Global
The Wallis Studio Ensemble’s The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a stage renditiion of Douglas Adams’ sci fi send-up that has been adapted for radio, books, television and the movies. This fast-moving 90 minute version minus intermission is performed by around 10 youthful, colorfully costumed cast members. While today’s auds are used to state of the art CGI, Galaxy deploys low tech special effects on the mostly bare boards of the Lovelace Studio Theater. The FX include puppetry and masks by Alex Sheldon and Bosco Flanagan’s lighting design, which would have warmed the cockles of Bill Graham’s heart at Fillmore West rock concerts. Speaking of music, there is a little bit of live accordion and piano playing by Sheldon during the show, as well as recordings of songs such as Disco Inferno.
Voters looking ahead to 2020 are being bombarded with soundbites from the twenty plus Democratic would-be candidates. That Joe Biden is apparently leading the pack according to opinion polls should come as no surprise as he stands for nothing apart from being the Establishment favorite who will tirelessly work to support the status quo.
The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.
Rogue Machine Theatre, which won 2018’s Best Season Ovation Award, is known for pushing the envelope with plays that challenge conventions. A number of the edgy theatre company’s productions deal with the thorny theme of racism, including the stellar One Night in Miami, a rare revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs, American Saga: Gunshot Medley - Part I (on July 6 Rogue Machine is remounting Dionna Michelle Daniel’s searing drama) and Dutch Masters.
The latter was directed by Ovation Award winner Guillermo Cienfuegos, who also helms Rogue Machine’s curtain lifter of its new season at Venice’s Electric Lodge, David Jacobi’s Ready, Steady, Yeti, Go, as part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. Like the above mentioned dramas, Yeti also deals with the subject of bigotry - but with a big difference.
What? Another mass murder?
Almost missed this one: Virginia Beach. Twelve killed on May 31, plus the killer himself, who was a city employee — an engineer. He had legitimate access to the building where he shot people on three floors. His guns were legally purchased. Nothing about him, prior to the tragedy, indicated he was unhinged.
Except, well. an anonymous source told the New York Times “the suspect had no history of behavioral problems until recently, when he had begun acting strangely and getting into physical ‘scuffles’ with other city workers.”
I plead with the readers of this column to click on the following links and read about the Vale Mining Corporation’s warning of an impending dissolution of yet another Brazilian mine tailings dam. Here is the link to the developing story.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48391767
The most important part of the report is the accompanying video which should be required viewing for every Minnesotan, every politician and every lover of drinkable water, the St Louis River, Lake Superior, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park.
Seventy-five years ago playwright Mary Chase’s Harvey started hip-hopping across the stage for four and a half years, as this whimsical classic about a great white rabbit went on to have one of the longest theatrical runs in Great White Way history. Chase’s three act play rather famously depicted well-to-do Ellwood P. Dowd, owner of a posh home somewhere in the Far West, also inhabited by his sister Veta Louise Simmons, his 20-ish niece Myrtle Mae and - much to the chagrin of the mother and daughter - the titular six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch, invisible rabbit. Ellwood regards Harvey to be his best friend, but his sister and niece consider the hare’s purported existence to be apocryphal and a source of embarrassment. Hilarity ensues.
Joe Biden’s glaring absence from the California Democratic Party convention has thrown a national spotlight on his eagerness to detour around the party’s progressive base. While dodging an overt clash for now, Biden is on a collision course with grassroots Democrats across the country who are learning more about his actual record and don’t like it.
Inside the statewide convention in San Francisco over the weekend, I spoke with hundreds of delegates about Biden while leafletting with information on his record. I was struck by the frequent intensity of distrust and even animosity; within seconds, after glancing at his name and photo at the top of the flyer, many delegates launched into some form of denunciation.