pt at large

The Savages

This satisfying ensemble of Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco shows the strain, the love, the secrets between brother and sister as they take responsibility to care for their nursing-home-bound father (Bosco). This is as close to an ‘art house’ movie that Hollywood can get.

The film subtly shows the siblings cope with shreds of their shared past as they do their best to manage their own mid-life crises while dealing with their dying father. When you’re not wincing, you’re chuckling at the dry humor in exchanges between brother and sister.

Vignettes that make up the movie ring true scene after scene. You can sense the institutional smell of the nursing home, the scent of the siblings' perspiration in their rumpled clothes, and the grudging bond of shared sorrow and love that lie beneath their conflicting ideas about their father's care, their own failing professional aspirations and personal relationships.

The simple story isn’t gussied up with pretty details. The way the three dress, the interiors of the siblings' living spaces, and their shaky relationships with the opposite sex fit together like pieces of a miniature jigsaw puzzle.

The sibling’s sharp edged memories of their childhood could easily drive a wedge between them. They’re making the peace with each other that they could never achieve with their father.

The acting is brilliant, funny, sad, and uplifting. The only place Hollywood gets in the way is the tidy resolution in the last few minutes. Luckily, the previous 110 minutes of honest filmmaking leave a more lasting impact.

McCoy Tyner still going strong

McCoy Tyner Trio with Christian Scott
Regattabar
Charles Hotel, Cambridge, MA
December 28, 2007
First set

McCoy Tyner’s two hands can still generate thunder on the keyboard. His measured, tentative walk to the stage at the Regattabar Friday night suggested the legendary 69-year-old pianist had slowed down physically. Once he sat down in front of the Steinway, he hit the speed limit and, with one exception for a ballad, kept the pedal to the metal for the whole first set.

Tyner played his classic up-tempo “Blues On The Corner” in characteristic two-handed style. He plays east to west on the keyboard and hits most of the eighty-eight keys on his way through a tune. (Note: a piano tuning specialist tweaked the piano back into shape during the break between first and second sets.)

His patter between numbers was poorly miked and a bit rambling but his playing was crisp and powerful. To trade chops with Tyner, who played with his “hard bop’ mentor John Coltrane, Ron Carter, and Elvin Jones, you’ve got to have the goods. Trumpet phenom Christian Scott matched Tyner’s speed and clarity with confidence.  Upright bassist Gerard Cannon ranged impeccably up and down the neck of his upright bass and drummer Eric Kamau Gravatt used every part of his drum kit on his solo.

McCoy Tyner was a seminal force in improvised jazz for the second half of the twentieth century, releasing nearly eighty albums under his name. He expanded his range by incorporating the sounds and rhythms of music from Africa and Latin America. Best known for his work with his trio, he’s arranged for big bands and even released his renditions of Burt Bachrach’s songs.

Mortality has a time signature of its own. Some in the sold-out house harbored the suspicion that this could be the last live Tyner performance they’d witness.

The man who played in the 1960s with John Coltrane when he was seventeen, the man who has become a legend himself, isn't ready to play in the past tense. With the third release for the McCoy Tyner Music label scheduled for this fall, Tyner shows he's ready to make his mark on the twenty-first century.

Andy Bey:incomparable jazz stylist

Andy Bey
Regattabar, Charles Hotel, Cambridge, MA
December 21, 2007
First set

When Andy Bey sings a jazz standard, he plants a flag on it and claims it as his own. After listening to Bey’s version of “Ain't Necessarily So,” the first song he played in his opening set at the Regattabar, the audience was momentarily still, unwilling to disturb the breathtaking beauty his voice cast over the room. A moment later, a torrent of applause filled the vacuum.

Fans had come to take in a rare appearance of this re-emerging jazz stylist whose singing pedigree goes back to the 1960’s. Bey massaged the languid ballad, stretching lyrics with his sweet falsetto vibrato or amping up with a fierce gospel-like wail. The occasional fraying of his multi- octave range voice gave the bluesy song a satisfying edge.
How on earth did he find so many ways to reinvent the familiar lyrics and melody? He spent the rest of the set doing similar alchemy with most of the songs on his newest CD release,  “Ain’t Necessarily So.”

His trio’s opening instrumental proved Bey’s chops on the piano. His playful sense of humor surfaced after he introduced upright bass player Joe Martin and drummer Vito Lesczak. "You all know who I am, but just in case: My name is Ziggy Marley," he said, referring to his physical stature and the long dreadlocks hanging over his shoulders.

Bey signing CD's after the show

Fuse the sound of Nina Simone, Tony Williams and Billy Eckstein and you get the feel of Bey’s first lines of Mary Rogers’ “Hey, Love.” Bey played sinuously with melody and lyrics, delicately fingering keys and pounding chords to pop the song’s achingly sweet, melancholic core.

By the time Bey sang the up-tempo, scat driven Rogers and Hart “All The Things You Are” and then launched Ellington’s “I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart,” I thought, “Where has this guy been all these years?”

After shooting out of the gate in the late 1950’s and 1960’s and hailed by the likes of Nina Simone, Carmen McRae, and Lena Horne, Bey sank below the radar in the 1970’s. By the mid 1990’s he came out as openly gay and HIV positive and ready to resume his career on his own terms. Lucky for us.

Stepping away from the piano. Bey said, “I want to sing music that inspires me to this day,” With Lesczak and Martin riding shotgun, he charged through a driving scat laced version of the Charlie Parker/Miles Davis tune “Cheryl,” and somewhere in the midst of it cracked up the audience with a chorus of “White Christmas.” What a ride.

Back to the piano, “OK, guys how about a graveyard tempo.” Bey counted out his trademark, “ahhh…ahhh… ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh” and wrapped his supple baritone around a cover of “On Second Thought.”

Referring to his 68 years, (“Not too fast, guys”) Bey ended the set with an edgy, up-tempo “Brother, Can You Spare Me A Dime.” Martin and Lezchak left the stage. Bey remained and seemed genuinely surprised and grateful for the thunderous applause. The man has had his trials. He's lived the songs. The fervent demonstration of awe and appreciation must have felt good to him, as would the standing ovation a few minutes later.

By the time Andy Bey finished his encore of “Someone To Watch Over Me,” you knew you’d heard something special - and visceral. The man sings and plays with a sense of emotional immediacy, tenderness, pain, loss, and resilience. This is not just performance. This is catharsis, survival, reincarnation - the residue of the life of a man who’s looked into the abyss and stepped back to join us. Yes, someone has watched over Andy Bey.

Defining moments

When politicians resort to citing the dictionary to explain why their statements veer significantly from fact, you know they are in deep doo doo.

Bill Clinton’s explanation of his 1998 relationship with Monica Lewinsky comes to mind:

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."

You’d roll your eyes if your teenage son came up with that one.

Now comes Mitt Romney in 2007 applying damage control to a nationally televised speech in which he claimed he ‘saw’ his father Governor George Romney march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described," Romney told reporters in Iowa. "It's a figure of speech and very familiar, and it's very common. And I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort."

I see, Mitt. Really.

This Wonderful Life: A Christmas-in-a-box one man play

This Wonderful Life
“A delightful solo re-imagining of the Frank Capra classic film”

Lyric Stage
140 Clarendon St.
(YMCA Building, Copley Sq. )
Boston, MA 2117

November 23 - December 22, 2007
Box Office: (617) 585-5678 or  www.lyricstage.com

One reason to see this holiday treat is to watch an actor have such a damn good time on stage. After Frank Capra pitched the “It’s a Wonderful Life” movie role of George Bailey to Jimmy Stewart in 1946, Stewart replied, “Frank, if you want to do a movie about me committing suicide with an angel named Clarence, I’m your boy!”

Substitute  ‘Spiro’ for “Frank” and that’s what Neal A. Casey must have said when Lyric Stage Producing Artistic Director Spiro Veloudis proposed the idea to Casey.

First things first. While you might enjoy Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” without having first read the story, it would be a tougher slog if you are one of the few who hasn’t seen the Frank Capra film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Playwright Steve Murray had to cut an hour from the 130-minute movie. The play hurtles along with the speed of a rambunctious one horse open sleigh and if you’re not familiar with the original movie, you could fall off when the thoroughbred gallops from one scene to the next.

The program summary:
“Christmas Eve in Bedford Falls, a small New England town, near the end of World War II. George Bailey, one of the town’s good citizens, fears he’s failed his family, his friends, and his town. In despair, he considers suicide, until Clarence, a dotty angel-in-waiting, shows him how bleak the world would have been had he not lived.”

Or even more succinctly as Casey says in his introduction, “A story of a man on a bridge, how he got there, and how he found his way home.”

Neal A, Casey plays all the characters in Murray’s New England Premier of “This Wonderful Life.” George Bailey, his wife Mary Hatch Bailey, Old Man Potter, Uncle Billy, old pal Sam Wainwright are the mainstays. Add up his children, an apprentice angel and everyone else he plays and you’re north of two dozen.

The movie has taken on iconic status during Christmas time. Changing the story line or sentiments will not do. "People have such expectations," Mr. Casey says, "and I have to respect that. I have to connect with their familiarity, and have some fun with it."

One of the endearing aspects of this production is that he does have fun. Using a few props, body language, twitching eyebrows or furrowed brow, and dozens of voice changes to suit each character, Casey is clearly enjoying himself. A moment he drops a prop, garbles a line, or a robust sneeze from an audience member leads to a playful ad lib. And Casey delivers a dead on imitation of Jimmy Stewart in several scenes.

Despite the gooey Hollywood storyline, the movie and the play have an edge to them. The bad breaks dealt to kind-hearted, visionary George Bailey drive him to a bridge from which he can hurl himself. His banking business has just about folded. The good works of his life haven’t brought him success. He knows the insurance policy in his pocket makes him worth more dead than alive. The Christmas Eve scene as George completely unravels in front of his family stings the audience as well as his family. The guy who can always find a silver lining has lost his prospector’s touch. Into the snowy night, he heads for the bridge, wishing he'd never been born.

Sweet ironies abound as Clarence the apprentice angel figures out a way to intercede with George's suicidal intentions. Clarence hits his stride when he shows George how different Bedford Falls would have been without his ever being born. Mr. Casey rat-a-tat-tats a handful of quick roles that show the rough and tumble underbelly of a town bereft of hope, bereft of George Bailey's stamp. George recognizes his worth and dear Clarence earns his wings as an angel.

George heads home and receives the news that his fortunes have changed, his bank saved by an infusion from a boyhood pal. Redemption is at hand and the audience, with more than a few tears, cheers the boisterous outcome of goodness over grinchiness.

Director Jack Neary’s tight 75-minute production is staged tidily enough for Casey to set up each scene. Jenna McFarland Lord’s spare two-tier set of a banker’s desk, porch doorway. bar, stairs and bannister to his home’s second floor and the bridge ominously looming at rear center stage is all Casey needs. Dewey Dellay's taped sound effects work beautifully to capture a breaking window, other end of a phone conversation, crowd noise, or Bailey's famous splash into a pool that takes place early in the play and film.

Like George, we’ve all gripped the rails of our bridges. peered into the deep, and experienced existential moments of uncertainty and self-doubt. We know the forces that can drive any of us to the precipice.

This seasonal little play reinforces the notion that there’s a “Clarence effect” present in our lives. Our good works do not go unnoticed. Somebody, somewhere, is paying attention.

Photos courtesy of www.lyricstage.com

Kitty O'Shea’s Irish Pub

Kitty O'Shea’s Irish Pub
298 Cabot St.
Beverly, MA
978-927-0300

Preface:
As we re-discover in the holiday season, some of the best things come in
small packages. Kitty O'Shea's Irish Pub is a small, unassuming chunk of
the 'ould sod'.

One of the keys to its allure is that it doesnt try too hard. Although
some of the patrons can certainly pitch the blarney, the place isnt
festooned with shamrocks and leprechauns. It carries the look and feel of
a neighborhood pub, a place to shift down, join a gab fest, or ponder the
meaning of it all while staring down a pint of Guinness. Alerted to the
place by a neighbor whose nephew attends nearby Monserrat College of Art,
said neighbor and I drove to Beverly, MA to see if the myth matched the
reality.

The fellow sporting the taupe colored Guinness baseball cap swivels around in his seat at the twinkling twelve-seat L shaped bar crammed with memorabilia, whiskey bottles and eight hefty beer taps. From my perch on one of the banquettes that line the far side of this intimate outpost that looks like it could have been air dropped from Galway onto Cabot Street in Beverly, he’s heard me ask the barkeeper how many years the place has been in business.

Half drained pint of Guinness in his big hand, Frank Quinn takes this as an invitation. He ambles over and squeezes comfortably in a chair at the tiny table. His pre retirement career was as a head lineman for the phone company. These days, he’s the mayor of Kitty O'Shea’s. If Guinness is a restorative beverage, he could well be a daily fixture on his stool for another twenty years. Frank is a teller of tales. He sets out to fill me in on the short sweet history of this hometown pub.

 

“I was the first customer in the door when they opened the place ten years ago,” he says with a disarming smile. “There are three main groups of patrons here. Local workers come in for lunch. Craftsmen, including Irish plasterers, stonemasons are among the regulars between 4 and 6pm. The young crowd, locals and students, make the place look like a Rathskeller after 9pm,” he says.

He surveys the bar and notes fishermen with roots in Donegal and Gloucester and a semi retired RR man sipping at the bar.

Montserrat College, Endicott Junior College, and Salem State are all within minutes of Kitty O’Shea’s. With its unassuming attitude and inexpensive pub food, it’s a natural draw for twenty somethings who thrive on the no cover live music and karaoke nearly every night of the week. And the endless supply of black and tans that flow from those eight hefty beer taps.

Students aren’t the only members of academia who pound down a pint here. Friday afternoons local teachers flock to the bar to unwind after week of lesson plans aimed at tots, teenagers, and collegians. The posters of Synge, Yeats, Wilde, and Beckett and little bookshelves built into the ochre shaded walls distance Kitty's from the chips and Bud bars elsewhere in town.

Frank points to the two plasma TVs. One is dedicated to English Premier League Soccer (DirecTV), which happens to be airing a game as we speak. It’s highly unlikely the oligarchy controlling that console will be viewing ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ anytime soon. The other TV airs sport on this side of the Atlantic, big helpings of Patriots, Red Sox, and Celtics.

The aforementioned, of course, is conducive to hydration with hops and barley. You could float a small barge on the nineteen kegs Frank reckons are sucked dry here each week.

I’ve just about picked clean my first introduction to ‘bangers and mash’ (Irish sausage and whipped potatoes) when Frank tells me about the weekly highlight at Kitty’s.

“Saturday afternoons between 4 and 6 pm is the weekly meeting of the AHA Club,” he says, knowing that I’m about to be the straight man and ask, “What the dickens is that?”

“It initially stood for the ‘Abused Husbands Anonymous’ but welcomes any man who can claim ‘abuse’ (in the loosest of terms, mind you) from a wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, auntie, or any other ambassador of the fair sex."

I’ve just been invited to join the current membership of about fifty male members of the AHA Club.

“At about 5:30, my wife Nina and a few other objects of the AHA Club stroll in for their own pint of Guinness. By 6 pm, they herd us out for the night,” he grins.

The young Irish waitresses hold their own with the AHA’s. Saturday afternoon, an urn labeled “Ashes of Problem Customers” is set alongside the one labeled “Ashes of Ex-Wives.”

Kitty O’Shea's just doesn’t seem like a place where “troubles”, whether political, marital, or civil have a chance to run the table. Ten years ago, Al Wayne of Marblehead and Mike Fahey of Melrose via Galway wanted to open a small authentic Irish pub and felt there was a clientele that would ‘get it.’

If one believes the gospel according to Frank Quinn, they achieved it- in spades…well, shamrocks.

To see the pub menu, click http://www.northshoreonline.com/kittyosheaspub/ 

Outed while watching innings

A recent ad in Boston Globe featuring a full- page color crowd shot at Fenway Park reads: “Ray is 36 years old, works in health care, takes the commuter rail from Natick, and is a life long Red Sox fan.”

Imposed over the photo, with a tiny arrow pointing to a head in the crowd, a caption reads - ”Can  you  find him? We can.”

“Boston.com has over 2 million registered users just like Ray. We can put your ad in front of groups defined by age, gender, occupation, location and much more. We can also contextualize your  ad placement to match  pre-defined content when available, like sport events. So you can talk directly to the people that are most valuable to you."

Geez, guys, how did you know that?

“How do we do it? We know Boston, and Boston loves us…our 4 million unique visitors every month stay an average of 19 minutes each.”

“To advertise now or for more information, visit www.boston.com/weknowboston, or call Sean McDonnell at 617-929-7034.”

Ahem, Sean, what am I to make of the side banner ads that pop up today as I surf Boston.com - the ones advertising 'Weight Watchers', 'Watch Free Sexy Webcam Girls', 'Put Your message on M & Ms',  and 'Connect now with Blackberry''?

Am I sweet toothed, testosterone fueled, weight obsessed, connectivity-driven, white, semi retired, male living in a suburb less than ten miles from downtown Boston?

A few keystrokes to the Boston.com Member Center reveal that I did indeed sign up ages ago. Of the ten fields required, I filled in zip, gender and email address accurately and the rest creatively. My date of birth is listed as 1900 so it’s great to discover that my appetites will be vigorous for some time to come and I’ll be able to IM my girlfriends to hook up in the geriatric home when I'm 107. And send my nurses M & Ms imprinted with salacious anagrams.

Thanks, Sean.