‘60s when I was at Caltech and she was at Pomona. She was, and no doubt still is, a phenomenal musician: absolute pitch, can sight-read anything.
I heard her sing Pierrot a few years ago when she did it in the same place, but couldn’t get down to Philadelphia this time. She’s had a very good career.
Jim Davis
Norristown, Pa.
February 7, 2012
The Inquirer on the block (again)
Re “The Inquirer (again) and Steve Jobs (again),” by Dan Rottenberg (Editor’s Notebook)—
How comfortable are you with the future of journalism and particularly investigative reporting when the Inky is sold again?
Rendell’s Citizen Kane complex would be a fascinating story. A “tell all” biography of Eddie would generate quick cash. Social networking and its portals will push information tech, but news media are starved for great content.
How would you energize the Inky?
Jason Brando
Bella Vista/ Philadelphia
February 8, 2012
The Scottsboro Boys
Re Dan Rottenberg’s review of The Scottsboro Boys—
You are wrong about Captain Alfred Dreyfus. He was most notable for having survived, for having maintained his love of France, for maintaining his love of the Army, for serving heroically in World War I— and for never introducing anti-Semitism in his defense. He never lost his faith in the justice he was seeking.
He gave a new meaning to the word “nobility.” And, in the process, he is probably one of history’s most noble victims.
Andrew Kevorkian
West Philadelphia
February 1, 2012
I was appalled at the negative depiction of the Jewish lawyer who had risked his life and career to mount a defense of unpopular clients far from his home and place of comfort. This Jewish lawyer was defending clients whom even the NAACP of that time wouldn’t support because of fears of a backlash. In this play, the Jewish lawyer emerged as more of a villain than the racist guards and townspeople, in that he was funded by tainted “Jew Money” and breached professional ethics by coaching one of his saintly clients to lie in parole hearing.
Esther L. Hornik
Merion, Pa.
February 14, 2012
‘Van Gogh Up Close’
Re the reviews of “Van Gogh Up Close,” by Andrew Mangravite and Victor Schermer—
I look forward to seeing the Van Gogh exhibit at the Art Museum, just as I look forward to the opening of the Barnes. But I wish to point out for your readers that there is an extraordinary exhibit at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, called ”The Painterly Voice.”
It’s a retrospective of 200 paintings by 50 of Bucks County’s best artists. Most of the paintings are of the Pennsylvania Impressionism school. It’s the best exhibit I’ve seen at the Michener.
Joseph Glantz
Levittown, Pa.
February 1, 2012
In defense of Boulez
Re “What inspires composers?” by Tom Purdom—
Thank you, colleague Tom, for your insightful comments on George Crumb’s special way of setting words. I have nothing to add.
But I must offer a rejoinder to your criticism of the Boulez Anthemes 2. Yes, it was loud, but it was remarkable and inspiring to hear electronic music produced with such clarity and accuracy.
In a typically iconoclastic way (for Boulez), it was as expressive and rewarding as anything else on the Orchestra 2001 program. Perhaps more so.
Peter Burwasser
Queen Village/ Philadelphia
February 6, 2012
The kid’s first challenge
“The kid’s first challenge,” by Bob Ingram, is a great piece. Little details make me want to know more, like what a fingertip leather coat is. I have no idea, but it’s perfect! Thanks for this.
Kile Smith
Fox Chase/ Philadelphia
February 1, 2012
Bob Ingram replies: The fingertip leather coat is a piece of apparel that will never go out of style. It’s usually made of black leather and extends to the fingertips when the hands are placed at the sides. These coats look swell, but I don’t think they’re too warm (I’ve never had one). But sometimes style trumps comfort.
Destroying Damien Hirst
Re “A better way to destroy Damien Hirst”—
Victoria Skelly’s clever explanation of the Hirst/Gagosian global excess as a 99% revolt against the “values” of our 1 per centers’ fatuousness is “spot” on. Such foolishness has only one effective remedy: mockery.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
February 2, 2012
I love this article but would humbly suggest the best way to make Damien Hirst’s work go away— and that would be my favored outcome— would be to ignore it. Buying T-shirts, etc., will simply make it more popular and the originals more valuable.
It is, after all, highly ignorable.
Nancy Herman
Merion, Pa.
February 22, 2012
Seeing Gertrude Stein
Re “What was Gertrude Stein really about?” by Reed Stevens (June 20111)—
We can’t assume history. I disagree with the statement that Gertrude Stein set forth some wonderful period of art. What happened to all the wonderful representational art? The museums buried them, because of the likes of GS.
Kristine Murphy
Boston, Mass.
February 6, 2012
Death of a restaurateur
Re “Death of a restaurateur,” by Merilyn Jackson (February, 2009—
My uncle René Blaschke was a wonderful person— honest, generous, with a certainly strong temper. I’m just happy to read that so many years after his death in 1997, we still think about him and love him.
Patricia Blaschke Feuillet
Capdrot, France
February 14, 2012
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