A Thousand Clowns by Herb Gardner

Characters:

Murray Burns	Used to write for Chuckles the Chipmunk TV show, unemployed because five months ago he hated that he was chugging the same path everyday to work- feeling empty and just going through the motions of day-to-day life- so he quit, doesn’t take any crap from anyone, lives his life how he wants to live it and doesn’t want anyone telling him what to do or how to live, collects old machinery, yells spontaneously at people to wake up, very intuitive, very funny by nature, Peter Pan Syndrome (a socially immature adult)
Nick Burns	12 years old, smart kid, knows what the Social Workers are there to do and puts up a façade, hates living with his uncle but loves him nonetheless and plays his games, in search of identity and a new name, bastard child who doesn’t know his real parents and it doesn’t phase him, wants his uncle to get a job and be normal
Albert Amundson	Social Worker, in a relationship with Sandra at the beginning off the play, dominant one in the relationship, all business, professional
Sandra Markowitz	Social Worker, in a relationship with Albert at the beginning of the play, as the play progresses she’s not in a relationship with Albert, takes things very personal in her work, loves to help people, just finished grad school, younger than Albert, sleeps with Murray and takes a liking to him, forgetful- or always leaving her files at Murray’s place- on purpose?
Arnold Burns	Murray’s brother, earns $30,000 a year, every time Murray visits him- his office is higher and higher (has been moving up in the business), has a wife and kids, softspoken, brings fruit to Murray everyday
Leo Herman	The new voice of Chuckles the Chipmunk, not funny but earns $1,500 per week, bad listener, thinks everything he does is funny and that all the kids love him

Time:	mid1900s. A time when $30,000 was a lot of money to comfortably raise a family
Setting:	Manhattan- lower west side
Mode:	Comedy
Form:	Modernism

Themes: -      What is normal vs. what people perceive as normal -      Does age matter or is it intelligence? Nick, a 12 year old boy acts more grown up than his uncle; Leo earns a living acting like a child

Plot:

Nick lives with his Uncle Murray in a fun, free spirited environment. Nick’s off-kiltered remarks, a show and tell on a night club, and his paper on unemployment insurance and the fact that his uncle is refusing to comment or answer the Bureau of Child Welfare’s inquiries, sends the Bureau to Nick’s home for investigation. Albert and Dr. Markowitz arrive at the Burns’ one room apartment, where it is a mess, Nick is home from school celebrating an unknown and possibly made up holiday with his uncle. Nick knows exactly what the BCW is there to do; Uncle Murray just makes everything a joke. Albert and Sandy have a very unprofessional relationship quarrel which leads to Albert telling Sandy that she is not fit to do this type of job and goes onto their next case without her. Sandy breaks down in hysterics. After one can only imagine a night on the town, Sandy wakes up in Murray’s apartment. As she is drinking her morning coffee, Albert knocks on the door and Sandy hides in the closet. Albert tells Murray that Sandy never came home last night and tells him straight that the BCW is going to take Nick away and that Murray’s only chance to persuade the courts otherwise is in a few days. After Albert leaves, Murray tells Sandy that he is going to straighten up and not let them take away Nick. Nick buys a new suit and goes down to his brother’s office to find a job. Leo wants Murray back because he believes that he is not funny without Murray writing his stuff. Arnold gets Leo on speakerphone with Murray and in the middle of the conversation Murray throws the phone in the trash and walks out. Meanwhile, back at his apartment Sandy has completely cleaned it up and redecorated. Murray comes home to Nick helping Sandy finish putting up the new curtains. Excited that Murray has gotten a job, Sandy wants to hear about his new job. Murray tells her the story of how he not only didn’t get a job, but realized, while standing on a street corner that people are just going through life but can forgive people for anything and everything, even if they don’t know what they are forgiving them for. Arnold follows Murray back home to tell him that after his behavior with Leo on the phone, he invited him to Murray’s apartment tonight to re-discuss the job position. Murray and Albert have a little brotherly quarrel. Leo arrives, flaunting his wealth and his Chipmonkery, which insults Nick. Answering Leo’s question if he is funny or not, Nick tells him straight to his face that Leo is not funny nor does he enjoy Chuckles the Chipmunk. This fury increases to Nick destroying the life-size cardboard cut out of Leo as Chuckles and playing on his ukulele just to get Leo to leave. Murray is embarrassed by Nick’s outburst and realizes that this is how Nick feels during Murray’s outbursts. He accepts the job and comforts Nick. The play ends with one of Leo’s outburst yellings.

Quotes:

Murray	Now the moral question for me here, is this: When one is faced with life in the bare-assed, job-hunting raw on the one hand, and eleven fifty-cent double features on the other, what is the mature, sensible, and mentally healthy step to take? I.i.14
Murray	Look, if Nick has to leave if he goes, he goes, and my life stays about the same. But its no good for him, see, not for a couple of years anyway. Right now he’s still ashamed of being sharper than everybody else, he could easily turn into another peeled and boiled potato. II.i.51
Murray	I just want him to stay with me till I can be sure he wont turn into Norman Nothing. I want to be sure he’ll know when he’s chickening out on himself. I want him to get to know exactly the special thing he is or else he wont notice it when it starts to go. I want him to stay awake and know who the phonies are, I want him to know how to holler and put up an argument, I want a little guts to show before I can let him go. I want to be sure he sees all the wild possibilities. I want him to know it’s worth all the trouble just to give the world a little goosing when you get the chance. And I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair. I will be very sorry to see him go. That kid was the best straight-man I ever had. He is a laughter, and laughters are rare. II.i.52
Arnold	You came into my office like George God; everybody’s supposed to come and audition for Human Being in front of you. Aw, Murray, today, one day, leave the dragons alone will ya? And look at the dragons you pick on…III.i.73
Murray	You got that wide stare that people stick in their eyes so nobody’ll knows their heads asleep. III.i.75
Murray	Arnold, five months ago I forgot what day it was. I’m on the subway on my way to work and I didn’t know what day it was and it scared the hell out of me. I was sitting in the express looking out the window same as every morning watching the local stops go by in the dark with an empty head and my arms folded not feeling great and not feeling rotten, just not feeling, and for a minute I couldn’t remember, I didn’t know, unless I really concentrated, whether it was a Tuesday or a Thursday- or a-for a minute it could have been any day- in the dark through any year- Arni, it scared the hell out of me. You got to know what day it is. You got to know what’s the name of the game and what the rules are with nobody else telling you. You have to own your days and name them, each one of them, every one of them, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you. III.i.75-76

Notes:

What does Chuckles the Chipmunk represent? How can you own the days? Are you going through life with your head asleep, just going through the motions and not stopping to celebrate Irving R. Feldman’s birthday? Why do we look down upon those who are living a “free spirited lifestyle”? Is it because we are jealous or because they are different for not living a “normal lifestyle?” Especially relevant for today because just coming out of the recession where 10% of the population was unemployed. The play is not a struggle of trying to find a job and support your kid, it’s the struggle of how to live your life fruitfully, whether employed or not Sandy’s character is the weakest. She is not grounded in anything- her career, her motives, etc. She randomly appears throughout and tries to help Murray “get his life back on track” but her version of helping is not the same as Murray’s. Could be played very comedic (or farcical), could be played very serious. I think if played seriously, the little quips are comedic relief; however, if played comedic, not sure if the audience will realize the seriousness of the issues at hand. Very Neil Simon especially Barefoot in the Park-ness.

Playwright:

Born: 1934 Died: 2003 lung disease Year Written: 1962

Bio: Started off as a cartoonist (The Nebbishes) and started writing plays and screenplays when he was 22 Married twice and has two adapted sons Famous for conducting Project Washoe with his wife. Project Washoe was the attempt to teach American Sign Language to a chimpanzee named Washoe.- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Gardner A Thousand Clowns: Broadway premiere 1962, adapted for the movies in 1965 and was nominated for an Oscar and Academy Award for best-adapted screenplay. Revived in 2001 starring Tom Selleck. Gardner won New York Drama Critics award for Best Playwright and the movie garnered the Writer’s Guild Award for Best Screen Comedy. In 2000, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award form the Wiriter’s Guild of America Jason Robards (who played Murray onstage and in the movie) wrote: "I feel A Thousand Clowns is his masterpiece. It is a real human comedy of poignancy and laughter, with all of humanity's foibles and eccentricities. There is a great depth of love and understanding for all in this play. There are great life lessons to learn daily, which I find myself still doing. For Herb Gardner to have written this play in his early twenties is a miracle."- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Gardner “The play [Clowns] opened to rave reviews in every paper except one: The Jewish Daily Forward. At the Gardner family's Passover Seder that year, the playwright's Aunt Rose read the Forward's review aloud. “Rose didn’t know that it was his only pan,” Gardner's widow Barbara Sproul told playwright Wendy Wasserstein. “As she read it, the family was at first silent, and then they all began laughing. So a new tradition began.” At every subsequent Gardner family Seder, the Forward’s pan of CLOWNS was read—right after the Four Questions.”- Alan Waldman http://www.films42.com/tribute/herb_gardner.asp In Britain’s Guardian newspaper, David Patrick Stearns wrote, “Few writers have dramatised the plight of the elderly with such penetrating insights as Herb Gardner. Gardner's voice was an authentic New York one. He created a gallery of stubborn, pain-in-the-ass personalities who refused to accept the paltry corners of the world that society left them. His plays were unapologetically talky. His characters would not shut up until the audience accepted their humanity.”- Alan Waldman http://www.films42.com/tribute/herb_gardner.asp

Other Work:

1958	A Piece of Action- an autobiographical novel
1968	The Goodbye People- starred Milton Berle, closed after 7 performances
1971	Who is Harry Kellerman, and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?- screenwriter
1974	Thieves
1980	One Night Stand (a musical co-written by Jule Styne)- closed after 8 performances before officially opening
1985	I’m Not Rappaport- Tony for best play in 1985, Judd Hirsch won a Tony for best actor, made into a movie in 1986, revived in 2002 with Judd Hirsch and Ben Vereen
1992	Conversations with My Father- autobiographical, Judd Hirsch won a Tony, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

Left to Tell

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
by: Immaculee Ilibagiza

I read this book at home this past weekend. Both of my sisters had to read it for highschool, in which the Rwandan Holocaust was incorporated into their curriculum and Immaculee Ilibagiza came to the school and told her story.

Chilling. It's very difficult to read, because of how vivid the deaths are. Hard to imagine how someone could live through such horrific difficulties.

All her life, Immaculee was taught that everyone was equal. In school, she learned otherwise, having been born to the Tutsi tribe. This forever changes her life.

Throughout the book, she relies on God. Praying to keep her safe, praying to keep her family safe. Learning that God works in mysterious ways, she doesn't get mad at God when things don't go her way. Religion and prayer are spread throughout the book, but it is not a book about religion. It is a book about how Imaculee's faith saved her life.

The only thing I did not like about this book, is the end. There were several places the book could have wrapped up, but it keeps going. The story about how she meets her husband is unnecessary to telling the story of the Rwandan Holocaust. The book could have ended sooner.

She's the Anne Frank of the Rwandan Holocaust. Immaculee's story told after the fact, whereas Anne Frank is writing her diary during hiding.

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
by Julie Powell

Just like most- the book was better than the movie. The movie added drama (like movies should). Having watched the movie before reading the book, I kept waiting for things that happened in the movie...and they never happened in the book. The book explored more of Julie's job and how cooking was her outlet. The movie explored her marriage and how cooking helped/hurt the relationship. The movie also paralleled the story of Julia Child with the story of Julie Powell; whereas the book inserts Julia's letters and quotes.

I admire Julie's stubbornness, I mean persistence, in setting her mind to a project and not quitting until the job is done. I have had several "big plans" to do a project until it's finished, or every day for a year, but most of the time those "big ideas" fizzle and fade away after day three. So, congrats Julie for finishing, unlike so many of us out here. I also have to compliment Julie's husband for sticking with it, even at the crazy times.

This book reminds me of my best friend, Heather. She's very much a foodie and always makes magical meals when I visit. Her husband brews his own beer and creates cocktail creations. I'm sure that she could finish Julia Child's cookbook, complete with breakdowns and amazingness!

At the Black Pig's Dyke

At The Black Pig's Dyke by Vincent Woods

So far I have been only able to find this play in Far From The Land: Contemporary Irish Plays (Play Anthologies). It is not sold separately, nor anywhere else in the universe.

This is one of my favorite plays in the world probably because it's so extreme. Here's the basis: the plot follows a family through the story of the generations. Throw in some mummers(straw people, hay people etc), a wedding, some evil threats by a jealous lover, song & dance, a little death and you got your self a grand ol' time!

Word to the wise, you may have to read this a couple times to understand it, because it is nonlinear and jumps back and forth between generations and the mummers are Greek Chorus-like. It is a very short play, so you can get through it twice in one sitting.

I love it because it is very atypical.  It would be a great dramaturgical piece to work on. There is great potential for lighting & sound effects and no one has ever heard of this brilliance that is this play. I think it only has been produced twice- EVER. 

Eat Pray Love

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia- Elizabeth Gilbert

This book, well I loved it. Loved it so much that I read it in one afternoon- start to finish- one afternoon. Every woman goes through the spiral of emotion that Elizabeth Gilbert goes through. It just took her to Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself. I wish I could do that.... But then again, my downward spiral of emotion is more like, "Where am I going to get my next job?", "Do I want pasta AGAIN for dinner?", "How am I going to afford rent?" not nearly as deep of a spiral as Elizabeth's.

Italy has got to be my favorite. The language is beautiful, the scene is beautiful, the imagery is beautiful. Ohhh.... how I wish I could just eat all that splendid Italian food and hang out with those amazing Italian men.  Ok, Anne, stooop drooling.

India was a struggle to get through for me. Frankly, I am not as religious/spiritual as people think and don't have that much self discipline. I couldn't even sit still on a wooden bench at the beach, reading this book, let alone sitting without moving for 2 hours with mosquitoes crawling and biting every aspect of my body.  I would much rather sleep and pig out with my M&Ms than motivate myself to get up early and meditate. Nope- not for me. I did kinda find it enlightening though, when she finally "gets it".

Indonesia was ok. The plot thickened and Indonesia had more of a beginning, middle and end in itself than the others. For some reason, I knew that this book was going to have a tidy ending and everything was going to wrap up. Not sure if I liked that or not.

There are some things that keep sticking to me....such as the WORD that is you. I've been thinking about this and well I think my word is FOCUS. It's been on my mind a lot lately. (Thank you thesis defense.) My friend Will thinks that "Just Do It" is my personal slogan... however, he thinks it is more of a "Just Fuckin DO IT!" I am a DO-ER, but slowly learning how to not always be. So I think it is...

FOCUS.

All People are Famous

ALL PEOPLE ARE FAMOUS:(INSTEAD OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY). by Harold Clurman


This is what I want to do when I get around to writing my own autobiography, to write it about all the people who have influenced me to do things the way I did them.  This is what Harold Clurman did.

The book reads as a who's-who of the drama field in the 1930-1950. Clurman's close friends range from Alfred Stieglitz to Pablo Picasso to Jacqueline Kennedy and Arthur Miller to Andre Gide and Clifford Odets and Stella Adler (his wife). Apparently his crowd was the right crowd to hang out in-- well until people started naming names for HUAC. Can all my friends be that famous, when I am as established and successful as HAROLD CLURMAN? I'll take all that to-go, please, but hold the Great Depression and Communism please.

Harold Clurman, second from right, talks with actresses Ellen Burstyn, left, Kim Stanley, second from left, and Maureen Stapleton in 1979. Courtesy of The Wall Street Journa

There are many life lessons and great quotes throughout this book....

ON LIFE & LIVING:
- "I felt that the 'good life' should be achieved only through an understanding of the greatest books"- Clurman on his father

- "Heavy drinking is not the only vice common among artists, who are of course just like other people"- Clurman

- "We not only forget our lesser talents but neglect many of our masters"- Clurman

- "'La vie est une lutte'- life is a struggle- it is not particularly original thought"- Clurman on Carlos Chavez

- "Getting to know people, whoever they may be, is what's important; life, after all, is just one person and another"- Clurman

- "For me, the blessing of life is living it.  Life's sorrows are not accidents, they are part of the process and texture of existence. It is natural to fear pain, through it is not always good to avoid it"- Clurman

"'Harold has turned his every weakness into an asset.' It's true: I was lazy, so I forced myself to become active; I was very shy, so I taught myself to be bold"- Clurman on Clifford Odet's idea of him




ON ART:

Harold Clurman standing in front
of the theatre named in his honor, 1980.
Photo: Jack Mitchell

- "I rarely heard him talk of 'art'- only of the heart, blood, and brain that went into the making of it" -Clurman on his father

- "I am a consumer... I consume art"- Clurman's friend Sonny

- "He was committed to the artists, not simply as individual talents, but as representatives of something astir int he country, something bigger than the art world- life in America itself"- Clurman on Alfred Stieglitz

- "Asked after his first Martha Graham recital why he refused to attend a second, he was capable of replying, 'I'm afraid she's going to give birth to a cube"- Clurman on Stark Young's response to Martha Graham

- "Theatre folk are generally innocents: unpretentious ,sentimental, credulous, enthusiastic, and, where their immediate professional interests are not threatened, generous and kind-hearted"- Clurman

- "He is in a quest of a God he cannot find. If he did not write, which he never ceases to do, he would go mad"- Clurman on Tennessee Williams

- "'The problem in theatre is to find good plays.' 'The problem in the theatre', I rejoined, 'is to create a Theatre"- Clurman and Andre Gide




 ON THE TIMES:

Clifford Odets' iconic 1935 play Waiting for Lefty was first produced for The Group Theatre in New York City, pictured above. Lefty, a play about a taxi drivers' strike, sought to engage the audience with the production and meld leftwing labor politics and artistic forms. Seattle's production of Lefty, in 1936, proved to be contentious because of the long history of labor radicalism in the state.

- "America sis not need to import Dadaism or to imitate it, though some sophomoric intellectuals thought it the ting to do- American was Dada: flighty, vulgar, impudent, crazy, brash. At the same time it was desperate and eager in its quest for sound values. This chaos made the twenties a period of generative ferment"

- "It is difficult to know what periods or social conditions foster creativity. Rose was ridden with beggary, starvation, murder, rape, and pillage when Michelangelo was at work there and numerous architectural masterpieces emblematic of the glorious eventide of the Renaissance were being built"

Because there was so much politics swarming about the arts world, it was very hard, not to get swept up in the upheaval. I wonder what kind of great art all this political fuss today is creating??

No Applause Just Send Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous

No Applause Just Send Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous
By Trav S.D

Vaudeville is dead,....[but] like a phoenix, rising from the ashes, with scores, perhaps, of hundreds, of new variety venues popping up at alternative theaters and nightclubs throughout the nation....its ghost has continued to haunt us thereafter, and has even possessed the souls of the living in order to walk the earth again."

Sounds creepy.
 
This book is actually really great because it tells the story of vaudeville and what we know of vaudeville today, how vaudeville started and how modernism shaped it, how people have interpreted "vaudeville" into what they are doing, or the "it's because of vaudeville that this and this occurred" (such as the negative connotation of the word 'actor') and "this comes from vaudeville" (Circus Amok) and so-and-so got their start in vaudeville (Babe Ruth, Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, Will Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein, etc) kind of stuff. This is a historical book on vaudeville, but doesn't read like a history book.

"This is why vaudeville will always triumph, for it is merely an expression of people's longing for surprise, invention, joy, laughter, tears, transcendence.  it is the theatrical embodiment of freedom, tolerance, opportunity, diversity, democracy, and optimism.  The Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin called this tendency to break out, to laugh, to enjoy living in one's body 'carnival'; but there is another name for it, a tremendous word: vaudeville. A syllogism lies before us. Vaudeville is the life spirit itself, it is our very humanity.  And this is why vaudeville can never be 'dead'. For the day vaudeville flatlines is the day you can also write the epitaph for the human race" (295).

So, all you people who think vaudeville is dead- TAKE THAT!