pSotd by Jan Carroll

'another color sunflower

'with heart'


'resting'

Stage

Leopold and Loeb’s murder trial became a media sensation in real life, even if the details were unprintable at the time. The lovers- murderers angle was turned into a homoerotic game in Hitchcock’s Rope and outright sexual acting out in Swoon.

Philly actors Evan Jonigkeit and Brian Kurtas are tackling the collective psyche of notorious 20s lovers in John Logan’s drama Never the Sinner opening this week at the Adrienne Theater. Kurtas jumped into rehearsals late, taking over for another actor, said he understands why this gruesome story still intrigues.“I think what is fascinating regardless of what kind of relationship this is, heterosexual or homosexual relationship, is that these boys do what they do for love. Leopold was treated as such an outcast; Loeb was the only person who would talk to him.”

Jonigkeit scored critical praise starring in Mauckingbird’s very gay version of The Misanthrope and the British boys’ prep school version of Shakespeare’s R & J. Working with Kurtas on the chemistry of Leopold and Loeb has been a different challenge for the versatile actor.

“The language of Moliere and Shakespeare kind of gets rid of the guess work. This play is different because it’s so naturalistic. The character is expressive, but with a lot less information. It’s a phenomenal part to try to capture. He’s a villain, but more than that he is also a child.” he said.

Jonigkeit said that Brian has been a real trooper letting “me throw him different stuff; he’s making daring choices in this role. My thought on why these characters are so interesting because they really need each other and they are misfits. The extreme measures in which they express those needs is so bizarre…that is fascinating to try to figure out. It’s thrilling really. Peter Reynolds the director keeps telling us in notes ‘Don’t be nice.’”

potd by Jan Carroll

'fleur de fungus'

Short Morning

The last conjuring
lacerated word
aster, kiln
arc-light
in his eye
dreamt of dead
cardinals taking off their heads
twig scraping the window
no, it’s my hand
Shadow mouth
too late for
oatmeal to taste
like the past
Jack leaves
day.

Gone Fishin'

Impossible to face Monday grammar and 105 heat index. It rained all around Philly last night, setting up a bubble of a steam bath within the city limits. The storms must be performing just outside the city limits, all sound and fury signifying nothing here. Was hoping they would rip through and lance the heat, but barely a spit take all night.

I’ve been out already for an emergency trip to the bank and to partially blind myself with the sun. Inspired by the runners and cyclists undetered by the heat. The motorists are already cursing, slavishly whipping around Rittenhouse Sq. destroying any momentary inner city bucolic peace. Maybe already thinking that they are sitting in traffic combat at 5:25 tonight. They can’t go fishin’ and really can you blame them for wanting to run me down as I wing past them that is stuck in broiling traffic. No brakes! no brakes! please.

Lives of the composers

Back from that jaunt around town on my brakeless bike and inner city blues was replaced by Rossini in my mind’s ear as vaulted away from the park. Now back considering Anne Migrette’s discussion via Think Denk whether Charles Ives was a homophobe or a victim of prejudices of his time. Migrette takes it a step further looking for gay markers in Ives’ music. Interesting exercise.

The out composers I’ve been lucky enough to talk to have reinterated, sometimes emphatically, that there is no such thing as ‘gay music.’ Principle among these is Ned Rorem, who admitted that he regretted being included on a recording ‘Gay American Composers’ just for that reason. Timeless music is, after all, bigger than sexuality even though it may have everything to do with who you are sleeping with.

Anyway, even though there is a collective gay mantra about there not being anything as ‘gay music’ in classical realms, can anyone conceive that ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies’ could have been written by anyone else but Tchaikovsky? Or as I’m listening now to ‘Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis’ Henry the Eighth’s court composer and I’m wondering where classical music would be without gay aesthetics, consciously recorded or not.

potd by Jan Carroll

'lost in blue'

potm by Jan Carroll

'hey'

metroscape

Biking back from the Kelly Pool along West River Drive in stifling sun today. the Philly skyline rushing the eye in brilliant color saturation like a Hitchcock film from the 50s. My mind’s ear provided the Bernard Hermann soundtrack.

Gay saute

While at the Dancewriting Institute I was inspired to make quick meals for the fellow fellows who were dropping. My roommate Christopher Blank, a fab young journalist and willing scullery, kept the galley kitchen ready. Bent over the sink, he would mumble asides as I tried to work on an electric stove. He wants me to do a tv version in Memphis called Gay Saute with him cleaning up and mumbling asides while I cook and interview celebs hanging out in the kitchen. I’m meant to distract them with dishes as I grill them. Well..anyway…meanwhile I’ll offer my first gay saute recipe for success-

Use high heat on top of the stove!

Music

Philadelphia’s famed heat and humidity was the perfect clime as prima diva Angela Brown sang ’Summertime’ from ’Porgy & Bess’ an encore that was accompanied by an on cue breeze. Brown, stunning in a tight turquoise opera gown was center stage at the Mann Center in Fairmount Park. Last month the Fabulous Philadelphians were in Vail, Colorado, next month they are in Saratoga NY, but this week they are in the final week of their summer season in Philly.

Rossen Milanov, musical director of the summer series, conducted Brown in a program of Verdi arias including the overture to La forza del destino, Ritorna vincitor” from Aida and “Tu, che le vanità” from Don Carlo. As thrilling as it was to hear Angela, the orchestra was just as thrilling in its powerful reading of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony no. 2. This is a lengthy piece, with a lot of symphonic undertow and vaulting progressions. Highlights in this performance were the understated decrescendos, the overlapping tremolo runs and the concussive pre-codas. Milanov is a specialist of Russian, Slavic and Eastern European music. This was a brilliantly balanced interpretation of Rachmaninoff.

LsOTD
“Nobody is talking about some government takeover of health care, I’m tired of hearing that.” President Obama told a wildly supportive crowd in Durham, NC. The President fired back at critics who just will say anything to obstruct health care reform. “I’ve been as clear as I can be; under the reform I’ve proposed, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,…If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. These folks need to stop scaring everybody.” Obama said.

Politictictic

Bill Moyers’ Journal this week is a blistering indictment of insurance company lobbyists and the Reps. and Dems who are bending over for them. It’s a case of the snake calling the viper asp.

Wendell Potter former Cigna executive, the fourth largest health insurance company in the US, was the insider pulling no punches.

“The industry doesn’t … want any more competition period. They certainly don’t want it from a government plan that might be operating more efficiently than they are, that they operate. ..”