Theater Review: Trying

                                                                     TRYING

A theatrical question: What do you get when you pair an irascible old judge on his last legs with a new, young secretary, meeting for the purpose of winding up his affairs before he dies?

That depends on the quality of the script and of the actors and production.

North Coast Repertory Theatre offers a smashing filmed production of Joanna Glass’ play “Trying,” highlighted by two brilliant performances by James Sutorius and Emily Goss as the principals. The show runs on demand through April 18.

The playwright was the secretary in question, serving Judge Biddle from 1967 to his death the following year. 

                                                         Emily Goss and James Sutorius

Judge Francis Biddle, 82, and 25-year-old recent college graduate Sarah Schorr face off in a riveting pas de deux between Biddle (best known as the principal judge for the Nuremberg trials in 1946) and the businesslike Canadian-born secretary who will not take any guff from this old geezer, no matter how important he is.

He is delighted to find that she “reads voraciously,” though he can’t resist a grammatical barb (“I prefer that you eat voraciously but read voluminously”), indicating that it will be a prickly relationship. But they find some joy in quoting poetry to each other.

As for work, Sarah believes in thoroughness, saying that friends in Saskatoon described her as “a bugger for work.”

He sets the schedule: from 9 a.m. to noon, noting that “I’m fairly certain this is my final year.” Then he fiddles with the gas heaters, warning her NEVER to touch them.

He barks at her until he realizes that she is as well-read as he and perfectly capable of giving as good as she gets, with this riposte (from E.E. Cummings): “There is some shit I will not eat.”

It’s a wonderfully amusing, touching, affecting play, with excellent direction by David Ellenstein and a fine set by Marty Burnett. It’s been well filmed by Aaron Rumley. Elisa Benzoni adds time-appropriate costumes. 

I would love to have seen “Trying” live, in the theater, but I’m delighted that this fine filmed version is streaming through April 18 on Showtix4U.com. Tickets can be purchased at northcoastrep.org.

Film Review: Wojnarowicz: F--k You F-ggot F—ker

Wojnarowicz: F--K You F-ggot F--cker 

Artist David Wojnarowicz’s works were chaotic, like his life. So it seems fitting that Director Chris McKim’s head-spinning documentary about him isn’t a flowing piece, but rather filmed in jumps and starts.

Wojnarowicz became a force in the New York City art scene of the 1980s despite (or perhaps partly because of) the battering he took from his father in New Jersey.

His mother moved with David and his siblings to Hell’s Kitchen when David was 11. The boy showed early interest in art and graduated from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan.

David was gay and not into pretty pictures; his works were unapologetically personal, often shocking, sometimes militaristic and, frankly, thought strange.

“I tried hard to be normal and accepted,” he says. “It was largely a waste of time.”

David met photographer Peter Hujar in the ’60s, and they became best friends.

Filmmaker McKim tells the story from the artist’s perspective, assisted by photographs, paintings and journals that Wojnarowicz wrote and recorded over the years. The result is a documentary that fascinates even as it shocks with its title: “Wojnarowicz: F--k You F-ggot F—ker.”

“All my paintings are diaries,” he says. Not surprisingly, he didn’t have much use for convention or rules. 

Wojnarowicz had some trouble selling his art to galleries, and consequently spent some time looking for places to display it. Most of the art at the time was located in SoHo, but the “anti-establishment” art was centered in the East Village, where Wojnarowicz lived. 

Gallery space was rare. One day he walked past a huge abandoned warehouse on the Hudson River, near the piers he knew as a gay cruising ground. Inside he found what he and his fellow artists had been seeking: space, the size of two football fields. He passed the word. They moved in on the sly and set up gallery and workshop spaces. That lasted until the cops came and tore the place down, but meanwhile Wojnarowicz had sold some art. He was even shown in a Whitney biennial exhibition.

This is a big thing to most artists, but Wojnarowicz was by then angry about the business of art. “The gallery system is one of the big obstacles to art,” he says. “Who owns it and where it’s shown, what’s that got to do with art? People are doing art that looks like art. It’s a product.”

Speaking of product, Robert Mnuchin (father of Trump’s Treasury appointee) and his wife Adriana commissioned a basement piece which turned out to be made of bug-infested trash.

Then the Reagan ’80s and the AIDS crisis arrived. Meanwhile Wojnarowicz and Hujar started taking illegal drugs – first ecstasy, then heroin – and David got a new boyfriend in Tom Rauffenbart. Life turns out badly for all of them, and in 1992 David is the last of the three AIDS victims to die. 

In a last salute he might have loved and hated in equal proportions, the Whitney did a retrospective of David’s work in 2018. The title of the show: “History Keeps Me Awake At Night.”

Thanks to Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's World of Wonder stable (whose documentary division has been a major source of queer culture commentary), who produced this film. 

 

"Wojnarowicz: F--k You F-ggot F—ker" opens March 19 at the Digital Gym. 

Film Review: F.T.A.

The U.S. has a sad history of involvement in other countries’ wars. The most memorable one for those of us who were, or were around the flower children of the 1960s was U.S. involvement in  Vietnam, which took some 58,000 American lives and solved no problems.

That war inspired noisy opposition at home and resulted in something much worse: anger at those not responsible – the draftees and volunteers who fought and survived – when they returned home.

Now comes a remnant of that struggle – a film called “F.T.A.” (“F*** The Army”), a documentary of a 1972 U.S. tour made by Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and several other entertainers who performed a satirical show designed to spark opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Now it’s been restored and is playing on demand along with a short preliminary interview with Fonda, who explains why they went and what they wanted to accomplish.

This wasn’t a polished show. The disorganized “hey, kids, let’s put on a show” troupe featured 10 actors (Fonda, Sutherland, Michael Alaimo, Peter Boyle, Len Chandler, Pamela Donegan, Steve Jaffe, Rita Martinson, Paul Mooney and Holly Near) and played near U.S. military bases.  The only base that gave them permission to perform was Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.

The show featured off-the-cuff comedy, goofy (or angry) songs, a bit of dance and whatever came to mind at any given moment. The point was the opposite of Bob Hope’s intent with his USO tours. The FTA gang wanted to sow opposition to a war they regarded as misguided at best.

This isn’t a real movie as we think of them; it’s a 4-K restoration of a black-and-white tape designed to amuse and infuriate its audience. I remember those days well, so for me this is nostalgia and a sad reminder that mankind hasn’t advanced much.

I never saw the show, because it was pulled a week after its U.S. release. That was the week Fonda made her controversial trip to Hanoi. Speculation is that calls from high up in Washington caused its disappearance. Sound familiar?

“F.T.A.” should be seen, if only to make sure our indignation genes are still intact. “The masses are asses,” they sing, and “The masses have been led by the asses too long.”

Because, after all, “They don’t have answer. They have a rule book.”

“F.T.A.” opens in virtual cinemas through Kino Marquee on March 5.

 

Film Review: Nomadland

Of Loss and Renewal

What does a woman do after she’s lost everything?

Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” (which plays at South Bay Drive-in Theater on Feb. 19, when it also opens on Hulu) introduces us to Fern (Frances McDormand), who loses her job to economic collapse and her husband to cancer and finds herself a “surplus worker.”

How to deal with that? She doesn’t sit around complaining. She packs her van, takes off and winds up in a parking lot with lots of other van dwellers. Some of them are voluntary nomads and consider it a lifestyle. Most of them are piece workers who move from place to place, depending on where the jobs are. Fern meets several, hears their stories and decides that she’ll try it too.

“Nomadland” – based on a book by Jessica Bruder, a journalist who did exactly what Fern does – is the fascinating result. Zhao wrote the script, editing along the way as situations changed. McDormand actually signed on as one of the producers, not thinking of acting until Zhao suggested it.

It’s a strange way to make a movie, but Zhao (“Songs My Brother Taught Me,” “The Rider”) has such an eye and ear for what will work that the results are excellent.

Geographically, the film begins in the South Dakota Badlands, goes through Deadwood, Nebraska to Western Nebraska for the beet harvest. Then to Empire, Nevada (gypsum mines until it was obliterated by the Great Recession and everyone got evicted). Then Punta Arena in Mendocino County, then Yuma, then back to San Bernardino County

McDormand, always a pleasure to watch, is utterly convincing, even when working alongside her colleagues – at an Amazon fulfillment center, a sugar beet harvesting plant, in the cafeteria of a tourist attraction and as a camp host in a national park.

“Nomadland” is all the better for the presence of three real nomads – Linda Mae, Swankie and Bob Wells. They value the temporary nature of the work and the freedom of knowing that soon enough, they will be on their way to another place.

Fern, meanwhile, has learned both self-reliance and working together, but mostly gains an appreciation of how to live with nature. 

Film Review: Palmer

When Eddie Palmer (Justin Timberlake) comes home after a 12-year stretch in the Big House, he expects to find his grandmother Vivian (June Squibb), the only mother figure he has ever had. 

What he doesn’t expect is to find a seven-year-old kid named Sam living in the house trailer next to Vivian’s property, nor that Vivian is playing mom to him the way she did to Palmer all those years ago. Sam’s real mom Shelly (Juno Temple) is an addict who disappears for long periods of time.

Palmer, a onetime hometown gridiron hero, played a year of college ball, but then developed an unhealthy relationship with pain pills, ending up in the slammer.

Speaking of playing, Palmer is shocked to find that Sam, a cute outgoing kid, 

likes to wear dresses and play with dolls. He pines to be a member of Penelope’s Flying Princess Club.

“You do know you’re a boy?” asks Palmer acidly. “Boys don’t play with dolls.”

“Well, I’m a boy, and I do,” replies Sam.

Vivian takes Palmer in, but has one ironclad rule: He must drive the trio (including Sam) to church every Sunday, because “they won’t let me drive anymore.”

Palmer needs to find a job, but in this southern town where “it’s all about church and football,” this is a big ask for an ex-con. A provisional assignment as a janitor at Sam’s school sets the scene for a meeting with lovely teacher Miss Maggie (Alisha Wainwright), whose daughter Emily (Molly Sue Harrison) is Sam’s classmate.

If you think you know where this is going, you’re probably right. There’s nothing unusual or startling about Cheryl Guerriero’s script, but there is some fine acting and a heaping helping of humanity, which goes down very nicely right about now.

Timberlake is presented as rather more saintly than one would expect, especially given the evidence we see of his fondness for chuggin’ and sluggin.’ It’s difficult to either buy his own self-willed transformation or Maggie’s influence on him. But one can easily just take it for what it is, and go along for the ride. I’d advise the latter.

Young Ryder Allen could easily get a nod for this role, which he plays with absolute authenticity. I began to wonder how likely it is that a small (and small-minded) southern town could produce a kid this self-assured, but Allen is so likable that I put aside my concerns. 

Do yourself a favor: don’t waste time wondering how likely this is. Just enjoy it for what it is.

“Palmer” is playing on Apple TV+

Film Review: Saint Maud

 

You’ll get a lot of bang for your buck with this film. It’s described as a drama/horror/mystery, and all those elements are certainly there, as are religion, carnality, piousness (pretended if not felt), jealousy, even supernatural dreams and – strangely enough – humor.

If that sounds exhausting, fear not: first-time writer/director Rose Glass puts it all together into a fascinating whole in “Saint Maud.”

In the somewhat cheesy British seaside town of Scarborough, a pious young nurse (Morfydd Clark) takes a new job caring for a retired dancer/choreographer ravaged by cancer. Amanda (Jennifer Ehle) is a woman of some renown, with an expansive personality, several books and many friends to her credit. 

The nurse is another case entirely: a recent convert to Catholicism (apparently the result of an unnamed trauma), she has decided to dedicate her life to God, and now is quietly insistent and determined to save Amanda’s soul. But Amanda wants no part of this. 

Amanda (brilliantly portrayed by Ehle) dubs the nurse “Saint Maud,” and the deeper we go into this story, the weirder things get, as the aforementioned elements begin to appear. As does Maud’s vulnerability.

Maud does seem to be a competent nurse; the physical therapy she does on Amanda’s legs (with massage and manipulation) gives Amanda some much-appreciated pain relief. But even this mutual comfort leads to a horrifying flashback for Maud.

Maud’s usual escape is a walk to sea, where a somewhat cheesy carney is in operation. One day she bumps into Joy (Lily Knight), a nursing colleague from pre-conversion days, and they exchange phone numbers. Will this lead somewhere?

Clark turns in a sterling performance as the tortured nurse who seems to be trying to escape the world by means of religion, only to find more problems.

Glass gives us an impressive debut film. Her judicious use of ominous sounds and familiar horror film tropes like a cockroach on the wall keep us in horror-film mode. But what she does particularly well is to keep us guessing about what Maud will do next and what that will do to her fragile psyche. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, the film goes somewhere else. I love that in a movie.

“Saint Maud” opens Feb. 12 on EPIX.

Film Review: Nasrin

                                                                            

 

We Americans think we’ve got it tough, just trying to get back some semblance of normalcy after four years of a political regime gone awry and a pandemic that still keeps most of us separated from friends and social gatherings.

But consider – in a much longer time frame – the plight of women in Iran, who in the approximately 2500 years of its existence as a political entity went from the right to own property, manage their own finances, receive an education and choose their spouse (in ancient Persia) to a status equal to children and slaves (in 224 AD) to getting some of those rights back under the Shah in the 1960s.

The Iranian Revolution in 1979 brought back the forced Islamic dress code and deprived women of certain jobs, child custody and divorce. Ouch.

Meet Nasrin Sotoudeh, a contemporary female civil rights attorney and voice for the voiceless in present-day Iran. Nasrin specializes in women’s and children’s rights, domestic abuse and death penalty cases. This does not endear her to the government; she has, in fact, been jailed several times for her efforts.

But the woman we meet in the new film “Nasrin” perseveres – cheerfully, in fact – with her work. It’s downright inspiring to watch her talk with a new client arrested for a demonstration against the dress code that requires women to wear a hijab in public.

Nasrin left the courtroom because they would not let her speak. The defendant got 21 months in prison (but was released after three); Nasrin was herself arrested and forced to spend 2-1/2 months in solitary confinement.

Nasrin’s husband Reza, a graphic designer, supports his wife’s crusade, by now used to taking care of their two children when she ends up in jail.

The film is remarkable in many ways, the heroism of Nasrin being only one. Though filming was done surreptitiously over more than two years, the editing is superb and the result consistently engaging.

There is footage, for example, of Nasrin and her friends sitting around the table making dolls and other items to sell during the holiday season.

“Every year, we put on a craft show to pay blood money to free prisoners,” she says.

There are scenes with TV journalist Ann Curry (who notes that she found Iranians she has spoken with to be open-hearted) and with Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who in 2010 was prohibited from making films for 20 years.

The world could use many more heroines like Nasrin. This film is a good down payment on doing her justice.