Carla Presents Kurt Weill

Jacquie's Email Hello Literary Ladies! Our final performance of the magnificent 2022-2023 season of the Hastings-on-Hudson Literature Club will feature Carla Potash in the starring role as Presenter on Kurt Weill. This will take place, weather permitting, in the outdoor performance space of Carol's backyard. Lighting by God.*

Seating will begin at 12:30pm with pre-performance remarks beginning at 1pm. Live streaming will be available. Again, please inform our technical director if you would like to Zoom. 

And since I never pass up the opportunity to watch Raul Julia in performance, or in anything, here is a link to a filmed version of him singing and dancing Tango Ballad (with the gorgeous Julie Migenes) from Weill's Threepenny Opera.

Laura Rice's Minutes (substituting for Christine Lehner)  

Constance called the meeting to order in Carol Barkin’s lovely garden. The stunning irises were a perfect distraction from Constance reading the minutes of the previous Noh Theater presentation by Laura Rice.

The treasurer’s report would have to wait in the absence of our treasurer, Lori Walsh. Discussion of expenses ensued. Our usual library contribution hovers around $130; the cost of printing our annual program about $125.

Constance was delighted to announce she had found an organization eager for the oversupply of children’s books in the Hastings Library's used book shop: the Family Service Society of Yonkers. They run a summer camp program in Ossining and would like 50 books for levels from kindergarten to fifth grade. July 7 is the first day of camp. At the end of the camp season, each child will take home one of the books.

In Helen Barolini's memory we decided to read one of her books. We wondered if  the Hastings Library hzx all of her books. To be checked out.

About our summer picnic. We decided that any Wednesday in July or the first two weeks of August would work. Christine, who has volunteered to host, will choose the date.

Carla’s presentation on Kurt Weill:

We learned that the Weill family records date back to the 14th century, when they took the name of the town in Germany where they lived. Kurt’s father became a cantor, breaking a long succession of rabbis in the Weill family. Kurt was born in 1900, the third of four children. His musical gifts showed at a young age and were encouraged by his parents. He attended school at the synagogue, but also took piano and organ lessons, and began composing at 10 years of age! He and his siblings put on plays and musical events at the synagogue, with Kurt playing the piano and directing the enterprises. By the early 1920’s he was recognized as one of the leading young classical composers in Germany.

In 1924 he met Lotte Lenya. Life was never the same! We heard selections from their letters to each other, beginning with the passionate and ardent, and moving through a cooler tone, when their relationship was strained. They married, the separated, they divorced, and finally, they remarried.

Weill’s work includes music for cantatas, operas, requiems, plays with music and music for radio and movies. He collaborated with Berthold Brecht, Maxwell Anderson, Alan Jay Lerner, Ira Gershwin and others. Several of his songs live on outside of the theater: ‟September Song,” ‟ My Foolish Heart,” ‟My Ship” and ‟Mac the Knife.”

In addition to writing the music, Weill cast, directed, produced, and generally ran the show. Stress gave him heart incidents. He died at 50 years of age in 1950. Lenya married several times after his death, but she made it her mission to perform his works and burnish his memory.

After this introduction, we were ready to stage The Threepenny Opera, perhaps Weill’s most famous work. Carla’s summary explained the turf war between the two rival parties. The daughter (Polly) on one side is marrying the biggest crook on the other (Mac). Polly’s father, Beggar Boss Peachum plans to capture and hang Mac, but amid lots of complications, no hanging, but yes, that famous song. Oh, and lots of satire about poverty and crime.

We heard songs leading to the scenes we performed with aplomb! And no gallows.

The second play we explored was Lost in the Stars, from the novel Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton. Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill adapted it for the stage, with Weill writing the songs. Set in South Africa, it was produced in 1949. The main character, an African minister, seeks his son, who has gone off to Johannesburg. Sadly, in Johannesburg, the young man kills a man during the course of a robbery. His victim turns out to be the son of the white man who has befriended his father and the congregation in the village. After a trial, the minister’s son is to be hanged.

The two fathers, who each have lost a son, speak together, conveying hope for the future.

Two very different theater pieces, yet each brings social conditions of the times to the audience.

I forgot to mention that between the two plays, we adjourned to Carol’s living room, as the driveway project next door clattered so loudly!

And here endeth our season of drama on the Hudson. Thank you, Carla.

Respectfully submitted,
Laura Rice

Laura Presents Noh Theater

Jacquie's Email: Hello Literary Ladies! If there's any meeting where masks are appropriate to wear, it is for this Wednesday's presentation by Laura Rice on Noh Theater! We will be meeting at Christine's house.

I'm so sorry I will not be with you on Wednesday for what I'm sure will be another wonderful presentation, but while you are meeting, I will be in my sister's back garden in Jerusalem for my niece's rehearsal dinner before celebrating her wedding on Friday in Jaffa. Good things always seem to happen at the same time. Shalom! Jacquie

Christine's Minutes: Your secretary feels confident in writing that the meeting of May 3rd began unlike any other meeting in the history of the Literature Club. Our presenter, Laura Rice, arrived with a suitcase full of kimonos and a portable folding coatrack which she installed on the front porch of Christine’s house. Each arriving member was encouraged to choose a kimono to wear for the meeting, which would involve dramatic enactments of selections from NOH repertoire. Following their costuming, members gathered in Christine’s living room.

President Constance rang the bell. The minutes were read and accepted. The treasurer reported that, having spent $139 on flowers for Helen Barolini’s funeral, we are still quite flush with $270.20.

Diana suggested that we invite Helen’s daughters, Niki and Linda, to our summer meeting when we will discuss Helen’s novel, Umbertina. All agreed this was an excellent plan.

Constance said that she will speak to Debbie at the Library about getting Helen’s books for the library.

The venue for our next meeting on May 17th , originally scheduled for Jacquie’s, remains up in the air. Laura has volunteered to take the minutes in Christine’s absence.

A question about the interpretation of the theme for the upcoming season was quickly resolved. As ever, it was suggested that the theme could be variously interpreted according to whatever you would like to do.

In another first for the Literature Club, Laura then introduced us to Noh Theatre with a start with a YouTube excerpt from the Noh play Kuroduka.  It was indeed very helpful to see - and hear – real Noh actors; otherwise, it might have been difficult to imagine just how slow are their movements, and just how loud are their words.

Then Laura took us back in time to the 1990s when, thanks to a well-spent grant from the NEA, Laura and another teacher at Hastings High School went to Japan to study Noh drama.

So, to begin our education. No, Noh is not realistic theatre. Yes, Noh does lend itself to occasional sophomoric wordplay.

Upon entering the theatre, the audience sees the porch of a small house. There are four columns on the stage, supporting a tile roof. Stage left there is a walkway onto the stage for the actors. Stage right there sits the chorus. Upstage are musicians, and behind them a painting of a pine tree, a symbol of longevity.

The play opens with a character walking, very slowly, on to the stage and explaining who he is and where he is going.

Noh theatre developed in the 1200s, influenced by Buddhism coming from China as well as traditional Yamato dances. During the Muromachi period, 1336 to 1573, Noh theatre took shape. In particular, the Shogun Yoshimitsu and two actors, father and son Zen priests, reworked the form into the Noh theatre we still see. Their texts and rules established Noh as a refined art for the nobility, a reflection of the culture.

There are five types of Noh drama:
1 the god play
2 the warrior play
3 play with a female protagonist
4 the miscellaneous and madwoman play
5 the demon play
A typical presentation includes three Noh plays, each separated by a kyogen, a lighthearted comedy sketch. Spectators will often bring scripts with them so that they can follow along with the play. All roles are played by men, Noh kidding, and they speak in their natural voices when playing men or women. However, they wear masks when playing women, demons and spirits. The masks are smaller than the actors’ faces.

The first play members performed was Atsumori, by Seami. Properly kimono’d, aand standing in a semi-circle in front of the fireplace, standing in for the pine tree, they read the parts of the Priest, the Reapers, a Young Reaper, and Atsumori – our hero. When staged in true Noh style, everything happens very very slowly; which gives the audience time to consider the wisdom of some great lines, such as the chorus telling us: “Put away from you wicked friends; summon to your side a virtuous enemy.”

After acquainting us with our first Noh play, Laura then presented the remarkable Nine Levels: A Pedagogical Guide for Teachers of Acting. We read aloud the last three: Level Nine, The Marks of Coarseness and Leadenness, as embodied by the abilities of the tree squirrel. Level Eight, The Marks of Strength and Coarseness, explained with this, “A tiger three days after birth is all eager to eat an ox.” Level Seven: The Marks of Strength and [Regard for] Details, referred to the contrast between the metal hammer’s flashing, while the “precious sword’s gleam is cold.”

Then three more members clad in kimonos ascended to the stage and read from a Poem Play, Haku Rakuten, also by Seami, in which a Chinese poet arrives at the Japanese seashore, and is found by fishermen. Members acted the parts of Haku, the Two Fishermen, the Old Fisherman and the Chorus. The fishermen engage with Haku on the subject on poetry; then one of the fishermen is revealed as the god of Japanese poetry, and a great wind blows from their billowing sleeves and sends the Chinese poet and his ship back to China.

Returning to the pedagogy, still working backwards, we read Level Six: The Mark of Surface Design, encapsulated by “the Path of paths is not the usual path.” Skipping Level Five (Versatility and Precision), we moved on to Level Four: The Mark of the Genuine Flower. This level is rendered thus: “In the luminous mist the sun sinks; the myriad mountains are crimson.” Level Three: The Mark of the Tranquil Flower has a wonderfully elegant saying, “In a silver bowl, he piles snow.” With the last levels, actors approach the pinnacle of perfect acting. Level Two: The Mark of the Profoundly Brilliant Flower, is symbolized again with snow. “The snow covers a thousand mountains; how come a lone peak is not white?” And finally, to Level One: The Mark of the Miraculous Flower, about which we read: “In Silla at midnight, the sun is bright.”

With reluctance, we returned to our pedestrian, Western, and quicker lives, grateful for an afternoon spent with the glacially slow Noh drama, and of course, for the opportunity to wear lovely kimonos.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary