Global

The Town Hall Affair is to a large extent a docu-play based on the real (you can’t make this stuff up, folks!) 1971 panel discussion and/or debate at Manhattan’s Town Hall, with various luminaries holding forth on the hot topic (then and now, as the pussy grabbing Trump-istas attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood, outlaw abortion, etc.) of Women’s Liberation. D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus actually filmed the roiling, rollicking brouhaha, releasing it eight years later as Town Bloody Hall, which is interwoven into the tapestry of Wooster Group’s free form live interpretation of the actual event with the documentary plus clips from the 1970 indie film Maidstone.

Pennebaker - known for his fly on the wall technique, he remains

The first point I'd like to touch on is the idea that the Middle East is a culturally violent place that can be made less violent by bombing it. The first problem with this is that bombing places makes them more violent, not less. Nobody is shocked or awed into nonviolence, not 14 years ago and not for the past century. The second problem is that the Middle East's violence cannot be compared with that of other cultures without figuring out how to factor out the influence of the West. A hundred years ago, Britain and France carved up Western Asia, and not to spread democracy.

Liberals in the United States are relatively educated, yet extremely inarticulate when it comes to Trump, his budget proposal, or the U.S. military.

There was something delightfully refreshing about the March 23 champagne gala at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Hollywood that kicked off the 24th annual Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival. This brainchild of LAWTF co-founder and President Adilah Barnes places groups that the entertainment community often overlooks or downplays front and center, where they belong: The female of the species, with a special (although not exclusive) emphasis on women of color. In particular, as program notes state, “multicultural and multidisciplinary solo performers from around the globe.”

[NOTE: This review contains PLOT SPOILERS.]

The response to Trump and his polices are flying fast and furious from the creative community. Only two months into his presidency and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright Robert Schenkkan’s Building the Wall imagines Trump’s plans to “solve” the “problem” of the millions of undocumented immigrants living in America in this world premiere ripped from the proverbial headlines. ​

The entire one act two-hander takes place in the visiting room of a prison where Gloria (Judith Moreland), an African American history professor, has received hard-to-get permission to interview Rick (Bo Foxworth), a Caucasian, tattooed inmate in an orange uniform. (I guess orange really is the new Black!) The play opens with lots of back and forth: will he/won’t he? talk about what sounds like a heinous crime Rick has been convicted of and may face the death sentence for.

There’s a lot of talk these days about the “Deep State,” especially among supporters of President Trump, some of whom believe that this Deep State is working hard to destroy anyone loyal to Trump, both inside and outside of the government, and ultimately, Trump himself. General Flynn was forced to resign after a media scandal surrounding his contacts with Russian ambassadors – a scandal which, by most accounts, was highly exaggerated. After Flynn’s resignation, prominent neoconservative and NeverTrumper Bill Kristol tweeted:

We have a president who is belligerent towards Iran, who is sending “boots on the ground” to fight ISIS, who loves Israel passionately and who is increasing already bloated defense budgets. If one were a neoconservative, what is there not to like, yet neocons in the media and ensconced comfortably in their multitude of think tanks hate Donald Trump. I suspect it comes down to three reasons. First, it is because Trump knows who was sticking the knife in his back during his campaign in 2016 and he has neither forgiven nor hired them. Nor does he pay any attention to their bleating, denying them the status that they think they deserve because of their self-promoted foreign policy brilliance.

A footnote to the City of Charlottesville's courageous passing of a resolution this week asking Congress to move money from the military to human and environmental needs, rather than the reverse, was the cowardly abstention of Mayor Mike Signer from the vote.

I don't always agree with the other four city council members on everything, or even know enough to have an opinion on much of what they do, but they have all repeatedly been willing to stick their necks out for things they apparently care about for moral reasons. Even Council Member Kathy Galvin, who in my view marred Monday's resolution by adding to it some nonsense about U.S. troops fighting to protect you and your rights (even as we're poorer and have fewer rights with every new war started and never ended) believed things had gotten so bad she would vote aye.

(The Council would have passed the resolution 3-0 without the rah-rah-troops bit that garnered Galvin's vote. I asked Council Member Kristin Szakos whether she herself believed that bit, and she said she imagined most of the troops did. By that logic, the City Council should also declare climate change to be a myth and angels to be real.)