Laurel Massé

Last night I dreamed of Elvis

I am on a film set, working; there is a catering tent (like Harrod's Food Hall, but smaller) where the tea is plentiful and good. There is also a Cathedral set, and an airstrip. A small turbo-prop lands, a little stairway is wheeled to the door, and out comes Elvis, who sees me, and turns to English actor Bernard Hill. "Look! There's Laurel!", he says, and they smile big bright sunrise smiles, and come down the stairs.

Elvis looks great. He is older, of course, as he should be, and a little stout, but healthy and happy, and full of life and laughter. We've been friends ever since Bernard first introduced us.

Now, my babysitters were Elvis fans. I was a little too young, and then my family moved across the Atlantic to Solihull, England, and it wasn't until the Beatles were on the telly there in 1962 that pop music came into my life. I've dreamed of Paul McCartney many times over the decades since then, but this is Elvis' first appearance. What a great guy he turns out to be!

 

On set with director Cornelia Moore (wearing headset)

And how interesting it is that we are neither in a recording studio, nor on a concert stage, but on a movie set. A concert takes an evening, a recording, a few weeks or maybe months (for most artists), but movies are long projects. They take time, and require a vast number of people to work at a vast number of specialized tasks, some seen, some only felt. But everyone focuses on a common goal, everyone serves a vision.

 

While with the Transfer, I did a lot of TV, but I've only been on one film set as a performer (rather than a visitor), and only for a day. Cornelia Moore, director of Camilla Dickinson (a screen adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel, Camilla), called me to be a nightclub singer in a scene, and so off I flew to Spokane, WA, for a day of location shooting. As soon as I arrived on set, I felt that "thing", that magic, in cast and crew. Shared purpose, connection, speaking a common language - it was in the air. And at the end of that one day, when I heard "that's a wrap for Laurel Massé", I was knocked over by a wave of sadness. Time to go? Already? Oh. I wanted to stay, to be part of the story, because of that "thing".

I am a sucker for that thing. It is what I loved about doing King Lear with Project Rushmore Theatre Company. It's what I love about Ashokan, and why I would often rather see a band in rehearsal than in performance. It's the shared purpose, the collaboration; it's a participation in the Beloved Community, and it's the story we tell. 

Here's an image that gives the sense of what I am talking about. It's The Quilting Bee, by Grandma Moses. In this painting, every stitch is a story. Elvis has not yet arrived...

 

And here is a link to an article about Cornelia, in which she talks about her film, her writing, and her godmother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swordswoman

                       Rey Alabastro Photography

This is Samantha Catto-Mott, aka Samantha Swords, Champion of Longsword, Harcourt Park International Jousting Tournament, 2013.

If, like me, you looked at this picture and your heart leaped, hail sister! If you are thinking, "oh, playacting", or just wondering what this is all about, let me recommend the documentary Reclaiming the Blade, which is about retrieving the lost traditions of Western martial arts.

I offer my congratulations to Samantha, and a tip of the hat to fight choreographer Normand Beauregard, whose Swashbucking 101 class was a brightness in the gloomy sky of my time in New York city in the 80s. And a deep, deep reverence to legendary sword master Ralph Faulkner, with whom I had a few lessons in the late 1970s in Hollywood, without quite realizing how very lucky I was to do so. "Ah. Left-handed," he said. "That can be an advantage. Take this sword."

Summer, sweet summerrrrrr...

Writer Henry James said the two most beausiful words in the English language are summer afternoon, and lovely they are, evocative, leaves rustling in a soft breeze.

But I am partial to James Joyce's riverrun, all vowels and voiced consonants. In fact, river is one of my favorite words to sing, along with forever. Why? Because, blithely ignoring conventional choral tradition, I think R's are beautiful in the mouth.

And why is that? Because I had the very good fortune to attend Fred Waring's Youth Choral Workshop one summer, when I was fourteen. There, I was taught how to pronounce words naturally and clearly, so that the audience could understand them. I've used what I learned there in every line I've ever sung.

I balk when choir directors tell their singers to drop the final r - in "father", for instance - because "it's an ugly sound" - insisting it's better to sing "fawthuh", because a musical tradition born in England in the 1600s should sound English. I'll do it, because the director is the director. But I don't mean it.

In fact, research suggests that the English we hear today on the BBC is quite different from that of the 17th century. I have heard Shakespearean verse spoken in a way that is closer to how it would have been spoken when new, and let me tell you, it is o'erbrimming with Rs. Big, rich, juicy Rs. Fat, piratical Rs. And they sound delicious, and quite like some of our American regional Rs.

This, and other differences between the English accents in the Renaissance and today's received pronunciation, reveal rhymes that have been lost. Loved and moved and proved used to rhyme. So, when Willie (I call him that because I love him sooooooo much that he makes me howl like a wolf) used some combination of love/move or love/prove as the final rhymes in Sonnets 25, 32, and (most famously) 116, he hadn't suddenly decided, "oh to heck with it, close enough!" They did rhyme. Then.

In Sonnet 61, he juxtaposes -where and near. In 66, gone and alone. So these words, too, may once have rhymed.

Why does this matter so much to me? Two reasons. FIrst, because there is no point to put on, for the sake of "tradition", the fake English accents I hear in some choirs, especially in the Episcopal Church, if the tradition isn't accurate. Second, rhyme scheme is part of how I remember a lyric (the overall story of the song being the other part. That will be another post). I am accutely aware of a missing rhyme where there should have been one. If, when I'm grabbing a Johnny Mercer lyric off the internet, the established rhyme pattern suddenly disappears for a line, for no reason, and then returns, something's wrong.

I wanted to post a YouTube clip that illustrates what I am talking about, but an evil cabal of choir directors is interfering with my internet connection today, and my eight-year-old laptop has jettisoned its Flash drive in its confused dotage. I therefore can't watch video clips any more, and am flying blind on this. But here are two links that should take you there...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt7OynPUIY8

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s&feature=related

If they don't work, let me know. If they fail, go to YouTube and look for ... oh, try Shakespeare authentic pronunciation.

Bird on a wire

A few mornings after I returned from this year's wonderful session of The International Cabaret Conference at Yale, I had a little dizzy spell. Walking down a narrow hallway, I bounced off the walls a bit, like a pinball. Nothing serious. But when I opened my eyes the following morning and started to sit up in bed, the room took a sickening lurch. It was a brief sensation, very uncomfortable, but familiar. Years ago, shortly after I moved from Chicago to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate NY, I experienced a long siege of bronchial infections. When I had to fly back to Chicago several days before a series of engagements, I was still husky-voiced and very tired, but I knew I could do the gigs. My wonderful voice teacher has instilled technique that usually carries me through such things. If I can stand, I can sing.

A few days before the opening night, I had a brief, odd sensation of dizziness. It passed. A couple of days later, when I turned my head on waking, and tried to rise, I was violently nauseated. The room rocked. The only thing that gave any relief was to be utterly still, with my eyes partly closed. I felt even worse the next day. Every time I moved my head, I had to vomit. I tried to shower and wash my hair to get ready for the gig. I couldn't stand, so I crawled from the bathroom to the room I was sleeping in, and, lying on the floor, began putting on my makeup. It just slid down my cold perspiring face.  My accompanist, Dean, knocked on the door, and took a look.

"Laurel," he said, "no one's going to pay money to see this. You have to cancel."

I did. The cancellation cost me about $1500. But with the help of a phone consultation with an ear, nose and throat doctor who prescribed an anti-nausea drug, I was at least able to fulfill the latter half of the engagement. But the doc didn't tell me what I might have, and not knowing was frightening.

It was not until I returned to the mountains that a PA (physician's assistant) in the local health clinic told me what was going on.

"You have a textbook case of labyrinthitis," he said. "Probably a secondary infection resulting from your long bronchial crud." He gave me Antivert to counteract the vertigo, and told me to get some rest, so that time could heal me. Which, eventually, it did. He also suggested I stay out of smoke-filled rooms, but as that was almost a synonym for jazz clubs, I didn't have a way of doing it.

That was probably in 1989 or '90, a long time ago in human years. Three dogs and a cat ago. A divorce ago. Fourteen house moves ago. Several hairdos. A lot of anti-smoking legislation (which saved my career). A lot of books read, a lot of water flowing under the bridge. Yet this past summer, when I tilted into the wall, I remembered.

I'd had bronchitis earlier in the season, which I could have picked up anywhere. I had just about recovered when I left for Yale. The schedule of the Cabaret program is very full, and the air in the dorm this year was damp and silted with construction dust. When I returned home and started reeling like a drunken ballerina, I cancelled everything, and went straight to bed for a week.

Because I did, the labyrinthitis was not as bad this time. I was up again far sooner, though I could not look down without feeling nauseated. I developed a very erect carriage, sailing through rooms like a tall ship, and if I dropped something, it pretty much stayed dropped. Sang some gigs, did some recording, was in a play, all without looking down.

The doc I saw this time told me that, although they know what labyrinthitis is - an inflammation in the the labyrinth, the part of the inner ear that control's the body's balance - they don't know for sure why it develops, though there seems to be some correlation with bronchial infections, stress, allergies, and head injuries. Nor is there a medication that cures it, other than time. Months, in fact. He prescribed rest and patience, and also suggested I look down from time to time, to help my brain rework the balance issue.

I've been doing that. I am much improved, but I do still have it. When I get very tired, I get dizzy. Not about-to-faint dizzy. It's more like boat-deck dizzy. But this time, I recognize something that was hidden all those years ago.

When I moved from Chicago to the Adirondacks, almost every aspect of my life was assaulted by change. Moving from big city to deep country. From having lots of friends to knowing no one. From a church community I loved to one that made me feel very unwelcome (another time for that story). From trusted musical colleagues to no colleagues at all. From an established local and national career to an empty calendar. From proximity to my family to proximity to my then-husband's family, who were very, very different. Though I had moved all my life, no move was as big a shaking as this one. Looking back, I can connect the dots: I was flung utterly off-balance, and my body didn't know what to do. So it got sick. And what was affected? My ability to communicate (bronchitis) and my equilibrium (labyrinthitis). Perfectly perfect, as my step-niece would say.

Twenty-two years later, this summer, too, has been for me a time of waking up to intense discomfort and rebalancing. What is really important? What do I need to do and to have? Of what can I let go? And this shaking up is not happening just in my heart and home, but in those of many friends and relatives, and of communicators - writers, speakers, artists, people of spirit -  whom I follow but have never met. I think the ground is shaking all over the world, for millions of people. A global shift is taking place, and we are struggling to keep our balance, trying to find our way through a labyrinth we helped create, or allowed to be created, until we realized we'd been trapped. A whole lotta shakin's going on.

 

Medea

A princess, yes, and children, yes, but not in a Disney way...

The performance opens with Hymn to the Muse, an ancient Greek song I recorded in 1999 for my Feather and Bone CD. Though there are older song fragments, this is perhaps the oldest complete piece we have in western musical tradition. I'll be singing it live, and then carrying on as The Nurse (also not in a DIsney way). Bram Lewis has created a powerful adaptation - do come if you can.

Casting Shakespeare's Clarence (Richard III)

It's too darn hot to think and type. But it's never too hot to admire. Here is impressionist Jim Meskimen in what I think is a tour-de-force. His skillful impressions have dazzled me, and his cleverness in deciding who gets which lines is delicious. I wish I could be in Los Angeles to see his whole show. If you are in L.A., do go!

 

Stormy weather

Painting by John William Waterhouse, 1916, Miranda

Project Rushmore Theatre gives a reading tonight of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The storm begins at 7 PM at Roy Arias Studios, 300 W. 43rd, between 8th and 9th Avenues, Floor 5, The Payan Theater.

Cast includes Jill Ahrold, Matthew Amira, Timothy Carter, Christopher Catalano, Brian Cheng, Tre Davis, Jamison Hollister (fiddle), Laura Leopard, Miller Lide, McGhee Monteith, Verna Pierce, Michael Shelle, Branislav Tomich, Vince Trani, and me, with William Bailey directing.

By the way, bring your umbrella. AccuWeather.com predicts a thunderstorm for this evening... around 6 - 7 PM. Just a little opening act rough magic!

 

Beyond borders

 

At the junction of dreaming, myth, and The Little Prince is this brilliant piece, Born Like an Artist, on the Jellyvampire blog. Here is a link to the work.

Thanks to Stephanie, reader of Paul Overton's Every Day is Awesome, for recommending it in her comment there.

Steed and Mrs. Peel

We don't always know where our strongest influences and deepest dreams are sourced. Nor do we know what event might reveal the man - or woman - behind the curtain. I enjoyed, last night, the first good night's sleep since Mrs. Peel (feline) took up residence here, so I can say, with great assurance, that the arrival of a kitten, however small that kitten may be, can qualify as an Event. My memory gates are being pulled open by a little white-tipped paw.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I saw The Avengers when my family was living in Europe, in the 1960s. The first episodes were in black and white. I think the series went to color when it started showing in the States. Perhaps there was an infusion of dollars into the production budget. But the feel of the show was already firmly established. A little zany, a little camp, very chic, and much more wry and understated than anything else I remember watching. And much much more sexy. Mrs. Emma Peel (and my teacher in Paris, Mlle.Thériot), gave me the first clue about what a sensuous, sexy woman is.

Dame Diana Rigg, at 72, is a stunningly beautiful woman; when she joined the cast of The Avengers, she was 27, and simply gorgeous. Auburn hair, long legs, a lovely figure, a supple voice, and a light in her eyes. Wow. The boys I knew were thinking "that's what I want!", but the girls were thinking, "that's what I want to be", a big difference, as life would repeatedly reveal. She was lovely, very smart (a certified genius, as I recall), quite independent, and self-assured. This suggested that - perhaps - one could get away with being intelligent, and thinking well of oneself. Somewhere, someone would be delighted by exactly that. Confirmation of that radical idea? John Steed.

Steed was a government agent, a Bond but not as young, probably not as promiscuous, and not as gadgety. He was the professional to Peel's "talented amateur", and clearly adored and respected her. Played by Patrick Macnee, Steed was urbane, unflappable, witty, and deadly when necessary.  There was a tremendous mutual appreciation and sexual sizzle between the two characters, even though (or perhaps because) the nature of their relationship off-hours was never clearly spelled out to the viewer. There was also an obvious age difference: Macnee was 43 when the Steed-and-Emma episodes began.

To a certain extent, that kind of age difference is the Hollywood standard, even today. The parts seem to keep coming for aging male actors in a way that they do not for women. In fact, the parts for older women are so few that Meryl Streep can almost play them all and still have days off.

I don't know whether that thinking was in play when Mrs. Peel hit the small screen, and I didn't much care. The sparkling relationship entranced me. In it, I saw (subconsciously) that it takes a very confident man to give a smart woman the kind of acceptance that allows her to reveal how just how smart she really is. That kind of confidence has many roots; one of them is having lived a lot of life. So, perhaps from henceforth, the older and wiser man for me.

John Steed, preferably. But, you say, he is only a fictional character. Yeah, well, that there would be a problem, maybe. Or maybe not. Because to a certain extent, maybe we all are fictional characters. Really, how often do we look at someone and see them as they really are? Or as God sees them? Not very often, I think. We tend to see projections of what we want and need superimposed on the persons upon whom we're focused. When they turn out to be just themselves, and not our fantasy about them, disappointment ensues. Friendships shatter. Marriages fail. Who knew that Lassie would turn out to be a dog with shedding issues, and really big teeth?

I think it is safe to say that I still have not met my John Steed. If I have, I have not recognized him, perhaps because he is already partnered, or because he is only five years old so far in this lifetime. It's OK. I still have a fair amount of work and play to do in the living of this life, and I pray I will keep going, and going strong, until the day I die. At which time I hope that sweet five-year old, aged forty-five or so by then, will think, "Oh, how sad. She always reminded me of Emma Peel."

 

 

 

"There was a star danced, and under that was I born"

Today we honor what might or might not have been (where have I heard almost that exact phrase before?) the birthday of William Shakespeare, who showed us the whole world, and ourselves in it, in a wooden Globe. Even though the weather's reminiscent of the third act of King Lear, under my umbrella I am singing Happy Birthday to the Bard.

However, because the first Globe Theatre caught fire during a performance in 1613, I think it best to refrain from putting four hundred and forty-seven flaming candles atop the cake.

 

But mark you this! Hamlet brought a cake, too! And it's chocolate!