Wilson’s Blues

August Wilson is one of American theater's most operatic playwrights. At a time when brevity is the soul of theater (and a friend to shrinking budgets), his plays routinely run past the 3-hour mark. Seven Guitars, which ends its run this weekend at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, clocks in at 3:10, but you don't want to miss a minute.

Part of Wilson's 10-part Pittsburgh Cycle, which examines the black experience in each decade of the 20th century, Seven Guitars centers on an aspiring bluesman named Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton (the charismatic Dimonte Henning). And there is plenty of soulful blues woven through the story. Floyd's on-and-off bandmates are quick to pick up a harmonica (Vincent Jordan as Canewell) or drumsticks (Bryant Bentley as Red Carter) when Floyd starts playing.

Seven Guitars photos by Michael Brosilow.

But Wilson's dialogue is the true music of Seven Guitars. Canewell, Red Carter and Floyd riff and banter as old friends do. Neighbor Louise (Marsha Estell) slips in verbal rim shots like an expert drummer. Floyd’s wary love interest, Vera (Kierra Bunch) responds to his cocky overtures with soft-spoken grace notes.

All the actors shine here, but Wilson in full rhapsodic flower writing for Floyd and Hedley (Kevin Brown). Floyd of Chicago success, touting a letter he received from a record executive who we know will exploit his talent and pocket the profits. Steeped in folk culture of Haiti, Hedley fantasizes about an African centered Utopia, the 1940s version of Wakanda. Wilson gives them each soaring arias that sing of dreams and struggles of their world.

Fred and Esperanza

A tiny basement club in New York has been the site of dozens of legendary jazz recordings. Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Bill Evans have all been "Live at the Village Vanguard." Now, you can add Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hersch's  "Alive at the Village Vanguard" to the list. Don't overlook the slight of hand in the title: this recording is not merely "Live"; it is truly Alive.

Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding

Spalding, a bass player as well as a vocalist, is typically heard in large ensembles doing original material. In this intimate duo setting, her singing is in the foreground and it is glorious--inventive, funny and soulful. She is a chameleon-like singer--sweet and teasing in the upper range, clarion and sultry in the middle.

And she takes the idea of "improvising" outside its usual limits. She'll scat through the changes, but then slip into some spoken riffs that expand and comment on the song (she turns Bobby Troupe's cliche-ridden "Girl Talk" into a devilish feminist comeuppance). Charlie Parker's instrumental "Little Suede Shoes" becomes an off-hand call to hit the dance floor worthy of Donna Summer.

Hersch is a perfect associate. His playing is often spare and translucent, but even with two players dancing around the rhythm, the beat comes through foot-tapping strong. Without other players to anchor the harmonies, he’s able to roam freely through the songs, creating textures both lush and biting. Look for this record around Grammy nomination time. In the meantime, listen and enjoy.

The Wharton School

I haven't seen Martin Scorcese's adaptation of The Age of Innocence since it was released 30 years ago (yikes!). But what I remember most is the ardor of the romantic leads--Newland Archer (Daniel Day Lewis) and Madame Olenska (Michelle Pfieffer).

Finally reading the novel, I discovered Edith Wharton’s sparkling prose. As you might expect, it is elegant and musical. But it is also chock full of precise renderings of New York fashions of the time, often with a delicious satirical edge. Not to mention some deft and expansive character sketches. Some examples:

Chapter 4 (describing Mrs. Manson Mingott): “The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the center of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation. A flight of smooth double chins led down to the dizzy depths of a still-snowy bosom veiled in snowy muslins that were held in place by a miniature portrait of the late Mr. Mingott; and around and below, wave after wave of black silk surged away over the edges of a capacious armchair, with two tiny white hands poised like gulls on the surface of the billows."

Chapter 17 (describing the circle of Madame Olenska’s bohemian friends): “This lady, who was long, lean and loosely put together, was clad in raiment intricately looped and fringed, with plaids and stripes and bands of plain colour disposed in a design to which the clue seemed missing. Her hair, which had tried to turn white and only succeeded in fading, was surmounted by a Spanish comb and black lace scarf, and silk mittens visibly darned covered her rheumatic hands. . . .

“Beside her, in a cloud of cigar-smoke, stood the owners of the two overcoats, both in morning clothes that they had evidently not taken off since morning. In one of the two Archer, to his surprise, recognised Ned Winsett; the other and older, who was unknown to him, and whose gigantic frame declared him to be the wearer of the "Macfarlane," had a feebly leonine head with crumpled grey hair, and moved his arms with large pawing gestures, as though he were distributing lay blessings to a kneeling multitude. “

Sentence (or two) of the Week

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni writes a weekly newsletter that includes “For the Love of Sentences,” a compendium of notable snippets published in the last week. I don’t have the readership that will fill my inbox with suggestions, but I can offer a few of my own on occasion.

“A thesaurus is for increasing one’s aliveness to words . . . . By going into the buzzing and jostling hive of words around a word, we get a purer sense of the word itself.” James Parker, The Atlantic, July 2022.

A farewell

Our dog, Oliver, died yesterday at the ripe old age of 13. I’ve been thinking a lot about him, of course. But his passing is still a bit raw to share those thoughts now. Instead, here are some thoughts from Gene Weingarten, former Washington Post columnist, that a friend sent to me.

“What dogs do not have is an abstract sense of fear, or a feeling of injustice or entitlement. They do not see themselves, as we do, as tragic heroes, battling ceaselessly against the merciless onslaught of time. Unlike us, old dogs lack the audacity to mythologize their lives. You’ve got to love them for that.

In our dogs, we see ourselves. Dogs exhibit almost all of our emotions; if you think a dog cannot register envy or pity or pride or melancholia, you have never lived with one for any length of time. What dogs lack is our ability to dissimulate. They wear their emotions nakedly, and so, in watching them, we see ourselves as we would be if we were stripped of posture and pretense. Their innocence is enormously appealing. When we watch a dog progress from puppyhood to old age, we are watching our own lives in microcosm. Our dogs become old, frail, crotchety, and vulnerable, just as Grandma did, just as we surely will, come the day. When we grieve for them, we grieve for ourselves.”

Have a good week.