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Why The Play’s The Thing

Rants & Raves

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being." - Oscar Wilde

This was supposed to be a straight review of “Elton John’s Aida,” the latest musical extravaganza at the Arts Center on Hilton Head. That was my plan. But a funny thing happened the day after I saw that big, bold, spectacular production. I saw a small, gentle, delightful production of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.” (This time, the venue was USCB.) That very same day, my husband was at the WJWJ studio giving his final performance in a daring, provocative production of “True West.” Meanwhile, ARTworks had just wrapped what I’d heard was a terrific, innovative production of “Painted Alice.” (And now I’m completely out of adjectives.)

How could I confine my comments to “Elton John’s Aida” (fabulous as it was!) when folks all over the Lowcountry had been turning themselves inside out for months – physically, emotionally, logistically – to give the gift of theatre, often to audiences far too small in number? Granted, these shows had finished their runs – nothing I could write would help boost attendance now – and “Aida” still had a few weeks left. But I just couldn’t let those other shows fade from memory without some kind of modest homage.

Because making a play is hard. Those who involve themselves in that pursuit do so because they love it, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult. Most people producing theatre here in Beaufort have to do it around their “day jobs” and rarely expect to be paid for their efforts. What they do expect – or hope for, anyway – is an audience. After weeks and months of exhausting work, they expect the people of their community to turn out for them.

And it just doesn’t happen. Not like it should, anyway. There are plenty of reasons why, of course. Perfectly good reasons. We’re too busy. We’re too broke. We’re too tired. We’ve got 1000 channels on TV. We’ve got Netflix. We’ve got Hulu and YouTube. Why should we rouse ourselves from the comfort of our couches, dress ourselves in something that doesn’t involve elastic, and plunder our poor, beleaguered wallets when we’ve got it so good (and cheap) at home?

Hey, I’m just as lazy, low on funds, and addicted to “Glee” as the next gal. I feel your pain. I share your pain. So, don’t worry – this is not one those columns in which the self-righteous Culture Champion mounts her high horse to brow-beat and guilt-trip her readers into “supporting the arts” – as if going to the theatre were your civic duty… some kindly, sacrificial act of altruism. No, folks – this is a sales pitch. I’m not here to tell you why supporting local theatre is good for the community, good for the economy, and good for the cast and crew. I’m here to tell you what’s in it for you.

aida-dancers-beaufort I’m here to tell you that live theatre, done well, is uniquely exhilarating! And “Elton John’s Aida” is as thrilling a production as you’re likely to see this side of Broadway. The love story of enslaved Nubian princess Aida and Egyptian warrior Radames is a strange, fanciful hybrid – part Old World grandeur, part contemporary kitsch. (Would Sir Elton have it any other way?) The sets and costumes are extravagant – and, again, reflect a mix of influences – and the musical numbers electrifying, from the impeccable singing to the inventive choreography. All of the principals are solid; standouts include Timothy Warmen as the despicable Zoser and newcomer Kyle Scatliffe as a soulful Mereb. Seth Golay does a fine job as Radames, though the character’s transition from callow youth to selfless hero is a bit hard to buy – the script’s fault, not Golay’s. Adrienne Muller as Aida is a wonder; her natural dignity and grace illuminate every scene; her voice is as riveting as her stage presence. But the unexpected revelation is Tara Bruno as Amneris, a stereotypical dumb blond/shallow fashionista (think Sharpay from “High School Musical”), who gradually exposes herself as something else entirely. Amneris’ transformation (or is it ours, as an audience?) is challenging, unsettling and simply breathtaking. “Aida” is unforgettable, and Bruno is a big reason why. (“Aida” runs through May 30^th. Visit www.artshhi.com for tickets.)

charlie-brown-cast-beaufort But a show doesn’t have to be epic, like “Aida,” to tattoo itself on your heart. Take, for instance, the Beaufort Theatre Company’s recent production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” This was a little show with a great big soul. Six actors, spare set pieces in primary colors, good songs sung well, and a heaping helping of wry, poignant Schulzian humor. Simple recipe, delicious results. Unlike at the Arts Center, where most of the actors are professionals brought in from out of town, the BTC is all about local talent. And boy, have we got it! Benji Morgan (a music teacher at Red Cedar Elementary) could not have been more endearing as everybody’s favorite blockhead. And Kristin Brady channeled “Lucy” with dizzy, dazzling aplomb. (She happens to be my daughter’s music teacher at Lady’s Island El. What fun it was to see her shine in this role!) The rest of the cast members (Jordan Culver, Kasey Hummel, Michael Kirby and Darryl Poovey) were marvelous, too. When they all gathered to sing the finale – the sweet, wistful “Happiness” – I wasn’t quite sure why I was so weepy. Maybe because I didn’t want the show to end. Maybe because, for two hours, these six actors had taken me out of myself and into their quirky, beautiful world – and allowed me see through new eyes – and I was grateful.

true-west-cast “True West” at WJWJ was a whole different animal. Dark, menacing and surprisingly hilarious, Sam Shepherd’s black comedy was like “Charlie Brown” on crack. And without the show tunes. My husband Jeff played Austin, the “successful” screenwriter, and Tom Schuster was his brother, Lee, a petty thief, drunkard and longtime loser. Rounding out the cast were Leo Gannon as Saul, the Hollywood agent, and Mary Strick as Mom. Only a little over an hour long, the show moved like a train, propelled from one quick scene to the next by great writing and self-assured performances. (Jeff, Tom and Leo all have decades of experience, while Mary made an impressive theatrical debut as Elaine in last fall’s BTC production of “Arsenic and Old Lace.”) When it was over – quite abruptly – you felt like you had really been through something. I’m still trying to figure out what, exactly. It’s a play that asks more questions than it answers. And it keeps asking them, long after you leave the building. If “Aida” and “Charlie Brown” left me stirred, “True West” left me shaken. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all good.

But I still haven’t sold you, have I? I still haven’t said why you should bother with local theatre, when there are so many other, easier entertainment options out there. Well, I believe it boils down to one thing: When Springsteen sang about it, he called it “the human touch.” (Actually, Springfield sang about it, too – Rick, that is – and his lyrics were, perhaps, more apropos. “Everybody’s talking to computers, they’re all dancing to a drum machine…”) In this age of technology, theatre is one of the few entertainment forms left that’s still… personal. And truly interpersonal. When we watch a movie or a TV show, we are doing just that: watching. As compelling as it may be, it is a passive, one-way proposition. But when we attend a theatrical production, we become part of it… we actually participate with the performers and other theatre artists in the act of creation! By our very presence – our laughter and tears, our rapt silence and spontaneous applause, our thoughts and our feelings and our energy – we feed the actors, who in turn, feed us right back. A connection forms, and it’s powerful. I have been on both sides of this equation, and I know it to be true. Whether on stage or in the audience, when theatre works – really works – it reminds us that we’re all in this together. Life, that is.

And like life, that knowledge is a fine and fleeting thing.

Why Can’t America Be More Like Beaufort?

Rants & Raves

margaret As regular readers know, every six months or so I’m helplessly compelled to wax rhapsodic about life in Beaufort. It usually happens in spring or fall, when the sheer awesomeness of this little town just flat-out overwhelms me. When you’re driving or walking or riding your bike around a place, and you find yourself repeatedly choking back tears of joy and gratitude, there’s really nothing to do but put it down on paper. (Correction: You can also point out blooming bushes and greening marshes to your kid in the back seat with such fervor – and frequency – that she rolls her eyes in your rear view mirror and asks you to please turn up the radio.)

Well, this is one of those columns. I knew I felt another one coming on last week – right around Good Friday, to be specific. I had just finished a marvelous meal with a dear friend of mine at 'Yes, Thai Indeed.' We stopped on the way out to say hi to some folks, and told them we were off to the Baptist Church to hear their choir perform “The Seven Last Words of Christ.” In the parking lot, my dinner companion, a former New Yorker with degrees from Amherst, Harvard and Yale, confided, “I love living here! You can just tell people, straight up, that you’re going to the Baptist Church to hear some music, and they don’t look at you like you’re crazy.”

Not only that, I thought, but you can get great Thai food, too!

Really, Beaufort is something else, isn’t it? Plenty sophisticated, yet blessedly old-fashioned. I’m not sure how, exactly, but we seem to have found the magic formula for living in the past, present and future, all at once. Our splendid antebellum houses aren’t just tourist attractions and movie sets; they’re homes – people actually live in them! Our historic churches aren’t just quaint, crumbling artifacts; they have large, active congregations worshipping in their sanctuaries each Sunday. The stately old bank building on Bay Street looks exactly like a stately old bank building… until you step inside to find it’s a hip, nouvelle Italian restaurant.

In Beaufort, progress comes… but never at the expense of what’s best about our past. Here, history isn’t something that happened a long time ago; it’s something that’s still happening. We celebrate the traditions of our ancestors even as we open our hearts and minds to new ways of seeing and being. I love that!

I love that I can see a production of the ‘Vagina Monologues’ on Friday, catch a rock band downtown on Saturday, then hear a choir perform Handel on Sunday. I love that we have a symphony orchestra, a couple of blue grass bands, and the Hallelujah Singers. I love that I can take a class in New Age Spirituality at TCL and hear a lecture by a renowned orthodox Anglican bishop at USCB. I love it that the Beaufort Yacht Club is still a weekly dinner destination for the guys, that some of my girlfriends are in the Junior Service League … and that we now have something called Fuse 843 for “creative professionals.” I love it that the arts community and the military community – two of our most vibrant forces – regularly mix and mingle… that the business community cares about the environment, and the environmentalists aren’t “anti-business”… that we have a cool new film festival and a great, old-timey water festival…

I was in Asheville a couple of months ago, and I remember thinking how fantastic it was – the restaurants, the galleries, the bookstores, etc – but also feeling a little beset by the pervasive sense of the city’s politics. There were slogan-bearing tee-shirts, signs and bumper stickers everywhere (including the walls and windows of businesses) that made it clear, in no subtle terms, that this was a certain kind of town… a “progressive” town. In my youth, I’d have probably found that exhilarating – that sense of radical solidarity. Now, I find it a little off-putting. Even if I were as progressive as most Ashevillians, I think I’d find it off-putting. I just prefer a place where politics isn’t front and center… where there’s no group statement being made beyond “welcome.”

You can walk the streets of Beaufort and never think twice about its politics. It just wouldn’t enter your mind. (Unless, of course, it’s election season, in which case you’ll find campaign posters of all persuasions, usually side by side.) It’s so refreshing. In a country that seems hell-bent on dividing itself into two adversarial halves – conservative and progressive – Beaufort is stubbornly, unapologetically, both. And neither. I love that!

Maybe Asheville (and its conservative counterpart) is where we’re headed. Maybe we will finally succeed in dividing ourselves into “us” and “them” literally (i.e. geographically), the way we have figuratively. Maybe in the future, we will all live in places where everybody is just like us… where everybody shares one inflexible point of view and one pristine set of values. Already, there are “intentional communities” springing up all over, and the “coastal urbanite” vs. “middle American” gap seems as wide as ever.

It certainly might make life easier, and a lot less messy – this picking and choosing of our neighbors. In fact, it might make life quite pleasant. But is “pleasant” really what it’s all about? How much richer an experience – how much nobler an endeavor – to tax ourselves with following the commandment at the heart of every world religion: Love thy neighbor as thyself. I don’t think Jesus was talking about “thy neighbor” with the tasteful house, or “thy neighbor” with the great sense of humor, or “thy neighbor” with the right politics. Those neighbors are easy to love; no commandment necessary. No, I think this teaching is uniquely profound and powerful because – and only because – it makes no such qualifications. None. There’s absolutely no wiggle room. No caveats nor codicils. Just a commandment to “love the one you’re with.” Isn’t that breathtaking? It blows my mind with its bold simplicity. Who among us is brave enough – daring enough – to really try it?

It seems to me that when – and only when – we turn ourselves to that experiment will we be truly progressive. And as of now, Beaufort’s as good a laboratory as I’ve seen anywhere.

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Here’s to Our Health

Rants & Raves

“According to my large and diverse group of FB friends, either the sky has just fallen or the kingdom has just come. It’s still dark outside, so I can’t be sure who’s right.”

This was my Facebook update the morning after last week’s big healthcare reform vote. While plenty of my updates are met with resounding indifference, this one garnered a whopping 85 comments. Eighty-five! And lots of them weren’t even made by me. I’m not sure who was more passionate that day – the fallen sky crowd or the kingdom comers. But lots of folks – and I count myself among them – were more circumspect, neither mourning nor rejoicing. Just curious, cautious… and confused.

I learned a lot that day, as FB friends posted articles, explained finer points of the bill as they understood it, shared their personal adventures in healthcare – both American and European – aired their fears and frustrations, and offered each other support and advice. The most remarkable fact about this long and winding FB thread was that, despite the strong and varied opinions represented, there were no angry attacks waged… no invective hurled. I repeat: An extremely diverse group of people from various backgrounds and political affiliations managed to have a serious debate – about healthcare reform! – and for 85 whole comments, civility reigned. Facebook felt like a blessed space that day.

Oh, it wasn’t perfect: One of my favorite FB friends – actually, one of my favorite friends, period – was particularly upset about the vote, and upset with me for not being upset, and… that upset me. My mother, who believes the Republic is now dead, was also disappointed in me for my failure to panic or despair. I hate letting down the people I love – people who count on me to think and feel like they do. But here’s the thing: Try as I may, I just can’t get worked up, one way or the other, about this healthcare bill. It is what it is – for better or worse (both, I suspect) – and I don’t think anybody really knows what that means yet, or how it will all unfold. Oh, plenty of people think they know, but I’m not buying it. There are simply too many smart, decent people out there espousing too many opposing “truths.” So I’m in wait-and-see mode. And you know what? It’s peaceful here.

The comment that best expressed my own frame of mind that day (and still does) was posted by a dear old friend who has shared much wisdom with me over the years:

“It was a day, like any other day, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Another congress will come and go, another bill will change this one and another one will come that offers more or less. Presidents come and go as do Popes and Preachers and Walruses on flows of ice, which comes and goes as well….”

He went on in that poetical vein, then added a biblical flourish: “Set your sights on things above, not on earthly things.”

Spectacular advice, I thought. In fact, I was already following it. The Sunday night of the healthcare vote, while most people I knew were riveted to their TV sets, following the action in Congress with all the fervor, anxiety and competitiveness usually reserved for a major national sporting event – but little of the humor and good will toward the opposing team – I was off listening to a magnificent local choir perform Mozart and Handel under the masterful direction of Charles Frost. (Thanks for that, Charlie!) I came sailing home on a sea of inspiration, and, sure, the TV was on… and I heard the demagoguery… and I heard the anger… and I heard the profanity… and it just didn’t matter.

Listen, I’m not saying the healthcare vote didn’t matter. Of course it did. And it does. And it will. But the path leading up to that vote has been so very “earthly,” in the worst sense of the word, that trying to separate each party’s good intentions (which I believe they both have) from pure, power-grabbing politics (ditto) has become impossible for me. The same goes for separating truth from propaganda. So I’ve stopped trying. The poor ol’ Serenity Prayer has become a cliché in our sloganeering, 12 Step culture, but I think it bears repeating – again – because it’s actually quite profound: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” At this point, the direction of healthcare reform seems to fall into that first category – things I cannot change. And only time will tell if I’d even want to. (I know…. I know… By then it might be too late. I hear ya, Mom. Really I do.)

Obviously, completely checking out on politics would be a lowdown, lazy thing to do. The shaping of public policy is crucial to the welfare of a nation, and as citizens, we all have a responsibility to stay informed about what’s happening in Washington and, certainly, to exercise our influence at election time. Sometimes, if so compelled, we may even have a responsibility to take action beyond that.

But what we don’t have to do – ever – is engage in this great national bickering contest, the one that has turned us into a country full of self-righteous, arrogant, rabble-rousing jerks. Myself included. A friend of mine recently threw out a colorful term I hadn’t heard before: Thought Porn. He theorized that many of our political blogs, and especially our nighttime cable news shows, specialize in this Thought Porn, which, much like porn "classic,” only serves to stroke our egos, stoke our basest instincts… and turn us into addicts.

(If you’re feeling really angry at that characterization – or really defensive – you may have a problem. Try turning off Fox or MSNBC for a week. The first few nights will be painful, but you won’t believe how much better you’ll feel after the initial cold turkey. I speak from experience.)

I know that for some of you, this will seem like a very lightweight essay, unbefitting a serious topic like healthcare reform. I’ll have disappointed you; you’ll think me apathetic, or worse… cowardly. But y’all know I’ve always been willing to take my hits… that I put myself out there when the spirit moves me. In this case, it just ain’t moving me. Not the way you want it to. I can assure you that I’m not avoiding conflict, here; I am, as always, saying exactly what I believe… and exactly what I believe is most worth saying.

It was an FB friend who encouraged me to write about the healthcare debate at all. (He was part of my 85-comment discussion thread.) “You should write about the healthcare stuff,” he said. “And make it funny!”

Well, I’m not sure there’s much that’s funny about healthcare reform (though there’s certainly been plenty of absurdist humor on display throughout). But, in the end, I suppose I do see this whole thing in comic terms – in the Greek sense of the word. As in “happy ending”… as in, “it’ll all turn out okay.” Not just healthcare reform… but all of it. Everything. How can I be so optimistic? Well, that’s what happens when you start setting your sights on “things above.” And ironically, I keep tripping over “earthly things” that fuel that perspective, too. For instance: After playing hard-to-get for weeks, the azaleas are finally blooming… My beautiful baby niece, Ellie, is sitting up on her own (she was only born yesterday!)… My choir actually managed to learn Schubert’s daunting Mass in G… in Latin (come hear us sing it Thursday night at First Pres!)… I participated in a friendly debate about healthcare reform…

Okay, so maybe I tend to spot semi-miraculous connections where others see random chaos. Do those connections exist only in my mind? It’s quite possible. But as Easter comes again, with all its mystery and meaning and paradox, I can’t help remembering the words of the late, great wizard Dumbledore in the final Harry Potter book: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”

Think about it. And while you’re at it, try setting your sights on things above. It’s good for your health.

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All Shook Up

Rants & Raves

margaret

Beaufort teacher Josefina Blanc discusses her native country of Chile – why she loves it, why she left it, and what she’s doing to help it, post-earthquake.

The first thing you notice about my friend Josefina Blanc is that she looks more like a big city fashion model than a small town Spanish teacher. (We’re talking really tall and really gorgeous.) The next things you’ll notice are her sultry South American accent, her marvelous sense of humor, and her formidable intelligence. And despite this enviable embarrassment of attributes, you‘ll find her impossible not to like.

Josefina, who lives in Beaufort with her husband and young son, and teaches Spanish at Battery Creek High, grew up in Santiago, Chile. Most of her family is still there. Though she left the beautiful, volatile country over a decade ago, it is still very much at the heart of who she is. Josefina spoke with me recently about her childhood, the complicated country she loves and left, the day the earth shook (again), and what happens next.

Josefina, when and why did you leave Chile?

josefina-beaufort I left in November 1998, days after Augusto Pinochet was arrested in the UK for human rights violations. The reason I left is not unrelated to that event. After growing up in a military dictatorship, I realized that it would take my country decades to recover socially and politically. I felt a bit impotent back then, I wanted to live my life in a less restrictive way, so I left the country in what I often call a self-exile, to see if I could find a wider range of opportunities and experiences in New York City, where I lived for 10 years.

Most of your family is still in Chile, correct?

My father, sisters, nephew and nieces all still live in Santiago, the capital. That’s where we were born and grew up. My brother lives in Austin, TX, but he is only there for his PhD, and will soon return to Chile.

Whenever you speak of your childhood in Chile, I sense conflicting emotions…

Growing up in Chile was a wonderful mix of experiences. Given that my mother was Argentine, half of my family still lived and lives on the other side of the Andes, so we had a very diverse childhood, compared to most Chileans, but also a very “Southern Cone”-oriented one; everything happened for me between the different accents, oceans and those gigantic, shaky mountains. Growing up in the late seventies meant that I grew up in a military dictatorship. I always share the tale with my friends that until I turned 15 or so, I thought Pinochet, Ronald Reagan and John Paul II had always been in charge of the world. I say this as a symbol of what the prevalent culture was in my community: capitalist, ultra-conservative and Opus Dei Catholic. Due to its geographic location, Chile was also a very isolated community. For instance, I never met an African American in person until I turned 18 years old and traveled to Chicago. Also, Chile was the last country in the world to legalize divorce, in 2006. But you had the best of that culture, as well: strong families, old traditions, reliable institutions, and social order (which is not a minor achievement in Latin America).

Speaking of which, Chile has had such a volatile history. How were things shaping up there before this tragedy? How big a setback will it be?

It will without a doubt be a huge setback in the social arena. Since Pinochet left power in 1989, the center left has invested twenty years and billions of dollars in social policies and infrastructure that were profoundly affected over the course of 2 and 1/2 minutes. This sets back education in rural areas as well as national and international commerce, which is highly dependent on modern highways bridges, ports and airports. As you may know, Chile’s largest export, copper, was immediately affected; even though the mines are mainly in the north (away from the epicenter), the price went up considerably within the first few hours of the day. That’s just a small example, but the scale of the human and material damage escapes our ability to describe it. Like the earth, there are infinite layers, emotional and physical, that will be very hard to reconstruct.

I can’t imagine the anxiety you must have suffered the day of the earthquake! I assume you couldn’t get in touch with anybody for a while…

My friend Cabell woke me up with a phone call telling me there had been an earthquake in Chile, to which I sweetly replied, “Oh, not to worry, they happen ALL THE TIME.” He said it had been a pretty serious one, and then I became very worried. I lived through the 7.5 earthquake of 1985, and it had been the last extremely damaging one, so I knew that if it had made the news in Beaufort, SC, it was probably really bad news. But I never imagined it was an 8.8! I couldn’t reach anyone by phone, and since I’d just moved into a new home, I didn’t have cable or Internet access. So I went to the coffee shop to use theirs. As soon as I got to Java City & News, I saw the earthquake all over CNN and the other channels, which didn’t make me any more calm. I waited there and heard from my family that they were OK before noon. Nonetheless, it took me a good 12 hours before I realized the scale of the quake that had hit them in Santiago. I just assumed Santiago hadn’t been hit hard when I found out that the epicenter was so far down in the south, but the reality is that it was a massive earthquake in 80% of the country.

According to estimates, over 500,000 homes were lost or badly damaged in the earthquake. You have set up a fund to raise money for your personal friends who are among that number. Are there many?

talca2-josefina-beaufort I have three friends who lost their homes, but one couple in particular, in Talca, is probably the most affected, since this was one of the worst hit areas in the region. Many of their friends and acquaintances are also homeless, and electricity and water services hadn’t reached them yet after a week. They have found someone to stay with by now and they are just grateful to be alive. One of them is a dear friend of mine, an artist, whom I grew up with since birth; we are the closest thing to siblings there is. It is particularly sad that he lost his home because he had just gotten married last December, so he was just getting started. (Plus, I keep thinking about how much it sucks to lose all of those very helpful wedding gifts, etc.)

How have your own family members fared?

Very well, but still going through the shock and the fear of the constant replicas, and the profound sadness of their many friends and acquaintances who either lost their homes, their lives, or the lives of their young children. But it is true that what doesn’t break you makes you stronger. I am so proud of the Chilean people, we are truly made of steel, and we still have the very old school value of solidarity. We are a famously poor nation (no matter what you hear on TV) with a very sneaky streak. You might have heard about all the looting that was going on within 10 hours of the quake? People panic and take advantage of the situation; they were even stealing flat screen TV’s! But also last Friday, when we had a national Telethon, not only did they double of their monetary goal, but a huge number of looters started returning the stolen goods… I mean, that is Gabriel García-Marquez kind of stuff! Only in Chile.

Chile just inaugurated a new president, Sebastian Piñera. Not exactly a “soft opening” for his presidency! Do you think he’s got what it takes to manage this crisis and get the country back on its feet?

Absolutely. He is a center-right politician and also one of the most aggressive impresarios the country has ever seen. If there is a spirit of entrepreneurship, he is one of the people who best embodies it, for better and for worse. Crisis is never a good time to play politics, but if I were to point anything out, it would be that he called immediately that Saturday morning to President Michelle Bachelet to take the Armed Forces on the street to maintain civil order. It took her 48 hours to make that decision instead, and the military only arrived in small numbers on Sunday night. We all suffered the consequences of that delay. She was probably trying to be wise, since Chile has such a painful history with the military, but she had no political risk in making this decision, being a socialist president who was one her way out, the daughter of an ex-tortured military man, and the Secretary of Defense, herself, for a whole term. Piñera and Bachelet both showed their character with these gestures. It is my suspicion and my hope that the new president is the kind that will think with efficiency and the reconstruction of the people and the economy in mind, above politics (if not beyond).

So, how can our readers help you help your friends in Chile?

People can donate online through PayPal (by clicking HERE) or by joining my Facebook group called: “CHILE: help me raise funds for my homeless friends after the earthquake.” They may also contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it about sending a check. If they would rather give an institutional donation, please support http://www.untechoparachile.cl/. It is a very efficient and legitimate organization that has been around for years in Chile fighting poverty. They are building houses for the hundreds of thousands of homeless right now. I just chose to help directly the ones I know.

Editor’s Note: Kim Cech of Yoga Chandra has also generously offered to donate the proceeds of her March 20^th event, Awaken!, to Josefina’s cause. For more information about that event, go here.

Photographs of Talca, Chile by Hector Labarca Rocco

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On Fame and Fortune (and everything that goes with it…)

Rants & Raves

Be it ever so humble, this job has its perks.

Last week, by virtue of my media status, I got to hobnob with up-and-coming indie filmmakers, bona fide Hollywood movie stars, a world famous author, and a bunch of other cool people during the Beaufort International Film Festival – better known by the jaunty name BIFF. Though I didn’t get to see as many films as I wanted to, I did manage to plow through a marathon of cocktail parties like some crazed college coed on Spring Break. It was a whirl of a weekend for a girl like me who doesn’t get out much, and while I was dazzled, I was also a little dazed. When it was all over, I felt like Cinderella after the ball – grateful, a bit wistful, but really glad to be out of my glass slippers.

Glamour is great fun in small doses, isn’t it? But it’s an illusion… a mirage. Try to grab it – to hold it – and it evaporates. Art… friendship… community – these things are real. These things last. And nobody knows it better than the trio of “glamorous celebrities” who graced our environs last weekend – Michael O’Keefe, Blythe Danner, and Pat Conroy – all of whom took part in BIFF not for the glam factor (Sundance, it ain’t), but for their love of art, their love of each other, and their love of this town we’re all lucky to call home.

You know that delicious little thrill you get when you spot a celebrity… the one that never goes away, no matter how old and jaded and sensible you’ve become? I felt it, big time, when I first laid eyes on Blythe Danner at the opening reception last week. There’s this funny, familiar moment of recognition when you think, “Wow! She looks just like herself… but a real person.” It’s somehow shocking and reassuring all at the same time. We want our movie stars larger than life – but not – and Ms. Danner complied perfectly.

I had the happy privilege of chatting with her briefly – thanks to our mutual friend Frances Brewer, who’s remained close to the actress ever since they became pals during the filming of Santini – and she was just as genuine and lovely as she seems on screen. I introduced her to “Mark Shaffer, our Features Editor” and she graciously took his hand, replying, “Oh, a Future Senator!” (It was a noisy party.) I cleared up the misunderstanding and she quipped, “A friend of mine always says, ‘Some people speak in tongues; Blythe hears in them.’” See? Lovely. I didn’t spend much time talking to Michael O’Keefe – though our “Future Senator” did, and you can read his interview on page 10 – but he, too, was very approachable and gentle of spirit. Maybe a little shy? As for Pat Conroy… well, many of you already know our hometown celebrity, and know that he’s as real as it gets. Warm, funny, sometimes brutally honest. A big personality, yes, but never anything less than authentic.

I remember saying to Mayor Billy at the opening reception, “This is so great. Who knew famous people could be so real?” He replied, “These aren’t real famous people. They’re real people who just happen to be famous.”

I thought about that remark all weekend as I mingled at BIFF functions. Friday night we attended a fancy party at Tidalholm, aka The Big Chill House, aka The Great Santini House. Danner, O’Keefe and Conroy were the guests of honor, and I figured there would be local celebs there as well. This kind of event always inspires in me equal parts excitement and anxiety. What should I wear? Will I know anybody there? Will anyone talk to me? Can I hold my own with the ‘beautiful people’? How will I embarrass myself this time – wine down the dress or foot in the mouth?

As my husband and I walked toward the gorgeous old house – I in my hand-me-down, dress-me-up clothes, clutching Jeff for moral support – I remembered Mayor Billy’s comment: They’re real people who just happen to be famous. I took a deep breath and decided to keep those words in mind as the night unfolded. I don’t think Billy meant to apply them universally – to all famous people, that is – but that’s what I decided to do.

And Tidalholm was, indeed, teeming with “famous people” – by Beaufort standards, anyway. There were state and local politicians, business tycoons, well-known academics, artists, theologians and socialites… I met Jenny Sanford’s sister and Bishop Alden Hathaway’s son, chatted with B3C historian John McCardell – who also happens to be the new Vice Chancellor of Sewanee – and caught up with writer Bernie Schein. Senator Tom Davis was there and so was State Rep. Shannon Erickson, along with Carlotta Ungaro, director of the Beaufort Chamber. USCB theatre guru Bonnie Hargrove was on the scene, as was our governor’s sister, Sarah Sanford Rauch. Comedy writers Terry Sweeney and Lanier Laney (Lowcountry Weekly’s own Happy Winos) were in their element, co-hosting the shindig with Caroline Hoogenboom.

As I made my way through this crowd of interesting, attractive, accomplished people – not to mention the aforementioned guests of honor – I began to relax a little… my butterflies began to subside. The wine helped, but not as much as the dawning realization that many of these luminaries were my friends, folks I know in “real life.” Many of them live out their days, to some extent, in the public eye – they each have a public “image” – but that image is a mere chimera, no more substantial nor definitive than the one I had of Blythe Danner based on a few movies. Or even the one you might have of me based on a few columns.

Ironically, many of those whom we treat as idols – setting them up like alabaster figures on some ridiculously high pedestal from which we, perversely, also enjoy knocking them – are those who have shown us their truest selves, who have “kept it real,” urging us to look beneath the surface of this image-obsessed world we inhabit so much of the time. We ache for genuine human connection in this superficial age, and when we find it in art – in word or music or on screen – we repay the artists by dehumanizing them… or super-humanizing them… or something. We reward them by making them “celebrities” and treating them as something… other. We forget why we loved them in the first place: Because they were so much like us.

The BIFF weekend culminated in an Awards Ceremony unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed here in Beaufort, where I’ve lived for almost 20 years. It was wonderfully moving to watch the independent filmmakers receive their awards; everyone longs for affirmation of his work and vision. But I couldn’t help wondering how much affirmation is too much. I saw O’Keefe, Danner and Conroy in the audience, and I knew that each of them must envy, in some small way, these fledgling artists still laboring in obscurity. Still able to walk around unrecognized… still free of any image to uphold or dispel.

Later, we watched some extraordinary clips from films based on Conroy’s novels. There was Michael O’Keefe as a very young man, slowly falling apart beside the Beaufort River, before the rage of Robert Duvall’s Bull Meechum in The Great Santini. There was Blythe Danner on the beach at Fripp, with her swimming-pool eyes, pleading for her husband’s love in The Prince of Tides. There was Nick Nolte, in the same movie, driving over that Lowcountry marsh, to that exquisite music, and that unforgettable narration: “But it’s the mystery of life that sustains me now…”

Oh, how I wept watching those clips. And how I continued to weep when my friend – my friend – the great American writer Pat Conroy stood up and spoke about his friends Michael O’Keefe and Blythe Danner. There was so much love in that auditorium, and it was all focused on Conroy, but he was giving as good as he got. “Blythe, you are the movie star of my lifetime,” he said. And, “Michael O’Keefe, you played me better than I ever played myself.” And when he spoke about Beaufort, about how he’d chosen it as his hometown at age 15 – “and it chose me right back” – I doubt there was a dry eye in the room.

Some people share with us such honesty, such vulnerability, such pain, such beauty… we don’t know what else to do but go and make them celebrities. And that can spoil things a little – for us and for them. But this night was different. This was not a night about Famous People. This was a night about real people – some of whom just happen to be famous. And it lifted us all. Because we need each other.

As another celebrity with a Beaufort connection once sang, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

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Holding Out for A Hero

Rants & Raves

With the Beaufort International Film Festival in town this weekend, I have another excuse – as if I needed one! – to write about the movies. To read about the festival itself, along with some interesting reportage on the state of the South Carolina film industry, hop on over to Mark Shaffer’s excellent article on page 20. For something far less objective, informative or relevant… stay right where you are.

Am I just imagining things (highly possible), or are there some intriguing new trends emerging at the cineplex? Every movie I’ve seen lately – no matter what kind of movie – has been preceded by a series of trailers for upcoming fantasy-style epics. Percy Jackson and the Olympians… The Prince of Persia… Clash of the Titans… These previews are all dazzling – lots of men in skirts, women bursting their corsets, flashy sword fights, etc – but all so similar that they’re starting to mix and merge in my head. Is Percy Jackson from Persia? Is it the Titans who clash, or the Olympians? And which movie has that cute Jake Gyllenhaal rocking the long hair? It’s so confusing. I feel like I’m watching Lord of the Rings again for the first time, trying frantically to grasp the difference between Sauron and Saruman, Boromir and Faramir…

At the movies last weekend, amidst several of these sweeping, swashbuckling, bodice-ripping featurettes, a preview appeared for Valentine’s Day – a quirky, talky little film about relationships – and it just seemed… wrong. Out of touch. Passe. This does not bode well for Woody Allen’s immediate future.

But neither does the other major trend: the apocalyptic (and post-apocalyptic) movie. In the last couple of months, 2012, The Road, Legion, and The Book of Eli have all come to a theater near you. (Correction: The Road, despite strong reviews and lots of interest, seems mysteriously destined to linger in “limited release” for eternity.) Though their visions vary widely, these movies all revolve around The End of The World As We Know It – or its aftermath. There is, of course, a long tradition of tackling this topic on film… but four major motion pictures? In two months?

What is going on here?

Determined to know, I made a pilgrimage to the seat of all wisdom – the chair at my computer – and consulted The Mighty Google. Surprisingly, nobody seems to be focusing on the fantasy-epic trend yet (you heard it here first, folks!), but a number of critics have remarked on filmdom’s renewed interest in the End Times.

In an article for The Guardian, Englishman Paul Harris says this obsession with the apocalypse is an American thing: “In modern evangelical Christianity in America, a belief in the imminent second coming and the triggering of a world-ending judgment day is widespread. But there is also another long (and lucrative) tradition in US popular culture, especially in Hollywood: a simple joy in watching things blow up.”

Jesus and Explosions. Our friend across the pond knows us well. But he still doesn’t answer the questions: Why so many of these films? And why now?

Jamsheed Akrami, a film professor at William Paterson University, sheds more light, in the same article: "We live in angst-ridden times, and so the appeal of these movies is further amplified. Most of us seem to seek mental relief by drowning ourselves in a sea of doom and gloom for a couple of hours. The experience can be some sort of catharsis."

Let me see if I’m getting this: We’re stressed out over the dreadful economy, ongoing wars in the Middle East, and unstoppable climate change… so we pay good money to immerse ourselves in a barren, nuked-out wasteland of violent nihilists and roaming cannibals… for “mental relief”? Whatever happened to making some popcorn and hunkering down in your pajamas with The Sound of Music? I’m just askin’…

Actually, I think this guy Akrami is onto something. I think we do enjoy – if that’s the right word – losing ourselves temporarily in a reality much worse than our own. Because it makes ours look better by comparison? Maybe. But I think it’s more than that right now. I think Hollywood’s making these deep, dark movies – and we’re flocking to them – because we’re searching for some serious light at this moment in history… and we know, intuitively, where it shines brightest. We’re willing, even eager, to wade through the ashes because it’s there that we might see the phoenix rise.

Sure, it’s fun watching Jennifer Aniston lose her cute boyfriend, kvetch to her clever, ironic girlfriends, go on some bad dates, then finally meet Mr. Right, all while enjoying fabulous hair. I grew up on those movies. I like those movies. Heck, I’ve lived those movies (except for the fabulous hair). But that story’s kind of small potatoes for our current age, isn’t it? These are harrowing times, and we’re looking for movies that reflect that. Darker threats. Higher stakes. Bigger pay-offs. We want more than just a shot of adrenaline, a good cry, or a quick laugh. We want redemption! We want to go to hell and back, baby! And we’d like the directions spelled out for us, plain and simple.

Take, for example, our collective love affair with Avatar. Even the most sophisticated cinephiles I know have been willing – nay, almost eager – to overlook the trite dialogue, one-note characters and childish political stereotypes in this movie, embracing it with unreserved enthusiasm. It’s as if we’re all starving for a basic, primal tale of Right vs. Wrong, Good vs. Evil, Heroes vs. Villains… and James Cameron has given us just that in a ravishing, three-dimensional, technicolor dreamscape. The “black & white” nature of the plot and its characters is not only forgivable, it’s almost refreshing in this day of situational ethics, parsed language and endless spin.

And that, I think, is the point. It seems to me that our aforementioned “angst” stems not so much from our exterior circumstances (economy, wars, global warming, etc), as from our ambivalence about how we should respond to them… and, more important, our lack of trust in those to whom we look for information and guidance. In an age when our public servants and media figures almost all specialize in partisan persuasion and bureaucratic doubletalk – when “the truth” changes from one news channel to the next – maybe we’re just desperate for an honest, plain-spoken Good Guy who says what he means… and doesn’t hesitate to kick some Bad Guy butt. At a time when our elected representatives seem bogged down with the small and the petty, maybe we’re looking to our moviemakers – our modern day storytellers – to convince us that humanity is still a fine and luminous thing – that honor and courage, honesty and integrity, justice and mercy still matter.

Which brings me, however round-aboutly, back to where I started: the triumphant return of the fantasy epic. I’m all for it! As much as I love a good suspense thriller, a romantic comedy, a dramatic tear-jerker… I think what we need most right now is a seriously magnificent, drop-dead gorgeous, faithful and true and noble-as-the-day-is-long, genuine hero.

I just hope Jake Gyllenhaal can pull it off.

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