A Look at Leo

Leo McKern, best known for playing Horace Rumpole, was the author of a memoir, Just Resting (1983). I'd long wanted to read it, as I am a fan not just of McKern's portrayal of Rumpole, but his work in A Man for All Seasons, The Prisoner, and his superb Gloucester in Laurence Olivier's Lear. In all his acting, I sensed a nuanced intelligence, and an emotional depth held in check, that hinted something about the private man that I found intriguing. And, to be frank, I was curious about the backstage view, especially, but not only, of the Rumpole teleplays.

Recently, I found a copy of McKern's memoir, and it's a fascinating read, though not what I expected. McKern was not that interested in backstage gossip, and considered Rumpole to be a piece, and not the largest, of his career (he was known as a distinguished interpreter of Ibsen's plays, and valued that reputation). What I did find, though, was a writer of surprising sensitivity, with an enjoyably literary style, and with a wry sense of humor.

I'm only partway through the memoir, but two passages struck me. The first is a sonnet McKern wrote, which he uses as the book's epigraph:

Actor's Birthday

Another onion-skin, another year
Is Gynt-like thinly stripped and drops behind;
The cues for laughter difficult to hear
And reasons for excitement hard to find.

The thicker make-up in the mirror's heart
Hides deeper now the frantic youth within
Who impotently watches every part
Grow duller, greyer, weaker, paler, thin.

Bitter, that while time perfects the skill,
Supplies at last all motives and intents,
The gifts of age that complement the will
Sharpen the craft, but dull the instruments.

A juvenile; his rusting, certain cage
An old fat actor exiting downstage.

L. McK.

I have to say, I rather like that.

I also rather like McKern's sense of justice; he tells a story that illuminates, better than I have ever been able to explain, why I have never been able to enjoy gambling, eve when I win:

I remember a poker game with some of the all-male cast of a war film, one of a continuous series of games that took place during the inevitable waiting periods between set-ups. The star of the film was a winner, which I am not, and though this is a possible shortcoming in me, I think it depends on where you want to go. He would use the weight of his money in these otherwise friendly games to block out players who may have had better hands, but not the riskable money to bank them. During this particular game, I was dealt, and sat on, the 7, 8 10, and Jack of Clubs, discarding and buying one card. I would have been very lucky to have drawn another club, but for the first time in my life, I drew the 9 to make a routine flush. Bidding began and rose until only the "winner" and I were left. He had bought two cards, and a good hand was indicated by the possibility of three of a kind. He drew in fact a pair of Queens, and had a full hand, aces high, and with this ammunition pushed hard at the bidding to make the biggest killing he could.

The pot reached about L 90.

I knew that my hand was unbeatable. I knew that high bidding would not win him this hand. He simply could not win. And that was unfair.

So I called. And that, I suppose, makes me a loser.

Not to me. I get it.

Here's Leo McKern, as Rumpole, reciting William Wordsworth:

Biden for the Win.

I don't have a lot to say about the debate, other than to agree with Andrew Sullivan:

I have to say that Biden did to Ryan what Cheney did to Edwards in style and demeanor and authoritah. Ryan was hampered by an insurmountable problem on the impossible mathematics of the Romney budget. I think his inability to answer that question - how do you pay for it? - has to be the driving question now. The only way to afford it is to cut middle class deductions and middle class entitlements much more than Obama-Biden would. I'd love radical tax reform - but I'm not crazy enough to believe you can actually tackle the debt by cutting taxes and increasing defense spending and leaving Medicare basically alone (no ACA-style cost-controls) and only removing deductions for the very rich. It doesn't add up. They know it. And when challenged - even by Fox News - he cannot provide the details.

Also, this is seriously good:



Ryan came off like a neophyte, spouting abstractions, while Biden brought the attack home. Good job, Joey the B.

Grumping from Beyond the Grave

You have almost certainly never heard of Mark Pattison (1813-1884), and who can blame you? Hardly a household name, frankly. He was, possibly, a model for Paul Jago in The Masters, not in his character or personal life, but in having been thwarted in a seemingly sure election as Master of his College. Pattison is also thought to have been the original for Mr. Casaubon in Middlemarch, an identification which has been disputed as unfair to Pattison. (Not improbable, though; Pattison was thought of as dour, liberal, dull and principled, married a much younger wife, herself a talented writer, and he wrote a biography of--wait for it--Isaac Casaubon.)

I ran across a copy of Pattison's Memoirs (1885), and picked it up. I'm glad to report that Pattison is extremely interesting in several ways. An academic with a genuine reverence for teaching, an Anglican clergyman who lost his faith in God and the Church, but never in learning, he is almost Soames Forsyte-like in his self-consciousness and inability to express emotion in person. I have never read a more vivid depiction of youthful gaucherie than Pattison's portrait of himself at 18--I winced with identification, although 150 years separated my youth from his. His first hand observations of the Tractarians--whom he didn't like much, but toward whom he is pretty fair--are worth the price of admission alone.

As to his depiction of University and Church politics--Susan Howatch's description of the "cut-and-thrust battles"and "sheer Machiavellian skulduggery" of the Church of England has nothing on Pattison.

A surprisingly lively, tender, sometimes bitter, work, lit throughout by the love of learning. Pattison has nothing as eloquent as T.H. White's Merlyn on learning, but I think he would endorse, if not applaud it:

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake in the middle of the night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting."

"You're all flops. I am the Earth Mother, and you are all flops"

Many years ago, when the world was young, and I was in college, I became the third president of a (revived) experimental theater group, and found myself in the remarkable position of having a small budget and the opportunity to direct a play of my choosing. I picked Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which I thought then was one of the best American plays. Period. I still do.

On Friday, October 5, I got to see the Steppenwolf production, scheduled to open on October 13.

The play is beautiful--a tough-minded, production which pulls no punches, with the caustic humor, casual cruelty, and rising tension that I experienced when I first read the script in Modern American Drama, as taught by John V. Antush.

Amy Morton does the near-impossible with Martha--she brays, she's loud, abrasive, bullying, yes, but the vulnerability, the hurt, the self loathing and love for her husband buried so deeply within her are as real, and as believable, as is the over-the-top virago. It's an extraordinary performance of a character that can come off all too easily as cliche (it never was, but has been imitated enough to be perceived as such) or as too written. Morton lives the character.

George as portrayed by Tracy Letts has reserves of strengths buried deep behind the exhaustion, the self-pity and the anger without an outlet. He's just great. (In an interesting choice, his final words to Nick do not contain the softening, the hint of forgiveness, I've seen in other performances. This George is tougher and harder at the core than others. It brings into relief the depth of his commitment to Martha, and her own perceptiveness in noting the self-hatred which they share, and which holds him to her as much as any other emotion.)

Even Nick and Honey, who often fade into the background, are given stunning, pulsing life by Madison Dirks and Carrie Coon. Ms. Coon turns Honey, often one of the most thankless roles in theater into a (minor) games-player herself, someone who is not entirely unaware of the power she wields over Nick--not in his league as a manipulator, and more innocent than his pilot fish, let alone the two senior sharks in the water with her, but not as helpless as all that.

It's an extraordinary night of theater, well worth your time.

Here are two appetizers:



and



(My production? Oh, never opened, I'm afraid. The rights fell through, and the whole thing had to be scrapped. But, oh, what a pleasure it was to work with the fine young actors who were willing to go there with me, and how very good they were. We found another project to do that year, and, despite the disappointment, the still-nascent group survived my failure to pull off the show. Now go see the real thing, willya?)

Debate Talk, Reel to Real

Now, I've been holding my peace about the first presidential debate, largely because I didn't want to be having a Sully-style meltdown in real time. So undignified.

Many Obama supporters are trying to deny that the debate was as strong a showing for Romney as it in fact was. That dog won't hunt, I'm afraid. Romney was smooth, seemingly human (did someone install an emotion chip?) and aggressive. He flouted the rules, didn't answer the questions and steam-rollered the moderator. All of which is, of course, wrong. It's also winning television. Obama by contrast looked like he wanted to take a good nap. He may have been startled by Romney's willingness to lie about his own proposals, as well as everything else under the sun. But frankly, that's no excuse. This is Romney we're talking about, after all.

Result: a not insignificant swing in favor of Romney that might not yet have bottomed out. Not panic time for us supporters of the President, but not good news, by any stretch.

But this is not, as the West Wing was often for me in the Bush years, analgesic. Bartlet re-prepping Obama makes for good reading, but points out also how the President can within his own personal style, rebuke the more aggressive Romney. For example:

BARTLET “I want to take that $716 billion you’ve cut and put it back into Medicare.”

OBAMA The $716 billion I’ve cut is from the providers, not the beneficiaries. I think that’s a better idea than cutting the exact same $716 billion and replacing it with a gift certificate, which is what’s contained in the plan that’s named for your running mate.

BARTLET “Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.”

OBAMA Not unless you’ve come up with a new plan since this afternoon.

BARTLET “You doubled the deficit.”

OBAMA When I took office in 2009, the deficit was 1.4 trillion. According to the C.B.O., the deficit for 2012 will be 1.1 trillion. Either you have the mathematics aptitude of a Shetland pony or, much more likely, you’re lying.

BARTLET “All of the increase in natural gas has happened on private land, not on government land. On government land, your administration has cut the number of permits and licenses in half.”

OBAMA Maybe your difficulty is with the words “half” and “double.” Oil production on federal land is higher, not lower. And the oil and gas industry are currently sitting on 7,000 approved permits to drill on government land that they’ve not yet begun developing.

BARTLET “I think about half the green firms you’ve invested in have gone out of business.”

OBAMA Yeah, your problem’s definitely with the word “half.” As of this moment there have been 26 recipients of loan guarantees — 23 of which are very much in business. What was Bain’s bankruptcy record again?

BARTLET And finally?

OBAMA Governor, if your ideas are the right ideas for our country, if you have a plan and it’s the best plan for our future, if your vision is the best vision for all of us and not 53 percent of us, why aren’t you able to make that case in the same ZIP code as the truth?

It's damn good advice for the President, as well as good fun for the reader. President Obama needs to show that he has the fire to take on Romney, and he needs to, as his fictional predecessor points out, not let Romney get away with his lies about the effect of Romney's policies.

I don't think it's panic time yet, folks. As the reel-life president counsels the real-life President:

BARTLET You picked a bad night to have a bad night, that’s all. You’ve got two more chances to change the scoreboard, and Joe unplugged should be pretty good television too. Make Romney your cabana boy in New York.

"One Day I Shall Come Back..."

If you want a good look at the earliest years of Doctor Who, I really must recommend volume 1 of Phillip Sandifer's TARDIS Eruditorum, the book form of his blog, with new essays,and revised throughout.

I'm enjoying Sandifer's analysis, particularly his notion that Ian and Barbara (particularly Barbara) teach the Doctor to become the Doctor--a hero. I also like how he strips away the accretions of the years to try to bring us face to face with the show that aired in 1963-1966, and not to view it down the distorting lens of its history.

Great fun, and well thought out.

Romney-Ryan-Rand 2012

Remember Mitt Romney's now infamous characterization of 47% of Americans "who believe that they are victims"?

Well, his view is a little broader than, but essentially shared by, his running mate, as witness this speech, given on November 1, 2011:



(Via)

Ryan's expressed fear that "[b]efore too long, we could become a society where the net majority of Americans are takers, not makers" is interesting, though, and redolent of his doyenne, Ayn Rand, although she preferred to use the terms "producers" in contrast to "moochers and looters."

Despite his recent efforts to downplay his devotion to Rand's thought, Ryan has said that "[T]he reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand;" he also told the Weekly Standard in 2003 that he gives out copies of Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents.

All of this has been pawed over by the press, of course. But I think it bears emphasis, as both Romney and Ryan have been caught on tape, within the past year, adopting Rand's basic Manichaean world view, and doing so in contexts when they are comfortable and among allies--Romney, especially, is far less stiff than usual in the 47% speech. And, frankly, Rand's philosophy is one that I can only decry as fundamentally evil. Her exaltation of radical individualism and, especially, of what she called The Virtue of Selfishness led her to valorize serial killer and kidnapper William Edward Hickman. (Prescott at the link gives a useful summary, but more well known Rand scholars cover the matter too. )

I do not mean to equate the views of Ryan or Romney with this darkest aspect of Rand's thought. But the appeal of her writing is just that which they have, quite possibly unknowingly, bought into: An inversion of the ethical standards that have formed Western Civilization--casting the common good, shared sacrifice, and exalting instead selfishness, cruelty and greed. She makes it sound so reasonable that sons of privilege--like Ryan and Romney--can believe their suzerainty to be for the best, without realizing the cruelty underneath the philosophy justifying it. Because Rand is good at erecting an argument to justify these basest human drives, claiming that indulging them will make for the best society, one in which the producers--sorry, "job creators" should rule, while the moochers and looters--whether 47%, 30% or another unknown percentage can work as directed by their heroic betters, or be, as Rand put it, treated as "mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?" (We the Living (First Ed.), quoted in The Ideas of Ayn Rand, at 38).