Glorifying The American Girl

Glorifying the American Girl, the 1929 film produced and supervised by Florenz Ziegfield himself, is about as close as any of us are going to get to seeing the Follies live. Which still, isn't very close.

I love the very early talkie musicals from the late twenties and very early thirties, when they were just figuring out the medium which, because of that incredible genius Busby Berkeley, got figured out pretty quickly. They're all backstage show biz tales, and that goes triple for Glorifying the American Girl. It's tells a simple story, but it's far more realistic than the ones told in Gold Diggers of 1933 or 42nd Street.

Ziegfeld star Mary Eaton plays aspiring singer and dancer Gloria Hughes who, as the film begins, works as a singer in a department store. Now, let me explain this archaic mode of employment. Gloria works behind the counter of the sheet music department, and when a customer wants to hear what a song they are interested in purchasing sounds like, she sings it, accompanied on piano by her wholesome boyfriend, Buddy. The sheet music industry at the time was huge, and deserves a post of its own for sure.

Back to Gloria. While attending a company picnic at which the management has provided variety entertainment, she meets tap dancer Miller of the vaudeville act of "Miller & Moody". After seeing her dance, he asks Gloria to become his partner. She does and goes off on tour, her avaricious harpy of a stage mother in tow. It's a grueling tour of five a day shows and one night stands - quite realistic in other words. It soon becomes clear that Miller has cycled through many, many Moodys over the years, and that he is something of a hack. A nasty, greedy piece of work, who hates other's success with a passion and expects sexual favors from his dance partners. After havong been on the road a good long while, Gloria is spotted by a Ziegfeld scout and she and Miller return to New York.

One of the things we found most exciting about this film here at Cabinet headquarters was its New York location shooting. There's a long sequence in which the streets around Grand Central are seen from driver's eye view and it's pretty amazing. I'm also pretty sure The New Amsterdam is played by The New Amsterdam. Florenz Ziegfels was at the peak of his glory when this film was shot and it shows. There's a sequence in which a crowd of luminaries are announced as the enter the theatre, including: Mayor Jimmy Walker, Noah Beery, Texas Guinan, Paramount head Adolph Zukor, and Mr. Ziegfeld himself, accompanied by his wife, Billie Burke.

We then get to watch about half an hour of a Ziegfeld spectacle. We see a long (very, very long) Eddie Cantor comedy routine, a song sung by Rudy Vallee (who I will love forever for his hilarious turn in Palm Beach Story), and Helen Morgan boozily sings a torch song from atop her piano. Make no mistake: these were the some of biggest stars alive at the time this movie was made. And there are girls. Girls and girls and more girls, wearing some of the most extraordinary costumes, and dancing and gliding across some of the most magnificent sets ever created. The Follies was both wonderful and boring. It wasn't particularly hip at the time - there were jazzier, younger, sexier and faster reviews. The Follies was an American institution, and one critic likened it to an achievement more on par with Ford's, one of automation, something to be admired, but fundamentally unsexy. In other words, it was a great deal like the sort of shows we now find in Las Vegas.

The film was written by chorus girl expert, J.P McEvoy. He was a screenwriter, short story writer and the creator of Dixie Dugan, a comic strip based on the most legendary of all chorus girls, Miss Louise Brooks. He will be featured in a post later this week. Needless to say, he knew the lay of this starry eyed though hard-bitten land well, and it shows.

And what of our heroine, Gloria? She becomes a great Ziegfeld star, of course. And in one of my favorite plot twists ever - she doesn't get the boy. Being a star is awfully time consuming, and though she weeps, no doubt everyone will be happier as things turned out. And in real life, Mary Eaton was a great Ziegfeld star, and is thus completely believable once she fufills her destiny. When Glorifying the American Girl was originally released in 1929, much of the final reel was in color, extraordinarily enough. Sadly, the versions currently available are in black and white only, and some footage was snipped post-Code because of some mild Show Girl nudity. But, all hail YouTube! Much of the color footage still exists, some of which can be seen below. Hopefully one day it will be reintegrated with the film (Martin Scorcese, are you listening, Sir?)

And what of Mary Eaton, our chorus girl heroine? From a family of show biz siblings, she is most well known today for being the sister of fellow Ziegfeld girl Doris Eaton, who became the oldest living Ziegfeld Girl prior to her death last year at the age of 106. Doris is the subject of Lauren Redniss's amazing pictorial-graphic-collage-biography, Century Girl, which is an absolutely must have for anyone with an even passing interest in Ziegfeld, chorus girls, American social history, show business, or anything at all, really. Mary was one of those complete entertainment packages that proliferated at the beginning of the last century: she could act, do light comedy, sing, tap and dance en pointe. He career wained with the fall of variety and she succumbed, like so many other talented performers both before and after, to alcoholism. She died of liver failure in 1948.

If you would like to see more of the lovely Mary Eaton, she was also featured in the early Marx Brothers film, Cocoanuts.

Tap Your Troubles Away!

A late addition to the National Tap Dancing Day posting frenzy. Gilda Radner on The Muppet Show!

Huge thanks to Jillian Tully for posting this most charming of videos!

Happy National Tap Dancing Day!

Today is National Tap Dancing Day, made so in honor of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's birthday. In The Cabinet's humble opinion the following is the greatest of all tap dancing sequences ever filmed. The Nicholas Brothers and Cab Calloway in five minutes of perfection:

I know I've posted this before, but this might be a close second (and my favorite). Here is the Moses Supposes number from Singin in the Rain. The Intellectual Property Gods have disabled embedding, so you'll have to click though and watch on YouTube. Gene Kelly had so many balletic pretensions, but for my money he was at his best when he just, you know, danced. I love Cyd Charisse, and think she's just lovely, but I'd far rather see Kelly and Fred Astaire dance with a hoofer, you know?

Speaking of which:



Swing Time is the film in which Fred dances his tribute to Bojangles (in the "Bojangles of Harlem" number) in which he sports, if not precisely blackface, something definitely akin to it. Which, I am sure, people have written dissertations on, as with most things, it's complicated. It's meant as a most sincere homage, but changing tastes and perceptions have made it somewhat cringe-worthy.

Dance in the form of tap (or otherwise) has nearly vanished form our screens. But, back in 1981, in Denis Potter's Pennies From Heaven, Christopher Walken danced to Let's Misbehave. This is a movie that had untold influence on me, and in some ways I've been ripping off the work of Denis Potter ever since. His strange and brilliant work for British television is simply unlike anything else. I believe everything you see that's interesting on television owes him something of a debt.

And now, finally, in honor of the man himself, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's famous stair dance:

The Art of Stage Dancing (or, How To Be A Follies Dancer By Following These Easy Steps)

Most people know that Project Gutenberg is one of the oldest and best things the internet hath wrought. Anticipating the digital book revolution, they have proved themselves ahead of the curve in every way, and their files are full of wonders indeed. All those new releases on Amazon never tempt me to fork over my hard earned cash for a Kindle, but what I am about to share with you just might.

The man who calls himself Trav S.D. alerted me of the existence of Ned Wayburn: dancer, dance school major domo and Ziegfeld Follies choreographer also penned an instructional book, The Art of Stage Dancing, first published in 1925. I haven't yet read most of it, but was so thrilled with what it does contain, I felt the need to immediately report.

It begins with the following disclaimer: "As a writer of books, I confess myself to be a good stage craftsman." But from what I've seen, it is a book full of charm and anecdotes. And pictures. Pictures from editions of the Follies he has choreographed, pictures of his classes in session, and pictures of former students (including the bother/sister dance team at left.) Apparently, she was the real talent of the two, but no film of her dancing exists. The mind reels. This is what he has to say about them:

"Two of my most famous pupils in Musical Comedy dancing are Fred and Adele Astaire, brother and sister. They came to me to study from Omaha, Nebraska, as little tots of about six and seven years of age. Adele was always fond of coming to her classes; but Fred says that he just "followed on" through brotherly association rather than from any preconceived ambition to become a professional dancer. Then, through reverses of family fortunes, the time came when they felt that they should be supporting themselves. They continued to study under me, and I was very happy to be able to place them in vaudeville in a singing and dancing act, which I had prepared for them. This started them on their career, which has led them to Europe and back again."

The caption describes them as being featured in "Lady, Be Good!". There's a short description of their routine from that show in my favorite novel, Wise Children by Angela Carter, as it's the very first show the Chance sisters are taken to see (at which they aso first see their elusive father, a matinee idol on his way to becoming a Great Shakespearean).

"Up went the curtain; there were Fred and Adèle, evicted, out on the street with all their bits and pieces. She set out the chairs, she straightened the sofa, she hung a sign on the lamppost: "Bless This House". We thought that we would die of pleasure. We clung to one another's hands like grim death, we thought we might wake up and find out we had been dreaming. Nora liked Adèle best; she liked it when she dressed up like a Mexican widow and did her Spanish dance, but it was old Fred for me, then and forever, with his funny little nutcracker face and the Eton crop that looked painted on it shone so, and not a hair ever moved...But 'Lady Be Good' showed us the way. It was the Damascus road for us. We spent hours at home afterwards, in the ground floor front, rolling back the rug, getting the numbers off pat. That finale, she in her Tyrolean costume, him like a little sailor doll. We took it in turns to be the lady."

It's so funny, because when one reads novels you have no way of knowing what is real. Another character in Wise Children is Dan Leno, who I didn't know was real until I read my inamorato's book. I'm no intellectual. I've been utterly enchanted by show business and dancing and the stage since I was three. The aching post adolescent pretension came later. The work is hard and needs to be trusted. Theater is a good thing, don't you know, it doesn't need to be destroyed to be made interesting, but more on that at a later date.

Back to Mr. Wayburn's opus.

He explains in great detail the basics all sorts of dancing: Musical Comedy, Acrobatic, Tap, Specialty, Character and what he calls Ned Wayburn's Modern Americanized Ballet Technique. He has chapters on Stage Make-up and diet. I discovered that to lose weight (though I am 20 pounds underweight by 1925 standards, apparently) one must under no circumstances drink any liquid with meals! There is an equally extensive section on gaining weight. He gives sample menus. One of the weight loss lunches includes macaroni and cheese. I love Ned Wayburn. In fact here is Thursday's reducing menu in its entirety:

BREAKFAST

1 apple; 1 egg omelet; 1 bran muffin; small pat butter; coffee with hot skimmed milk.

LUNCHEON

Macaroni and cheese; lettuce with French dressing; fruit gelatine pudding (clear).

DINNER

Beef or lamb stew with vegetables; 2 thin slices whole wheat bread; small pat butter; tapioca cream pudding; black coffee.

I chose the photo of the dancer at left because her last name is "Bacon". I know, I know.

Mr. Wayburn also goes on to explain how show business works. What does a Stage Manager do? Interestingly, he sounds much more like what we would call a "director". Who is the prop man? What is he responsible for? The Chief Electrician, the Company Manager, The Press Rep? And all as it stood in 1925. This book is freaking invaluable.

In true Show Biz fashion, the book is essentially an elaborate advertisement for Wayburn's school and private coaching services. There's a lot of "These people were completely at sea until they came to me and then they shot to stardom after taking my advice". But the thing is 300+ pages long. It's full of anecdotes, advice, lovely photographs of Follies luminaries and black and white illustrations. He has advice about how to overcome stage fright, how to communicate your personality through dance, how to exercise, how to ensure a creative and magical atmosphere, what shoes to wear and on and on.

If you want to be one of Mr. Ziegfeld's specialty dancers (c.1925), this is an excellent place to start.

BREAKING: Heidi Klum is Suddenly Awesome

As I reported at great length, Heidi Klum went to the mat supporting ever so wronged Project Runway runner up, Mondo. Part of the endless, unpleasant judges deliberation revolved around Mondo's final look: Heidi and JSimp both said they'd love to wear it, Nina hated it, and Michael sneered to Heidi [paraphrasing], "Yeah, right. I'd like to see you actually wear that dress."

Well, she did. At the premier of Darren Aronofsky's ballet/girl/horror movie The Black Swan (which I'm really excited to see). I have some very mixed feelings, though, as the contentious sleeves were removed, somewhat lessening the impact. But still. I'm really adoring Ms. Klum these days, and it's gratifying that the woman who is no doubt on the correct side of history, is keeping her word.

CORRECTION: It was actually Nina who said, "I'd like to see you wear that dress, Klum."

Here's the trailer for The Black Swan. I may even see this one in the theater.




(Photo via mylifetime.com)

FringeNYC 14: Too Late, Too Late!

I've caught a couple of shows on their final performances, so unhappy readers, you missed out. But I still wanted to get my two cents in, so hence, this post.

It's really not of Trick Boxing's doing that the pre-show turned into an inadvertent reunion of friends from Fringes past (and present), but I must thank them for it all the same. It felt like 1999 all over again out there in the audience.

The show itself is both as sweet and ephemeral as spun sugar. The story is that ancient boxing chestnut: poor boy, smooth talking manager, wicked gambler, sweet girl. In other words, seen it a hundred times before, nothing special. What elevated the show a bit above the fray was the dancing, which was, in a word, glorious. Brian Sostek plays all the male characters and morphs between them seemingly effortlessly (note: it's pretty much a rule of thumb in theater, that whenever one says something is done "effortlessly", something like a hundred hours of rehearsal and countless more of experience has made it seem so). He also acts as puppeteer and ring announcer for all the bouts. But back to the dancing. Both Sostek and Megan McClellan (who plays the girl), dance beautifully, and with joy. He has that old fashioned, low to the ground grace that is more than rare in this selfish show boat-y age. What I mean is, they both let each other shine, and thus achieve something like grace. The story is really just an excuse for the performers to show off their skills. As considerable as those skills are, this particular reviewer cannot exist on a diet of ice cream sundaes, and would love to see these two marrying their talents to a piece with maybe a shade more originality.

Trick Boxing
Sossy Mechanics
Writer: Megan McClellan and Brian Sostek
Director: Megan McClellan and Brian Sostek
Choreographer: Megan McClellan and Brian Sostek

As I was leaving the theater after the final performance of Butterfly, Butterfly, Kill, Kill, Kill! last week, two women behind me were saying how they couldn't imagine "getting" the show without having first seen the film on which it was based. I've never seen Seijun Suzuki's 1967 film Branded To Kill (but now I really, really want to!), but I'm pretty conversant in all the other influences at play, so I feel pretty okay about reviewing it. Apparently, Suzuki was hired to make a typical Yakuza crime film, but steeped in Pop, incipient psychedelia, and nouvelle vague, he made a film the studio called incomprehensible.

I liked pretty much everything about Depth Charge's production, so I'm once again in danger of turning this into a listicle. Oh, hell. I have places to be and art to create, so a semi-listicle it will be:

1. It felt like old fashioned Fringe Festival Fun. I mean that in the best way possible. Finally, a show that is creative and smart and interestingly executed. I salute you, Depth Charge! You are a prime example of FringeNYC's raison d'etre.

2. Godard started deconstructing the gangster movie and film noir 50 years ago with Á Bout de Souffle (Breathless), but his most iconic (and for my money, brilliant) riff on the gangster motif was Band Á Part. I was happy to see the reenactment of the famous dance scene from that film on stage. I also riffed on it in my 2002 FringeNYC show, Die Like A Lady.

3. Having seen Kabuki in Tokyo, it was delightful to see those influences as well. The white face, the over the top presentational acting.

4. So creatively staged, from top to bottom. Deeply filmic in a way I haven't seen before. Which, considering the movie drenched influences of half the people I know making theater right now, is saying a lot. The violence, in particular, took film editing into consideration in a way that felt very very fresh. Whenever anybody was shot, the gun was never pointed at them. It was just like editing and looked great. They thought about everything and didn't fall into any boring defaults.

5. The music was live. I repeat the music was live. Well, most of it. Live stand up bass and drums and the rest was mixed live.

6. Some of the video elements were projected onto the backdrop by a woman with an 8mm home movie projector. I had nearly forgotten what a different feel movies have from digital. Just hearing the projector was cool and retro and evocative.

7. I'm not saying every moment worked, or was pristine, but really, how could it be and who wants it to be? It was messy and real and alive.

8. They stole from everybody and wore their influences proudly on their sleeves creating something that felt new, something I haven't seen in a while, as I've seen a freaking lot. Butterfly, Butterfly is overambitious and messy and super smart. Like Godard, the show isn't about it's plot, it's mostly about it's influences. Which, in our media steeped age is as valid a subject as anything else.

Butterfly, Butterfly, Kill Kill Kill!
Depth Charge
Writer: Patrick Harrison, Music by Dave Harrington
Director: Patrick Harrison
Choreographer: Adam Scott Mazer & Ian Picco

Be yourself and keep smiling!

I spent a perfect Sunday yesterday eating brunch and ordering Chinese food and sitting around my apartment with my charming inamorato watching movies. Among the movies watched was Smile, one of the most grievously under-rated films of the 70s. It is funny and smart with great performances by every working character actor of the past 30 years, a cast against type Bruce Dern, a very young Melanie Griffith, Barbara Feldon (Agent 99!) and Michael Kidd (more on him later). Essentially, everything that's wrong with middle-America is pretty much skewered. Michael Ritchie also directed the similarly excellent original Bad News Bears and The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (Seriously. If you've never seen this, rent it immediately.).

I couldn't help comparing it favorably to the Siti Company and Charles Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica which I saw a couple of weeks ago. I think the show was essentially trying to make the same points that were made (30 years earlier) in Smile. I'll likely get flack for it, but I really had a lot of problems with the show. It felt airless and arch and didn't work for me at all. But, enough about that and on to more important things, namely Michael Kidd!

In Smile, Michael Kidd plays the "Hollywood professional" who is hired to stage and choreograph the pageant. He is very, very funny in the movie. I didn't realize for years after first seeing Smile that in real life Michael Kidd was one of the most successful choreographers of the 20th century. He was a Jew from the Lower East Side who got a scholarship to the School of American Ballet and received 5 Tony awards for choreography, including for the original productions of Guys and Dolls and Can-Can. He co-starred in It's Only Fair Weather with Gene Kelly and choreographed the film Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. But, for people who really care about dance on film, the most important thing he ever did was to choreograph The Band Wagon in 1953. Fred Astaire mostly choreographed his own dances (collaborating with Hermes Pan on his films of the 30s), so working with Kidd was really something of an anomaly, and the results were spectacular.

Completely coincidentally, as I've been wanting to write something about Michael Kidd and The Band Wagon since yesterday, I discovered that today is Fred Astaire's birthday and my delightful movie-watching companion has an excellent blog post about him up today.

Below is the most famous sequence from The Band Wagon - Michael Jackson payed tribute to it in his Smooth Criminal video and it was also referenced in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical Once more With Feeling. Unfortunately, this truncated version was the only one I could find on YouTube. I have a feeling MGM is sending out cease and desist letters in bulk. But you can mostly get the idea.

Le Cirque Féerique

I don't know anything about baroque dance, but I know a little about ballet and a lot about fairy tales, so I was pretty much thrilled to attend Company XIV's Le Cirque Feerique this weekend.

From what I understand (via Wikipedia, from watching the above show and from a fairly solid understanding of dance history), baroque dance is a mix of 17th century opera and social dance; the French forms of which are fairly well documented with more than a hundred dances preserved via notation. Austin McCormick, the choreographer and artistic director of Company XIV is a visionary of sorts. He has been a student of Baroque dance (and, clearly, classical ballet) since he was a child. He and the performers in his company dance exquisitely (McCormick dances briefly en pointe, only the second or third time in my life I've seen a man do so). But what I think makes his work special is his sense of theater and his aesthetic vision.

The form is simple. A story teller shares a series of tales with the audience. His style is loose and funny and distinctly American. While he talks, the dancers act out and dance the tales. They are accompanied by a rich, layered and varied musical score combining a gorgeous trio of singers, live instrumentation and recorded music. The set, including a slightly off-kilter tin proscenium, a rotating stage and a riotous and gorgeous accumulation of objects looks as if it were, along with the richly imagined costumes, designed by the bastard child of Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen (actually designed by Zane Pihlstrom, the co-conceiver of the piece). The court of the Sun King is suggested by all the design elements, but it doesn't feel as if we are watching a wax museum come to life. It's all fresh, alive and immediate.

They tell seven tales from various sources (including Charles Perrault, Munro Leaf, the Grimms and an uncredited Hans Christian Andersen). This might be more an issue of my personal taste, but I found the two Perrault tales - Red Riding Hood and Cinderella to be the best realized. This might partly be attributable to the effective marriage of a baroque literary source with baroque dance styles, but also because Perrault's tales are so resonant and layered. I will restrain myself from launching into a Perrault dissertation, but I think a few words are needed. Most people know the name Grimm, but not Perrault which is slightly bizarre as most people are (unbeknownst to themselves) far more familiar with his tales than they are with those of the Grimms'. Nearly every version we encounter as children of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard and Puss in Boots comes from Charles Perrault. Walt Disney mined his work shamelessly. He spent his professional life in the service of literature in the court of the Sun King and published his volume of stories for his own and his family's amusement upon his retirement. There was a fashion for fairy stories and they sold and sold and sold and are still selling today.

I've written elsewhere about wolf stories and their continued resonance. Red Riding Hood has always been one of the stranger fairy tales as it is so clearly about rape and murder. There is hardly any way to declaw it. There is a lovely pas de deux between Red Riding Hood and the Wolf which is both funny and creepy. Cinderella is a complete joy to watch without a single misstep. It's full of broad humor and grace notes with a surprise ending that feels completely right. There is a long duet between Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother set to a baroque version of Lady Gaga's Paparazzi, with brief choreographic references to Coppélia and probably a lot of other things I didn't catch.

The only remotely negative thing I have to say about the Le Cirque Féerique is that perhaps it could use a little editing and shaping. I could maybe have lived with one or two fewer tales and maybe a little tightening up of the structure over all. But those are really just quibbles. They advertise the show as being for all ages and they are right. There were small children in the audience at the matinee my charming escort and I attended, and they were quiet and attentive for 90 minutes. The show is also witty, sophisticated and layered enough for an adult audience. I also cannot emphasize enough how gorgeous the design is. It's the best looking show I've seen in a long, long time.

Le Cirque Féerique
Company XIV
303 Bond Street, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
May 8 – June 6
Saturdays 2PM and 7PM, Sundays 2PM and 5PM.
Adults- $30 Kids- $25
Buy tickets here.

(photo: Cristina Ramirez. pictured: (l-r): Austin McCormick, Laura Careless and Marisol Cabrera)

Time Step!

Most people who have talked to me extensively about theater know that I sometimes bemoan what I refer to as "all that pesky talking". And one time I complained about being dragged to a film because it was about "boring relationships." Another time I flat out refused to go to a movie because I was worried it was about "learning and growing" (in that case it turned out I was absolutely correct to give it a miss). In other words, in my lazier moments, I have the artistic taste of a bright seven year old. Okay. Not really. And this is likely a really insulting way to introduce Parallel Exit's Time Step, which was completely not my intention.

What I mean to say is that sometimes the simple pleasure of watching people dance is really all I want to experience. And in their show there is also funny comedy, mostly physical, done beautifully. As per usual, this isn't completely unbiased as I know the director of the show and artistic director of Parallel Exit, Mark Lonergan. The pleasure of watching people dance is simple, but there is nothing harder in this world to achieve as a performer than effortlessness, so their achievement is mighty indeed. Just go. Kids like it, too, so if you have them, bring them.

And in the spirit of reciprocity (which is always so important), my delightful escort has a much longer review of Time Step here.

FringeNYC 13: A Time To Dance

The last sentence of my very favorite book, Angela Carter's Wise Children is: What a joy it is to dance and sing! For my money, it's the best novel about theater ever written - the story of Nora and Dora Chance, identical twins and geriatric chorines whose long life and career zooms through celebrity, decay, musical reviews, Hollywood, men, boys, and a Shakespearean theatrical dynasty. It's music hall magic realism and just dizzyingly good.

Libby Skala's A Time To Dance possesses that same rare and joyful energy. Skala plays her own great-aunt, Elizabeth Polk, in a gleeful one woman dance/performance through two world wars, fortune, poverty, innovation (in both dance and clothing fasteners), and a hilariously bad marriage. It's difficult to explain accurately the charm of this show. As played by her niece, Polk was clearly one of the world's rarities - a deeply happy person who possessed the gift of bringing joy to others. Late in her life she pioneered dance therapy, using movement and dance to enrich and help the lives of deaf, developmentally disabled and emotionally disturbed children. I do wonder whether the benefits derived by her students stemmed from the methods she developed or from her own force of personality. Polk had a long, well lived life and Libby Skala is an extraordinary performer. This is a great story, told with economy, verve and just a grain of the magical.

Interestingly, after I saw the show, I was raving about it to a male acquaintance. After I described it briefly, he asked me, "is this a girl play?". I very nearly lost it. Why do so many people who should know otherwise believe the lives of women could only be of possible interest to other women? To answer the question: No. It's for everyone.

Back to Libby Skala. A few years ago I saw her show, Lilia!, in which she played her grandmother Lilia Skala - Elizabeth Polk's sister. She had a fascinating life as well - she trained as an architect, acted with Max Reinhardt's company (which made me wonder if she knew Hedy Lamarr), and went on to receive an Oscar nomination for acting in Lilies of the Field opposite Sydney Poitier. Clearly, Skala comes from an extraordinary family. And this is the best part - there was a third sister.

Elizabeth Polk, 1930s Vienna

A Time To Dance
Theatres at 45 Bleecker Street - The Lafayette Street Theatre
Artistic New Directions
Writer: Libby Skala
Remaining Performances: Thurs 20@9:45, Fri 21@3:00, Mon 24@9:45

(photo courtesy of Grace Polk)