Month: March 2019

We escaped the suburbs recently for a concert by the Du Bois Orchestra:

Founded in 2015, the Du Bois Orchestra offers the opportunity to listen to and perform both the standard and historically neglected repertoire of the classical canon. Inspired by the work of Harvard alumnus and civil rights icon W.E.B. Du Bois, our mission is to raise awareness about issues of social exclusion in classical music. We in the Du Bois community see music-making and listening not only as a means by which to break down aesthetic stereotypes but as a model for constructive societal dialogue. The Du Bois Orchestra engages in community outreach and educational programming.

The concert featured one work by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a composer whose biological father was a physician from Africa and whose mother was an English woman who ultimately married a “railway worker”. It is unclear how he was an example of race-based “social exclusion,” though, since the program notes describe one of the most brilliant musical careers in history. He was admitted to the Royal College of Music at age 15. He become a professor of music, principal conductor of the Handel Society of London, was received at the White House by President Teddy Roosevelt, and enjoyed gushing reviews from critics around the world, e.g., “I have long been looking for a new English composer of real genius and I believe I have found him.” (Auguste J. Jaeger)

The overture to Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (1898) was about 50 years ahead of its time. Coleridge-Taylor would have made good money as a Hollywood composer if he hadn’t died of pneumonia in 1912, aged 37. [The piece is not about a wedding among Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors, but rather is derived from Longfellow’s poem.] Listen to a version on YouTube.

A new piece by Sachiko Murata, Sorrow Songs, was well-received and easy on the ears due to incorporating a lot of folk tunes (not your usual painful dissonant “modern classical” work). She says that she was inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. From the program: “I am from Japan and came to the United States as an immigrant. … Du Bois used his whole life to promote equality and fight against racism. His message is still so strong and appropriate in this time.”

Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet was played. without a disclaimer that one or both principals would be considered criminals in most U.S. states (Juliet was 13-turning-14 and Romeo may also have been under the age of consent).

Thomas Cooper was the soloist for the Chausson Poème, which was beautifully played with perfect intonation and expression.

Apparently contradicting the “social exclusion” hypothesis, the program notes say that Ernest Chausson, who was from a wealthy white family, had a much tougher time with the critics and audiences than did Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. But maybe people today are more racist than folks were circa 1900 when Coleridge-Taylor was most popular? On the third hand, Kanye West does not identify as white (as far as I know) and he has achieved #1 status. So if classical music listeners have become more racist then there is no inconsistency? On the fourth hand, most classical music listeners will soon die of old age, so the problem will resolve itself.

… and their parents too.

Most of the newer Broadway musicals seem to be targeted at 12-year-old girls (e.g., Wicked). In order to guarantee that at least one member of the Greenspun 2019 business trip theater expedition had a good time, I augmented my inner 12-year-old girl with an actual 12-year-old girl (she’ll be 13 soon) for a night at Dear Evan Hansen. We had a tough time getting into the theater because there was a huge herd of 12-year-old girls being ushered in by their adult (female) chaperones. My companion: “This is the hottest show on Broadway right now.”

The material seems to fit the musical format better than most. Most of the show is one-to-one conversation in which it doesn’t seem crazy that one actor would sing to another.

In addition to the challenge of navigating the teenage years, the show dwells on the challenges and limits of parenting, especially of parenting teenagers who are not thriving. Thus, this musical has much broader appeal than the typical new show.

One group that might not love the show is LGBTQIA. “This must be the only new Broadway show without an LGBTQIA theme or character,” I remarked. My companion, a regular at the theater, agreed, but that might be because her LGBTQIA teacher typically chooses LGBTQIA-themed shows for the public middle school crowd. The only reference to LGBTQIA issues is when teenage boys are anxious to avoid being perceived as gay (“that’s how it is in my school, too,” said the 12-year-old next to me).

Stop reading and buy a ticket if you are afraid of spoilers…

The title character is a casualty of the American no-fault divorce revolution. Dad wanted to have sex full-time with a “cocktail waitress,” so he abandoned Mom when Evan was 7 years old. Evan is marooned in an unnamed suburb in an unspecified state while biological dad has moved to Colorado and has two new kids with the new sex partner. It sounds as though Evan hasn’t seen the dad for years. Mom doesn’t seem to be getting any child support cash from dad so she is constantly working as a nurse’s aide and taking classes to become a paralegal. Mom-of-suburban-teenager (Lisa Brescia) is Manhattan/Paris slender with fantastic posture.

[While heroic involuntarily single mom makes for good theater, the father who leaves the wife and kid is a statistical rarity in the U.S. Most commonly it is the mom who wants out and sues the dad (3:1 ratio here in Middlesex County, Massachusetts). Larger statistical studies have shown that in states where a woman can expect to win custody of children and associated lucrative child support, the majority of divorces and divorce lawsuits are initiated by women. Also, Wife #1 has first claim on the man’s income in nearly all U.S. states, so it doesn’t make real world sense for Evan’s mom to be financially struggling if this guy has enough money to support the cocktail waitress and two new kids.]

Perhaps as a consequence of being fatherless, Evan (25-year-old Michael Lee Brown on the Tuesday night that we attended; usually a 16-year-old(!) plays the role) is a psychological wreck and his therapist instructs him to write letters to himself, staring with “Dear Evan Hansen.” An even more distressed teenager at the school (Alex Boniello as Connor) grabs one of these notes out of the printer and commits suicide with the letter in his pocket. The parents assume that these are their son’s final words and that Evan Hansen and Connor were close friends. Evan is in love with Connor’s sister so he is anxious to insinuate himself in this grieving family’s life. A web of lies ensues. This is probably the funniest show about suicide ever created.

The family devastated by suicide was an intact 1950s-style family in which the lawyer dad wears a suit and tie to work every day and mom doesn’t work. Dad (Michael Park, a lot more slender than the law partners I meet with in conference rooms!) has no function with the kids other than to pay the bills. He was not sensitive or sympathetic to his son’s troubles. The mom (Jennifer Laura Thompson) was heavily invested in her son and infinitely forgiving, but she couldn’t reach him either. The teenage daughter (Mallory Bechtel) is the only one who could see her brother rationally.

One funny part of the musical that we experienced is that a Jewish teenager, originally played by a white actor, is now played by a non-white actor (during the performance we watched: Roman Banks, who was fantastic). So we saw an African-American youth talk about his Bar Mitzvah, etc. (Of course, in real life a black convert to or adoptee into Judaism would be most welcome, but the situation is unusual enough to entertain the audience.)

I like works that don’t take the easy way out and Dear Evan Hansen is one of them. Nobody does anything that is radically implausible. There is not a neat happy ending. (See also The Weather Man.) As a provincial, I was awed as usual by the depth of talent in Manhattan, including the orchestra.

Final verdict from the local 12-year-old critic: “This is my favorite show so far, except for Hamilton because it’s Hamilton.”

(I said that I would see Hamilton when it could be accomplished for $15 or less at the movie theater. This prompted my retired fund manager friend to respond that he was waiting for it to be available for free on a Chinese file-sharing site.)