Last week in London I saw a new play by David Hare called “The Breath of Life,” starring Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench. Smith plays a woman who chose a profession, never married and never had children; Dench one who chose home and children, and the play is an extended conversation between these two English women of “a certain age,” and is introduced by an observation of Paul Gauguin: “Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”
The link between them is the source of the play’s energy, and in spite of the sensitivity of a male playwright writing for women’s voices, the real strength of the play – for me - lay in the performance by two actors whose performances were so natural that one would hardly have thought they were acting, and that is, without doubt, the best acting of all, and I shall remember their work that evening for a long time.
But all of that is beside my point: Early in the play when the two characters are circling each other verbally, one of the topics which they settle on is “Americans.” A number of the lines are funny, but in the context of our present situation, the following exchange continues to resonate and disturb.
Madeleine: Their politicians always put on that tone of special shock. “This situation endangers American lives.” As if American lives were automatically different from any other kind….
Frances: But isn’t that what they believe?
Madeleine: That’s how they are. Because they’re richer than everyone else, so they have to insist their dramas are more significant.
(An example of trivial “ugly American” behavior follows, and the dialogue continues)
Madeleine:…At once the most powerful people on earth and now it appears the most fearful…
Frances: Perhaps that’s why.
Madeleine: The most risk averse. Life with all the life taken out of it.
Frances: Perhaps they just feel they have more to lose.
Madeleine: Well, they don’t.
Frances: Of course not.
Franklin D Roosevelt told us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. Several decades later, the great political philosopher and cartoonist, Walt Kelly, observed through his character Pogo who was running for President, “We have met the enemy, and they is us.” The truth, of course, lies outside the boundaries which we have created for ourselves. Look beyond the President, the play, and Pogo, and decide what it is you see and believe.
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Thanksgiving Remembered...
In my memory, which is better than it used to be because I make up more interesting stuff to fill in the blanks which arrive more frequently these days, I have this recollection of Norman Rockwell’s well loved painting of a Thanksgiving Day Celebration.
In my memory, the father is carving a gorgeous turkey surrounded by the animated faces of his children, the whole making up the impossibly happy family.
In truth, however, the painting shows Grandpa standing at the head of the table watching Grandma place the roasted bird in front of him for carving, with all those around the table looking happy, if not downright excited.
Well, I got the animated faces right.
Nowadays, gramps and gramma are having Thanksgiving in Vero Beach, Mom and Dad are divorced, and sons would rather spend Thanksgiving watching a football game or playing video games, and daughters would rather be anyplace but here. In general, nobody has time to get together anymore. Or so it seems.
The Rockwell painting is called “Freedom from Want,” one of the four freedoms about which Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke decades ago.
Safe to say that we have almost achieved freedom from want in this country, although there are too many among us who do not have enough of food, of shelter, of clothing, of education, of security, of love. We would do well on Thanksgiving to eat less and donate what we save to the Salvation Army or a local food shelf. Better yet, find someone who’s alone on that day and invite them to join in. Sometimes a stranger vitalizes the usual gaggle of relatives who have become so accustomed to seeing each other that they can almost repeat jokes telepathically.
I don’t know whether all those tales about the rugged pilgrims and the helpful natives gathering for a feast are true, but I like to think so. I do know it took a good deal of religious commitment and several dollops of genuine courage to leave England and sail to the New World to make a new life in a strange and often hostile land.
One of my ancestors was in the group that founded what we now call New Haven, and you have to know that name was well and carefully chosen. All we know of him was that he was a gunsmith and signed the document which governed the colony there. But if he hadn’t left his village in England, fled to Holland to escape religious persecution, and made the long voyage here, I wouldn’t be sitting in front of my computer writing this today.
This year on Thanksgiving, I shall be thinking of him and his wife Margery and the long chain of Nashes between them and me. And next year I shall visit his home town in Bewdley, near Ribbesford, in the English countryside and see some of the family ironwork in a local church, and I shall be thankful again…as we all should be, every day, for some aspect of our lives.
In my memory, the father is carving a gorgeous turkey surrounded by the animated faces of his children, the whole making up the impossibly happy family.
In truth, however, the painting shows Grandpa standing at the head of the table watching Grandma place the roasted bird in front of him for carving, with all those around the table looking happy, if not downright excited.
Well, I got the animated faces right.
Nowadays, gramps and gramma are having Thanksgiving in Vero Beach, Mom and Dad are divorced, and sons would rather spend Thanksgiving watching a football game or playing video games, and daughters would rather be anyplace but here. In general, nobody has time to get together anymore. Or so it seems.
The Rockwell painting is called “Freedom from Want,” one of the four freedoms about which Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke decades ago.
Safe to say that we have almost achieved freedom from want in this country, although there are too many among us who do not have enough of food, of shelter, of clothing, of education, of security, of love. We would do well on Thanksgiving to eat less and donate what we save to the Salvation Army or a local food shelf. Better yet, find someone who’s alone on that day and invite them to join in. Sometimes a stranger vitalizes the usual gaggle of relatives who have become so accustomed to seeing each other that they can almost repeat jokes telepathically.
I don’t know whether all those tales about the rugged pilgrims and the helpful natives gathering for a feast are true, but I like to think so. I do know it took a good deal of religious commitment and several dollops of genuine courage to leave England and sail to the New World to make a new life in a strange and often hostile land.
One of my ancestors was in the group that founded what we now call New Haven, and you have to know that name was well and carefully chosen. All we know of him was that he was a gunsmith and signed the document which governed the colony there. But if he hadn’t left his village in England, fled to Holland to escape religious persecution, and made the long voyage here, I wouldn’t be sitting in front of my computer writing this today.
This year on Thanksgiving, I shall be thinking of him and his wife Margery and the long chain of Nashes between them and me. And next year I shall visit his home town in Bewdley, near Ribbesford, in the English countryside and see some of the family ironwork in a local church, and I shall be thankful again…as we all should be, every day, for some aspect of our lives.
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