Program #139, March 27 2003: American tableaux

Still feeling surly about the war, annoyed with the fact that many seem to think there is only one way to be a Good American Patriot these days, and tired of yahoos concocting boycott lists of artists with unacceptable views (Bonnie Franklin? Bonnie friggin' Franklin??!?), I thought it would be worth looking at some particular moments in Americana that both help me feel better about all of this, and yet provide some interesting problematic wrinkles of their own worth chewing on.

First, Copland's Lincoln Portrait -- a piece about which I feel quite conflicted, when I stop to consider it deeply. There are a million different recordings of this piece, consisting of some quotations from (and statements about) Lincoln over music that is very stereotypically, er, Coplandesque. I went with the Katherine Hepburn version because I thought hearing a female voice might force us to hear the words a little bit more attentively, instead of letting them simply dissolve into the normative Copland listening experience. Now, I don't have a problem with this piece as a musical work; I like Copland, whether stereotypically Coplandesque or not (as witness the program about his works on which I recently collaborated), and even find the words stirring, for what they are. But one of the reasons the words are so stirring is that they are not very prescriptive of any particular way of getting the nation's business done, allowing us to fill into them whatever mindset we please. To say "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present... We must disenthrall ourselves and then we will save our country" certainly seems true to me, thinking of all the times our country has interfered inappropriately in the affairs of other nations, and makes me feel a warm patriotic glow as I contemplate the next exercise of my constitutionally protected rights to speak out against the present war; but someone else will be thinking of, say, Mike Farrell when they hear "dogmas of the quiet past," and will feel a warm patriotic glow watching Tommy Franks on CNN. This makes me think, at the very least, that patriotism has much to do with what we bring to the concept, rather than any specific formulae used to manifest it. The words also obscure the problematic nature of Lincoln's presidency, in which he sought to curtail various freedoms for the sake of prosecuting the Civil War. I don't side with those who use such observations to claim that the Confederacy was in the right, but I can still appreciate the point that wartime tinkering with constitutional freedoms is not a great way to get things done, and that Lincoln's critics make some important points -- points still worth remembering today, in these days of Ashcroft and Co. So the Lincoln Portrait is stirring, yes, an inspiring document; but it provokes a sense of ambivalence, too.

Next, it was time to look at Marc Blitzstein's original version of The Cradle Will Rock, a work celebrated now mostly for the great story surrounding its production. Essentially a two-dimensional (if creative) piece of left-wing, anti-corruption agitprop à la Brecht, Blitzstein's theatrical lodestar, this work deeply involved Orson Welles and John Houseman, and was originally slated to go up in New York as part of a high-powered, federally subsidized Depression-era theatre arts initiative. However, the Feds pulled the plug on the politically charged show at the last minute, and the entire cast and audience marched twenty-one blocks to another hastily procured theatre, where the show went on without scenery, and with only Blitzstein on piano to provide musical accompaniment. The story of the show (dramatized, kind of, in a recent Tim Robbins film) is great because it shows how left-wing arts and artists have to grapple with charges of being "politically incorrect" again and again and again. But we can take heart from the fact that Blitzstein's show went on, creating a much better meta-show in the end. What shows might result from current storms and stress?

As a prelude to Blitzstein (for which I used an original recording from the next year's staging of Cradle, a recording predating even the landmark cast recording of Oklahoma!, generally but erroneously held to be the first Broadway cast recording), as general commentary on current events, and as a wee reflection on the storm and stress over Michael Moore's remarks at the Oscars, I played a track from the movie soundtrack to Chicago, this year's big Oscar winner. The song was dedicated to all those who think Saddam Hussein was somehow responsible for 9/11.

Finally, a commemoration of baseball season being right around the corner, with an small opera based on Thayer's Casey At The Bat, by former Juilliard president and Lincoln Center head William Schuman. Now, I love baseball --well, I love watching it and thinking about it, anyway; I can't play it worth a damn -- but even I have to admit that the sport is not what it should be, and that being a fan of Major League baseball these days sometimes isn't very easy. Big money, crappy politics, stupid management, and diminution of the pool of good pitchers via too-rapid expansion of the league are just a few of the problems baseball has to suffer. Nevertheless, it is a great game despite all the flaws, and so despite the fact that I seem to spend every winter saying that's enough, I'm not paying attention any more, I somehow manage to tune in again. Ambivalence continues in my heart, but it is sitting right next to the obstreperous fan boy... and so works like Schuman's Casey couldn't help but pull me in. Much expanded beyond Thayer's original poem, adding subplots and emergent themes (did Casey really want to hit the ball? hmmmmm...), this splendid little opera does a great job of suggesting the complex interplay of factors that underlie any event, something that interests me greatly. So, I enjoyed this work greatly, despite any lingering doubts I might have about the conduct of actual baseball. I suppose it is a little like supporting the troops while opposing the war. Perhaps.