When the alert popped up on my phone a few days ago that Patrick Stewart had died, I felt nothing. I put my phone down and ignored it. I couldn't, didn't, and still don't want to believe that this giant talent who enriched the childhoods of so many of my generation (and the "next generation"!) was gone. It felt impossible, cruel, bizarre. I hoped it wasn't true.
But sadly it is.
It's probably hard to understand, in this era of streaming and overwhelming "content", how it exciting it was to sit down in front of the TV at 7 PM on a Saturday night to get a new episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (I made my mom plan dinner around it). The amazing writing and cast was, of course, "captained" by Jean-Luc Picard, played brilliantly by Patrick Stewart. The way he portrayed Picard's quiet, determined, steady leadership was incredible -- and that is why he became so popular with Trekkies and non-Trekkies a like. He was the kind of leader who wish (especially nowadays) we could always have.
Of course, Stewart's career spanned a lot more than Star Trek. There were the X-Men movies, other movies (including a hilarious cameo in LA Story), and his extensive stage career (lots of Shakespeare and more). And for my money, he appeared in two of the greatest BBC mini-series ever made -- the 1970s Fall of Eagles (as Lenin) and I, Claudius (as the evil Sejeanus).
In 1992 I saw him on stage when he did his wonderful one-man stage show of A Christmas Carol. I'll never forget how we came out on the bare stage, holding up a big edition of the book, and boomed in his memorable voice "Marley was dead ... as a doornail." And for the next two hours he gave a powerful, beautiful telling of the legendary classic.
Almost 20 years later I went to an event in the WNYC Green Space where he talked about his life and career. It was a wonderful thing to see him talk about about it. It also turned out that he was planning to move to Brooklyn -- which he did, eventually getting a brownstone in Park Slope.
And finally, in 2014, I saw him and Ian McKellen in the 2014 Broadway production of Waiting for Godot. It was great, and I blogged about it at the time.
There's so much more I could write about Stewart's wide-spanning cultural impact -- from Shakespeare to the multiplexes -- but, instead, just watch some of his work and you'll more than understand.
Having a small child running around makes it tough to blog and even tougher to
get to the theater. Fortunately, the baby-sitting Gods smiled down on the wife
and I last week and we finally got to see Samuel Becket's classic "Waiting for
Godot" on Broadway.
It stars Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, those two
Knight Commanders of the British Empire better known as the mutant overlords
Charles Xavier and Magneto from the "X-Men" movies. In "Godot", they play
Vladimir and Estragon, two "tramps" in worn-out clothes who reek of old shoes
and garlic, as they wait eternally by a tree for Mr. Godot. While they wait,
they are distracted by a riotous man named Pozzo (played awesomely by Shuler
Helmsley) who is lugging along his slave Lucky (the great actor Billy Crudup,
paying his dues for dumping his pregnant ex-girlfriend) who he plans to sell
off at a fair. Contre temps ensue. Vladimir and Estragon try to stop
Pozzo from his mistreatment of Lucky, to no avail. At one point, Lucky gives a
long, fast, totally incomprehensible speech about nothing at all. Finally, they
leave. Vladimir and Estragon go on to sing, dance, and, on occasion,
speculate about hanging themselves from the tree. At a couple of points, as
night falls, a young boy shows up to say that Mr. Godot will not be coming today
but will tomorrow. Vladimir and Estragon need only continue to wait. Then Estragon drops his pants.
Let's get the easy stuff out of the way: this
production is excellent. Natch. Watching Stewart and McKellen is to see two
master actors at the top of their game. They throw themselves completely into
these ridiculous characters, their feeling and depth of character is intense,
and they bounce around the stage like two kids in a playpen, so pure is their
love of the play and each other. You wouldn't think you were watching two
veteran actors in their seventies who do this eight times a week. The real
revelation, for me, was Shuler Helmsley, playing the revolting Pozzo. He
absolutely commands the stage, stealing almost every moment
from Stewart and McKellen -- and that's no easy task! As for Crudup, his
performance is one of the most thankless, physically difficult ones that I've
ever seen and, no shock at all, he pulls it perfectly. This production of
"Waiting for Godot" is Broadway theater at its very best.
Now the
not-so-easy stuff. Becket's "Waiting for Godot" is a very silly play
about life's most serious subject. In Becket's view, life is just one long wait
for death. In order not to get bored by the wait, to get distracted, human
beings mistreat each other and fill out their lives with nonsense. Existence
results in debasement. And we convince ourselves that we're not waiting for
death but, instead, waiting for ... well, you can't spell "Godot" without G-O-D.
We're always promised that God will come, that He will "save" us but ... not
quite yet. As for the world itself, like the tree, ultimately it exists as nothing but an instrument for
suicide. Life is death. The world is our murderer.
Obviously,
Becket's view of life in the world is a little bleak. Some might even say
nihilistic. It's less a play and more a meditation. Even though it didn't
premier until 1953, Becket wrote "Waiting for Godot" in 1949, a few short years
after WWII, when humanity nearly destroyed itself, so his cynical view is
understandable if a little outdated. But it's still relevant, and the religious,
philosophical, existentialist, and humanitarian themes of the play have been and
will be debated for decades. It invites controversy. It asks tough
questions and provides no easy answers. That makes it great art.
And if
you want to have a great time on Broadway, seeing this production is one of the
best of life's distractions of all.
2019 is shaping up to be a big year in NYC theater. After the ball drops and the champagne bottles pop, the stages of this city will be the real New Year's party.
On and off Broadway, we'll see the likes of Glenda Jackson (again), Annette Bening, Hugh Jackman, Adam Driver, Jake Gyllenthal, Daveed Diggs, Alan Cumming, Isabelle Huppert, Kelli O'Hara -- even John Larroquette! -- and so many more in a variety new plays and musicals and revivals.
I already have tickets for Glenda Jackson's King Lear in March and cannot wait! Needless to say, a review will follow on this blog, so stay tuned.
I love movies, including many old ones, but there's nothing like seeing great live theater. The emotional impact of brilliant dramaturgy is searing. This is especially the case when it comes to seeing legendary actors on stage -- unlike movies, where you can see the likes of Gary Cooper or Spender Tracey or Katherine Hepburn giving classic performances decades after their deaths -- you can only see, say Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, on stage only a few times in a lifetime. Great actors, like all human beings, won't live forever and, one day, you won't be able to see them on stage ever again. (My mom once saw Vivian Leigh on stage!). That's why I was touched to read this obituary of a Japanese-American dancer who was in the original Broadway version of On the Town -- during WWII no less. She lived an amazing, trailblazing life, ending at the age of 99. Her life, her story, have an "only in America" theme -- and it's a reminder that great talents' appearances on the stage are fleeting, and should be appreciated when they are.
I love history. Even though this is a blog about NYC, I'm obsessed with late 19th and early 20th century European history, the decades where the various rulers of the great empires in Europe made terrible decisions that led to war and revolution -- and shaped the world we live in today.
And in so many ways the lessons that can be learned from that time and place apply to our country and NYC today.
"It was hard to be Tsar." So begins the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore's book about the Romanov dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 years. Ruling an empire, a country, a region or a city is hard work. Well, it's hard if you take the job seriously, if you strive to do it well, if you try not to make mistakes, and if you truly care about the welfare and progress of your people and your land.
But if you don't take it seriously, or handle it badly, catastrophe ensues.
In the years leading up to World War I, three of Europe's biggest empires were ruled by people who were unfit to rule. In short, they were really bad at their jobs. They were incompetent, arrogant, delusional, prone to magical thinking, made huge mistakes, and it all ended in horror.
In Germany there was Kaiser Wilhelm II. An erratic, arrogant, narcissistic man-child, he engaged in building up a navy that Germany didn't need, just to piss of England (and his English relatives), tried to play different countries against each other, fired the best Chancellor that Germany ever had (Bismark), and finally plunged Germany into war in 1914 that forced it to fight on two fronts. Eventually Germany lost the war and Wilhelm fled the country -- leaving his country in ruin, eventually leading to the rise of the Nazis.
In Austria-Hungary, you had Emperor Franz Joseph, an amiable but unimaginable ruler who refused to give the 11 nationalities of his empire any real political sovereignty or respect. He was also vulnerable to demands of his army chiefs who yearned for war, any war, and eventually capitulated to their demands to attack Serbia -- that triggered World War I. Franz Joseph died in 1916, was succeeded by his very young nephew, and eventually Austria-Hungary lost the war, the empire broke up, and Franz Joseph's dynasty, the Habsburgs, lost power after 600 years.
And finally, in Russia, you had Tsar Nicholas II, the most staggeringly dumb man ever to rule a vast empire, who believed he'd be a great ruler because God wanted him to, who refused to make reforms until violence ensued, started wars (like the one with Japan) that Russia list in 1905, oversaw the massacre of Bloody Sunday, and finally plunged Russia into war in 1914 with an army that was totally unprepared to fight. This led to the fall of the Romanovs and the rise of Communism.
Disastrous rulers all -- and some of the people who worked for them were even more insane (like advisors who wanted wars or encouraged repression or ... Rasputin). It was rule by the unserious, rule by the mendacious, and it had very serious and cruel conseqences.
We see this in America today.
Today we are being ruled by reckless and unserious people who are dismantling our government, draining our country's power, condoning criminality and violence and repression, and destroying our nation's reputation. It's a horror show (unless you hate America, in which case it's a triumph).
Closer to home we have Mayor Eric Adams, perhaps the worst and most unpopular mayor this city has ever had, a criminal and a narcissist, a disaster. And he sure doesn't take his job seriously -- Adams has even said that his job, being mayor of the country's biggest city, isn't hard! It's like when Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he didn't think that the COVID crises was a leadership challenge!
Well, if you don't really care about your job or your city or your country or your people or the challenges facing them ... then leadership is easy. Then it's easy to be the Tsar, or the president, or the mayor, or the whatever. Like school. If you don't care about doing your homework or taking tests or getting good grades, then school is a cinch! But if you do care, well, it's a little harder.
If someone tells you that something that is intrinsically hard is in fact easy, then that is not a serious person -- and that person should never be in a position of power or responsibility.
Last year I did a blog post about the kingdoms of NYC and I included links to a British mini-series from 1974 called Fall of Eagles. In 13 brilliant episodes it dramatizes the 70 years leading up to World War I and the fall of the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1918. I can't praise this show enough -- it's massively entertaining and also shows how the warped personalities and priorities of these rulers and their minions created hell.
I strongly recommend you watch it and you can find all the episodes for free on YouTube here. The best episodes, in my opinion are: Episode 4 about the 1889 Mayerling tragedy; Episode 5 about the Nicholas II and Lenin (played by a very young Patrick Stewart); Episode 9 about the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary; and Episode 10 about the start of World War I.
These episodes most of all demonstrate the failures of people unfit to lead or who operate through delusion and lies. And it makes you look at the people leading America and NYC today and realize that what happened in the past sadly is happening again today here at home.
