Tennessee Williams Festival 2012: "A Streetcar Named Desire"

I attended two performances of "A Streetcar Named Desire" in conjunction with the Tennessee Williams Festival, although not exactly during the festival.

The first was an outdoor screening of the 1951 film starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando in the sculpture garden next to the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park. This film has the most effective rape scene in film history (in my opinion). You don't see a rape - it's only suggested. But you see the intention on Marlon Brando's face, you see his determined leap toward Vivien Leigh, and you see the mirror shatter (which I had remembered as the whole screen shattering, but it's actually the mirror that shatters). This shows that it's often better to suggest than to portray graphically.

The second was a performance of the play at the Michalopoulos Studio on Elysian Fields, the temporary home of Southern Rep. The performance was preceded with a walking tour of the neighborhood, which would actually have been the Kowalskis' neighborhood. The Kowalskis' address, 632 Elysian Fields, is right across form Michalopoulos - so we saw where Stanley and Stella Kowalski would have lived, as well as where they would have bought groceries, where they would have gotten their liquor, where Stanley would have worked, where Blanche would have gotten off the streetcar. This walking tour was conducted by the dramaturge for the play.

The play was excellent. Starring were Aimée Hayes as Blanche, Ashley Ricord as Stella, Michael Aaron Santos as Stanley, and Mike Harkins as Mitch. Aimée Hayes was especially wonderful as Blanche. She gave a very emotionally intense performance. In fact, it is hard for me to imagine how long it must take her to come down from that emotional high after the play - or, one might say, how long it must take her to resurface from that emotional low.

The theater experience included vendors dressed in period costume selling flowers and pralines!

The play runs through April 15, 2012.

Tennessee Williams Festival 2012: Late Night Events

I attended two late night events at the Tennessee Williams Festival.

• Poetry Slam
• Lafcadio Hearn

POETRY SLAM

The Poetry Slam was held at Café Istanbul in the Bywater with the very energetic and funny Chuck Perkins as Master of Ceremonies. There were ten or so participants, each performing a poem that he or she had composed. Quite a few of the poems focused on marginalized people, such as gays/lesbians and teens in special education.

The most entertaining performance, however, was by a woman named Sunshine, who violated the performance rules. She used props (no props allowed) and she recited something that rhymed but that couldn't be called a poem. It was a free-wheeling rhyme that she was creating on the spot. Sunshine also exceeded the 3-minute time limit.

Sunshine's performance consisted of blowing up long balloons from a balloon cart (no props!) to shape a woman based on the preferences of Chuck Perkins (the volunteer!), all the while creating this free-wheeling rhymed speech. Did Chuck want his woman to be brunette, blonde, red-headed, or chocolate? Chuck, an African-American, preferred chocolate. What kind of legs did Chuck prefer for this woman? What kind of arms? What kind of torso?

The rhyme went something like this:

Now, watch me! You see,

With these balloons, two,

I twist them into

A chocolate woman for you!

Now, what does she need?

Why, surely, a head!

So here's a fine head for her,

Now take her to bed!

Of course, I don't remember the words of the rhyme, so I'm making this up, but the rhyme was very much like this. It really was that silly. It was NOT A POEM!

So, Sunshine - having violated the no props rules, having violated the 3-minute rule, and having violated the rule that you had to do an actual POEM - was finally shooed off the stage! She really was funny, though! Sort of like a clown who produces some comic relief in the midst of the more serious poems about marginalized people!

Also, I have to give lots of credit to Chuck Perkins, who is masterful as an M.C., no matter who is performing!

LAFACDIO HEARN

This late night event was also held at Café Istanbul in the Bywater. It consisted of reading passages about New Orleans by the 19th Century writer Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904). There were also two burlesque performances - one by an alligator and one by a crab, performed by Trixie Minx of Fleur de Tease - and a dance by the Hip-ocrisy Belly Dancers.

Tennessee Williams Festival 2012: Panels & Special Event

I attended three panel discussions and a special event at the 2012 Tennessee Williams Festival. Below are some notes on these.

PANEL ON MEMOIR

This panel was composed of four memoirists.

• Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts: HARLEM IS NOWHERE
• Zachary Lazar: EVENING'S EMPIRE: THE STORY OF MY FATHER'S MURDER
• Claudia Sternbach: READING LIPS: A MEMOIR OF KISSES
• Jesmyn Ward: SALVAGE THE BONES

The moderator was Ted O'Brien.

Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, author of HARLEM IS NOWHERE, spoke of her book as one person's consciousness colliding with history, using the first person as a tool to encounter the place. She does not separate Harlem's history from her own life; rather, Harlem very much affects her life and the lives of African-Americans; Harlem and its history are very much alive today. Harlem was once seen as the place from which African- Americans would enter our democracy, but in the 1960s and 1970s, Harlem became the symbol of all that was wrong with our democracy.

Sharifa says that writers can sometimes experience an emotional reaction to their material that causes them to shut down, and that they must develop the ability to push through this, to write through this, to persevere.

Zachary Lazar, author of EVENING'S EMPIRE: THE STORY OF MY FATHER'S MURDER, says that the best part of writing his memoir was interviewing his father's friends and having the father whom he had never known come alive.

Claudia Sternbach, author of READING LIPS: A MEMOIR OF KISSES, focuses her memoir on the observation that the most important moments of life are often marked by a kiss.

Jesmyn Ward, author of SALVAGE THE BONES, wrote her memoir from a burning question: When five young black men died within a short period of time in her hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, WHY was there such an epidemic of death among young black men? One of these young men was her brother.

PANEL ON WOMEN AND THE WORLDS OF THEIR WRITING

The panelists were four women writers.

• Lucy Ferris: THE LOST DAUGHTER
• Ellen Baker: KEEPING THE HOUSE
• Laura Ellen Scot: DEATH WISHING
• Jessica Maria Tuccelli: GLOW

The moderator was Bev Marshall.

Lucy Ferris, author of THE LOST DAUGHTER, says that her novel sprung from a news headline about the abandonment of a baby by teenage parents. These were actually middle-class teens. In the novel, the abandonment occurs in 1993, and in 2008, we go back to see the aftermath of what happened, especially as the baby did survive. For her book, Lucy learned about the effects of hypoxia at birth. A baby with hypoxia can appear dead to two confused teenagers. Lucy also remarked that people often know us only as adults but do not know the past lives that have created the people we are today.

Ellen Baker, author of KEEPING THE HOUSE, began her work with three images: (1) a photo of women in work garb from World War II, (2) an abandoned farm house that Ellen would drive by and that looked as though life had been hard there, (3) a visit to Calumet, Michigan, which was once home to 700,000 but which had decreased to 7,000 because the mining work had disappeared, leaving empty streets and rows of empty company houses. In KEEPING THE HOUSE, a grand-daughter in the year 2000 goes to northern Wisconsin to try to piece together why there is such separation among the women in her family. She discovers a tragedy that occurred in 1913.

Laura Ellen Scot, author of DEATH WISHING, wrote a book set in the Marigny, where people are dying, and some of them have the ability to make wishes that will come true after their death. No one knows who has this ability and who doesn't. Laura began her work with a "what if" question. This book seems a bit silly to me.

Jessica Maria Tuccelli, author of GLOW, wrote about lives of hardship spanning generations in northern Georgia. Her setting is Rabun County, and she did research at the county house in Clayton (which, to her surprise, turned out to be a shack). When I lived in western North Carolina after Hurricane Katrina, I sometimes went to Clayton and to the Osage Farmer's Market in Rabun County, which also has a wonderful barbecue stand next to it.

Jessica chose north Georgia because she wanted to write about a place that was completely unfamiliar to her. She is from New York City. On a trip with her husband, she went through an ancient forest in northeast Georgia and knew that this was the place she would write about, as it has a magical quality.

Jessica had to find a way in to talk with the people about their lives, and after persistent efforts and softening her approach, people began to talk generously with her about their stories. The people of Rabun County all have Cherokee ancestors, as well as African-American and Scotts-Irish. These people all have ghost stories.

Jessica has given the people of Rabun County copies of her novel, and they have expressed appreciation for the way she has portrayed them. Jessica used the Beck family as a basis for her novel.

PANEL ON FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR

The panelists were four people who have written about free people of color.

• John Guare, author of a play titled "A Free Man of Color"
• Barbara Hambly, author of the Benjamin January series of mysteries featuring a free man of color
• Gregory Osborn, archivist at the New Orleans Public Library
• Daniel Sharfstein, author of THE INVISIBLE LINE: A SECRET HISTORY OF RACE IN AMERICA

The moderator was Pat Brady.

John Guare play, "A Free Man of Color," is about race in Louisiana before the Louisiana Purchase by the United States. The play will be performed at the Swine Palace Theater at LSU in September. I will consider going to Baton Rouge to see it. John Guare says he just loves the idea of his play being performed at a place called the Swine Palace - but I didn't really have a reaction to this as I'm used to the name of that theater in Baton Rouge.

John made the important point that today we have no vocabulary to talk about the nuances of race that existed in 1802 and earlier. Prior to 1802 (and the Louisiana Purchase), race existed on a continuum with many different shades and social standings. Once Louisiana came under the United States, all of this changed and any nuance of race disappeared. You were either black or white. If you were 1/32 black, you were black. If you were less than 1/32 black, you were white. Lots of either/or thinking here.

Barbara Hambly, author of the Benjamin January mystery series, had wanted since college to write a murder mystery series about a free man of color. Barbara knew (as many people don't) that free people of color owned slaves. Her main character, Benjamin January, is always walking a fine line between white and black. He is 3/4 black, with a fully black father and a mulatto mother. His mother is the child of a white master who raped one of his black slaves.

Barbara explained that free people of color did not identify themselves as black. To be black meant to be a slave. U.S. Americans, however, made no distinction between free people of color and black slaves. The way they saw it, if you weren't white, you were black.

Gregory Osborn's African-American parents were in the diaspora to California just after World War II.

Daniel Sharfstein, author of THE INVISIBLE LINE: A SECRET HISTORY OF RACE IN AMERICA, says that his book comes from an experience at age 20 in South Africa, where he spent a summer doing photo education. The black people he worked with were all classified as African by the government except for one woman who was classified as colored. This woman was actually fully African, but a census taker, wanting to do her father a favor, listed her classification as colored. This gave her a very different and much better educational and social experience as she was growing up, all due to her racial classification, which was not something visible and obvious but simply due to one census taker's whim.

This flexibility of race is what Daniel explores in THE INVISIBLE LINE. He returned to the United States wondering about race here. He came across one man in the United States who was suing for divorce on the grounds that he had unknowingly married a woman of a different race than he had thought. (Clearly, the race of this man's wife had not been obvious to him.)

Daniel tells the history of race through three families - just before the American Revolution, just before the Civil War, and at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Someone remarked that stereotypes about black people today stem from the terror inspired by the Haitian Revolution, which was indeed very bloody and terrifying for white people in Haiti. It was also remarked, though, that fear of a slave uprising had always existed. Indeed, oppressors always fear the oppressed - they fear their vengeance, which they know they deserve. In the United States, the Reconstruction after the Civil War hardened attitudes toward black people in the South.

SPECIAL EVENT: WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE UNITED STATES' BEST NEW RESTAURANTS with John Mariani

The best thing about this event was the wonderful hors-d'oeuvre served along with it. John Mariani says that there is no better barometer of economic health than how many people are going to restaurants. This is true of our receding recession, and it was true of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

I also noticed that John Mariani says he likes to eat at the very fattening Cochon in New Orleans, as well as at John Besh's Lüke, with its French bistro cooking.

Tennessee Williams Festival 2012: Master Classes

I attended the Tennessee Williams Festival, which was held March 22-25, 2012. Here are some notes about the Master Classes I attended on Thursday, March 22.

CHILDREN'S BOOKS 101 with Catherine Frank

The main thing I learned here is that Young Adult books have crossed over into the mainstream adult reading world. Suzanne Collins' THE HUNGER GAMES is an excellent example, as is HARRY POTTER.

I also identified some books I want to read.

• THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznik
• THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green
• TRY NOT TO BREATHE by Jennifer R. Hubbard, which addresses not only suicide but the rebuilding of the life of someone who has attempted suicide

INTEGRATING E-BOOKS WITH PRINT PUBLISHING with Radclyffe and Julie Smith

This Master Class was really for publishers getting into e-books, so it didn't apply to me, but I really just like to hear Radclyffe speak. I like Radclyffe a lot.

MAKE SOCIAL NETWORKING WORK with Michele Karlsberg

Michele spoke about how to use social networking media to keep yourself as an author before the public. Michele says that Facebook is best used to spark conversation, and Twitter is best used to spread quick information. Michele likes to put up discussion questions on Facebook and let her FB Friends discuss them. She also says that people love Top 10 lists. And she has the interesting idea to offer a prize of "Lunch with an Author"! The winner gets to have lunch with the author whose FB page it is. Michele provided a hefty handout with extensive information, and she makes herself available to answer questions any time. I also just plain old like to hear Michele speak.

SURVIVING AND THRIVING IN THE PUBLISHING WORLD with Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry of the Book Doctor

This Master Class was about how to pitch your book to a publisher. You need a pitch for your book - a 200-word, one-minute answer to the question, "What's your book about?" Your voice should come through in your book, and the pitch should be reflective of the book (funny if a funny book, heart-thumping for a thrilling book, informative for an information book). You also need a platform - what YOU will do to get your book before the public. Arielle and David stressed that most authors have no idea how overwhelmed agents and publishers are. They also said that self-publishing has become quite respectable in the last few years.

An interesting thing is that the Book Doctor (Arielle and David) also held a later event during the Festival called Pitch-A-Palooza, where anyone could take one minute to pitch a book to them. They would choose a winner and help that author get his or her book published.

Harry Potter: The Four Hogwarts Houses

All students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are sorted into one of four houses before they begin their first year of study. The house sorting is done by the Sorting Hat, an old conical hat that is set upon the head of each student in turn and that shouts out the name of the student's house. Below are the four houses.

GRYFFINDOR

• Founder: Godric Gryffindor
• Head: Professor Minerva McGonagall
• Ghost: Nearly Headless Nick (Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington)
  
• Colors: Red and gold
• Animal: Lion
  
• Characteristic: Courage

SLYTHERIIN

• Founder: Salazar Slytherin
• Head: Professor Severus Snape / Professor Horace Slughorn
• Ghost: The Bloody Baron
• Colors: Green and silver
• Animal: Serpent
  
• Characteristic: Ambition

RAVENCLAW

• Founder: Rowena Ravenclaw
• Head: Professor Filius Flitwick
• Ghost: The Grey Lady (Helena Ravenclaw)
• Colors: Blue and bronze
• Animal: Eagle
  
• Characteristic: Intelligence

HUFFLEPUFF

• Founder: Helga Hufflepuff
• Head: Professor Pomona Sprout
• Ghost: The Fat Friar
• Colors: Yellow and black
• Animal: Badger
  
• Characteristic: Loyalty

The main characters of the Harry Potter novels are Gryffindors. These include Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and the entire Weasley family, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, James Potter, Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.

The house to which I most gravitate is Ravenclaw. I would love to be in a house that values intelligence and learning. My favorite color is blue, and I love Professor Flitwick. The Ravenclaw common room is in one of the Hogwarts towers, possesses a light and airy atmosphere, and overlooks a gorgeous mountain view.

Harry Potter: The Magic of House-Elves

House-elves are non-human, intelligent, sentient, magical beings who appear in the Harry Potter novels. House-elves appear to be lowly creatures. They serve witches and wizards and seem perfectly content to do so. A house-elf's highest purpose is to obey his or her master's or mistress' command. Lowly as they are, house-elves have magic peculiar to themselves and unavailable to witches and wizards. The magic of house-elves is wonderfully illustrated in this story of Kreacher, as told by Kreacher to Harry, Ron, and Hermione in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Kreacher is a house-elf in the Black family household. The Black family, except for Sirius Black, Harry Potter's god-father, are all enamored of the Dark Arts and of Lord Voldemort. Sirius' younger brother, Regulus, has become one of Voldemort's Death Eaters. Regulus is also very fond of Kreacher.

One day, Regulus tells Kreacher that Lord Voldemort requires a house-elf for some particular task and that Regulus has volunteered Kreacher. Regulus explains to Kreacher what an honor this is, for both Regulus and Kreacher, to be chosen for special service to the Dark Lord. Regulus tells Kreacher to go with Lord Voldemort, to do all that Voldemort requires, and then to come home. Kreacher obeys.

Lord Voldemort takes Kreacher by boat out to an island in the middle of a lake deep within a cave. Voldemort intends to hide one of his horcruxes there, surrounded by spells and curses that will prevent anyone getting to it. This horcrux contains a piece of Voldemort's soul within a gold locket. Voldemort plans to place the locket at the bottom of a basin filled with cursed liquid and to place a powerful spell upon the locket so that it will not budge unless someone drinks the cursed liquid first. Kreacher's role is to insure that the cursed liquid works.

Once they reach the island, Voldemort commands Kreacher to drink the cursed liquid within the basin. The liquid causes the drinker to experience mental horror and tremendous thirst. Kreacher drinks the liquid and experiences these tortures before the cold eyes of Voldemort, whose only concern is to ascertain if the liquid works as it should. When Voldemort sees that the liquid works as expected, he departs the cave in the boat, leaving Kreacher in agony on the island.

Voldemort knows that the horrible thirst will eventually drive Kreacher to drink from the waters of the lake. This will trigger the Inferi. The Inferi are bodies of dead people who are buried underwater and who will drag down anyone who enters the lake. The Inferi will drag Kreacher to his death, and there will be no living witness to the hiding place of Voldemort's horcrux.

However, Kreacher comes home. Harry, Ron, and Hermione simply cannot understand how Kreacher can possibly have escaped the Inferi. Kreacher, for his part, cannot understand why Harry, Ron, and Hermione are astonished. Master Regulus had told Kreacher to do the Dark Lord's bidding and then to come home. Master Regulus had said, Come home. Kreacher obeyed his master. Kreacher came home, as Master Regulus had told him to do.

Clearly, Kreacher had used magic peculiar to house-elves. The house-elf's highest purpose is to obey his or her master's or mistress' command. Master Regulus had said, Come home. Kreacher's purpose was to obey his master, and this activated powerful magic that allowed Kreacher somehow to escape the Inferi and to come home. Kreacher doesn't seem able to explain this. It seems self-evident to him: my master told me to come home, so of course I came home.

This cold-hearted use of Kreacher is what turns Regulus against Voldemort. Regulus procures another gold locket and asks Kreacher to take him to the island in the cave. Kreacher does so. Regulus then tells Kreacher to wait until the basin is empty, to remove the gold locket horcrux and replace it with the fake gold locket, and finally to return home and destroy the gold locket. Regulus drinks the cursed liquid, knowing it will bring about his death, but willing to sacrifice his life to destroy Voldemort's evil horcrux.

Kreacher sees Regulus suffer from the mental torture of the cursed liquid and finally succomb to the horrible thirst by trying to drink from the lake, which triggers the Inferi, who drag Regulus down under the water to his death. Overcome with horror and sadness, Kreacher nonetheless obeys Master Regulus, exchanges the lockets, and goes home. However, try as he might, Kreacher is unable to destroy the gold locket because a horcrux cannot be destroyed by ordinary means. (Much later, Ron is able to destroy the locket, using the Sword of Gryffindor.)

This story shows that non-human creatures have powerful magic of their own and that love can lead to incredible acts of heroism.

Harry Potter: Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters

The Death Eaters in the Harry Potter novels are followers of the evil Lord Voldemort.

Lord Voldemort was born Tom Marvolo Riddle. (The letters in the name "Tom Marvolo Riddle," when rearranged, also spell "I am Lord Voldemort.") Tom's father was a Muggle (a non-magical person) who abandoned Tom's mother while she was pregnant with Tom. Tom's mother, a witch, died shortly after giving birth to Tom, who was raised in an orphanage. Tom never felt at home until he began attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (a boarding school) at age eleven.

Tom made it his business to learn all he could about the Dark Arts. He wanted power. He wanted to be the most powerful wizard who ever lived. In fact, he wanted to overcome death and live forever. He kept pushing the boundaries of magic, achieving more magical power than had ever been achieved and then pushing for even more.

Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters, seem to me to fall into three types.

FULLY COMMITTED. A few Death Eaters are fully committed to Lord Voldemort and his evil ways. When Voldemort loses his power after trying to kill the one-year-old Harry Potter, these Death Eaters remain faithful. They are ever alert for a sign of Voldemort's return to power and are always ready to help and support him. Two such Death Eaters are Bartemius Crouch (son) and Bellatrix Lestrange.

WISHY-WASHY. Most Death Eaters are of this type. They are attracted to the power and evil of Voldemort, but they will support Voldemort only as long as he remains powerful. When Voldemort loses his power, this type of Death Eater "repents" of having followed him so as to be in the good graces of the kinder and saner wizards now in charge at the Ministry of Magic. When Voldemort regains his power, these Death Eaters "repent" of having defected and return to Voldemort's side. These Death Eaters would like to follow Lord Voldemort, but their main concern is to stay in the good graces of whoever is in power at the moment.

DISILLUSIONED. A few Death Eaters follow Lord Voldemort because they are attracted to power and to the excitement of pushing the boundaries to see how far magic can go, but they retain a core of goodness within themselves that causes them to turn away from Voldemort's evil in the end. For a while, this third type of Death Eater is able to deny or excuse the evil in Voldemort. When Voldemort ruthlessly punishes one of his followers for a mistake, this third type of Death Eater initially justifies the cruelty by telling him- or herself, Of course Lord Voldemort had to punish So-and-So. The Dark Lord cannot allow such mistakes to hamper the quest for power, which, after all, is for the greater good of all.

Eventually, though, Lord Voldemort's cruelty reaches someone whom this third type of Death Eater loves. That is what makes the difference: this type of Death Eater can still love. Voldemort knows nothing of love. This happens with Severus Snape, when Severus sees that Voldemort has killed the woman whom Severus truly loves--Lily Evans Potter, Harry Potter's mother. It also happens with Regulus Arcturus Black, when Regulus sees that Voldemort has callously used Regulus' beloved house-elf, Kreacher, as a guinea pig and left Kreacher for dead. Both Severus and Regulus are suddenly and completely disillusioned with Voldemort and break away from him. In both cases, this eventually results in their deaths.